The Wink home automation thread

[MjnMixael]

Ahaha, the "family eye roll"... That's so true.

Oh man... What I would pay for a Wink hub V2 with those features...

 

[atyoyo]

I would love for Quirky to get their act together and roll out a solid update but based on their past history there is just no way that's going to happen. I believe it's a systemic problem with their management/ownership. After waiting for over 45 minute for tech support numerous times, as I talk to them I'm smiling over how insane the things they say are. To top it off, like others have mentioned, no reply via email after giving me their email address.

Not to mention the fake 5 star reviews on Amazon. You may be fooling some folks Quirky but not me. I'm on to you and your bogus excuses.

With that said I hope I am wrong and they do fix their product because I would like to get more use out of their 99 cent hub.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I have a Smartthings controller coming Tuesday from Amazon. I don't see adding to my Wink problems any further. Robots don't work over 50% of the time, leviton switches don't show correct state and I see absolutely no progress.

I have 2 switches and 1 dimmer by leviton that will port over to ST.

Mike

Please keep us posted. I am also considering trying SmartThings out.

 

[nyvram]

My geofencing which automatically locks and unlocks my doors appears to have failed to work on 2 separate trips yesterday and about 5 minutes ago the notifications just fired and locked and unlocked my door 4x :/

Having said that generally the $200 schlage zwave deadbolt has always shown its correct status in wink and it locks up at night at 11pm automatically.

 

[lsd]

Meh the new wink firmware borked my thermostat control. I have a Trane z wave tstat and it had been working up until recently. Now when I set it to cool a couple degrees lower it will instead drop the heating temp lower wtf?

Please keep us posted. I am also considering trying SmartThings out.

+1 The inop tstat is the last straw for me, It's been far worse than my vera lite experience. My smartthings hub should be here next week.

 

[twomonsters]

I contacted Wink support about my order that I placed on Monday and I was told the bundle that I purchased hub,lights, and trippers needed to be bundled together and should ship sometime this week.

I hope this is not a sign of things to come, you would think if something was on backorder I would at least get a notification. I emailed there tech support a few days ago about the issue and never got a response back.

Maybe they were just swamped with Christmas orders.

 

[aosmer]

Hello everyone, I've been following this thread for the past several months. I just wanted to shed some positive light on wink, as that has been my experience so far. As of now, I only have some Link bulbs (10) and a nest thermostat. I also have a Pivot Power Genius on order. I picked wink up as a black friday deal. I agree with the complaints about offline functionality. Other than the delay because of that my Wink hub has been rock solid since I got it, so about a month or so. The other annoyance is sometimes the light status is slow to report. Scheduling has worked every time. Considering I got the hub basically for free, I have nothing to complain about. Thanks to all the posters, as this has become the best guide for Wink on the internet.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

And now one Tripper is no longer working -- the one reporting "low battery" is reporting closed all the time. I'll replace the battery tomorrow and see if that fixes it, as it is above my garage door and I don't have time to mess with it today especially since it is my wife's garage door and she could be home any minute while I would be working on it.

My geofencing which automatically locks and unlocks my doors appears to have failed to work on 2 separate trips yesterday and about 5 minutes ago the notifications just fired and locked and unlocked my door 4x :/

Having said that generally the $200 schlage zwave deadbolt has always shown its correct status in wink and it locks up at night at 11pm automatically.

One of the reviews on Amazon said that the doors would randomly unlock. I'm not inclined to trust any home automation system that is cloud-based with my door locks, and especially not Wink.

 

[Kaido]

I would love for Quirky to get their act together and roll out a solid update but based on their past history there is just no way that's going to happen. I believe it's a systemic problem with their management/ownership. After waiting for over 45 minute for tech support numerous times, as I talk to them I'm smiling over how insane the things they say are. To top it off, like others have mentioned, no reply via email after giving me their email address.

Not to mention the fake 5 star reviews on Amazon. You may be fooling some folks Quirky but not me. I'm on to you and your bogus excuses.

With that said I hope I am wrong and they do fix their product because I would like to get more use out of their 99 cent hub.

Yeah...just look at the reviews for the Aros, original Spotter, or Hub on Amazon. Eek! Part of the problem is other manufacturer's willingness to play nice with Wink. From a review of the Relay:

REALLY disappointed to learn (after spending over an hour on hold waiting for support rep) that Wink has a special, contractual agreement with Philips to omit several key features of the Wink platform when it comes to Philips Hue bulbs. The ONLY thing that the Wink platform is authorized to do is turn INDIVIDUAL lights on/off, change color, dim setting. NO grouping, NO robots, NO shortcuts. And according to the support rep with whom I spoke, there is no plan to change this. Wink Relay and Hub going right back to Amazon! So terribly disappointing...

If I remember right, Lutron had similar limitations setup in their system, with how things can be controlled & in what way. Based on the Schlage lock feedback in this thread, I'd imagine it's the same deal with them too (or just negligence in adding full features on both of their parts). As far as the Hue goes..."hey, spend $60 on this cool light bulb, but screw you if you want to integrate it"

They need to unify protocols, but they won't (the industry in general). Let Thread take over hardware (IPv6 ZigBee). Let Apple take over the software authentication layer (their Airplay system is excellent - imagine that level of ease-of-use with home automation!). Then let manufacturers go to town creating cool, cheap stuff that has full functionality no matter what system you buy. That will NEVER happen, but maybe someone will do it well enough to really buy into. Wink is right on the brink, but yeah - based on their history, who knows.

Again - we're six months into rollout here & people are still having issues. Not to mention, no Windows phone support (aka I'm not buying a Wink system for my mom to make her life easier because she has one) & no computer control via webpage, so I can't just pull up a command when I'm surfing the net. I'm halfway hoping Samsung brings the heat with their Smart Things acquisition - they are really good at filling the gaps that other manufacturers leave open, plus they have the all-around hardware lineup to really make it awesome - televisions, TV players, tablets, smartphones, the works. I'd love to have an OOTB system that comes with the big boys like Crestron, where I can control it from my TV, a touchpanel on the wall, a computer, a mobile device, whatever. We'll get there...someday.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

+1 The inop tstat is the last straw for me, It's been far worse than my vera lite experience. My smartthings hub should be here next week.

Cool, keep me posted. To be honest, I am more interested in sensors than almost anything else. I'd like to sell the wife on lighting and had planned on replacing our living room overheads with Philips Hue bulbs, but I just can't make that investment with Wink right now and I definitely can't roll Wink out to be used in my house. I would NEVER hear the end of it. Right now, only my office has lighting controlled with the hub and the Trippers for garage door sensors are just a test.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Again - we're six months into rollout here & people are still having issues. Not to mention, no Windows phone support (aka I'm not buying a Wink system for my mom to make her life easier because she has one) & no computer control via webpage, so I can't just pull up a command when I'm surfing the net. I'm halfway hoping Samsung brings the heat with their Smart Things acquisition - they are really good at filling the gaps that other manufacturers leave open, plus they have the all-around hardware lineup to really make it awesome - televisions, TV players, tablets, smartphones, the works. I'd love to have an OOTB system that comes with the big boys like Crestron, where I can control it from my TV, a touchpanel on the wall, a computer, a mobile device, whatever. We'll get there...someday.

There's really no excuse for the issues they're still having IMO. I mean, the app STILL doesn't always reflect device status correctly a good portion of the time. They also haven't rolled out many new hardware products in the last six months that I've seen, and even when internet connectivity is fine, you still see significant lag when trying to control devices. Also I'd love a centralized web page with gauges and dashboards so I could monitor my ENTIRE house from one spot rather than using a clumsy Smartphone app. I was thinking I could build one in SharePoint based on emails from Wink, but I don't know that I want to invest the time in it when I will likely look at other options soon.

I'm not mad. I knew about the low ratings and problems when I bought it in October but the deal was good enough that it was worth the risk for testing purposes. Maybe they'll improve and I can stick with them but I have a feeling SmartThings will end up winning the war.

I've also heard about HomeKit but don't know much about it. Other than it being a software framework, is Apple intending to enter the market with a home automation hub at some point?

 

[ieee_raider]

I just wanted to share some tips now that we have widget support (on android and iOS)

One of my big hangups with wink is that it does not show status of z-wave lights and receptacles. So if the app happens to show the switch is on, then you have to press it off then back on in the app to get it to turn on.

Well, with widgets, you link those to shortcuts. Those shortcuts can do many things.
So what I've done is create a number of shortcut widgets with functions such as:
*Living Room On (turns on all lights in my living room 100%)
*Living Room Dim (turns on all lights in my living room 25%)
*Living Room Off (turns off all lights in my living room)
While it would take a lot more work to program a shortcut for each individual light, I felt like doing groups like this makes it pretty easy and easily accessible. You don't have to open the app or dig into the right spot, all the shortcuts are right there on the home screen.

I currently have:
5 Linear Z-Wave Dimmer switches
6 Z-Wave Receptacles
3 Z-Wave Plug-in Switches
2 GE Link Bulbs
1 Kwikset deadbolt

I have some door/window sensors ready to install, just haven't gotten to it yet.

 

[anthonylavado]

I've been following this thread since it was created, and wanted to sign up and let y'all know that I've created a subreddit for Wink so there can be some organized discussion as well.

Feel free to check it out - http://www.reddit.com/r/winkhub

 

[anthonylavado]

I've also heard about HomeKit but don't know much about it. Other than it being a software framework, is Apple intending to enter the market with a home automation hub at some point?

My understanding is that HomeKit works as a way to group control from various areas together on iOS. It allows existing home automation software to register a home, rooms, and the various things that can be controlled in each room. Then it allows all of this to be controlled by Siri. It kind of gives each app a way to pool their resources together, without having to add extra radios or any extra programs. Like an aggregation system if you will.

 

[CSI007]

For the first time since setting up our system the lights are acting screwy. I have our bedroom lights set to dim at 10pm. Only 1 did out of the three. The app seems to be acting weird so I reset the hub and now only the other 2 bulbs are taking commands.

Is the wink service down tonight?

 

[bozack]

I only have three lutron dimmers but so far I have had no major issues, they all report status, the service has been up pretty reliably, the only issue I had was when I was transferring a lot of stuff over my network and things slowed down. Only gripe I have is I wish they had the Caseta switches supported.

 

[aosmer]

Looks like I jinxed my luck of not having any Wink issues, the app keeps telling me it's unable to communicate with the server whenever I do anything. Although it's not just me looks like they are having server issues tonight. http://status.winkapp.com/

Identified - Due to a problem with Electric Imp infrastructure, we're experiencing degraded Wink API performance across all products
Jan 5, 03:54 UTC

 

[Kaido]

Looks like I jinxed my luck of not having any Wink issues, the app keeps telling me it's unable to communicate with the server whenever I do anything. Although it's not just me looks like they are having server issues tonight. http://status.winkapp.com/

LOL on the eve of CES no less. Poor guys

 

[sprchrgd1]

Damn you North Korea

 

[Daniel Harlow]

Only gripe I have is I wish they had the Caseta switches supported.

Did you try one of the Caseta switches with no success? I wrote support weeks ago about supporting these and never got any type of response. I was hoping to use them for our exterior lights as dimmers will not work with them and I have no neutral wires of course!

Daniel

 

[BillinGlendale]

Damn you North Korea

Sure blame it on Samsung. Oh wait, they're in South Korea.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

For the first time since setting up our system the lights are acting screwy. I have our bedroom lights set to dim at 10pm. Only 1 did out of the three. The app seems to be acting weird so I reset the hub and now only the other 2 bulbs are taking commands.

Is the wink service down tonight?

I had trouble with my lights not turning on or off late last night, but a reboot of the hub did fix it for me. According to their twitter account, there were issues last night. Their status page also shows a issues last night.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Update on my Trippers: the battery in one completely died and it stopped reporting. I replaced it with a new battery and it seems to work fine.

NOW, however, my second Tripper is reporting a low battery. I will replace it but if these batteries are dead within a month or so, I'm done with them.

 

[layyze]

Ahaha, the "family eye roll"... That's so true.

Oh man... What I would pay for a Wink hub V2 with those features...

Smartthings v2 will supposedly have offline support and an ethernet port and is somewhere on the horizon.

I feel like I got what I paid for ($0) with the Wink Hub. Which is all fine and well, but I'm definitely jumping ship once there is a viable option (like a theoretical smartthings v2). The instabilities, lack of an official online forum for feedback, and lack of documentation may well doom what is otherwise a nice looking line of products at a good price point. A new hub *might* fix the first issue, but I've seen no effort with the other two.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Smartthings v2 will supposedly have offline support and an ethernet port and is somewhere on the horizon.

I feel like I got what I paid for ($0) with the Wink Hub. Which is all fine and well, but I'm definitely jumping ship once there is a viable option (like a theoretical smartthings v2). The instabilities, lack of an official online forum for feedback, and lack of documentation may well doom what is otherwise a nice looking line of products at a good price point. A new hub *might* fix the first issue, but I've seen no effort with the other two.

I hope that happens, as it sounds like a great step forward. Agree 100% on Wink -- I didn't invest much in it and it seems I will be able to reuse my GE bulbs, but I am shocked at how they operate their business. I knew going in it may not work out, so I'm not mad and I am glad I didn't buy a ton of stuff yet.