A Cautionary Tale About Closed Systems
Here at ameriDroid.com, we've been talking with our friends and supporters for years about the importance of being in control of your own data as much as possible. While it may be nearly impossible these days to be 100% cloud-free, we believe we should all aim to have an intelligent balance of cloud-based and self-hosted solutions.
A home automation technology company, Insteon, recently went out of business and shut off their cloud services. This left many thousands of users with no control over their smart home devices. Some of these customers had invested many thousands of dollars and numerous hours setting up their now defunct smart home systems.
From Staceyoniot.com:
Smart home company Insteon has shut off its servers, lost its management team, and on Thursday sent an email to customers explaining how it plans to sell any remaining assets to help pay off creditors as part of a formal dissolution of the business. It has been the most drama-filled end of a consumer IoT company to date — and also represents one of the biggest opportunities left for the Matter smart home standard going forward.
On Friday, April 15, customers started reporting that their Insteon app was down and their hubs could no longer communicate with the cloud. After reading those reports, I went online and discovered that, according to their LinkedIn bios, no one from the SmartLabs/Insteon management team was still working at the company.
On Friday, April 15, customers started reporting that their Insteon app was down and their hubs could no longer communicate with the cloud. After reading those reports, I went online and discovered that, according to their LinkedIn bios, no one from the SmartLabs/Insteon management team was still working at the company.
[...]You could switch over to Home Assistant, which I recently just featured as a result of the latest software update. It’s really good. You’ll need one of the compatible SBC's (ODROID-N2+, ODROID-XU4, ODROID-C4 among others) and the free Home Assistant software, which will become the new “brains” of your smart home. Once you’re all set up, you can follow these directions from Reddit to integrate your supported Insteon gear. It’s a relatively simple process.
ameriDroid offers 4 variants of the Home-Assistant Bundle:
- ODROID-N2+ 4GB/64GB eMMC:
- ODROID-N2+ 4GB
- 64GB eMMC with Home Assistant OS pre-installed
- RTC backup battery
- Polycarbonate Plastic Case
- Power adapter (12V/2A)
- Illustrated Color Instruction Guide
- ODROID-N2+ 2GB/16GB eMMC:
- ODROID-N2+ 2GB
- 16GB eMMC with Home Assistant OS pre-installed
- RTC backup battery
- Polycarbonate Plastic Case
- Power adapter (12V/2A)
- Illustrated Color Instruction Guide
- ODROID-XU4 2GB/32GB microSD Card:
- ODROID-XU4 with 2GB RAM
- 32GB High Endurance SanDisk microSD Card with Home Assistant pre-installed
- Polycarbonate Case
- Ethernet Cable
- Power adapter (5V/4A)
- Illustrated Color Instruction Guide
-
Innovo Home Assistant Driver Bundle:
- ODROID-XU4Q with 2GB RAM
- 16GB eMMC Module with Home Assistant pre-installed
- Polycarbonate Case
- Ethernet Cable
- Power adapter (5V/4A)
- Illustrated Color Instruction Guide
These kits are perfect if you want to learn about the system, if you are new to SBC systems, or if you want to introduce someone else to them. We strive to keep our instruction guides easy enough for an average 5th grader, but we are always open for any feedback! Please leave any comments in this blog or use our Contact Form.
Along with Home-Assistant, we have a full line of Shelly Home Automation products, fully compatible with the Home Assistant Software.
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Original article here.
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