A few weeks ago, we introduced Skydrop Plus, a subscription service to provide additional features and better-quality weather data to all Skydrop customers. We anticipated and have received plenty of push-back. If nothing else, we learned Skydrop Nation is extremely passionate. Your feedback helped us realize that complete transparency is the best approach. We would like to be more forthcoming about the situation for Skydrop, its continuing operation, and the compulsory nature of the Skydrop Plus subscription.
In 2014, our founders set out to create the best smart sprinkler controller on the market and help the world save one of our most precious resources — water. After 5 years, we believe we have achieved part of that goal. We feel strongly that the Skydrop Smart Watering algorithm is the best available. Although all products have their strengths and weaknesses, we believe Halo and Arc are “best of breed” as evidenced by thousands and thousands of happy customers. Unfortunately, a great product alone doesn’t make a business. Despite great efforts from many individuals, we were not able to secure the right funding to grow Skydrop to the point where we could revolutionize the irrigation market as we intended.
At the end of 2018 and after exhausting all options, Skydrop ownership made the difficult decision to discontinue operations. The immediate concern was for the many loyal customers that would see their smart controllers reduced to being dumb traditional timers when the Skydrop Cloud ceased operating. A few of the passionate (former) employees wanted to find a way to maintain the Skydrop Cloud and determine a path forward so that customers could continue using the devices and services they have enjoyed. The owners agreed to allow us to at least maintain the cloud services and retain a single full-time customer support employee.
For the last several months, as we have transitioned to positions at new companies, we have volunteered our time and personal resources to keep the cloud services up and available. Of course, this is not a long-term solution. We need to get Skydrop onto reasonable financial footing so it can either be acquired or continue operations with a few full- or part-time employees. Our options were: 1) increase sales (hard to do with no sales or marketing team); 2) ask the existing customers to pay a minimal fee to support the continuing availability of the cloud services or 3) shut down the cloud services immediately.
We sincerely apologize for this unwelcome news. Our hope is that our customers will see the value in the service and be willing to contribute to the ongoing costs of the system. We’ve also decided to disable, for now, the option to pay the yearly fee with an in-app purchase. We want to avoid the situation where the company accepts money for services they are unable to deliver.
Thank you for your passion and support of Skydrop.
Matt, Former VP of Engineering
Dan, Former Director of Software
Audric, Customer Service
Seeing that Hubitat is not a cloud based system the risk of our home automation being reduced to dumb timers is probably not an issue. As for the cloud portion, like anything out of our control, it can go away but, I would imagine the cloud based portion could be replicated by some smart people here. The only thing my setup requires from the cloud is messaging, handled by pushover. Dashboards can be handled locally via VPN. Weather data is derived from a weather station on site. So in reality if they pulled the plug today, there would be little to no effect and automation continue just as they have. Workarounds for any bugs or deficiencies are dealt with as they arise.
My point is we buy a hubitat and are getting amazing software, updates and support. there has been talk before that the model of selling a device without a recurring revenue stream is not sustainable. Yes skydrop was more cloud dependant. But Hubitat would become much less useful without the employees. they deal with device vendors and building new device handlers and apps, don't get me wrong I have many user written devices and apps..
We are getting a lot for FREE here, at some point the hardware sales are going to slow to a trickle and there will be a funding problem. I'm not sure how they make money at this point with the price of the hub some reasonable. Maybe sharptools is where the money is being made? just guessing it is somehow tied to hubitat and that is fine with me if it is true.
What things would you be willing to pay for that hubitat currently doesn't have?
As early adopters how can we help drive the evolution of hubitat?
Hubitat originally planned to launch "premium" services for a fee. That plan was scrapped, but it may be proposed again in the future (see here, among other posts from staff: Premium Services). I don't think there's been any statement since as to why this plan was changed or if there's a good chance it will be actually offered at some point. In either case, the original plan was for these to be just "cloud extras," with the hub continuing it work in every other way with or without them. (I can't remember what they were thinking of offering, but considering they do have a cloud endpoint that requires ongoing maintenance and is used for things like cloud dashboards, the mobile app, Alexa/Google Home support, and integration with cloud-only services, any of those would be a good guess--not a great guess since all of them currently work as-is and many of them have been around since the beginning and I doubt they'd backtrack and charge for things they didn't charge for before, but all we can do is guess at this point.)
Staff have also stated in the past that they have ideas for the future of the organization that they will not share publicly. in any case, I'm happy they seem to be doing well so far and I certainly hope they continue to do so in the future! I'd gladly pay a reasonable subscription fee for access to "premium" cloud (?) services or even just their amazing, responsive support.
In the event they do totally fail, unless they open up that is currently closed, the truth is that it's not 100% local. It still requires a cloud connection to download the initial firmware (unless something has changed recently) as well as updates (not like you can just download a firmware file from somewhere and upload it to the hub yourself), so even if you already have a perfectly functional hub, it will be a tricky situation if it dies, even if you have a spare (less so if it's already loaded with firmware, though). Obviously the cloud would stop working, so cloud integrations like the Alexa skill (the app might work...) or any of the native or community SmartThings integrations would stop working. If this happens--and I obviously hope it doesn't--I think I'll continue to use it as long as I can, eventually probably just becoming a Zigbee and maybe Z-Wave radio for Home Assistant (via MQTT, as I did when I transitioned to it from ST and Home Assistant in the first place) until I find something to replace the Z-Wave and (especially--this is something Hubitat excels at) Zigbee portion.
As consumers of the product/service, we can’t make sure hubitat stays in business. Only company management and their investors can do that.
Any tech startup, or small business generally, runs that risk. But the fact that other cloud-based services couldn’t sustain themselves financially may or may not apply to Hubitat.
I think it’s unlikely that they plan to merely pump out more hubs until their expenses outstrip their revenues to the point of financial oblivion. That doesn’t sound like a great business model, and I’m willing to give them more credit than that.
Ultimately, as a consumer I believe we can trust that they know how to keep themselves in business better than we do, or we can vote with our wallets and use another platform. There’s not a lot in between.
In my opinion (and backed up by numerous studies and market research), the overall market is still growing strongly. The market for selling Hubitat Hubs has not abated. Of course, no one has a crystal ball, and only the founders know for sure, but it would appear likely that the hardware sales are still increasing.
Furthermore, it would also appear that the competitive advantages of HE (exceptional strong support, local execution, brilliant automation capabilities, etc.) are continuing to distinguish the HE product in the marketplace. As well, in terms of competitive threats, who's coming on strong? I can think of Google (may represent a threat with their Nest series of products), but I can't think of anyone else. Imagine, only a year plus in operation, and they are already the cream of the crop! And, they are starting to get the "buzz" for that in the highly competitive technical press.
Therefore, I believe that hardware sales will continue to support the company for the foreseeable future. Of course, I have no solid data to back up that assumption, so we shall have to watch and wait.
Oh this thread reminds me of something very similar on the Stringify forum. Many people saying, oh don't worry. Then they got bought by Comcast and within a year were history (RIP). Of course we pat ourselves on the back for selecting a local solution. But in reality it would have a fairly short half-life without the support and infrastructure afforded it right now. I hope Hubitat can make the business model work. I would certainly pay a subscription if and when the time comes to introduce "premium services".
Well... That is very use dependent - as is the definition of "short".
Unless I add new devices to my house that require platform level support (no current plans to do so), I could actually live with the hub as-is for a few years.
Is a few years a "short" half-life? Not to me, but again, that's subjective.
Only if your hub survives the 2 years. Remember HE is cloud dependent. So getting another hub is unusable as you wouldn’t be able to register the device. Also a lot of the cloud connectivity you use now for Alexa. Google and IFTTT would be gone.
Hubitat isn’t as “cloud-free” as you might think it is. If the unfortunate did happen your hubs life and usefulness drastically reduce.
Well, yeah... If the hub died I would then have to do something else as I couldn't replace it.
So there is a little exposure there - but it is certainly NOT the same as a cloud-only service ceasing operation, as if the hub doesn't die (which is way more likely than not in a couple year window) - then functionality continues just fine.
I agree. All of these threads that periodically pop up re: the future of hubitat, IMHO, are a bit of a waste of time. Without real information, we’re all just letting our minds wander.
Hypothetically if Hubitat went “belly up”, you will still have a usable hub. You would not get anymore platform updates, but you would not be left for dead in the water.
With the uncertainty of WINK, this is why I chose a local based automation system. I experienced WINK’s outages and blackouts in my home.
I have faith in Patrick Stuart and his crew making this a self sustaining platform.
I think the biggest risk comes from acquisition by a major player that has different ideas for the company, product and future. The current company staff may not have influence in this post acquisition.
Fascinating discussion and I agree mostly academic. The broader question is whether any hub based business will survive in a 5G future where WiFi, Zigbee, and ZWave become obsolete. If a smart 5G TV can be a home hub who needs Hubitat or even Alexa? The next 5 years will be a battle for home smart devices and protocols. Let the games begin.
I dont think 5G obsolete either of those 3.
Who wants to pay money to a carrier every month for every IoT/Home Automation device to have connectivity.
I also don't see how power consumption optimizations in the cellular system can reduce it below what it takes a device to talk to a receiver in my house. yes they might get it below today's HA devices but not below tomorrows.
Just to throw in my 2 cents on how cloud dependant Hubitat is since it's been mentioned. Due to some storms yesterday I have been without internet for over 24 hours now in my house. Hubitat has been running strong with no issues. All of my automations have been working including everything that Hubitat controls locally like my Hue hub and my Lutron Caseta dimmers and picos. When I push a button the action still happens. True I don't have Pushover sending me messages or the cloud based dashboards but the real reason I bought a Hubitat is working.
I agree with Kevin. Acquisition is the most likely scenario. And that presents a catch-22 for the business...
Hubitat is the HA solution for the savy folks who have been burned by the company behind their chosen HA solution either discontinuing the products or being acquired by more profit-seeking owners who greatly increase the cost of ownership. More-monetized solutions are easier to setup and manage than Hubitat, but at the cost of the buyer being locked in to the company.
That lock-in is what is of greatest value to a potential acquiring company and thus the basis for what Hubitat (the company) is worth in a sale.
That "value" is worthless to we purchasers of Hubitat products. What is of value to us is an ongoing source of information, hardware and software. All of those things can and do come from a variety of sources and thus are immune to disruption by company changes. The two things that are not are the hub hardware and its software.
The hardware will last many years. So even if the company is no longer there at some point, we will need a way to continue to install software.
Here's the dilemma... the company owners' profit most by keeping the hub code proprietary. The company's value however depends upon hub software being available in-perpetuity and the only way insure that is for it to be made ooen-source.
