Insteon, a California-based IoT startup, shut down suddenly this month, leaving its smart home users without service. It later emailed customers to inform them that the company was closing down and that it was trying to sell its assets to pay off creditors.

According to a statement on the Insteon’s website, the startup had run into financial difficulties, which had been compounded by the pandemic. As a result, it has been searching for a company to buy it and invest in its products and technologies.

“The process resulted in several interested parties and a sale was expected to be realized in the March timeframe,” the startup said in the statement. “Unfortunately, that sale did not materialize. Consequently, the company was assigned to a financial services firm in March to optimize the assets of the company.” The full statement can be found at end of the article.

It claimed it was still looking for a buyer and apologized to customers and employees in the statement. Nearly all Insteon employees, on the other hand, appear to have removed the startup from their LinkedIn pages, with some even removing it from their bios.

Insteon is a proprietary home automation system launched in 2005 by Smartlabs. It allowed light switches, lights, thermostats, leak sensors, remote controls, motion sensors, and other electrically powered devices to communicate with one another via power lines, radio frequency communications, or both. It uses a dual-mesh networking topology, in which all devices are peers and each transmits, receives, confirms, and repeats messages independently.

However, because the Insteon servers were suddenly shut down, all of these devices lost their capacity to connect. In addition, the startup shut down its user forums and replaced all of the content on its website with the previously described statement.

Official Statement

Dear Insteon Community,

In 2017, after many successful years, Smartlabs, Inc found itself in financial difficulties and the path forward was unclear. That year, Smartlabs took in additional capital and brought in new management to turn the situation around. These efforts resulted in new investment into the fortification of the technology and development of new products. The future was looking bright.

In 2019, the onset of the global pandemic brought unforeseen disruption to the market, but the company continued to move forward. However, the subsequent (and enduring) disruption to the supply chain caused by the pandemic proved incredibly difficult and the company engaged in a sales process in November, 2021. The goal was to find a parent for the company and continue to invest in new products and the technology. The process resulted in several interested parties and a sale was expected to be realized in the March timeframe. Unfortunately, that sale did not materialize. Consequently, the company was assigned to a financial services firm in March to optimize the assets of the company.

The pioneering work in smart lighting and world-class products have created an extraordinary following and community. Clearly, all Smartlabs’ employees who have worked so hard to produce such world-class products and technology hope that a buyer can be found for the company.

Although incredibly difficult, we hope that the Insteon community understands the tireless efforts by all the employees to serve our customers, and deeply apologize to the community.

Insteon