tgauchat
(ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)
84
Dunno… I find this article rather frustrating.
Is a pure rental dash service subscription model really a viable (and complete) solution? The $99 or less SmartThings Hub already costs less than a year of PEQ (iControl) subscription at $10/month and much less than every barely monitored security “service” with free or cheap hardware packages.
If SmartThings discontinued selling $99 Hubs and instead charged $10/month, 1 year minumum, free hub included, then would these new Customers really be less frustrated when the service shuts down in say, 36 months? Current customers “lose” lifetime free cloud services which only cost them $99. New subscription customers would have spent $360 and lost… Nothing?!. Of course not! So which wallet drain would you prefer? Doh!?
Specifically, that model is something like hardware as service, rather than hardware as product. Rather than paying $300 for a thermostat that might become a brick in two years, you’ve subscribed to a service, with hardware that can be swapped in or out as necessary to provide that service.
And the other solution the author proposes is government regulation?? Well that’s worked out just great for Comcast/Verizon/ATT customers, right? Ahem… Definitely not.
IOT as a service already exists, and has more customers than SmartThings and its low cost competitors combined.
ADT Pulse, TimeWarner Intellihome, Xfinity Home and Rogers (Canada) all cost around $40 -$60 / month. Professionally installed and maintained. Not many device choices, but it’s stable and it works. And reportedly it’s profitable for the company. Added together the services have more than 2 million accounts. And the number continues to go up.
They continue to add new compatible devices, such as August locks and Chamberlain MyQ.
I know most SmartThings customers don’t want contracts and monthly fees, so forum discussions tend to leave out these options, but if we’re just talking about the future of IOT I expect this will continue to be one option and, just like a cable set top box, the controller will be upgraded by the service provider as needed.
tgauchat
(ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)
86
I certainly acknowledge they exist and are successful.
But obviously SmartThings (and others; Revolv) believes it is strategically beneficial to compete on a “no mandatory monthly fee” model. Seems like a feasible option, especially since optional fees for installation and premium services can always be offered once the customer is acquired.
While this discussion focused on the complete shutdown of Revolv, a more possible scenario for SmartThings is shutdown of support of Hub V1. I think it is highly likely that SmartThings will offer a free upgrade for any remaining Hub V1 owners at that time; because the value of both PR and add-on services would exceed upgrade revenue.
Definitely both models can exist in the marketplace . IControls bought Piper specifically so they would have something to offer in the no subscription required niche for security systems.
I am waiting for Arlo integration, which was announced that is “coming soon” AND a reason to ditch FIOS ( two things that it may never happen) before I switch to Comcast. I’ve been considering them for a while…
But would it? Most of the consumer class routers that folks have in their homes only handle 15-20 devices well. Even enterprise class stuff only handles 30-60, maybe 100, and a lot of that depends on the physics of air time used by the devices. I’ve bumped into those limits on even Enterprise class hardware, and listening to the folks on here, some have more than even 100 devices hooked to SmartThings…
I thought that’s why all the different systems have hubs, more efficient ways to communicate with a larger number of devices. That’s why I started moving away from WeMo and other WiFi enabled devices because I didn’t think it was sustainable for a system.
Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. I’m just going off what I’ve had experience with.
Or there’s always the Google OnHub that’s already a router with Zigbee radios…
tgauchat
(ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)
92
Well… @geko and I were talking about “in 3 to 5 years”; the theory is that by that time, router technology for IP (over WiFi) will be 10x or 100x better perhaps. Much more support for beam focusing, in-home WiFi mesh, multiple concurrent channels… who knows?
ie, there’s a chance the Quora Answer is prescient and wifi and/or Bluetooth will eclipse ZigBee, Z-wave etc, in the home. Though I think it more likely that home routers will be multi-protocol if they can figure out how to avoid RF interference issues.
I wish Google had articulated their strategy wrt OnHub more clearly. The problem with Google is they seem to suffer from technological ADD. You just never know which one of their many initiatives would stick and for how long.
I think the HA/SmartHome market is ripe for an industry standard, whether it’s based on 802.11 (WiFi) or 802.15.4 (Zigbee and friends). The current fragmentation is just not sustainable and is hurting everyone.
tgauchat
(ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)
94
802.15.4 is fragmented (ZigBee still in multiple flavors, Thread, and IPwloPAN or wtf it’s called).
If they sorted themselves out and united, then this layer would have a better chance of fighting off Z-Wave, Bluetooth and WiFi for IoT dominance.
They cannot say in public that they don’t trust Nest as their HA representative unit, so they have to hide it. If I were Fadell, the day the OnHub was launched, I would have turned in my resignation, but that’s just me…:instead he decided to cut the cords of Revolv…-)
@tgauchat …here is a conspiracy theory…what if Fadell is trying to sabotage Google’s reputation because he is fed up with the pressure they put on him to bring some revenue and release new products??
I think right now, Zwave is still a better choice due to the spectrum they’re in, while lower bandwidth, with the type of devices that HA is controlling does not need the amount of bandwidth. And seeing the amount of devices in the 2.4GHz spectrum, just in a regular neighborhood without being littered with HA stuff. And it’s many congestion is many times worse when you’re in an apartment complex. And that scenario is just with routers… imagine how bad it would be in an apartment that’s filled with Zigbee and Wifi? Internet on a 2.4GHz would simply be unusable at that point…
That seems to always be a Google thing… they may have multiple projects that sometimes have similar function, Google Voice and Hangout is a good example that eventually got them merged, same with Google Photo and Picasa and lesser extent, Plus… but I imagine everything would end up merging into one huge project with Google trying to take over the world… and Deepmind is the going to be running everything that will turn into Skynet!
This is exactly why the upcoming WiFi low-power standard (Wi-Fi HaLow) will use 900 MHz band.
Wi-Fi HaLow extends Wi-Fi into the 900 MHz band, enabling the low power connectivity necessary for applications including sensor and wearables. Wi-Fi HaLow’s range is nearly twice that of today’s Wi-Fi, and will not only be capable of transmitting signals further, but also providing a more robust connection in challenging environments where the ability to more easily penetrate walls or other barriers is an important consideration.
tgauchat
(ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)
99
Sabotage them by killing Revolv, or in general?
The Revolv shutdown was announced at acquisition, I think. They just waited a full year to be sure to be out of warranty period.
In general? I dunno. You could claim the same conspiracy about any C-Level executive of any company. Far too many of them are just plain evil and greedy, so anything is possible; but there’s plenty of ways that could have been stopped before he got too far.
tgauchat
(ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)
100
I find it fascinating that WigWag (which is 2.5 years and counting… behind their projected Kickstarter Reward delivery date; and pivoted into colored lightbulbs in a desperate move to acquire funding; is trying to provide assurance to their community.
Sure … their hub was designed from the very beginning to be local first (i.e., not cloud-dependent); but there are still plenty of things that can go wrong with this product line. They company certainly can be rated a failure so far…
They are pretty cocky throwing shade on SmartThings too. Sure… SmartThings has issues, but at least it exists.
While SmartThings and Revolv have given the connected home space a bit of a black eye, we intend to help heal that wound with an innovative / reliable product set.
The blog also mentions the uproar / kerfuffle about the Rule Machine “withdrawal” in the same blog entry. It’s quite a leap, I think … to put these in the same context.
CEPRo’s Julie Jacobson has a few thoughts on Revolv business…
People are calling Nest founder and CEO Tony Fadell the devil, and decrying the end of IoT, but the bricking of Revolv was little more than the last chapter of a start-up that shut down one year after launch.
I personally think Lesson #3 is a no-brainer and that is the way I go. As for #1, that’s why I rely on switches.
It is good to read something different than the rest of the articles out there. Ever since the first Revolv shut down announcement got out, all of the media were saying the same thing over, and over, an over. Thanks, Bobby.
