To me, it sounds like they haven’t made enough money in the last couple of months (but maybe that’s my inner pessimist talking).
I know development isn’t free, but I’m afraid that in a couple of years a homey pro is still a pretty big investment, but when setting up the device it will ask “which subscriptions and extras to you want to activate”? Which is the exact reason I chose homey. I didn’t want a device that I had tot manage myself and upgrade (home assistant), I hoped I would get a off the shelf device (as much as that is possible with home assistants). And don’t get me wrong, I think the homey pro is an amazing device, but this is the second announcement (after homey cloud) where I think “was homey the right choice?”
But I’m interested to hear why homey chose a one-off purchase for this feature. Hopefully this will be explained tonight.
Personally I would be fine with Homey monetising a lot more stuff and making the hardware cheaper - also allowing an app purchase marketplace to attract more devs. Not sure of how advanced they’re talking for these flows, but if it’s a lot more in depth I’d be happy to pay up to £30 for the upgrade, especially as a one off. But I’d prefer two options, either say £500 up front or £10 a month and a £99 hardware fee. Apps I’d prefer an one off cost (like the advanced flow) but I’d happily pay £5-£10 per app also, there could also be in app purchases/cost based version upgrades. If Athom took 25% of that they’d be making money also there.
When you compare the cost of other systems with such flexibility you’d often need to pay an engineer to make changes, it runs into the thousands. Perhaps some users aren’t using there Homey much, but I have 40+ apps and hundreds of flows, I think I’m using it pretty hard, it controls everything in my home and allows control of everything through HomeKit (thanks @robertklep)
I find the lack of apps for a few technologies/brands I use a bit painful (using Virtual Devices/Homebridge/HomeyKit to get these to pull through) but eventually I hope to be able to develop my own for these (or if anyone is interested in payment to develop let me know)
Looking forward to tonights announcement, normally do a bit of flow editing/tidy up on a Wed evening, so perfect timing for me if available straight away.
Ha! Except the bridge doesn’t allow local access and do half the stuff the pro does and Athom are going to need a lot more users at 99p a month. Cover the hardware build cost at £99 and switch off access if people don’t pay the £10 a month.
To me it is just a very clever idea for making some extra money in a time where materials (especially) are short and expensive and selling Pro’s must be challenging.
Who doesn’t want the extra feature doesn’t have to buy it and still lack nothing over what they were promised when they bought their Pro.
We have come to think that it is very normal that we buy a (this) electronic product for a one-time fee and then expect it not only to be updated, but enhanced with more and more features without having to spend one euro extra. But is it?
My smart TV never got any extra features, neither did my car, stereo, etc. When Samsung announces it will update their (only top range!) phones for 5 years, we think they’re doing a great job. What extra’s do we get there? They’re more updates than enhancements too.
My opinion is that Athom is doing a very clever thing to make some more money (for extra’s!) in a time where they probably need it, as do so much other companies nowadays. Times must be challenging for Athom too; I’d be happy to support them. And I get something in return for it too. How great is that?
It doesn’t say anywhere that every new feature is going to be integrated into the Homey+ subscription…
I wouldn’t go too hard on Athom, much companies are struggling nowadays to survive in these changing times. We don’t even know what the fee will be.
And you don’t have to take it and when you do, you get something in return.
Apart from backups all those other upgrades were free already. Would you rather have Athom put those in the Homey+ subscription?
I never go hard on Athom as you know😏. I also know that nothing is for free. But in this case i think it would be better if they put it in homey+. Only for make this subscription credible. And yes for good new stuff i will pay without a doubt. The 10 euro a year is for the back-up. A reasonable raise is no problem for me.
The Homey+ subscription has IMHO become a nothingburger. Subscribers were promised that backups would only be the beginning, more stuff would follow. How long has it been? Two years? Still only the backup. And while €10 isn’t that much, it’s more like ransom money since it’s the only kind of backup available to us.
Well, that’s up to all users to spend some beer via paypal. But I need only one hand to count the donations of the last years.
If Athom is selling Homey Pro and is promoting all the possibilities under their brand (“thousands od devices…”), new users won’t pay for the apps they believed they belong to Homey.
And who says every new upgrade has to be included in the Homey+ subscription. That was never promised. We even got upgrades since Homey+ that were free of charge.
As was never mentioned that IF a new feature were to be included in Homey+, tuis wouldn’t raise it’s subscription fee.
Let’s wait first for what Athom has to offer tonight and at what price.
Well, in the end; that is what both users and dev’s signed up for.
But do not get me wrong: I regularly back dev’s with a beer (or some), and would be willing to pay a small fee for an app to. I think both Athom’s and dev’s hard work could/should be rewarded!
I hope a lot of my community friends here do too!
Straw man argument. Never said a word about “Advanced Flow” or what should or shouldn’t be included in Homey+, but fact of the matter, there has been exactly zero development of the Homey+ offering. The way it was announced you would think there was a roadmap of upcoming features, but when nothing has materialized after this amount of time it seems evident that there never was anything else in the pipe.
And so; is Homey+ is nog Homey Pro Backup, it it exactly doing what it says. And further development of additional features within this subscription ended long ago.
People just expect Athom to keep developing features for free, but all development has to be paid in a commercial company in the end.
Athom already gives us a lot of upgrades for free. I see no reason why they shouldn’t be allowed to introduce 1 additional paid feature now.
If you don’t like it or think it’s to expensive, just don’t get it. Then your Homey is still als good (or bad) as yesterday. And probably a lot better than it was when you bought it.
Except no “additional features” ever materialized. None. Despite them clearly stating that the backup was only the start, the first part of the subscription service. Evidently there was no substance behind that statement, the backup was all they had. It’s that kind of communication that turn out to be of questionable credibility that erodes my faith in Athom and I don’t think I’m alone.
Oh please, stop with the straw men already! Where did I ever comment on the feature announced today?
