I was perusing the Hubitat website and I noticed there was a section of the contact form for "OEM Inquiry", as well as a section for "Reseller/Distributor". I am curious, is anyone currently purchasing Hubitats wholesale and reselling them? As someone who runs a smart home company I am definitely interested in doing something like this. Perhaps professional installing of the product. The control of the Hubitat seems really great. I am interested if anyone is currently doing this? Are there any "Certified Installer" programs for Hubitat? If not, can this be expected any time soon? How do my fellow community members feel about this?
At least one other person wrote a message about third party resellers... and he commented on the need for Hubitat Admins to be local to the Hub. His position seems to be: that requirement makes it impossible for a third party to sell it.
You cannot create or edit Rules, or alter Apps config, except through the local GUI. A VPN is the solution, obviously. Various products work in this manner although I think they obscure the VPN word. Deploying OpenVPN on a Raspberry Pi is both simple and cheap. OpenVPN supports multiple users so it's simple to create a Support ID as well as the homeowner ID(s). Add in the probability of cameras and access need to support those, again with the Feature of "Your camera data is safe, it stays inside the home." The same OpenVPN deployment yields the same solution.
Very good point, in my home setup I am currently running a simple locally based hub dashboard off a Raspberry Pi B. Realistically, an isolated network and vpn would be best practice for security purposes anyways.
I guess what I'm really curious about is whether or not the Hubitat team currently supports deployment of these hubs in a professional installation setting. Realistically, it would increase their avenues for sales. But I dont know where they stand on this sort of thing.
My plan is to offer an HE along with an RPi.. probably have the client buy their own HE and I would supply a "support" PI for an annual support fee or something. Could offer services like VPN, remote support etc. Will have a reverse tunnel thing set up to a system on my side so I can access OR just be a client off the VPN.
Something like that... haven't thought it thru exactly.
I see no harm in even selling them at a markup or with automation programming fees associated. Service technicians do this all the time with any other product. Besides, these customers will be calling you when things go wrong!
One issue for me is sales tax. I don't really want to get involved in that. Prefer consulting/programming/project management services. I can most likely get away with providing a cost of materials PI for support..
In this day of internet shopping and all things Amazon people go online and compare prices all the time. Would rather refer them directly to HE than anywhere else.
Sales tax seems like a very minor obstacle. Plus I believe my state requires sales tax on services anyways.
For me it's all about appearances. From your car, to the way you dress, to the way you present your product. I think if I have everything you need and I wear my button down shirt and drive my nissan nv200, I look like I'm ready to sell smart homes. At least a lot more than the version of me telling you to buy your own equipment, wearing carhartts, and driving my beat up old econoline. (I considered both options and decided the former was better lol.)
The state I'm incorporated in does not tax computer services fortunately. To sell anything you need a retail sales tax license etc etc.. more paperwork and headache. I don't need that especially since hardware is an insignificant part of my business. I have done pass through purchasing from time to time as required.
So for Home clients it's really not. Usually they are trying to save money however they can and usually that means going online and arguing for a better deal. I've seen this happen with the subcontractors on reno projects and interior designers.. etc. It can get old fast..
I wouldn't charge for the PI directly - that's a "materials" cost in the invoice.
I understand completely. I used to service hot tubs, and we would regularly have customers looking to order their own parts. As far as I'm concerned, if you want expert assistance, sometimes you pay part markup. Dealer-only distributors offer a lot more value in the form of training, technical support, etc. That cost gets passed down in the form of markup sometimes. And that value also gets passed down in turn, in the sense that you get quality work from an informed professional. If you had the know-how you wouldnt call me, so I wouldnt make a big stink about a few dollar here and there.
I'm curious, other than maybe tablets on the walls and tables, what would you offer the customer for a mobile interface?
Show them how to install the dashboard directly on their phones?
Well it used to be SmartThings so there was an app for that..
Generally it depends on the clients needs. Most times it's simple controls, presence triggering etc. For HE it would be a tablet with the dashboard (or a 3rd party one) or I could custom roll a simple web app using Node thanks to the PI and HE's maker app. Access would be via the PI VPN of course. Not everything thing is "there" yet with HE but enough is to make it worthwhile to a homeowner.
Besides I read somewhere about how we are supposed to worry about automation not necessarily control in these forums...
The other appeal of HE is that the system even if it ages out over the years will still be functional whether or not the company exists or technology has moved on (X10 anyone?). To me that means it becomes a part of the house like the electrical system. The goal then is to provide the advice to achieve this functionality and offer support as needed to improve on it.
I see issues much more beyond taxes.
For me the biggest hurdke is privacy issues, not sure how it is in the US but in EU you would be open yourself to a lot of litigation issues.
For example LogMeIn had to Change their software and disable the option for always available. Is now required that the customer initiates himself the request on a case by case scenario. Another thing that is now quite important on EU is the matter of RGPD..
You would need to have proper contracts in place that would cover this.
T&C for this type of things cannot be generic and some items require individual acceptance by the user. So create a lot garnish that very few read is voided as null in some situation as it goes against RGPD.
While I agree with you, and strive to do so myself, most people in the do i for me space might expect a SmartThings like app. Maybe I don't know the market, maybe I can't remove myself from what I think thier mindset is. Also surprised a customer would be willing to deal with VPN. I have customers who's job is to understand control systems and they need a lot of education on the matter.
I'm not knocking any of this at all I'm just shocked to hear there's an actual market here. I'm intrigued but have enough stress doing this on a much larger scale...
I know - I was too. My "real" work involves many things Enterprise..
Getting the user to run the vpn client app on their device is fairly trivial though. I would probably spin it as "extra security" for your remote home access.
Yes I think it is trickier in the EU.. though I do like your overall ideas of personal privacy etc - very forward thinking but also kind of clunky in some ways.
For us in the US it's relatively trivial as long as there is a proper contract. I could still be sued of course which is also quite a popular thing to do here ..
For my commercial/enterprise clients (not HA related) I sometimes have non-disclosure agreements to go along with contracts etc.
I can't really imagine that T&C would be much of an issue here. America is full of IT professionals who prepare products for use by consumers and businesses and I doubt in most cases the customers are sitting there with the IT guy walking through T&C together.
I think you can probably write that off as some blanket, by using our products you accept the terms and conditions of the various products which can be found here insert link
