Chose the Insteon Hub in 2012, now they've announced Nest integration for 2014

April 20 2022 Urgent Update - Insteon ceased all sales and service operations abruptly in mid April of 2022, as covered by arstechnica here. Their abrupt closure left customers without access to their hubs to change any settings, myself included. While smarthome.com hasn't been taken offline yet, I would not recommend ordering anything. This shut-down has been confirmed by Insteon, see @danwroc's tweet linking to insteon.com/news2022. It's also not quite as bad operationally as it first seemed, with my own home's sunset/midnight/sunrise programs all still running fine, at least until the next Daylight Saving Time change on November 6 2022 here in the US. There also might be some paths forward to keep the installed hardware going, see details in My Hub is now offline thread on reddit, where rszostak writes:

Folks just to clear up a few things, the issue with the servers being done impacts the Insteon App which uses the Insteon servers to process the requests from the App. The timers are actually stored on the hub thus the reason those still work but you need the App to make changes so we are screwed to make changes as long as the Insteon servers are down, the Insteon App is effectively dead. However the good news is the hub can still be used with software that runs locally and does not rely on the cloud.

This is a shameful example of poor company behavior, and of the risk taken when investing in gear from any cloud-connected IoT device company. Such stories hurt the IoT industry as a whole. I'm glad that the prospects for some level of local Insteon device control may make the pain felt much less keen that it would be for other sad story endings such as Wink, and hopefully I can keep my dozens of Insteon devices away from landfills for at least a little while longer. All my local light wall toggle switches will continue to keep working, and a while back I moved from Insteon leak and smoke sensors over to the monitored service of (Amazon owned) Ring Home Security System.

Article as it originally appeared below.

 March 13 2014

Nest owners who purchase and install the Insteon Hub for their homes, as well as download the free Insteon app for both iOS and Android smartphones and tablets, can simply add an installed Nest product to their list of remote-controlled devices in the Insteon app.

You may recall my stories of success in my home with the First Alert ONELINK brand of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, from 2010, described in depth here. I went all in, installing 9 detectors throughout my home, including one for each bedroom, and one right near my computer gear. Replacing those with a Nest Protect wouldn't exactly be affordable. That same year, I had also begun to use Insteon to control my home's outdoor front lighting, simply going off at sunset, and off at midnight.

I went on to get the Insteon Hub, with that part of the long story unfolding in late 2012, detailed here. Finally, a simple controller that works reliably.

I was then also quite pleased that the Insteon Smoke Bridge came along in June 2013, marrying my existing detectors with my home automation system. Nice! I then went on to add leak detection to the system that same month, simply and affordably, using the Insteon Water Leak Sensor. All while staying monthly fee free.

But the one thing I haven't touched yet are my old, dumb thermostats. There's no rush, as a vast majority of the time, at least one of us is home. So automated set-back thermostats that can sense when you are home aren't high on my priority list at the moment. But when the day arrives that our usage patterns change, or our AC system needs an upgrade, I'll be in the market for a new thermostat that is connected to my smartphone. Having an option that integrates with Insteon does sound appealing to me. It'd mean one less app to launch, integrated with my other devices right in the Insteon for Hub app.

Turns out, the first non-Insteon branded thermostat to claim Insteon compatibility is, suprisingly enough, the Nest Thermostat. In addition to reviewing the entire press announcement above, see also:

The Verge Jan 13 2014:

SlashGear Mar 12 2014:

Digital Trends Mar 13 2014:

Gigaom Mar 13 2014:

Digital Media Zone Home: On Podcast Mar 26 2014:

Home Server Show Mar 26 2014 (a different approach that uses Z-Wave instead):