How To Use Insteon Camera Without Hub

Insteon is one of the most pop–and arguably most powerful–lines of smarthome products out at that place. If y'all're simply getting started with Insteon, here'south how to fix up your hub and your start device.

What Is Insteon?

RELATED: What Are "ZigBee" and "Z-Wave" Smarthome Products?

Insteon, at its simplest, is a line of smarthome products. Insteon makes smart outlets, smart light bulbs and switches, a smart thermostat, motion sensors, security cameras, and other products designed to be a sort of "one terminate shop" for all your smarthome needs. You only demand an Insteon Hub or Hub Pro to command it all.

Unlike many other smarthome hubs, which use Wi-Fi, ZigBee, or Z-Wave to communicate with different products, Insteon uses its own proprietary protocol. It does have limited support for a few non-Insteon products–like the Nest Thermostat and Amazon Echo–but doesn't offer any integration with IFTTT.

Instead, Insteon's real power comes through when combined with an X10 system. In fact, this is really its biggest draw. Insteon can be very simple with bones functionality, or it tin can be very complicated and very powerful (not to mention expensive). If you're looking for something more in the eye (moderately powerful and user-friendly), however, Insteon may non be right for you.

How to Fix Your Hub

So you've got an Insteon Hub and one or ii products you desire to control with information technology. Setting them up is adequately unproblematic: first, grab your Hub and plug it into the wall and your router via Ethernet. Make sure information technology'south easily reachable, since you'll need to access it over again in a moment.

Download and install Insteon for Hub app, available for iOS and Android. Choose "Create New Insteon Account" on the first folio. Accept the license terms and create your account.

Plug in your hub (if information technology isn't already), and tap adjacent in the app.

Next, you'll be asked for a username and password. You'll find this on a sticker on the bottom of your hub. Alternatively. you tin can tap the "Scan QR Code" push and scan the QR code on the lesser of your hub.

Once your hub is identified, Insteon will prompt you to start adding devices.

How to Add together a New Device

Grab the device you want to add–we'll be using an outdoor smart outlet for our example–and snap a picture of the QR lawmaking and device code on its sticker. This is especially handy if you lot're putting it in a difficult-to-reach identify.

Then claw up the device and continue with the process. If this is your first device, Insteon will accept you direct to the "Add Device" screen. If not, y'all'll need to get in that location from the dwelling house screen of the app by going to Rooms > All Devices, then clicking the "+" sign in the upper right-mitt corner.

On the Add Device screen, Insteon will present you with a listing of possible devices. Tap the one that matches the device you're calculation. In our instance, nosotros're adding a plug-in module, so we'll tap that.

(If your device isn't listed, roll to the bottom and choose "Other INSTEON Device").

Next, printing and hold the "Set up" button on your device until it beeps or begins blinking, Alternatively, tap the "Add By ID" button at the bottom of your screen, and type in the device's ID number. Insteon will search for and ready your device.

Once it finds your device, you can give it a proper noun, choose an icon, assign it to a room, and customize a number of other settings.

When you're finished, tap "Washed".

The device will show upward on your primary Insteon screen, and you can turn it on and off from at that place.

RELATED: How to Control Your Insteon Smarthome with the Amazon Echo

Some Insteon devices as well support the Amazon Echo, while others are more half-supported. Just if you put those devices into scenes, you tin control them with your vox that way. If yous take an Echo, be sure to read our guide on setting it up with Insteon for more info.