I’ve not seen any of the automation people I follow talk or reference the hub, is there no desire to send out test copies to them ?
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Not a stupid question at all. I noticed that too. I posted to a few of the popular HA ‘experts’ recent video comments in YT to try to do my bit, but no response. I’ve literally seen nothing about CORE anywhere. Seems like a real soft marketing approach right now with very few days remaining. The other observation I’ll make is that while the stated objective is to sell in volume and make Core a household name, the blurb on the Indiegogo campaign is mostly super techi. I would say with the capability being built into this device and its software that this is a specialist device and should be sold at 350 bucks with lower expectations on volumes. Or change the messaging and put a heck more traction into the volume play marketing. I just would like it to be successful!
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This is a complicated scenario. We’re not manufacturing these yet, so this makes things very different. Because we aren’t in production, we don’t have the types of units that the bloggers want. We also don’t feel that it is possible to give an unbiased review of a final product based on a prototype. We do have this on the calendar for when CORE is released. We’d love to have Hibbert, The Hook Up, and some of the other bloggers give us a review.
I actually had a wonderful conversation with Paul about CORE. He’s always looking for something that “grandma can use” and he finds our project “interesting”. We’re actually looking forward to a few pokes from Paul in his future review.
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I agree it’s complicated, but so many people have been burned by vapourware that it leads to healthy scepticism on crowd funding platforms. Not to mention that buzz requires making people want something.
If I had spare funds I’d be backing the project instead of building a home assistant instance with old hardware, but then I recognise most of the names involved and have a particular respect for Markus and his technical skills. Coming into the scene cold (or even without extensive experience on the HE forums) your campaign page just reads like the standard call to arms with generic offers of “we can do everything better!”.
That may sound harsh, and I’m genuinely not trying to be offensive or disrespectful of the time and effort you’ve all put in so far, just trying to supply the viewpoint of someone on the outside looking in with interest. People on the outside haven’t seen all those hours behind the indiegogo page, they have no emotional investment in the list of names and no reason to think you’re not another Wink in the making. Maybe it’s sad that we form opinions based on what a friendly face on YouTube thinks, but that’s the way things seem to be these days for anything large scale.
Personally? I sincerely hope that things work out and you get the Core into production, it is definitely an interesting concept.
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No worries there, regardless of what happens with the campaign the Collective Core will make it to market, it simply won’t be as soon as everyone had hoped and wanted.
Worst case scenario we will look back at this as a chance to learn and grow as a team. If anything this will make Core stronger as now we can apply all we’ve learned to ensure our future success!
Say it with me… “what doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger!”
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