I don't want to be out of line here to the HE staff, But it would be a good business decision to show a lil grace here and give some kind of discount to wink owners that are forced to have to jump ship because of there latest decision made by Wink. in part it would show why HE would be a better hub and a better platform to come to.
I know HE has a business to run but giving former Wink owners a discount lets say to $89.99 would show that not all IOT companies are asses about things. Wink owners are in essence being extorted and held hostage I for one have already said i would pay any price for HE, But through no fault of their owns Wink users are being thrown under the bus here.
So as I stated earlier I don't want to be out of line here, But if any HE staff are reading this could you show why we consider you the best platform and best IOT platform out here and show some luv to our Wink brothers and sisters give a lil discount to these folks on a HE hub.
Wink was founded by Nathan Smith (who's now with Amazon) under the Quirky umbrella, which was headed by Ben Kaufman at the time. Quirky went belly-up and "sold" Wink to Flextronics (now Flex) in lieu of dues owed (~$15 million). This happened in 2015. Flex sold Wink for a handsome profit (sale price ~$53 million) in June 2017 to i.am+, which is owned by will.i.am. Wink has been in a down-spiral ever since.
Nathan Smith left Wink for Amazon just before the sale to i.am+.
During Wink's early days (late 2013, early 2014) several of the early beta-testers were in regular contact with Nate. I had his cell phone number at one point of time .....
Itās a complete di$k move by Wink. They had a pretty good WYSIWYG interface, easy connectivity, and for the most part reliability until not too long ago where new support and features seemed to evaporate behind the competition. Aside from the very early days in which they bricked a few userās systems, their product was pretty solid with Lutron Caseta support and good radios.
I kept with them simply because it worked out of the box more or less, however I heard rumors that tech support went unanswered and the writing was on the wall. My guess is that they made a product that worked and without planned obsolescence or new features, ST and other competitors had more lucrative offers. I also didnāt want to rely on the internet to issue commands so HE looked promising.
So, as of last night this looks like their Hail Mary pass to see if they can drum up extra revenue to stay afloat. Personally, I think they didnāt plan their business model well and didnāt know when to trim the fat.
It is pretty poor move on their part and this by no means looks well. 5 days is barely enough to switch systems so I suspect itās intentional. Thereās no one out there that will like to pay for another subscription either.
My wife said, āitās like buying a lamp. And after a few years, you get a random message saying that it will stop working unless you start paying a monthly fee by midnight...ā
I just call it for what it is: blackmail.
Iāll also mention that I have a good friend his work for the Black Eyed Peas and Will I am (however you spell it) on an album cover and posters. He said that he was a really nice/great person to work with which is a rarity in my industry. I just think he probably is not the best when it comes to running this particular business.
I donāt think thatās a fair comparison, but I do think that explains why so many people are upset after Winkās recent announcement.
Edit: To elaborate just a bit, @JasonJoel said it well above:
Hubitat is closer to a lamp than wink, but even we hubitat users run some risk of inheriting a paperweight in the future if something goes awry at Hubitat Inc.
A class action lawsuit won't provide any remedy, but a small claims court suit will, especially if Wink does not send legal representation to the judgement hearing. SCC is limited to $2000.00 in damages, so if you sue for $100.00 then it is a no-brainer
I don't think so. In addition to what @marktheknife said, Wink isn't limiting the use of your devices to their hub. They aren't stopping you from moving them elsewhere. And purchase of their hub came with no guarantee of service.
That being said, Google/Nest handled the Revolv hub shutdown in a far better way.
I donāt think wink ever granted anyone a perpetual right to use their cloud services for free.
@aaiyar is right, take your devices that are paired to wink and use another system. Thatās your remedy.
Edit: the remedy to not getting locked out of a hub when the cloud shuts down is not to buy one that is cloud-dependent. Enter the hubitat elevation hub .
When I got my Wink-2 hub it said that it was connected to free cloud service and came with support. Everyone has been using this up until now. Now they hold a gun to your head and say, if you don't pay the $4.99 within a week, your device (which you paid over $100.00 for) gets bricked.
It never had a limit stated. It was part of their marketing strategy and was because everyone was upset with RING not being able to locally store video on an SD chip and charging to see your video. It is sort of like buying a new car but it doesn't come with tires
I will never in a million years pay their ransom. I will however help their marketing effort by setting up a video camera in my back yard, and ceremoniously saying goodbye to my Wink-2 Hub, sentencing it to death, and finally blowing it to bits with a shotgun. I will then post it on the media for everyone to comment about!
I get the frustration, I really do. But you're going to spend the roughly $30-50 to file the SCC case, then take a day off from work and go do this? Also courts are pretty much shut down right now so expect to be 3 months out on the docket, long after they've shut their doors. And have you read your EULA? You almost certainly signed away your right to sue in your jurisdiction and you have to file suit in theirs. Which means when you file in your jurisdiction, they can submit to the court and have it remanded to their jurisdiction, possibly counter sue you and now FORCE you to show up in court or risk a summary judgement and now you have to pay to fly somewhere for your $100 possible judgement. Not sure why that's a no brainer. On top of this, they filed for bankruptcy protection which means even if you win, your $100 goes to the BACK of the line behind all of the millions they already owe a bunch of other people = read, you'll never see a dime.
I really get everyone's frustrations here. But they're going out of business obviously and are doing a Hail Mary to try to stay alive. . It sucks, I get it. I bought a Petnet smartfeeder for $200 that is trying to do the same thing sending an email saying they're going to charge me $5/mo or they're going out of business, the same price for just ONE device, not a whole smart hub mind you! While I gripe, I then shrug my shoulders and say "Huh, I lost $200, that sucks... all the people who work for that company are about to lose their jobs, is my problem really so big in the grand scheme of things?" People have been working at Wink for months without a paycheck. Let's keep that in mind...
The HE staff don't have to do anything I say, I run my own business from home selling a service so I can say what i have been advised by business advisers. Hence the reason why i said I didn't want to be out of line.
There is a lot of stuff going on in the world and a lot of companies are using this moment to shit on people (while we have 18% nationwide unemployment I should add), understanding that some may not like what Wink is doing and trying to help them by reducing the cost of your alternative product is good public relations.
If I say hey you should switch to HE it's a top quality company they may say ok, But then if HE says we understand and we are going to give Wink users a discount it's goodwill that will pass on by those Wink users saying hey HE is a standup company.
Marktheknife, HE can do what ever they want with their company that's why i said it in my earlier post, just like this whole covid-19 mess the public will remember the companies that helped and the ones that were dicks, plain and simple.
In fairness, it literally says āno monthly fees or subscriptionsā prominently on the side of the box. No little asterisk saying āfor nowā or anything.
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