[Survey] Alexa and voice automations.. What you say matters! Feedback via survey

I am the owner of a smart home consulting business and am passionate about bringing quality services to users, that includes high value and ease of use. I work with a plethora of companies and developers and would like to take information, feedback and proposals back to the appropriate parties and drive further improvements.

This is a very active community that provides and shares knowledge, makes requests and encourages ST community developers to keep pushing out Smart Apps to make their homes ā€œbetterā€. Use cases drive Smart Apps, feature requests, and enhancements.

Voice automation seems to play a significant roll in HA now as well, and where I would like to start information gathering.

I would like to conduct short and concise surveys that are focused and pays attention to the users needs and requests.

If you wold take just a few moments to complete this survey I would be grateful.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JX37D8Z

I am attempting to gain a deeper insight into various segments of HA that are important (or not) to the end users. My focus in these surveys is to understand the needs and desires of the community.
Out of eight total questions only one, the last one, asked about payment for apps. I think this may be very important information for community developers. This may help them to decide to proceed or not with projects and make better informed business decisions. Most businessā€™ do some form of market research to gauge their audience, learn about the market they are entertaining, what their ROI may be, and attempt risk mitigation (SWOT analysis).
If you notice question three which does ask about paying for an app (not exclusively) allows for MORE than one answer, therefore guides developers in what priorities users place value in.
Having data to base business decisions on is not a bad thing. Sometimes our perceptions are not what the hard data and results reveal to us in the end. Some developers will incur cost (not only hard time) and understanding if they can cover their expenses is vital.
Keep in mind you are only seeing the questions not the results. Often quality has a price, I think most people understand that.
Perhaps contrary to what you may have perceived, I hold community developers in the highest regard and want them to succeed. For some that includes monitization, for others it is personal (skill) development for themselves. That is not for me to judge and is not the focus of the survey.
It is my intention to only bring this community together when and where possible.

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I appreciate your goals, and admire seeking feedback from the Community and learning about your potential customers.

Forgive me for being pedantic, though, because 2 out of 8 questions (25%) mention app pricing; not only the ā€œlast oneā€.


My intention is directness and curiosity. I am 100% sincere and not facetious when I repeat the question I asked you originally:

Do you or donā€™t you?
Iā€™m assuming you donā€™t, because the survey does not contain these 2 questions:

#9 When looking for a smart home Consultant, what do you look for in that Consultant?

- The services provided by the consultant are free.

#10 How do you feel about paying for Consulting Services provided by Community Members?

- Free is the spirit of this Community and consultants should not be seeking payment for their expertise.

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I encourage everyone to look and respond to this survey. I am actually rather curious myself on the results (I hope, @femwitjava that you will be sharing the results??)?

I am posting this link in my threads as I have toyed with a ā€˜paidā€™ model for apps. I have actually gotten a lot of donations, but not enough to justify doing this full timeā€¦That might change if there is a potential review stream.

Letā€™s see if we can get 100 REAL responses!

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@MichaelS it is my intention to share results to serve our community, and yes that includes giving data/ insights to those developers who would value such information. Looking forward to progressing HA!

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Excellentā€¦I have an app in the pipeline that MAY be a good candidate for monitization. So, again, I encourage everyone out there to fill out this survey to determine HOW I release it to the public.

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Andrea,

How long to you plan to keep this open? I assume you want a good sampling but donā€™t want to keep it open for a month. Maybe others could promote it? Tagging @JDRoberts as he knows everyone :slight_smile:

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I will keep the survey open through the weekend to allow the weekend hobbyist a chance to participate.
I would very much appreciate if other developers would cross post so that we may reach the maximum number of people possible. Because this survey is focused on voice automation I am going to reach out to @rayzurbock as the questions are definitely is in line with his app. I know the developers of Ecosistant @bamarayne and @SBDOBRESCU work with the AVS very closely too and this may be of interest to them and their audience too.

My sincerest appreciation to any/ all developers who will cross post and help gain participation - this is a knowledge share effort and we all may gain benefits and insights.

Again thank you @MichaelS for your support!

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Would you be kind to post the results here, after the poll is closed?

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Yes! This is quite interesting to many of us. Thanks!

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Yes, results will be shared with the community!

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As appreciation to all of those who took the time to complete the survey, I am running a FREE GIVE AWAY of the NEW DASHWAND!!

While it is not mandatory that you do the survey to enter the drawing, it is my hope in good faith that you will do so.

Here is the link to that thread but to make you life easy, I am attaching the link here too for you to enter the FREE GIVE AWAY!!!

Good luck !

https://community.smartthings.com/t/free-give-away-dashwand/90073?source_topic_id=89917
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If you have not completed the survey (about voice automation) please do so by the end of the day. The survey will be closed tonight. Results to be published here this coming week.

Thank you to all of those who did spend the time to do this. Several of the developers are as anxious for the results as you. The insights and hearing what YOU, the users want, is not only important to them, but helps them steer further development and prioritize those projects, and gain insight as to what is really important to you.

This is a great community with awesome exchanges and potential!
Again thank you - especially to those who took the time to complete and even write comments.

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Iā€™m looking forward to seeing the results.

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Good day All!
Here is a link to the survey results.

Thank you to all who took the time to complete the survey.

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Thanks Andreaā€¦If I can speak for the other developers, we all can use a business advocate to help us direct our efforts! Great work and thank you!

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Although the sample size is small and most likely made up of more-technical-than-average users, itā€™s an interesting data point! Thanks for sharing the results :sunglasses:

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Thanks for sharing Andrea. Great initiativeā€¦ While the survey attracted mainly Alexa users (see title). And the sampling wasnā€™t really random (due to negative comments on the thread). It does reveal some very interesting resultsā€¦

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