If you’re looking for the original smart home company, Insteon may be it. Founded in 2005, Insteon started as an automation platform specifically for smart home products by Joe Dada, who also launched Smarthome.com — a catalog of devices for automating how you live.
Today, Insteon’s products are unique in running on a dual-band signal. To consumers, that means you have less of a chance of losing a connection to your device, or a product not working as you’ve instructed it to do. There are also a lot of products to choose from within the Insteon brand — from smart thermostats to remotes, door, window and motion sensors, dimmer switches, a Wi-Fi camera and a hub.
As with many smart home platforms, Insteon connects its products through a hub, which you can buy as a single device or as part of a Starter Kit. Through the Insteon app, you can create scenes, even schedule certain devices to come on or turn off at specific times of day, or at sunset and sunrise, as long as they’re all connected to the hub. That control can happen while you’re home, at work — or traveling on the other side of the world.
You can also do remote check-ins, set the thermostat to a certain temperature, or make sure sensors running in the house, like a water sensor you have installed near the kitchen sink are working as they should.
Because of Insteon’s background as a smart home pioneer, the platform also works with a number of other networks. The Insteon hub connects to both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, so if you have Echo or Google Home smart speaker, you’ll be able to integrate your Insteon devices, through its hub, with these corresponding voice assistants.
There are also other systems — from Microsoft’s Cortana and Stringify, to brands including Sonos, First Alert, Logitech and Nest, more than enough to begin your quest to build the best smart home for you and your life. Ready to get started? Let’s go.
