ok so..  

- my house is full of insteon devices, wall switches, outlets, motion detectors,

- controlled by UD 994i with RJ45 linked PLM,

- running lots and lots of painfully written code (over 50 programs),

- communicates with my weather station and controls my home,

- communicates with 15 Zapier webhooks to inform us and do all sorts of useful things,

- operated almost daily using the not so cheap Mobilinc subscription amd apps

and there's still no plan to build replacement PLM's?

what's the leaat painful path to upgrading things that won't require me to rewrite all this code that took years to get working smoothly

and are my 994i's now obsolete bricks?

feels like this is becoming a project for elitists with way more spare money than me..  i had really hoped my investment in thousands of dollars and hundreds of coding hours would be running at least another ten years..

any near-painless migration options appreciated, before I toss all this in the can and give up on home automation for 5-10 years to allow it to mature further.  this is all really upsetting.

took my family a very long time to accept all this automation in the home, but now that I have it all working, thwy rely on it.

When my PLM finally dies, i can't imagine telling them now,

"I'm taking it all offline now because the companies we counted on for the core components of all this didnt have a smooth migration path forward and left us in the cold"

what is everyone doing when their PLM dies?  sorry to vent, and thanks for your recommendations

 

10 minutes ago, majmarker said:

and there's still no plan to build replacement PLM's?

Ah, but there is. See this post.  New PLM's are due in March.

@majmarker I think you need to take some time and read other areas of the forums. Most of your venting is covered by lots of posts found in the forums. Sure, might take a while to read things, but much better than rehashing and trying to answer all your questions.

Simple answer is Insteon is back in business making product. New PLMs are expected in 2023 Q1 (another post covers this). If you have existing PLM Insteon has a repair option as does a forum member providing the service via ebay (again, both discussed at length in other posts.

The ISY994 will not suddenly "BRICK". It's just not being supported by Universal Devices after a date later this year. Announcement via UDI email and blog posts found on their site. This doesn't mean you will lose functionality of the device.

With all technology...if you've used it for several years and wanted it to run another 10 years do you really think ANY technology is stable that long? Sure, the industry of home automation is a mess and some areas are advancing more than others, but that's part of the homework you should have done when you started with it. Companies come and go. Can't expect to sit there and let the world go by you and not react as the landscape changes. 

Happy reading!

 

25 minutes ago, majmarker said:

any near-painless migration options appreciated, before I toss all this in the can and give up on home automation for 5-10 years to allow it to mature further.

The migration to an eisy will be mostly painless if you're not invested in Z-Wave.  It amounts to not much more than backing up you ISY994i and restoring it to the eisy.  You'll want to update both to the latest and greatest firmware before you do it, and there might be a few cleanup chores, but for the most part, it should be quite easy.

20 hours ago, majmarker said:

ok so..  

- my house is full of insteon devices, wall switches, outlets, motion detectors,

- controlled by UD 994i with RJ45 linked PLM,

- running lots and lots of painfully written code (over 50 programs),

- communicates with my weather station and controls my home,

- communicates with 15 Zapier webhooks to inform us and do all sorts of useful things,

- operated almost daily using the not so cheap Mobilinc subscription amd apps

and there's still no plan to build replacement PLM's?

what's the leaat painful path to upgrading things that won't require me to rewrite all this code that took years to get working smoothly

and are my 994i's now obsolete bricks?

feels like this is becoming a project for elitists with way more spare money than me..  i had really hoped my investment in thousands of dollars and hundreds of coding hours would be running at least another ten years..

any near-painless migration options appreciated, before I toss all this in the can and give up on home automation for 5-10 years to allow it to mature further.  this is all really upsetting.

took my family a very long time to accept all this automation in the home, but now that I have it all working, thwy rely on it.

When my PLM finally dies, i can't imagine telling them now,

"I'm taking it all offline now because the companies we counted on for the core components of all this didnt have a smooth migration path forward and left us in the cold"

what is everyone doing when their PLM dies?  sorry to vent, and thanks for your recommendations

 

I hate to break it to you but your position is neither special or unique. We all have invested thousands of dollars and countless days & hours writing programs for our stuff (hundreds of programs for most of us).

With that said, I'm not understanding what no plms (or so called lack of plans) have to do with UDI???!!! They don't make plms, never have, nor do they have any control over what insteon chooses to do with their devices. This rant is best served on insteon forums as this has nothing to do with UDI.

With that said, insteon has said plms will be available in March as previously stated. In the meantime, there are plm repair services available from insteon themselves and ebay. There's also posts on here on how to repair your own. 

Unlike the insteon hub, your isy994 does not need to connect to anyone's servers in order to work so yours is not a brick. It won't be updated anymore (and hasn't for quite some time) but it'll continue to work until it dies (as it has). 

No, this isn't a project for elitists. However, it isn't for those who lack the desire to invest their time, energy, and money into it. No different than owning a home, playing sports, or a career. 

Personally, I don't count on insteon or any company to not leave me in the cold. That's not why they exist. They exist to make money. Once they're no longer doing that, they will cut loose. Whether it's discontinuing a product and service in order to sell a new product or service or bankruptcy; it's all the same thing. 

On 1/30/2023 at 7:01 PM, majmarker said:

before I toss all this in the can and give up on home automation for 5-10 years to allow it to mature further.

Hate to break it to you but I've been waiting three decades for the home automation market to mature further and all it's done in that time is become more fragmented.  Maybe the next ten years will be different, but I ain't holding my breath.

On 1/30/2023 at 7:01 PM, majmarker said:

ok so..  

- my house is full of insteon devices, wall switches, outlets, motion detectors,

- controlled by UD 994i with RJ45 linked PLM,

- running lots and lots of painfully written code (over 50 programs),

- communicates with my weather station and controls my home,

- communicates with 15 Zapier webhooks to inform us and do all sorts of useful things,

- operated almost daily using the not so cheap Mobilinc subscription amd apps

and there's still no plan to build replacement PLM's?

what's the leaat painful path to upgrading things that won't require me to rewrite all this code that took years to get working smoothly

and are my 994i's now obsolete bricks?

feels like this is becoming a project for elitists with way more spare money than me..  i had really hoped my investment in thousands of dollars and hundreds of coding hours would be running at least another ten years..

any near-painless migration options appreciated, before I toss all this in the can and give up on home automation for 5-10 years to allow it to mature further.  this is all really upsetting.

took my family a very long time to accept all this automation in the home, but now that I have it all working, thwy rely on it.

When my PLM finally dies, i can't imagine telling them now,

"I'm taking it all offline now because the companies we counted on for the core components of all this didnt have a smooth migration path forward and left us in the cold"

what is everyone doing when their PLM dies?  sorry to vent, and thanks for your recommendations

 

My PLM has never died and I have moved to a polisy, buying a new USB PLM at the time so I have a spare, and another PLM spare from when the PLM dying fad was a real thing.

There are enough users going to other protocols, you should be able to pick up a used PLM or a rebuilt as a backup, should your PLM actually conk out.

...or...

Wait until the new Insteon PLM gets released in March? It will likely be much more reliable design than the old ones, if you have noisy power lines.

I actually had exactly the same issue you are mentioning. Yesterday my PLM decided to stop working. Went to the local electronics place and picked up some capacitors to replace the ones on the board. $5 and about an hour of time and the PLM is back in business controlling the lights again. If you can solder and have the equipment it is usually an easy fix to get it going again.

That said, I have been thinking of upgrading to Eisy ISY with a USB PLM and using my current setup as a backup - I just have too many devices to risk losing control.

thanks for all the replies guys.  @Geddy yes i was short on time and I appreciate the summaries you and everyone sent, a lot

I really appreciate the "what i can do now about the situation we're in" support.

@Bumbershoot, @Steffan and @larryllixyou nailed it.  i screenshotted your replies, they're extremely helpful to me.  I'll keep eyes on March, but also check my caps before pitching my PLM when it dies

@kclenden thanks for validating my frustrations with this industry, and @lilyoyo1 thanks for the calm and helpful response to my rant too.  i felt your frustration

thanks everyone for taking your time.  I almost threw it all in the trash, for now I'll keep it all going

One personal opinion about this forum in general:  i rarely post for help anywhere on the web.  Usually because I find the people on them to trigger easily and usually not be helpful at all.  This forum is different and worth writing on.  This is why I come here and not the Insteon forums.

So - thanks for being a truly helpful group of people and taking your time to share your own findings.  appreciate you!

Edited February 25, 20232 yr by majmarker
forgot to thank people, and some typos