I’m not worrying about the money.
I’m worrying about the toy! 
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Oh we will not give up. We will persevere. Quoting Markus. "There is no “can’t. Only Won’t. Or don’t know how. Never can’t.” If the campaign succeeds, then our dream will happen more quickly. But, it will still happen regardless. Just take a bit of time, otherwise. We didn’t invest a year of our lives to just give up because something didn’t go well on the first go.
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It’s been awfully quiet around here. Will there be some kind of push in the last few days of the campaign or do you have an alternate plan on how to proceed with getting the Core to market ?
Seems like not. Although to be fair. they did already say before that failing this route to funding they would still be going ahead but it would take longer to bring to market. I do hope so.
I also think the marketing approach had been weak and the positioning as a cheap volume play/offering doesnt seem right to me. Take a look through this forum and you can see the market that it’s appealing to right now. Personally I would add more capability and power. Increase the size of the box and add some lead. Put the price up. Go for a niche technical play to start with. Go cheaper and higher volume later. But maybe then you’d be battling against Home Assistant users and boxes. Ah I dunno. But I am disappointed this hasn’t raised more interest and capital on Indiegogo.
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Disclaimer…
I am Speaking personally and not in any way shape or form as a representative of Oh-La , these thoughts are my own…
The biggest thing holding automation back from uptake is that you have to be fairly technical or rich to have a system that does much beyond having google or alexa turn stuff on and off for you, never mind if you want it responsive and reliable on top of that…
The higher tech minded users are rolling their own solutions because frankly all of the offerings are severely lacking and still require a large amount of tinkering and other equipment to have a system that just works and does what you want.
The non technical world sees automation as a gimmick/fad not as something that can actually save you time and money, much less as something that can drastically improve your quality of life…
Example… I have never heard ANYONE mention how automating daily tasks in your home can help reduce stress and depression. For someone that is battling against depression those little things most of us just take for granted now … not having to flip that switch, not having to get up 5 minutes early to brew coffee, or even just hearing that robotic voice say “good morning” or “welcome home”, can literally be the thing that enables them to face the world rather than hide in bed.
Another example… My grandmother has outlived most of her friends and family, is suffering from memory problems, and really just wants someone to talk to all the time… Basically having lost her parents, siblings, husband and children shes lonely… When I put a google mini in her room so she could ask it questions like the time date and weather it made a marked improvement in her overall outlook and mood. Now when she gets confused she can ask google and not feel like shes interrupting or bothering anyone. When she wants to hear an old record/artist/song she can just ask google to play it. She has it remind her to watch certain shows, take special meds, that she has appointments, even to set timers for cooking. She may not remember that she told google to remind her or even that she can tell it too etc, bust she thinks its just wonderful and amazing and doesn’t know how any of it is possible, or how i can make all this happen.
Basically I think going forward marketing wise we need to focus on the average consumer and keep all the fancy technical talk and showing off of features the average user won’t understand the impressiveness of to more appropriate channels.
For what purpose though? As it stands there is more power in the system than you would ever need to run highly complex automations with sub 100ms completion times.
This is another big issue in home automation… One I am personally guilty of… Everyone wants an All in One system and frankly that’s just not realistic, not to mention optimal.
We want our automation’s lightning fast, we want charts and graphs and time based logging, we want local voice processing and AI and 16 video feeds and all of it tied together in complex realtime dashboards etc etc etc…
How many people have a computer that could realistically do all that at the same time, quickly and reliably? Now how many of them would expect that level of ability for around $150us? How many already have a multi-hardware solution in place working how they like and would only really change hardware if something amazing came out, and even then only after its proven by others?
Speaking back on the record -
Don’t worry. The CORE WILL come to market. We have plans and backup plans enacted to ensure this happens, the campaign was just the fastest way to get the product in your hands.
P.S. my tendency to write a book in reply to the simplest of questions is why i normally just keep my mouth shut and let april answer you guys 
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Yes, I’ve been lazy and remiss in my responsibilities by not backing yet, but is there a reason (and I would certainly consider a simple ‘it would help’ as a good reason) to back at this point, or should I just wait until the alternate means are announced/released?
I would take better reliability any day. Less messing about wondering why suddenly something stops working. I could never set up a HE or HA system for someone for free or paid (unless it’s ultra basic) as I would find myself providing support 24/7.
I must say the Japanese has this covered via cute robots!
Exactly what I posted previously! 
Sure hope so (I want one but realistically the current campaign probably isn’t going to get off the ground given the target/time remaining/covid , so guess we’ll be waiting a bit longer 
).
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Campaigns tend to succeed in the first 10 or last 10 days of their run, so I would say jump in and back it and spread the word. Worst case the goal still falls short and your money is refunded and you can buy one when they hit the retail consumer market. Best case the upswing in support convinces others who may have been waiting to see if it was going to gain traction to back it and end up pushing us across the goal line… I mean if you think about it we needed a total of what 1000 backers to make our goal? With 8 billion people on the planet, I think if we all made a real effort to push it out there and get other techies or hobbyist we know to take a chance and back us we could easily blow that goal away.
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Personally, I can’t help but think having the thing in HKD instead of USD was an issue.
The US (and/or Europe) are likely some of the biggest markets (not sure about China). But, given this page is in English–it seems to be US aimed. Thus, requiring a foreign currency exchange is a road block.
I agree and disagree with part of the above comments.
I think it needs to be capable–and certainly I’m hoping for something much more reliable than HE (I’ve used other systems that are able to MUCH more reliably detect events and command actions–so there’s clearly some underlying issues with HE; which I hope they can find and fix).
But, yeah, setting up sweet automations is “nerd level” stuff that the vast masses simply won’t want to do.
(insert my main concern: Google/Alexa are SERIOUSLY dumbing down this entire market. Using very limiting Wi-Fi for everything, and offering only minimal and tightly restricted functionality).
I’d really like to see a SUPER SOLID backend hardware platform that is capable of doing sweet automations with complex rules/conditions, lots of devices, etc.
Note: as suggested, it probably can’t do everything–so it might simply have “hooks” for some of the crazier stuff, like video feeds and other intensive features.
Then, with this basic platform–it could be aimed at nerds (like most of us!) who can do whatever they want. But, more importantly, it should be marketed in some manner that targets more “professional level” types of installations.
As someone noted, they’d never install an HE for someone else because the thing just isn’t stable/reliable enough for anything beyond ultra simple tasks (if that).
But, if you could get a really solid performing platform that could really nail the basics of automation for the Z-Wave, Zigbee, and Wi-Fi devices, with hooks to as many other platforms as possible (Alexa, Google, Hue, Ring, etc.) and provide ways to integrate even fancier things (video feeds, etc.) through other devices–it would be positioned to do nicely.
Especially, if the interfaces/APIs were open enough for people to innovate (maybe the actually code would be proprietary–but the platform should be as open as possible to encourage widespread adoption).
I’m not a marketing guru, but that’s my thinking. And, I truly believe something major needs to happen SOON to prevent the complete implosion of home automation due to Alexa/Google.
I really don’t want to have to give up on all the things I’ve done–and be limited to things like:
Alexa, Turn on my Kitchen Light.
->Sorry, I didnt’ find a device named Kitchen Light.
Alexa, Turn on my Kitchen Light.
->Turning on Kitchen blender.
NO DAMMIT! Alexa, Turn off the Kitchen Blender
->Opening the Garage door.
Ugh! Alexa. OMG The blender is spraying stuff everywhere!
->Turning off all lights
Alexa. *$&# Turn on All Lights.
->Sorry, I didn’t find a device named *$&#
Alexa. Turn on all lights.
->Unlocking all doors.
Alexa. You are a <smash, bang, crunch> pile of broken parts now.
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Simply to help justify a higher price and appeal to the hardcore techi buyer. You are clearly trying to load in lots of software features. This takes a lot of development time/cost. And I think we are all agreeing that although the end market is huge, this level of capability is still “bleeding edge” and so is playing to a limited market at this time. So you have to escalate the price otherwise it’s impossible to make any money at such low volumes. This is a specialist product at this time. So load it up to the max and triple the price. If its awesome I would pay it and I guess so would 80% of your current backers. Then later drive out a volume and optimised product once you’ve proven the capability and built some presence.
As an anologue, it’s helpful to ask if you want to be the “RR” or a “Toyota”? Ultimately you may want the market share of a “Toyota”, but that’s a very difficult place to start and the margins are cr@p anyway. Your spec sheet and capability is pointing towards “RR”, so I’m suggesting to price it accordingly and don’t worry that its maybe 300 buyers at the start rather than a thousand or more.
Ha ha ha this is almost exactly my experience too with Google Assistant. I was swearing at her the other day. Then was shocked when she said something like “I see that you are not so happy with me. You can always take me back to the store and get a refund”. Yes, really. I was quite shocked and felt I’d been put thoroughly in my place. I’ve been treating her with a little more respect ever since lol
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I have better luck with Google than Alexa, by a long shot.
On top of Alexa never doing what I want, she creeped me out a few months ago.
Nosy, obnoxious thing.
“You normally have the Family Room Light on now, would you like me to turn it on for you?”
OMG!!!
I was like, “No. Not no, but #$%@ no!! And, #$%*& stop snooping on me and mind your own business!!!”. smh
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Google have started doing this as well…
So… now due to the sad news that the official campaign on Indiegogo is closed without reaching the fixed goal, I assume that the refund process to all backers will be initiated shortly. But will the team have any news on how the future progress of this project will look like, because I’m guessing that there are a few here with my self included that really would like to know?!
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Refund process is automatic and handled by indiegogo itself.
We will be making a post later this evening after our team meeting to address our plans for going forward and bringing the Core to market without the campaign funding.
Stay Tuned!
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If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.
I’m still looking forward to trying this exciting technology whenever released.
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I could not agree more. Looking forward to hearing the next steps.
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Me too - I so want this product
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I have received my refund now
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