Looks like Best Buy's Insignia smart home line will be discontinued and cloud services will be shutting down. There appears to be a refund for devices:
https://bestbuy.symphonysummit.com/insignia.web/
Here is the FAQ:
This is a risk that applies to all cloud-connected devices. BestBuy should publish their device API to allow SmartHome developers to attempt to connect to the devices w/o the closing-down cloud. This would be true for all orphaned smartHome devices.
Dave
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Can you imagine the amount of chaos this will cause when Smarththings eventually has to do this as well?
It will be great for Hubitat!
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That has been my gripe with all the Wifi connected things. You are left with a brick when the backing services are shutdown and apps removed from the App Stores.
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I totally agree. Some wifi devices, like the Shelly line, have local device control as well. So, even if they stopped developing software for the device and shut down the cloud services, you can still interact with the device locally. It's the cloud integration stuff that people need to be cautious about.
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But, but, "No Hub Required!"....current marketing speak for "*cloud access required to all your data --until we get enough to identify you no matter what you do, then we'll pull the plug on our cloud, and sell your info forever. Peace out man. "
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Just because you are paranoid does not mean they are not out to get you (and your data)!
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Exactly!
Another argument for zigbee and zwave. No company is going to pay for you to have cloud lifetime services for $5 per WiFi device.
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Yes, it will be great for Hubitat, however, Samsung has such deep pockets that they will never have to go "local".
Furthermore, as was explained by someone else, Samsung SmartThings as a platform, can allow poorly programmed apps and drivers, because it's executed in the cloud. They have almost unlimited resources to handle poorly written apps and drivers. Therefore, they could never convert to "all local" without a significant re-write of their entire system.
A very interesting and illuminating point.
I agree mostly, with the exception of the "never have to go local" That may/may not be true, they will eventually have to do one of two things 1. Go Local/eliminate or significantly reduce cloud costs. 2. Routinely provide new products that people are willing to continuously upgrade to.
Deep pockets always eventually run dry when providing, expanding, and maintaining a service expense with zero recurring revenue to support doing it. Yes currently there are a variety of different companies (not just HA, UBER lost $5 Billion in just the last 3 months) currently operating under this business model. But eventually the money runs out.
Just look how hard Ecobee has trying to keep their cloud operating being down at least every other week without recurring revenue
I keep predicting a coming apocalypse of dead smart home cloud based products. I think all this is just the tip of the iceberg.
There have been quite a few pretty large, and many smaller closings in the last couple years, Iris, Stringify, and too many others to list here. Look at Wink teetering on the edge. It is only a matter of time with them. I am surprised they lasted this long to tell you the truth, but I give them until the first of the year before they close down or sell to another company who will then close them down.
Smartthings has a good chance of surviving due to real deep pockets. The open source stuff (home assistant etc) will stay around. On the other hand, the Chinese based wifi stuff is going to be a bloodbath very quickly once they start to go out of business, or simply decide to stop supporting these $5 wifi light switches. They cannot carry the server cost burden forever.
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Yes the cloud can scale but even SmartThings had limitations in the cloud when i was using WebCoRE. Even the developers had to scale back on the device status when you had more that 100 physical/virtual devices. There is a reason they want to move away from the legacy driver/device hander model into Lamba type functions and put most of the cloud processing for anything out of that on the device manufacturer.
Was just coming here to post about insignia. They all die sooner or later. And all the "don't know better"people on Slickdeals raving about their hubless gadgets will soon enough come in to a dark/cold home.
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