Athom has released Homey Pro Backups (formerly Homey+) subscription as a paid service.
This functionality is available as of Homey v4.0.
You need:
Homey to run Firmware v4.0.0
The mobile App to be updated to 4.0.x
Homey+ comes with Homey Cloud Backups as first service.
(Athom has not yet announced anything about what other services come with Homey+)
This topic is meant as central place for questions and discussion around the Homey+ subscription.
Homey+ can be purchased in the Homey app under More (âŚ) > Tap your profile picture > Subscriptions. This subscription costs ⏠0,99 / month (Recuring) and the first month (monthly) is Free (purchased through the App Store or Play store)
Alternatively, a one-year prepaid Homey Pro Backups subscription can be bought in the Homey Store for ⏠10 (That makes it two months free ).
(conversions may apply)
I just saw this, Homey+, when browsing the knowledgebase. I donât know if itâs been there for long and if itâs just a âplace holderâ but it looks like backup might be coming in 4.0, as a paid service.
Finaly! Some people will hate it because itâs subscription based, but I rather have a paid backup instead of no backup at all. And if it is indeed only âŹ10,- per year I can live with it. Reinstalling everything due to a hardware failure is way more expensive. Hope this will be availanle a.s.a.p.
I think this is stupid! Will Athom also pay developers who made there product a succes for every download of there app?
On one hand isât open en community driven, so people spend a lot of time developing great apps, and on the other hand they charge you for extra features.
I see it as a an optional opt in extra or perhaps a â+â.
You have the choice, to Pay $10 a year towards hosting of backups and what ever else. Or not, the side effecting being you instead spend the time reinstalling your network if you upgrade homey or you have a problem.
Its very clearly a Money vs Time equation, that you are more then welcome to choose for yourself.
I also wouldnât judge it until you have all the facts, for example is there a free period when you buy a new homey like other controllers? (ie. upgrade).
I guess âŹ10 a year for a cloud is reasonable. However, I have my own cloud / backup already in place and would love to be able to use just that. Technically this shouldnât be hard to implement, however I do fear that Athom is going this path that others have gone beforeâŚ
$10 euro a year, yes please. This is the cheapest subscription service i have ever seen. And if it offers reasonable services including backup, take my money.
Remember, recurring revenues fees are needed for a company to operate successfully. So long as those fees are not unreasonable, I think this is fair. I moved from Zipato whos backup option is $100 Euro a year.
And in relation to the app developers, personally I think Athom should have a buy option in the app store to help developers out. Then its up to the developers if they wish to sell them, trial periods or give them away for free.
Just my 2 cents.
Super, u donât like pay subscription, then buy an ha controller with build in local backup e.g. HC2 or 3 thatâs at least âŹ100 more expensive=10 years of Homey+ subscription and perhaps in 10 years Athom or Fibaro wonât exist anymore.
Peeps that complain for a subscription perhaps never rewarded a community developer for his/her hard work.
Bring Homey+ on Athom, and take my money as long as it would spare me two or more days for reincluding all my z-wave devices and fix flows because some stupid mistake I every now and then do (like installing Fibaro app from the store over an Alpha )
EDIT: P.S. At least I hope those hard working community devs would not being asked to pay for Homey +.
Let me start by saying I think itâs a good decision by Athom to introduce a subscription model to generate income, glad @Emile let loose the âI donât believe in a subscription modelâ mantra he had when he started Athom.
It does raise a concern however that a long promised feature will only be available through such subscription. It makes me wonder what will happen to other promised features such as Homey Security for example.
We know a community developer initiative to develop a backup feature wasnât received well by Athom (as it now turns out it will interfere with their income!) and you might even say it was counteracted by the fact Athom didnât want to give out an API key and support the initiative.
I do sincerely hope Athom doesnât leave thousends of Heimdall users in the dark by deciding Homey Security will be the only way to use Homey in such way and put it behind a payed subscription.
I would rather see Athom introducing a payment model in the app store for apps by community developers than handing out Homey+ subscriptions to community developers. (Let them take 30% in the first year and 15% in the subsequent years an app is published)
If I couldnât use your app anymore Iâll move on to an open source solution or build something myself. I agree it would be better to generate income for both developers and Homey by paying for apps.
Cannot agree more, perhaps far the best solution and personally I would be happy to pay even for some specific and letâs call them âout of ordinaryâ apps developed by Athom itself.
At times, I have been vocal about it on Slack and even mentioned such solution on this forum and maybe on the old one, too.
I have edited my post using words I initially had in my head. I trust now you take the right conclusion about what I actually meant to say, Danee.
A couple of days agoi walked through my house⌠I saw all the removed switches from the wall and looked to Homey and thought âplease never go dieâ⌠I have i guess more then 400 flows orso and when someting happen with homey it is a lot of work to restore everyting⌠So i love it to spend 10 euro each year to be sure, when i get a new homey after the old one is die, i donât have to remake al the flows againâŚ
A subscription could be a good idea. But charging customers, regardless of the amount, for basic (yet critical) functionality such as backup is IMO a bad move. Iâve never heard of any company to walk this road before. If Athom wonât offer local backup my guess is that their revenue will drop due to decrease in sales and the second hand market will explode. This leads to revised subscription charges and maybe even the need for a paid app store. Since the product as we know it today can be seen as somewhat of a beta product where Athom seems to focus more on âcool but uselessâ features (Energy as an example), rather than actually fixing known issues, the downward spiral will be set in motion. And that wonât end well.
I donât mind paying for useful services that simplifies my life⌠but I think that this idea is only half. Indeed do offer this as a paid easy service, hosted by athom.
But also make it available to host the backup yourself, as an offline solution.
Backup shouldnât be premium, only the cloud service.
I just want to say Iâm very glad to see this. When it comes to paying for stuff there will always be people complaining, but I really donât care. What I care for is that Athom doesnât go bankrupt leaving me with an useless and unsupported device.
Hell, if they kept local access and interface, I would have paid to use flow.homey.app!!
So, Athom, yes please! Go ahead and start generating a more sustainable source of income! Though, you could have been thinking a lot earlier about this by splitting Homey in offline /local (free) and online/remote access/syncing (paid).
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