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Best Buy has quietly announced that the mobile app platform for controlling its Insignia brand of smart home devices will be shutting down on November 6th. The company says affected products will still function at a basic level, but any features that rely on its Insignia Connect app and platform will no longer work. The products include its Insignia smart wall plugs, Wi-Fi light switches, its smart camera, and its Wi-Fi freezer (yes, a Wi-Fi freezer). Best Buy is now running a reimbursement program for any unfortunate soul who decided to buy one of these products.

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Either way, the situation isn’t ideal for those who’ve bought into the Insignia platform for their smart home needs. This type of quiet shutdown has become an expected and unfortunate trend in the smart home space. Running these platforms in-house can sound like a great, cost-saving idea at first, but doing so over months and years appears to be difficult and costly. Customers are then left hung out to dry when the platforms are inevitably shuttered.

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Of course, putting your smart appliance eggs in a platform basket made by Best Buy is not exactly the savviest of consumer moves. But it shouldn’t be the norm that these software ecosystems are spun up with little thought into how long they’ll last, only to leave customers on the support line clamoring for their money back.

It's very tempting to buy into one of the "ecosystems" (and apparently some people even got tricked into buying into Best Buy's), but it seems like no matter how stable the company or ecosystem is, eventually it's going to shut down.

I urge everyone to research the open solutions before jumping into a closed system. Yes, it is usually more work to get things set up, but worst case you end up learning something and you can rest easy knowing the products you've invested time and money in won't be taken away on a whim.

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Posted by CAD703X

Liberty Island

Member since Jul 2008

77854 posts

Posted on 9/9/19 at 10:04 am to Korkstand

see: wink

i would add that as cool as a technology may sound, more often than not if its a startup its going to get clobbered by the Big Boys and either it will get bought or it will be smothered in the market.

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Posted by SlapahoeTribe

Tiger Nation

Member since Jul 2012

12073 posts

Posted on 9/9/19 at 1:05 pm to Korkstand

I’m struggling to think what useful features a smart freezer would have?

Reminds me of a tech reviewer who was making fun of the lg smart washer’s remote start feature... considering it doesn’t have remote load, remote start seems pretty fricking useless.

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Posted by CarRamrod

Spurbury, VT

Member since Dec 2006

57424 posts

Posted on 9/9/19 at 2:37 pm to SlapahoeTribe

quote:
I’m struggling to think what useful features a smart freezer would have?

there is one feature i wanted and why i put my freezer in the garage on a smart plug. It is on a GFCI outlet and i wanted to know if it tripped and lost power. So I run a macro that checks the zwave outlet every 5 mins, and if it doesnt talk back it gives me an alert. this really would be the only feature that would be very useful.

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Posted by WhiskeyThrottle

Weatherford Tx

Member since Nov 2017

5288 posts

Posted on 9/9/19 at 7:07 pm to CarRamrod

This is a first world use but a WiFi fridge has a camera inside the fridge that allows you to see what is in it so if you’re away from home you can see if you have certain things for a meal. Definitely not worth the extra money, but I routinely buy stuff I have cause I don’t know if I have it.

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Posted by TigerinATL

Member since Feb 2005

61408 posts

Posted on 9/9/19 at 8:23 pm to Korkstand

Is that even an option? It’d be great if IoT devices gave you a self hosting option but most if not all build charging for cloud services into their business model.

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Posted by mchias1

Member since Dec 2009

800 posts

Posted on 9/9/19 at 8:44 pm to TigerinATL

Shelly.cloud

Iot devices from a company in Europe. The owner is very much into local and open source. All their devices support cloud service but you can also do local with MQTT control. They also all have headers to make it easy to flash with open source firmware.

I no longer buy zwave devices. I use wifi devices like Shelly with MQTT.

This post was edited on 9/9/19 at 8:45 pm

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Posted by Korkstand

Member since Nov 2003

28684 posts

Posted on 9/9/19 at 10:28 pm to TigerinATL

quote:
Is that even an option?

Self-hosted IoT? Sure. Look into stuff that works with HomeAssistant, OpenHAB, etc.

quote:
It’d be great if IoT devices gave you a self hosting option but most if not all build charging for cloud services into their business model.

My suggestion is to not buy those products. Unfortunately, currently most advertising dollars are being pumped toward the cloud-based/only devices, but there is a ton of stuff that works locally. As mentioned above, look for things that use MQTT, as that is a sure sign that the device will work locally, and that the data it produces can be consumed however you like, and likewise it will accept commands/data from a variety of sources.

If you really want to get into it, there's a pretty large (and rapidly growing) community of DIY IoT "hackers". Obviously at this point there's not a lot of plug-and-play type stuff that's as easy to set up as the commercial cloud stuff, but I'm confident that if more people start using these open devices then the ease of use will get there.

This post was edited on 9/10/19 at 8:35 am

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Posted by guedeaux

Tardis

Member since Jan 2008

13608 posts

Posted on 9/10/19 at 8:21 am to Korkstand

quote:
Look into stuff that works with HomeAssistant, OpenHAB, etc

I'm so glad I switched to HomeAssistant. There was definitely a learning curve, but the shite I can do now is so awesome. Plus, the speed of local control is unbelievable compared to Wink (the only other system I have used).

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