Insteon, one of the more well-established home automation platforms in the biz, has recently announced that its connected home products and kits are now available in more than 1,500 Walmart stores across the country. Hitting store shelves this week, the products in store will include Insteon’s starter kit, motion sensors, dimmers, IP cameras, LED bulbs, leak sensors, door/window sensors, and more.
For the uninitiated, Insteon is one of the longest-standing home automation companies in the game. The company’s proprietary radio technology was designed to bridge the gap between oldschool powerline-based automation systems and wireless ones, so it’s been around for quite some time — long before all this new-wave DIY Internet of Things stuff existed. Because of this, Insteon systems have one big advantage that other systems don’t: the ability to work even when your home broadband network goes down. The brains of the system work even when the cloud isn’t available.
Related: Nest thermostats are now supported by Insteon, greatly expanding their capabilities
But despite it’s long tenure as a home automation company and fairly robust product offering, Insteon has struggled in the past few years to keep pace with other rising powers in the increasingly crowded home automation space — i.e. ZigBee, Z-Wave, and Bluetooth. This partnership is likely to help out with that though, as it will undoubtedly give Insteon some extra exposure, while also helping Walmart boost its smart home cred.
