Quirky said that Wink has already found its buyer, and will likely finalize a sale to Flextronics International USA Inc. in the next 60 days if no other bids come through.
And it's only $15 million - chump change for Amazon.
http://fortune.com/2015/09/22/quirky-files-bankruptcy/
We all knew (or thought) this was going to happen. That fool of a CEO Kaufman said 2 months ago Wink was looking for buyers. The bad part would be to be bought by Flextronics. I was really hoping for a bigger name here. And then they would have no control whatsoever. Difference with ST was that they sold by negotiating. Wink is being forced to sell, which makes a huge difference on what you can actually demand from your buyer.
I like my Wink right now. All my robots are working and I've gotten to a point in HA where I don't HAVE to add more stuff. All I need is already there. The only thing I want from them is local control.
Same. The question is, how do they turn it into a money-maker? They practically give away the hubs. The cloud service is free. I'd imagine the fee they charge to vendors for the Wink Certified logo isn't enough to keep a team full of engineers, programmers, and technical support paid year-round. I had hoped we'd get local control before the shakedown happened, but oh well. SmartThings v2 is starting to look better & better, but I'm not jumping ship until either Wink is completely dead or SmartThings has been proven to be good. iirc they don't even have Lutron support, so that's an automatic nope for me at this point in time.
Here is what they need to do:
1. Charge more for the hub. Maybe a minor redesign will help them justify a higher price.
2. I don't think Wink is in position to charge fees for the certified logo. I think they want to ENCOURAGE vendors to use it and make compatible devices.
3. I would probably offer an enhanced service of some sort with a monthly fee.
Otherwise, I'm just not sure what they can do. $50 is too cheap for the hub, I do know that.
If $50 wasn't cheap enough, they were giving it away for free. From the beginning they focused it as a way to sell their Quirky HA stuff, so that's why they didn't care much about the hub. Mix that with the Winkening, a product with many problems like the Spotter, the fact that they were making incredibly useless products (multiple cable organizer for your desk???????), almost 24/7 support for Wink and you got yourself a recipe for disaster. I'm going to keep eyeing ST while I keep enjoying my Wink hub which is working very nice. If there is no improvement in the near future, well, thankfully someone thought about the 90-day return period.
Did you set up your ST V2?
If $50 wasn't cheap enough, they were giving it away for free. From the beginning they focused it as a way to sell their Quirky HA stuff, so that's why they didn't care much about the hub. Mix that with the Winkening, a product with many problems like the Spotter, the fact that they were making incredibly useless products (multiple cable organizer for your desk???????), almost 24/7 support for Wink and you got yourself a recipe for disaster. I'm going to keep eyeing ST while I keep enjoying my Wink hub which is working very nice. If there is no improvement in the near future, well, thankfully someone thought about the 90-day return period.
Did you set up your ST V2?
All I can say is that there is definite improvement coming! I wish I could say more.. but I really can't.
Here is what they need to do:
1. Charge more for the hub. Maybe a minor redesign will help them justify a higher price.
2. I don't think Wink is in position to charge fees for the certified logo. I think they want to ENCOURAGE vendors to use it and make compatible devices.
3. I would probably offer an enhanced service of some sort with a monthly fee.
Otherwise, I'm just not sure what they can do. $50 is too cheap for the hub, I do know that.
I don't think that they're in a position to do any of that. The hubs aren't flying off the shelves as it is at $50. As you say, any substantial cost to vendors that would provide any significant revenue would work against you. And they'd need to see a substantial and growing user base in order to do so. Which I don't think exists. Not sure what they could enhance as far as an online service. Most of us want just the opposite - to cut the cord to the extent possible.
What they really need is a compelling product and feature set which drives all of the above. Beyond that it was basically free, that was what sold me initially on at least trying the Wink. i.e.. The multiple systems supported by the box. Local control would be a big distinguishing feature which would go a long way to that end. Homekit/Thread support. An open systems approach to stimulate developer interest (I can't think of any other open, multi-protocol piece of hardware out there like it). Integration with major alarm systems. Some other "cool" and novel day-to-day features for a little more gee whiz consumer appeal.
...one of the few that actually supports Lutron...
Speaking of Lutron, Target has the in-wall switches w/ Pico controller and also the lamp dimmer modules w/ Pico on clearance for $29.97. Target clearance always is kind of a goose chase but good deal if you can find them in a store that has them marked down to that level.
If Wink goes away.. I'll be switching to using my Logitech Harmony Ultimate instead. It supports Lutron, though I'll have to buy their expensive bridge to do it.
Smartthing's utter deafness to the community screaming for Lutron support does not make me confident in the product long-term. You can't make a good Home Automation device if you are ignoring what people in the home actually want. So far, Lutron is the only brand out there that makes switches the will work with homes built pre-80s or whenever it was that Neutral in the switchbox became standard. That might even be 90s...
I agree, but for me, it isn't a super big deal if I lose Lutron support. Yeah, I have a robot that activates one of my switches, but worst case, we'll just use them manually if I have to. I also could use one of the Pico remotes to activate the switch currently turned on by a robot as well.
Problem is when you have a few switches without neutral wires, like I do. Then, Lutron becomes a must.