HE hub migration service

Lounge
#21

I hear a lot of people complaining about these new services, but all of these things are optional and a lot of these things we have already found other ways. Local backup scripts (ya we don’t get devices), vpn for remote access and using the built in dashboards. I don’t really need any of it. But there are people that want all of it, and for free. It costs money for the small company to run these services.

The funny thing is that over the years there have been a number of posts asking about how they will make money, about how they couldn’t survive on hardware sales alone and how a subscription service is the answer. Now that they came with one, it looks like a lot of people are not happy with it.

I just think people will speak with their wallets.

People always touted this as a local solution and the reason they bought it but then end up connecting it to amazon/google/myq/ring/ifttt/other random cloud services. The processing is local, but you can’t escape the fun cloud services.

I can’t remember the story with Wink but didn’t they try to charge people a subscription to keep using their existing devices? (I may be getting this story mixed up)

#22

I hear you, and I agree with some of your points. They should offer SaaS service. OLL should too. Both companies would be foolish not too. They should sell merch (t-shirts, mouse pads, coffee cups, pens, etc.) and anything else people will buy.

However IMO ALL “services” should be COMPLETELY optional, and NOT be in conflict with proper development of the platform. A “service” makes life easier. It should not make it harder for you to do it yourself if you choose to put forth the effort. If a hub wants to be a “local solution”, those that choose too, should be able to click a button to put the hub into “offline mode” and it should listen.

I can, I do, and I should be able too completely. My cameras are local, my dashboards are local (VPN), my HE ‘phones home’ constantly (more than any other IoT device I own).

If HE wanted to be truly ‘local’ they would provide all the needed software dev to make it ALL local, while providing an option to turn off the ‘phone home beacon’. Personally I don’t care what other “people” do, my hubs don’t need internet at all, and they should not be tied to it. I should be able to put it my motorcoach, and it should function just as well in the middle of nowhere.

As stated above my biggest fear is if they start down this road, and get the SaaS bug, it will de-incentivize the local development. Point in case, we can all agree HE dashboard suck, even HE staff has admitted it. Rather then ‘fixing’ the problem, they recommended a SaaS, of which they get a cut of it I’d imagine. Why make your dashboards better if it sucks so bad people look elsewhere, find your SaaS partner, and you make loot on it? De-incentivizing, and disappointing.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they got their SaaS offerings up and running. I hope it makes them a ton of cash. I hope they use that cash to revamp the platform, UI including, and dashboards. I hope they make me eat my words, and prove me wrong by fulfilling smartly’s intended goal

Time will tell…

3 Likes
#23

Well, it looks like we just placed another tick on the wish list.
:heavy_check_mark: Off line
:wink:

2 Likes
#24

Curious, do you not use voice assistants or do you have a local solution for that?

#25

Well I do not have a lot of feelings, as I was put off by the cloud portion of this. Then later to find out they could not provide the full backup they had hinted at since early on. (seems to me like if it was planned, and announced there should have at least been a poc in house showing it could be done).

Honestly though I am happy to have a place where we can voice our opinions and not be bombarded by just how wrong we are for feeling the way we do…

1 Like
#26

For automations? No, I don’t have the need. I have motion for most lighting, and my centrally located ‘manual’ “Command Center” has 18 dimmers and an iPad with smartly, Sonos, and anything else I need to control

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“You have an Echo dot right there” - Yes I know, but I said for automations. Th most she does is set timers for cookies my wife graciously makes us. Buy the time I finish yell at the her (the Echo not the wife) I could just push the dang button needed.

2 Likes
#27

Yah I’m only using my echo for the radio automation. Doesn’t control my house as I can’t/won’t connect my stuff to anything beyond my firewall. The only thing I have connected to the cloud is life360 for presence. And that Is simply secondary to Unifi presence. It’s not fool-proof, but it works for now. For now. Just until a better solution is … worked out.

[EDIT]
Don’t use dashboards either unless I’m not at home. (Wireguard) I feel like they kind’ve defeat the purpose of “smart”. I like my house to look like it knows what I’ll be doing. Keeps the visitors intrigued.

#28

This is where @april.brandt and I respectfully disagree. I’ll pick on her just a bit while trying not to derail this thread too badly.

The notion that dashboards = control should be abolished IMO.

The pic above is very old. Look at this dash (slightly outdated as well, Roomba has been removed).

image
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I’d say nearly half of my main dashboard is purely informational NOT control. We all have sensors collecting data, but without those sensors telling US the data what good is it (to an extent)?

IMO a dashboard is a way for your home (and the IoT devices in it) to quickly tell you everything it knows about the world around us and how we should prepare for it. NOT using this information is neglectful, and a complete waste of all the intel your home automation devices can provide you.

And visitors love smartly! :wink:

2 Likes
#29

I have to agree with you. Even the dash on my phone is mostly informational. Good point, well made. I’d literally fail to keep a tablet charged. I will try … in the future to be more open-minded about dashboards. They do serve a purpose. Maybe one day I’ll have an interest in them.

1 Like
#30

People are cheap.

And, they’ve certainly gotten used to the “free” as in Facebook/Google “free” model. In other words, where THEY are the commodity being sold (those companies didn’t get rich on truly “free”).

So, I have zero problem paying for something that is beneficial to me–and, especially if it helps keeps something useful as a financially viable entity.

Someone above mentioned they were a small company–and, yes indeed. It seems most of the innovative products in the space are from small companies. And, they need ONGOING income.

When a hub is about the cost of 3-4 light switches and they are cranking out major software updates every couple months, that isn’t cheap. You can’t continue that type of development and support on the sale of a few hubs at $150 each (would you like to work in a tech area like that making $30K/year working 70-90 hours/week??–probably not).

And, selling t-shirts and trinkets might be an interesting side light–but it’s hardly the focus of their business (that would likely require hiring ANOTHER person with marketing and graphics/design skills). Selling subscriptions that add value to their product, however, has a direct line to their core mission.

And, indeed, while I don’t see the need for the “remote admin” feature since I can VPN in–look at the other thing that just came out: the cell dongle. That REQUIRES that feature. I have ZERO inside knowledge and i’ve not seen ANYthing but what has been in the release announcements. However, I’d speculate that there may be a reason those were developed–such as, a specific request by someone willing to pay those costs. If you don’t need it, the cost doesn’t matter–all that matters is they seem to believe it’s something someone is willing to pay for (if that’s not the case, then it’s not our concern either).

As for $30/year for the warranty, remote backups, and migration service–that doesn’t seem out of line by any means. I pay a LOT more than that for MANY other things–and, it only takes one time where it saves me repairing 60-80 Z-Wave devices to be WELL worth it.

I was paying >$40/month for my previous automation & alarm service. So, yeah, this is chicken feed. A couple trips to the coffee shop and I’ll drop more than $30. NBD. :slight_smile:

1 Like
#31

There is not as much profit in those trinkets etc as everyone seems to think there is, unless people are willing to pay a decent markup on them to support the company behind them, or you can make it a status symbol everyone wants. Very few people want to run around with a “insert automation system here” shirt on…

these numbers are pulled from a personal data source and are about 3 years old because im lazy this am

If ordered in bulk at a MOQ of 1k units, you can get high quality T-shirts for ~4.00 each, 5.00 each if printed in a single color, 6.00 each for a multi color screen print. This is all in the same shirt color. For sake of discussion lets say we go with a single color print, or 5.00 cost per shirt.

So upfront your shelling out $5k plus shipping, customs fees. taxes any associated payroll, design, and advertising costs. So let’s go low and say all of that only ran you 1k all together
Average Tshirt pricing at walmart/target etc for a graphic T is between $7-$10.

Our costs are now $6k and we have 1K Tshirts. So we HAVE to sell EVERY shirt we bought at $6 with high enough shipping to cover the packaging as well, on day one just to break even. (remember storage costs too!)

If we sell them at $10 each and everything goes perfectly and we sell them all we will make $4k in profit. If however we only sell half of them we just lost $1k!!! Not a good position to be in for a company needing more money to stay afloat and advance… Now multiple that risk out over 4,5 or 6 products and you quickly see why only very large successful companies tend to do merch.

Yes you could also buy the equipment and produce in house but then thats usually an even larger upfront cost and requires new employees to run the equipment, or valuable time being pulled from other areas.

1 Like
#32

Not a fair comparison. No one would expect to pay Walmart prices to support the company/platform.

We might all know Wallstreebets at this point, use their merch as a guideline $25 bucks T - $20 a cup. Margin, baby margin! (just an example)

https://www.wallstreetbets.shop/

I totally agree, and for that subset of community members, I think it is a GREAT idea. My point is I hope it doesn’t take away for some badly need development, just because they have a “workaround”.

For me I’d rather see those hard worked dev hours going to fix the ugly UI before offering more “features” that may or may not be utilized. Again hopefully this is the step needed to get a UI dev on staff and put a better skin it.

#33

I think you missed the end, no wait the middle, of my first run on sentence :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like
#34