CES 2015 New Stuff

General Discussion
145

Alarm monitoring and response is available wholesale from companies that specialize in this type of service. All but the largest of security companies use these wholesale bulk-monitoring services.

Of course, the reliability, quality, and level of service of these providers varies, but my point is that there is a substantial set of available efficient large-scale suppliers which will optimize the cost to Samsung SmartThings – this is not something they will build themselves. The only task SmartThings needs to do is add appropriate integration (easy), billing, and first (or second) tier Customer Support.

I can’t find the “cheapest” example offhand (roughly $8/month or less), but here are a few links:

https://www.agmonitoring.com/alarm-monitoring-service.php

…CP / Terry.

146

Huh?! I mean, c’mon, running every god damned line of code in the cloud is their choice, not mine. Why do you expect me to pay for it? I’d be much better off if all of the processing were done in the hub I’ve already paid for.

1 Like
147

Actually, you don’t even have to buy a hub!

148

True, I’ve been using ST hubless for a while before I decided to jump in. Surprisingly, it can be quite useful thanks to REST API and IFTTT integration. :smile:

149

sounds easy enough to run a company :wink:

Yes, these services can be offshored but, these are recurring cost and still requires manpower. It does mean that it won’t be dirt cheap when you bulk it. You can’t expect customers to pay once and enjoy these services forever.

In a business world, the ultimate goal for a company is to be profitable at some point. At least from ST’s perspective, they need to pass down these cost to customers.

1 Like
150

Probably because Samsung bought them out and they like to stay proprietary. I also didn’t read anything about adding wifi to the new hub.

151

As a prospective customer (I have a few Insteon devices now but am a bit disappointed in the platform) I’m hoping some of the new functionality offered, namely DVR support, can be done locally without a subscription fee. I don’t think there’s a need to charge me a fee if I have my own storage. Insteon also doesn’t charge a fee for viewing live video, since it doesn’t really involve them. I’m somebody who generally dislikes monthly fees and would rather pay larger up-front costs to avoid them (i.e. buying my own NAS).

That said, I watched the CNET home automation panel video somebody posted here (thanks!) and am encouraged by what Alex was saying. I’m not a Samsung fan either, as it seems many of you aren’t, but it seems they’re not digging their hooks into the operations too terribly much. The Tizen part was a bit disappointing, but I’m willing to see how it plays out before passing judgement. Alex seems like somebody who’s not willing to compromise his values, and it seems from his comments about Nest integration, that that’s likely the issue that’s playing out. He seems to not be happy with the way they (Nest/Google) want it incorporated. That’s just the sense I got, anyway.

Anyway, as a Windows Phone user, I don’t have as many options, and SmartThings seems to be, from my perspective, my best option at the moment.

1 Like
152

I must have missed your initial point, which I read was that truly open software was some kind of barrier to well designed hardware/software UX, and not a measure of commercial success. Pretty hard to compare Apple to anyone else as it is an enigma, but it is certainly simple to cite countless proprietary solutions that were crap and have failed. And of course Android itself is a pretty good representative for a successful open platform.

If SmartThings is to fail, it will not be due to it being an open platform, it will be due to the platform that they have designed (open or otherwise) not working. And currently it doesn’t; I have missed no less than three notifications and several other scheduled actions just this week, and this has been nothing out of the ordinary since I came aboard last June.

While samsung may finally bring the resources that SmartThings has desperately needed to make the platform work, I’m still willing to bet that it will end up being a significantly different model than what we initially signed up for.

1 Like
153

This is business, and compromise is a main ingredient.

154

Rasberry Pi sold over 3 Mil as of last June. Sounds pretty darn good to me. :smile:

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2349518/raspberry-pi-sales-hit-three-million-milestone

1 Like
155

Not all compromise is a compromise of values.

2 Likes
156

I definitely didn’t mean to imply that there should be no monthly fee for monitoring: I’m just emphasizing that there is a huge difference between high-margin big-name-brand services like ADT (retail $37 to $60 per month or more + installation and 3-year contract) and the underlying wholesale cost of supply that SmartThings can select from. Of course SmartThings ought to have a profitable gross margin: I think most of us are hoping for a la carte affordable options, choice of self-monitoring, and no long term contracts, etc…

157

I suppose it’s how you define values. It is rare that someone can stay true to one’s values in business. Steve Jobs did it, but only the second time around. Designing products not to a price or limited sense of marketability, but to your own aesthetic sensibilities is a trait that will get you thrown out of most corporate cultures.

1 Like
158

@garyd9 you got it right on the nose. i am not impressed by Tizen at all, and the thought of “S-wave” scares me. I also am focusing on zwave products as well so that if need arises and samsung starts cinching down on smart things to close the platform then I can jump to another platform. Fibaro looks promising and companies are always out there to profit off of company blunders.

159

For sure. Watching the panel discussion was pretty interesting if you haven’t watched it. They had a good discussion about cost versus value. It has to make sense at the price for people to buy it, obviously, but it doesn’t mean you have to make things cheaply (quality) or things that cost little (price) for them to have value. The Nest, I think, is a perfect example of something that is quite expensive compared to other thermostats, but plenty of people find the value in it.

Most of you have way more experience with ST than I do, as I’ve only recently started looking at their product. To me, it seems Alex has a good head on his shoulders and the company should have a bright future if Samsung lets them keep innovating. I remain cautiously optimistic, however, and will likely stick with devices that will easily allow me to switch to another ecosystem if ST takes a turn for the worse. I guess that’s the beauty of open protocol devices. My Insteon devices do not seem to work with anything but Insteon Hub, really, so I’m not sure what I’ll do with those. Likely I’ll have 2 hubs (ST and Insteon) at least for the short term.

160

That’s not entirely true. Insteon will work with any supported PLM, and it can be connected to other controllers such as Indigo or UD ISY. I also recall reading recently that they have polished up the API and have/are taking it public. I still have a number of Insteon devices connected to Indigo and communicate with it from SmartThings via HAM Bridge.

161

Agreed. This statement is generally reserved for people with an employee mindset though. You’d be surprised how many CEOs have an employee mindset. Most CEOs with employee mindset do not amount to much honestly. I am willing to bet Alex does not fall into the “employee” type. Someone who is a true entrepreneur and strong willed will not deviate from their core beliefs.

I think Alex is a guy who does not deviate from his beliefs and doesn’t allow people to push him around. I can’t wait to read his biography. @alex you have one in the works?:wink: I’m wondering what your story is!!

Totally agree though, it seems compromise is a pre requisite to do business these days. So sad that weak people perpetuate this sickness.

End rant.

162

@geko…

I love that you found a successful open product that has had good sales, and the fact that you put my challenge to the test. . :smile:

Although Raspberry Pi is a truly open product, and has had great success in many different applications, we are kind of comparing apples and oranges. RPi or Arduino experimental kits are a few steps ahead of when I was a kid and we grabbed a PCB board, soldered components onto it, and then loaded a Unix based OS. Heck, RPi has 7 different OS you can run on it. It isn’t a product that has specific hardware use case, specific OS written for that use case, and components that are products themselves attaching to it.

Unfortunately for the ST product to continue its success, in Samsung’s eyes and their investors eyes, the ROI on their $200 million dollar investment has to be be well beyond 1%. The market cap for DIY HA is ~$3 billion, for 2015, so if I take a gross assumption, then they expect to do $3 million within the first year.

@geko and @scottinpollock. I believe we are all debating on the same topics, and are somewhat inline with each other. I do not want to pay for any premium services, nor be subject to proprietary OS (Tinzen), CPU (Exynos), and potential new protocols (Weave like RF), but I do understand and accept their business approach. Samsung has jumped into this market to make money, and better control their Ecosystem of products.

Hopefully Alex and the ST team, with Samsung’s backing, can continue their third party partnership growth, innovate beyond what ST resources allowed, continue to collaborate and listen to your clients, and follow through with what they present. As many have stated, the ST team will need to stay focused on their perceived original direction of the product. This is hard to do when being subjected to the Samsung bureaucracy. We have a US start-up working in a Korean world, which culturally are very different business approaches. If the culture doesn’t work, then Alex and team will eventually jump ship.

For now, I have my eyes wide open with hopes of grandeur, for the Hub2 and the future of ST.

Hey, there is always the Nest Hub or Apple Homekit, yet to be announced or detailed, if this doesn’t work out. :wink:

163

[quote=“Lupismaximus, post:162, topic:9003”]
nor be subject to proprietary OS (Tinzen)
[/quote]I don’t mind a proprietary OS. After all, even the existing ST hub must have some kind of OS running on it right now - probably quite a bit more proprietary (in the non-portable sense) than Tizen, and thousands of times lighter.

First, I’ll freely admit that I have issues with Tizen that are somewhat personal and completely unprofessional. I’ll completely ignore that here, however. Anywhere below where I reference “tizen”, feel free to replace it with “Android”, “Windows Mobile”, (or whatever other OS you’d like)

I have a problem with shoving a generic “do everything” OS on something like a ST hub. I’d feel the same way if it was Android, Windows Embedded, Windows Phone (or whatever MS is calling what used to be based on “Windows CE”), or any of the other generic “do everything” embedded OS’s.

There’s no good reason for a full operating system on such a vertical device. In fact, anything greater than a simple (and very streamlined) kernel is probably overkill. Shoving “tizen” (or android, etc) is wasteful and typical of Samsung in order to shove their android competitor down everyone’s throat.

Sure, if you have a device that you don’t know what it’s going to be used for, a “do everything” OS might work. However, I don’t see the next ST coming out with a video port, speakers, microphones, keyboards, etc. People aren’t going to be playing games on the ST hub. They aren’t going to use their ST hub for word processing, spreadsheets, web browsing, or even checking email.

The ST hub should be a simple device that handles rules processing and networking (in several senses of the word.)

How much persistent and non-persistent storage will this new hub have? How much of a processing upgrade? Of those upgrades, how much benefit is going to be swallowed by Tizen before the end user sees any improvement?

Is Tizen being put on the hub to benefit the hub, or is Samsung forcing ST to use Tizen in order to benefit Tizen? It seems to me that it’s the latter.

2 Likes
164

And I too will certainly wait until April to see what it’s about, but I continue to have growing concerns that the platform is all wrong, and continues down a path that has folks going next door to borrow a cup of sugar, by means of walking around the block.

I have been involved with HA for the better part of three decades, and it is only this decade where the IoT has become synonymous with it. That’s a problem. If a home is truly automated, it certainly doesn’t need the internet. Devices and controllers in the home talk to themselves. While there is certainly a need to access the internet for information (time, weather, emergency alerts, etc.), an internet connection should not be the sole basis for HA. And while it is also important to monitor and control an automated home using the internet, that should be a feature implemented by a bridge interface, instead of it being the primary source of communication and control. This is pretty simple network topology in any system.

Samsung’s presentation was all about the IoT. And why not… it is the buzz word of the decade (so far), and has renewed interest in HA; I suppose that’s a good thing. But I don’t want all of my devices Google-ized, or samsung-ed. While I want them to communicate with each other, they don’t need the internet to do this. It is inefficient, insecure, needlessly complex, and poses very real privacy concerns. Not to mention that when one company goes belly up or switches direction, you’re left with starting all over again.

So why does everyone seemingly want to do it this way? It’s simple really… Money; in the way of peddling big data and selling services. I see modern HA platforms being akin to TiVo. How can they afford to sell you that amazing 4 tuner DVR for $200? It is because they charge you a monthly service fee (which the box is useless without), and peddle your viewership data for big bucks. Now the TiVo model works for me as it ensures I don’t miss an airing I want to see, and I don’t have to sit through 25 minutes of commercials per viewing hour. Plus, I don’t care who knows what I watch on TV.

But the HA model (IMHO), doesn’t provide near that value to me. I don’t need the internet to automate my home as it has been automated for over a decade without being in the cloud. I only need it to notify me of an issue, and/or control some aspects of it when I am away (and if it is truly automated that should not really be necessary unless your concerned about the system’s reliability, which I currently am). SmartThings seemed to be an effective way to add that without me writing a bunch of software, and opening up ports on my router. But in hindsight, its quirkiness has me thinking the IoT for this is the wrong approach.

I’ve learned my lesson. I will not buy a smart appliance that only communicates with me and my stuff through someone else’s servers. No open, local API? Bub-Bye… on to the next maker. For me… this is the biggest concern with modern day HA, and samsung seems to want to take this to a whole new level.

I wish I could be as optimistic as you, and I will wait for the V2 hub to see what it allows me to do locally. But if it isn’t 90% of it, I’ll be returning it and moving on.

5 Likes