Smart home company Insteon appears to have closed up shop with no warning to its customers. | Image: Insteon
Revolv, Iris, Insignia, Staples Connect, Wink, and now Insteon and iHome: the graveyard of dead or dying smart home ecosystems that promised so much yet failed to deliver is getting crowded. Smart home company Insteon has apparently turned off its cloud servers for good, according to unconfirmed reports from Stacey on IoT, and device maker iHome has also shut down its servers, confirming to The Verge that its iHome cloud services were terminated on April 2nd.
This feels like a good time for a reflection on the state of the smart home. Is it all over? Or is this cloud carnage simply necessary to clear the way for a brave new world, one where the smart home is no longer a curiosity but something that actually matters?
What those companies…