Back in 2017 I wrote about how my first Insteon hub had suddenly failed on me. Upon closer inspection (image left) I discovered the printed circuit board in my Insteon hub had melted in places. To make matters worse, the company offered to replace my hub for free but only if I had proof of purchase. Since the hub was a gift from two years prior, I had to go out and buy a new hub.
Here we are almost three years later and my second Insteon hub has died. Along with the two hubs, all four plug in dimmer units that came with the two hubs have also died, but I’ve long since given up on those and started using Amazon and Kasa wifi plugs. Since it’s relatively easy to open the hub to look at the circuit board, I decided to check, and of course it looks almost the same as the previous board.
The good news is that I’ve wised up in the time since my first hub died. I’ve reduced my reliance on smart home devices that require a hub, or in some cases added devices like the Echo Plus that can function as an additional hub for my Zigbee devices. I also saved the receipt for my second hub.
Some important things to know if you own an Insteon hub manufactured prior to 2018. First, you can get a replacement hub by emailing [email protected] and working with their support team, provided you have a proof of purchase of your existing hub. Second, Insteon says they know their hubs built prior to 2018 were prone to hardware failure and they have changed components in their new hubs. They claim they are much more reliable, but time will tell. Last, if you do need a replacement hub from Insteon, they will ask you two things 1- to peel the sticker off of your existing hub and send them a picture of the hub with no sticker (they call this “field scrapping”), and 2- if you would like to retain the email account that you are currently using with all of your associated devices on your new hub. If you say no to the second question, you will have to basically rebuild your Insteon ecosystem on the new hub and you can NEVER use that old email address again. I learned this the hard way with my first hub. Trust me, do not say no to the question about retaining your account!
As I said, time will tell if Insteon’s hub improvements will do anything for the longevity of their hubs. Each of my hubs have lasted about two years before failing, so we will revisit this in 2022.
