What to expect if you don't purchase a subscription for your Insteon Hub account

 

Since acquiring Insteon in June 2022, the new company announced that a subscription service would be implemented to help make Insteon Hub services a self-sustaining business.

Many of you asked “What will happen if I don’t purchase a subscription?”

Short answer: For the most part you will no longer be able to use the mobile app to connect and control your Insteon Hub and associated devices. You will also no longer have access to our third party integrations that use the Insteon Hub cloud services such as our Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant integrations.

As of the writing of this article, the Insteon mobile apps do not support being able to gracefully react to an account that does not have a subscription associated with it. Therefore, we are putting together a list of exactly what to expect with those apps when an account subscription hasn’t been purchased.

Insteon for Hub app

Note: may appear differently on Android vs iOS

  • You will not be able to login to the app and will receive an error message.

  • Error message: Fail Authenticating This is the same experience as if you had entered an incorrect username or password.

  • If you are already logged in to the app

    • Device statuses will appear as normal

    • Device control will work as normal

    • Scene control will work as normal

    • Editing a device’s name will appear to work but will not update in the Insteon cloud database. (Note 1)

    • Creating a scene will link the devices but will not update in the Insteon cloud database. (Note 1)

    • Editing a device’s alerts will appear to work but will not update in the Insteon cloud database. (Note 1)

    • Deleting a device will unlink (Insteon linking beeps happen) but the device will remain in the app. No error message.

    • Creating a room will appear to fail with an error message but the room will appear in the app; the room will not be updated in the Insteon cloud database. (Note 2)

      • Error message: Error. Unable to add room https://connect.insteon.com/api-usr/UserConfig/AddRoom

    • Deleting a room will fail. Tapping the “X” does nothing.

    • Assigning a device to a room will appear to work but will not update in the Insteon cloud database. (Note 1)

    • Settings > Edit Settings > Get Latest Configuration will display an error and the configuration in the app will not be updated.

      • Error message: Invalid Login. Invalid email and/or password.

  • You will not receive alert notifications (email or push) when a device is activated.

Insteon Director app

Note: may appear differently on Android vs iOS

  • You will not be able to login to the app and will receive an error message.

    • Error message: Failed to login. Verify your email and passwords are correct. Same experience as if you had entered an incorrect username or password.

  • If you are already logged in to the app

    • Real-time devices status will appear as normal in the Devices tab.

    • On app resume from background (or off), all devices on the Devices tab will appear to be offline. Tapping into a device and controlling it will temporarily show the correct status on the Devices tab and allow device control.

    • When a device is shown as offline in the Devices tab, controlling the device will only be possible after tapping to view the device control screen

    • Editing a device will display an error message

      • Error message: Error. We are unable to save the device to the Insteon cloud. Please try again soon.

    • Creating a scene link the devices, but at the end of scene creation an error will appear and the scene will not appear in the app.

      • Error message: Scene Modification. A scene device is not responding. Please make sure it is powered on. For sensors, press and hold its set button to wake it up.

    • Editing a device’s alerts will fail with an error message

      • Error message: Error. We are Unable to Configure Alert Properly at the moment.

    • Deleting a device will perform the unlinking steps then display an error message and the device will continue to be displayed in the app.

      • Error message: Device Removal. Error Occured while removing the device.

    • Creating a room will bring up a spinner that might never go away. (App likely has to be force closed.)

    • Assigning a device to a room will appear to work but will not update in the Insteon cloud database. (Note 1)

  • You will not receive alert notifications (email or push) when a device is activated.

Amazon Alexa

  • You will not be able to link the Alexa skill. Error message during linking

    • “No Valid Hub Subscription For This Account”

  • You will be able to unlink the Alexa skill

  • Devices will show “Server is unresponsive” in the Alexa app

  • You will not be able to control their devices from the Alexa app

  • You will not be able to control their devices by voice. After one or two control failures, Alexa will disable the skill for the user’s account and you’ll need to re-enable it from the Alexa app (which will fail as indicated above)

    • Error message varies.

 Google Home

  • You will not be able to link the Google Action. Error message during linking

    • “No Valid Hub Subscription For This Account”

  • You will be able to unlink the Google Action.

  • Devices will all appear to be offline in the Google Home app

  • You will not be able to control their devices from the Google Home app

  • You will not be able to control their devices by voice

    • Error message: “Sorry, something went wrong with <device name>.”

 

Note 1: the app ignores the error it receives when trying to save the change.

Note 2: the app partially ignores the error it receives when trying to save the change.

 
 

Isaac Sanz

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