The Wink home automation thread

[SchillerM]

Anyone else feel the outage this evening?

 

[MjnMixael]

Yup... I tell ya what. These outages need to be fixed up. They either need to reeeaaaallly beef up their server setup or they need to push out a way for you to have local network control without a server should the need arise.

In the grand scheme it's only been like 1.5 outages a month for a few hours each.. so we're talking maybe 8-12 hours total of downtime for a whole month. But when they happen at peak times like today... man. This system just won't sell if it has reports of losing complete control of everything at least once a month or more.

 

[Munns86]

Hello all

I just purchased and set up a wink over the weekend. So far only have two light bulbs on it. What I would really like is a connected thermostat. I was wondering if anyone has had any luck with the cheaper non wink-ready zwave thermostat?

I see a few by 2GIG and my wife and I are not interested at all in programmable. We just want one that can be turned up/down and on/off via our phones.

 

[Kaido]

Anyone else feel the outage this evening?

Yup... I tell ya what. These outages need to be fixed up. They either need to reeeaaaallly beef up their server setup or they need to push out a way for you to have local network control without a server should the need arise.

In the grand scheme it's only been like 1.5 outages a month for a few hours each.. so we're talking maybe 8-12 hours total of downtime for a whole month. But when they happen at peak times like today... man. This system just won't sell if it has reports of losing complete control of everything at least once a month or more.

Myself (& others) have been having intermittent issues with scheduling (ex. turn on/off a GE Link bulb at certain times); maybe this is the core issue.

I believe the touchscreen wallswitch has offline relay capabilities & can operate without the cloud, from what I understand...we'll see if that's true when it's actually released. I don't know if it operates independently of the Hub, in place of the Hub, or what.

 

[Kaido]

Hello all

I just purchased and set up a wink over the weekend. So far only have two light bulbs on it. What I would really like is a connected thermostat. I was wondering if anyone has had any luck with the cheaper non wink-ready zwave thermostat?

I see a few by 2GIG and my wife and I are not interested at all in programmable. We just want one that can be turned up/down and on/off via our phones.

There is a cheaper Wink thermostat available here:

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Honeywel...mable-Thermostat-Free-App-RTH6580WF/203556922

Half the price of the other ones too ($99). It also has a backup app for Apple/Android: (separate from Wink)

http://yourhome.honeywell.com/home/Products/Thermostats/7-Day-Programmable/RTH6580WF.htm

 

[Munns86]

There is a cheaper Wink thermostat available here:

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Honeywel...mable-Thermostat-Free-App-RTH6580WF/203556922

Half the price of the other ones too ($99). It also has a backup app for Apple/Android: (separate from Wink)

http://yourhome.honeywell.com/home/Products/Thermostats/7-Day-Programmable/RTH6580WF.htm

Thanks!



Temping... but doesn't honeywell require some sort of subscription for their thermostats? Plus I like the idea of one hub and many devices connected to it. Takes the strain off my wifi network.

I was more looking at something like this:

http://www.amazon.com/2gig-CT100-Z-W...ave+thermostat

or

http://www.amazon.com/2GIG-CT-30-Rad...ave+thermostat

 

[MjnMixael]

Myself (& others) have been having intermittent issues with scheduling (ex. turn on/off a GE Link bulb at certain times); maybe this is the core issue.

I believe the touchscreen wallswitch has offline relay capabilities & can operate without the cloud, from what I understand...we'll see if that's true when it's actually released. I don't know if it operates independently of the Hub, in place of the Hub, or what.

Relay definitely needs the Hub as Relay only has Wifi, Bluetooth, and Zigbee. Need the hub for ZWave and ClearConnect at least.

 

[MjnMixael]

Confirmation that the servers are down again this evening. Bummer. They need to up their server game for sure.

 

[alnames]

For what its worth, Wink has a new status page at status.winkapp.com. I haven't found it particularly useful (or accurate).

 

[MjnMixael]

At least you know it's not your network or hub being screwy.

 

[GT_YellowJacket]

Myself (& others) have been having intermittent issues with scheduling (ex. turn on/off a GE Link bulb at certain times); maybe this is the core issue.

I believe the touchscreen wallswitch has offline relay capabilities & can operate without the cloud, from what I understand...we'll see if that's true when it's actually released. I don't know if it operates independently of the Hub, in place of the Hub, or what.

If the Wink Relay really did enable offline operation and could utilize the hub for its other radios, I'd probably be in for at least one. I'd just plug in the hub for z-wave, but I'd otherwise keep it off my wifi network other than for FW upgrades and never deal with the server issues.

 

[MjnMixael]

The Hub, as it currently works, needs to be on Wifi to get/submit account info. Even if you had Relay because Relay will at least get initial account info (what devices you have) from their servers and some of that will need to be submitted by the Hub.

 

[silverpony2001]

Hello all,

I just joined the forum for this Wink thread. It's hard to find any discussion about these products on any forum. I used to dabble in the X10 software/modules back in the day, but I just recently got a Wink Hub and 2 GE link bulbs. For the most part, they have been working ok for me. The outage yesterday and today was annoying, I don't know how many times I unplugged my hub and plugged it back in hoping that was the problem before I found out about the outage.

I do have a question though, unsure if anyone can answer. How do the Wink robots work? Do they use my phones GPS? Or what wifi router I am connected too? Cell towers? I ask, because I setup a robot to turn on my porch light after 6:30 pm if I arrive at home. However, this doesn't seem to work right. The first night I came home at about 9 pm and the light was on, and I though, "nice, it must have just turned on when I got close to home." But I checked the log, and it looks like it turned on at 6:35pm? I was no where close to my place at that time. The next night, I was not out, and just sitting at home and at 6:30 my porch light turned on. I thought it was weird, so I turned it off. But now, every night at 6:30, the robot turns my light on. Even though I am already at home and not "arriving". It seems to turn it on around 6:30 ish even if I am not home as well.

Can anyone with any experience with the robots explain how they work, or how I could make mine operate better? I would like it to turn on the porch light after a set time, if I come home. But if I am already home, I don't need the light to go on. I think Wink really needs to get IFTTT support with the Hub.

Thanks!

 

[MjnMixael]

Hi silverpony.

I can confirm a couple things from the internal beta testing I'm doing and from my own experience.

The robots have been iffy since launch, but after an update a few months ago they seem to have gotten worse. *shrugs* Wink is working on way too much at once and probably should have taken a few more months before their launch, but we can't change that now.

Geofencing (location based) Robots use your GPS. It has been suggested internally to use things like Wifi connections and the Wink team seems interested in the idea.. but again, see above. They are working on a LOT of stuff already.

I have noticed that Robots based on 'between these times' are really funky and usually don't work... especially if the time goes across midnight.

More IFTTT support is confirmed to be in the works. When it will happen, I dunno. We haven't gotten anything on the Beta side about that yet, either, other than that they want to implement it.

 

[silverpony2001]

Hi silverpony.

I can confirm a couple things from the internal beta testing I'm doing and from my own experience.

The robots have been iffy since launch, but after an update a few months ago they seem to have gotten worse. *shrugs* Wink is working on way too much at once and probably should have taken a few more months before their launch, but we can't change that now.

Geofencing (location based) Robots use your GPS. It has been suggested internally to use things like Wifi connections and the Wink team seems interested in the idea.. but again, see above. They are working on a LOT of stuff already.

I have noticed that Robots based on 'between these times' are really funky and usually don't work... especially if the time goes across midnight.

More IFTTT support is confirmed to be in the works. When it will happen, I dunno. We haven't gotten anything on the Beta side about that yet, either, other than that they want to implement it.

MjnMixael thanks for your quick response and insight. I know Wink is new, but they seem to be doing their best like you said to implement new things and improve on others. I'm excited to see where it goes. As a beta tester, have you had any experience with the Android wear app? I thought i read somewhere it was released to testers a few months ago, and they would be releasing it to everyone at the end of October. Being able to control things from my android wear watch would be cool. Thanks again!

 

[GT_YellowJacket]

The Hub, as it currently works, needs to be on Wifi to get/submit account info. Even if you had Relay because Relay will at least get initial account info (what devices you have) from their servers and some of that will need to be submitted by the Hub.

So then Relay doesn't work during an outage then either? Because I'm just talking about forcing extended "outages" as far as my hub is concerned.

 

[MjnMixael]

Silverpony, no I haven't done anything with Android Wear yet. I'm waiting for the LG G Watch R.. Can't say that I've seen them talking about it on internal either. But who knows. There's a lot of threads there.

YellowJacket, I misunderstood. I'm still not sure how you'd force an outage of the Hub, I think it's base functionality is tied to it having a wifi connection. (I mean that it seems like the Hub OS doesn't finish loading until it detects a conenction.. but I could be wrong on that.) I guess based on that, I can't really answer for sure. I'm really hoping they send me a Relay unit to test out and then I'll be able to confirm for sure what goes on with Relay in this sense.

 

[GT_YellowJacket]

Silverpony, no I haven't done anything with Android Wear yet. I'm waiting for the LG G Watch R.. Can't say that I've seen them talking about it on internal either. But who knows. There's a lot of threads there.

YellowJacket, I misunderstood. I'm still not sure how you'd force an outage of the Hub, I think it's base functionality is tied to it having a wifi connection. (I mean that it seems like the Hub OS doesn't finish loading until it detects a conenction.. but I could be wrong on that.) I guess based on that, I can't really answer for sure. I'm really hoping they send me a Relay unit to test out and then I'll be able to confirm for sure what goes on with Relay in this sense.

Well, I think my favorite idea for forcing outages would be to have my smarthome wifi network segregated from my home network. I'd use a different router/switch and SSID for the wink system and just pull the connection to my main network switch for most instances. I could probably even get one of those Linear z-wave relays to just disconnect the individual conductors within an ethernet cable and toggle the connection remotely. I guess I'd lose the phone app connection due to the use of the servers, but I'd lose that in an outage anyway. Hmm...need to make that relay battery powered and portable within the house.

Anyway, I'd love to hear what you learn about the Relay when you can get your hands on one.

 

[Kaido]

Confirmation that the servers are down again this evening. Bummer. They need to up their server game for sure.

No kidding! I captured a screenshot when my system started dropping: (Eastern standard time)

http://i.imgur.com/w5kyLJq.png

Then they all went out:

http://i.imgur.com/IcouAbK.png

The living room has the plug-in Lutron dimmer (ClearConnect), the front porch has the GE Link bulb (ZigBee), and the Workout Room has the in-wall Lutron dimmer (ClearConnect), so they're all different products & radios - I thought it was just one specific thing at first, then they all went dead!

It was annoying because I had to be up for work super early, so I hopped in bed around 7:45pm & wanted to shut the lights off using my iPhone without having to get out of bed (#firstworldproblems I know, I know, but that's exactly what this system was designed for!!) & didn't see the lights shut off, then the alert triangles started appearing on each device in the iPhone app menu.

That's garbage. I can appreciate cloud functionality, but it needs to be "in addition to" your local server (the Hub) instead of "only". You are hosed if their servers go down or if your Internet goes down. Hopefully neither of those happen very often, but since their servers have already gone down multiple times...what a hassle. I mean, I've already invested nearly $200 in equipment (Hub, lights, smoke alarm, etc.) and I'm very hesitant to dump more money into it given (1) the glitches, and (2) the recent server downtime.

This could all be fixed if they just updated the firmware to handle local relaying. The smartphone app talks to the Hub. The Hub relays the command to the devices, and also sends a sync signal up to the cloud server. The cloud server keeps a copy of the Hub's logs, and also accepts non-home-Wifi commands when you're away from home. Boom. Easy. Heck, you can do that with Arduino & DynDNS if you really wanted to. Why is my house's functionality dependent upon their servers functioning?

 

[Kaido]

One interesting approach idea: I've had several people ask me about having this available for offline functionality at homes that don't have wifi in them (ex. vacation homes) but where the convenience would be appreciated. That is not currently possible with the Wink Hub, since everything runs through the cloud. However, per the teardown here:

http://community.smartthings.com/t/wink-hub-teardown/3288

The board has 128MB NAND flash. If that's the maximum storage capacity, and since the smartphones initially connect to the Hub via Bluetooth, why not just always include the latest firmware in the smartphone app updates? That way, if you do have an "offline home", you can still get updates every time you visit OTA via Bluetooth from the embedded firmware in the app (or even offer it as an optional download within the app so you're not just taking up space - a pre-load option, and in the larger scheme of things, you get offline functionality when their cloud servers go down. THAT would be amazing!

 

[Kaido]

Hi silverpony.

I can confirm a couple things from the internal beta testing I'm doing and from my own experience.

The robots have been iffy since launch, but after an update a few months ago they seem to have gotten worse. *shrugs* Wink is working on way too much at once and probably should have taken a few more months before their launch, but we can't change that now.

Geofencing (location based) Robots use your GPS. It has been suggested internally to use things like Wifi connections and the Wink team seems interested in the idea.. but again, see above. They are working on a LOT of stuff already.

I have noticed that Robots based on 'between these times' are really funky and usually don't work... especially if the time goes across midnight.

More IFTTT support is confirmed to be in the works. When it will happen, I dunno. We haven't gotten anything on the Beta side about that yet, either, other than that they want to implement it.

See, that's part of the reason I'm sticking with Wink. They are new & I know how deadline-driven projects work, so most likely they just need time to get everything sorted out. That's why Apple historically has been such an amazing company...their updates would come out, be rock-solid, and that was such a difference from other companies. But of course, they've been swamped lately as well...iOS 7 was horrible & iOS 8 has been even worth, not to mention the HealthKit yank & other bugs.

If you are looking for a mature product, you'll have to go with a big name like Crestron or Control4, which is high-priced (for a reason, they're more reliable! but not totally reliable! haha). Wink and even Vera are not mature products yet. I'd hesitate to even call Z-wave a mature product based on the fact that I've never seen any system able to talk to it in a solid manner over time. Maybe HomeKit will pan out. Maybe Thread will pan out. Only choice is to wait & see, or pay the money to invest in the big boy's equipment.

 

[millards]

I have installed 4 GE Link Par 38 bulbs, in two twin headed outdoor fixtures. Due to lack of good instructions, I tried to put both bulbs in the first fixture and then link them. Didn't realize they needed to be linked 1 at a time. Not a big deal to fix, but if Wink or GE had some detailed instructions - would have been easier!!

Also have two GE Link A19 60 watt bulbs installed on either side of the front porch which are supposed to turn on and off at scheduled times. Not working reliably, trying different fixes. I know others are also having this problem.

Right now my main question is about the display of lights in the Wink app, I have put the floodlights in groups, two for each light and have put all four floods in another group. So all in all, 4 floods and 2 A19 bulbs. 4 groups = 10 entries. I still have more floods to put up, so the list will grow. Does anyone know if there is a way to sort by single and group or anyway to hide bulbs?

Thanks Buddy

 

[MjnMixael]

sadly the light list sorting is not great. you can't hide lights at all. best you can do is rearrange them and put the ones you won't use at the bottom. in actually about to submit a better light list UI idea to them on the beta forum.

 

[millards]

Thanks for the quick answer. Another nice thing useful for scheduling would be sunrise and sunset settings, with a + or - factor. So you could set lights to come on at 30 minutes before sunset and go off 30 minutes after sunrise.

 

[MjnMixael]

Sunrise and sunset options are definitely being discussed. The wink staff seems very interested in the idea.