What happens when your cloud service just pulls the plug - Insteon gone

[rsjsouza]

https://www.insteon.com/news2022

In 2019, the onset of the global pandemic brought unforeseen disruption to the market, but the company continued to move forward. However, the subsequent (and enduring) disruption to the supply chain caused by the pandemic proved incredibly difficult and the company engaged in a sales process in November, 2021. The goal was to find a parent for the company and continue to invest in new products and the technology. The process resulted in several interested parties and a sale was expected to be realized in the March timeframe. Unfortunately, that sale did not materialize. Consequently, the company was assigned to a financial services firm in March to optimize the assets of the company.

Gotta love how even the clocks are starting to be moved back to blame everything on the virus and erase history. 2019 was an year untouched by the pandemic in a global scale. Not only that but the bad financial health comes from decisions pre-virus.

Yet another PR *bs* ploy.

[MrMobodies]

Gotta love how even the clocks are starting to be moved back to blame everything on the virus and erase history.

I am hearing this talk quite recently:
Local GP surgery - no GP's available due to COVID as they were told.
Lost parcel and refusing to refund due to COVID

Then I see this a couple of days ago:
https://www.btwholesale.com/contact-us.html

COVID-19 and Openreach
All solutions that rely on new installations, modifications or repairs of key access products will be affected.
As the situation develops, we’re updating our websites with as much information as we possibly can.

Joke: Then they start talking about self driving cars where the drivers can lounge about in them and watch television whilst it self drives. - No COVID in the way for that one.

Some users who already reset their hubs while troubleshooting report being able to access the hub with the default username and password that is printed on it; however, changing login info or network settings is no longer possible.

I wonder if that is just due to just the site it depends on no longer being contactable or is it that they put these restrictions in place in an update before they shut down but didn't reach every hub?

[madires]

There's a thread with a collection of "bye-bye cloud service" reports. This is nothing new. It happens every week. Company went into bankruptcy, new product line doesn't generate enough profit, company wants to sell new products for more profit and so on. The only thing we can do is to educate people about the risks of cloud based services to make better choices in the future when choosing IoT devices.

[mac.6]

Even with local cloud and opensource solution you can experience bitrot and deprecation.
My homeassistant install regulary broke my esphome devices so I am switching away from it and use zigbee device instead (where possible).

[xrunner]

Document sent to me (and presumably all registered users of Insteon products) from enotice@creditorinfo.com  -

Excerpt -

TO ALL CREDITORS AND EQUITYHOLDERS OF SMARTLABS, INC. AND OTHER PARTIES IN INTEREST:
PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that on March 22, 2022, SmartLabs, Inc. (“SmartLabs” or “Assignor”), a California
corporation (EIN: 33-0557391) with offices at 1621 Alton Parkway, Suite 100, Irvine, California 92606 United
States as assignor, made a General Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors (the “Assignment”) to SmartLabs
(ABC), LLC (“Assignee”), a California limited liability company, as assignee, pursuant to California state law. The
Assignment of Assignor previously was approved by Assignor’s stockholders holding the requisite majority of the
company’s stock. This correspondence constitutes notice under Section 228(e) of the Delaware General
Corporation Law for corporate action taken without a stockholders’ meeting by less than unanimous written
consent of the Company’s stockholders.

etc., etc., etc ...

PDF attached if you enjoy reading legal notices. 

[cdev]

 You are now entering the Debarkation Area. No talking. No smoking. Follow the orange line to the Processing Area. The next scheduled departure to the prison is in two hours. You now have the option to terminate and be cremated on the premises. If you elect this option, notify the Duty Sergeant in your Processing Area.

[xrunner]

Please dear friends - read the legal notice if you are interested once and only once. I hesitated posting it completely for fear of inducing mental stress and fatigue. I'm telling you this because I care about you all. 

[themadhippy]

Could someone be kind enough and translate it into something that at least resembles english and not legal double speak

[Nusa]

Should have just copied the other 2/3rd's of the text from the one-page pdf instead of making people look at it.

It basically says submit claims by Sept 18th if you want to chase whatever money you paid for their stuff.
Unwritten subtext is that the assets are insufficient, so expect pennies on the dollar if you get anything at all.

[cdev]

Politicians just hate admitting they are failures.  Its always somebody else's fault.

[Stray Electron]

Corporate types just hate admitting they are failures.  Its always somebody else's fault.

  Fixed it for you.  I don't see anything anywhere that this had to do with politicians.

[Monkeh]

Could someone be kind enough and translate it into something that at least resembles english and not legal double speak

"If this company owed you money tell us by this date and maybe you'll get some of it back"

[bdunham7]

Could someone be kind enough and translate it into something that at least resembles english and not legal double speak

It is a notice of an alternative form of bankruptcy under California law.  It allows the assignor and the former management to escape the scrutiny they might otherwise face in a US Bankruptcy court. 

[Monkeh]

Could someone be kind enough and translate it into something that at least resembles english and not legal double speak

It is a notice of an alternative form of bankruptcy under California law.  It allows the assignor and the former management to escape the scrutiny they might otherwise face in a US Bankruptcy court.

The usual "We screwed up, lots of employees lost their jobs, creditors lost their money, and customers lost support, but we'll take the absolute bare minimum responsibility while we go home to our mini mansions".

[bdunham7]

The usual "We screwed up, lots of employees lost their jobs, creditors lost their money, and customers lost support, but we'll take the absolute bare minimum responsibility while we go home to our mini mansions".

mini mega mansions

These guys are in Orange County.  They probably have $20M homes.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Corporate types just hate admitting they are failures.  Its always somebody else's fault.

  Fixed it for you.  I don't see anything anywhere that this had to do with politicians.

The mention of offices in Cali and admin in Delaware tells us the type of creature it was.

[Stray Electron]

The mention of offices in Cali and admin in Delaware tells us the type of creature it was.

   Nails it.  For the ones of you outside of the US, Delaware has the most "corporate friendly" laws in the US. Beware of any company incorporated there! 

[TimFox]

Data from 2019:
Over 50% of all publicly traded companies are incorporated in Delaware, as are 66.8% of the Fortune 500 and nearly 100% of US startups that have been incorporated over the last 5 years (198,450 in 2017 alone).

[free_electron]

These guys are in Orange County.  They probably have $20M homes.

They have a french cafe in their building. They probably burned their last money on overpriced paintstripper

[xrunner]

Someone wanted to see the guts of the insteon hub, so here it is. I researched the main smd components and found these parts on the Insteon hub, date printed on pcb 20170613 -

Major components on the Insteon hub pcb -

PIC32MX695F512H microcontroller

PIC18F25J10 microcontroller

PIC16F688 14-Pin Flash-Based, 8-Bit CMOS Microcontroller with nanoWatt Technology

PIC25LC256 2.5V SPI Serial EEPROM

PICSST25VF016B SPI Serial Flash (3 pieces)

Si4421 Universal ISM Band FSK Transceiver, power output +7 dBm (5 mW) The Si4421 FSK transceiver is designed to cover the unlicensed frequency bands at 433, 868 and 915 MHz

SMSC8720a Small Footprint RMII 10/100 Ethernet Transceiver

Crystals - 25, 10, 8, and 5.529 MHz (5.5296 MHz allows integer division to common baud rates)

Five empty headers J2, J4, J8 (RF ICP), J15 (PLM ICP), J19 (PIC32 ICP)


The unit does not obtain power from an external DC power supply, it is connected directly to AC mains and has it's own internal PS.

[NiHaoMike]

Looks like they took the existing designs for their PLC and RF products and added a PIC32 for the networking. Shouldn't be too difficult to make an open source firmware for it.

Or perhaps it might be easier to just take a Raspberry Pi (Zero) and add a ISM RF module? From what I have read, Insteon uses a mesh network so it just has to be within range of an existing Insteon device to get the message repeated onto PLC.

[cdev]

They didnt want people finding out how hot their hardware was running?
And ditching it?

Z-wave. There is no cloud command and control server. It's in your home.

Yes, and there are others I'm checking out. Back in pre-history I had, I think it was, X10. When I read about Insteon I decided to try it out, I didn't think too hard about the cloudy part of how it worked, perhaps I was too naive.

I'd say about 3 to 4 years ago the original little hub went bad. Turned out it was a part that failed inside I think due to the high heat the unit always had. I had wondered about that heat because it did not have any vent holes in the case. They did send everyone a new hub, which did not run hot (different design) but that was when I realized oh crap - without that hub I can't even control the lights with my phone app.

So whatever I get it won't depend on the outside world to work. 

[SL4P]

I sad this a couple of years ago….

C L O U D

Centralised Lock On User’s Data

[SL4P]

a single EMP attack could kill all cloud, internet and devices over an entire continent or country

Back to,1950, vacuum tubes will still  work fine..

Checkout Starfish Prime Pacific nuclear test in 1952

Jon

Remember, almost all consumer CLOUD junk is hosted in China.
They may close the door any time.

[xrunner]

I'm trying to use the old phrase "Every Cloud has a silver lining" here somewhere, let me work on that ...