I think a customizable dashboard that really works well with Vera would be great, and is much needed. I’d suggest considering bundling this with your other subscriptions and just doing one premium subscription service vs. lots of nicking and diming on lots of different subscription options that are a la carte. Maybe just a premium offering for $20/mo that includes the camera storage, security service, custom dashboard, etc. etc. I’d personally have no issue paying a couple bucks a month for a solid well supported dashboard though. I’ve paid for lots of others as one-time, all to seem them go relatively unsupported over time.
exactly its the problem of business models. We want to make sure the business model is the right business model so that service could be provided continually.
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melih,
trademarks and copyrights only apply within a particular industry. The vera name is used by this file security company and by this home automation company (you guys) Nobody is going to confuse the two of them.
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melih,
I recognize the trend today in software to go to subscription model. But you are completely missing the point on the idea of tying a home automation product like the Ezlo hub to a subscription.
The issue isn’t whether or not it’s worth $2.95 a month or whatever. The issue is how long are you going to be charging that $2.95
Imagine for example that a $2.95 a month sub model is successful in 2020. By 2030, ten years from now, you have 200,000 users out there who have spent many hundreds of dollars on various Ezlo sensors not to mention each one of those people has spent hundreds of hours testing various scenarios and drilled and taped and wired all that stuff into their homes.
But, it’s 10 years in the future. CPUs are now available that have fantastic amounts of processing power for pennies that weren’t available today. You decide OK we are going to toss out all of our Ezlo designs using 10 year old parts and build all new stuff. Easier to program for us, does lots more stuff for the customers and it will make us competitive with others that are doing fancy stuff.
However, you want to get those 200,000 users to buy that stuff. So the incentive to just tell everyone “OK we are no longer offering the $2.95 a month sub” is insanely high. You might not even be working for the company and your successor just comes in greedy for money.
They know if they cut off the 200,000 people that 50% of them will say “screw you” and go to a competitor. The rest will grumble but move to the new platform. That solves 2 problems. First now ezlo doesn’t have to put in development time and money to the old hardware. Second, ezlo gets a lot of money from the people who have brand loyalty.
When I first got interested in home automation I knew nothing and I read every review I could trying to find out information about the products. And EVERYONE was touting their subscription models, including Vera. However of all the ones out there, (this was before hubituate was a thing BTW) Vera was the ONLY one who (in a footnote, but it DID exist) stated that if they decided to STOP offering their cloud server that the Vera hub would still be able to be logged in locally.
Today, I have a vacation house 100 miles away, full of Zwave gear that manages the heat, door access, burglar alarm. sprinkler, etc.
I have a Ubuntu box at the house and a dedicated full time VPN from my main house to the vacation house that is up 24x7
If your cloud servers disappear I can Xterm to the Ubuntu box and run Firefox and manage the vera controller locally.
I was on your Atom beta program and I was interested to try out the Atom with my sensors. When I got the Atom I went through…drumroll…12 individual 5v USB power supplies before finding one that would actually power the stupid thing. With every other one while those supplies had no problems charging cell phones, within 10 seconds of the Atom being plugged into them the Atom shut down - or the power supply shut down - or something. The only one that actually worked was a P.O.S. Apple 1amp 5v cell charger. By the time I ran across that the beta period was over. So I ended up concluding the atom hardware wasn’t worth my time. Maybe one day I will mess with it.
There was a story back in 2015 about Grand Rapids school system that used a 30 year old Commodore AMiga to control their heating system. The machine was still in operation and had been in operation for 30 years. The electric furnace in my vacation home was installed in 1971 when the home was built and it’s still working fine. That is 49 years, going on 50. My house is also filled with light switches that are also 50 years old. (I have pulled and replaced the electrical outlets because you cannot reasonably expect a spring to maintain tension for 30 years and be safe in an outlet)
I drive a car made in 2003 that has a 17 year old engine computer that is still running. I run servers on APC UPSes that are 15 years old.
With all due respect I question whether a software guy like yourself has what it takes to develop a successful home automation platform. You people think that something 4 years old is “antique” Well I have friends who live in a house with a 60 year old round Honeywell mercury thermostat controlling their (newer) furnace.
Home control is very much like industrial process control. You buy this stuff and spend a lot of time installing it and then you want it to run for decades or until the million dollar concrete kiln or whatever it’s controlling is finally remodeled. If you are going to try doing a sub product nobody is going to buy it unless you put in writing that you are going to support it for x number of years, That is what Microsoft finally had to do with their software products.
Good luck!
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Thanks for that @TedM. Within legal sense trademarks belonging to different categories you are right. However in this day and age, unless one owns the domain name to their brand, investing on that brand will only drive traffic to the owner of the domain name. The company doesn’t own vera domain name…that’s the main point I was making.
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I don’t know who you are referring to, but you are making my points exactly!
I also agree…it should be set and forget and future proof…System should be scale able without replacing it…and upgrade able…Last think I want to change hardware every 5 years…leave it running as long as possible!
So we are fully aligned it seems!
Yes I get it. Kind of silly but that is the world. Thanks for reading my post. I’ve been in this business for a long time now. Please push your marking people to commit to a produce lifecycle like Cisco and Microsoft do. It’s much more professional and after all it really only affects the hubs.
Now you asked at the beginning what people would do going forward and I neglected to tell you this.
So here is what I will do for myself personally. I will continue to use the Vera Plus that I have. If you release “ezlo” firmware for it then as long as I don’t have to pay a sub fee to you I will upgrade to it. On the day you ask me for a subscription fee I will decline and allow my account on your cloud servers to expire. Once it expires I will then see if I can still login and manage my Vera Plus. If I can then I’ll do nothing other than continue to use it. Otherwise if I can’t then I’ll try to dig up pre-subscription-required firmware and back-rev to it, and if I can’t then I toss it in the electronics recycler.
So, my advice to you is this. On the day that you build that very last firmware build that is ever going to be usable locally, without subscription, on either the Plus or the Atom, make sure you leave a setting or a flag in it that allows the user to turn off the ability for it to login to your cloud servers. Because if you do that, then me, and many thousands of other Vera users will simply flip the switch and ignore what the Cloud servers are doing and continue using our Veras. You won’t have to spend money on us and we won’t be irritated at having to figure out some workaround. Otherwise, if your bean counters manage to push you into forcing subscriptions, then those thousands of users will enrich your competitors. Look at it this way - by not forcing us to scrap our hubs, you are denying hundreds of thousands of dollars going to your competitors and it costs you nothing. And from time to time some of us may get tired of local-only access and bite the bullet and pay for the sub. What’s not to like?? 
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Ah yes but I have had long experience in the dd-wrt community. dd-wrt is amazing. The very latest code they release today still has a build tree that allows it to produce firmware that runs on the antique Linksys wrt-54gs. It’s amazing they are still supporting it. Of course, by the time the CPU of that antique device finishes executing all the additional opcodes in the current firmware and actually moves a packet from one interface to another the total throughput of today’s code is like 10% of code that was compiled 10 years ago, but who’s counting - it STILL RUNS!! 
Seriously, the day will come that the embedded CPU chip in the Plus will just not have the oomph to run current firmware.
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Depends whats included (and of course how relevant to us). The more powerful it is the more we’d be “happy” to pay. I would say up to $3 per month in reasonable.
There are some very useful apps we use in our house (such as the vera tasker intergration which we pay a small sub for each month, this supports the developer and keeps them going).
Like everyone as a household we’re always trying to control monthly costs, however if we find something very useful then we’re happy to pay as it lets continued development and gives something a longer life, especially important if you’re building home control around it.
I’d not sign up to something that was $10 or above a month, but something thats up to $3 would be fine . Perhpas have a full / lite version at different prices, people can then decide which bits they want to use and thus control the monthly spend.
I’m lucky enough to not have to pay for Imperihome as was a very early user (and did lots of beta testing) but I’d pay the current fee for it as its so useful.
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this is why when architecting the future of home automation we must decouple dependency of the platform from what kind of controller you are running…
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As a PS I should add I’d not want to pay for access / services to the hub, what I like about Vera is I’ve bought the hardware and it runs locally (a must for any home automation). I’d be happy to pay for an app that helps me control it but I’d see that as a bolt on. Paying for access to the main hub would be a no for us.
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I agree, I do not want/need access to a cloud server but I would be willing to pay a fee for a interface app as long as it is maintained. It would have to be in the low single digit dollars per month if not it may push me to a separate solution. Another method is to have an initial cost and maintenance for a 2 year period and then pay an annual maintenance to get updates. I agree that the company needs some way to fund the development. My experience is that this can be paid for from the maintenance contracts.
Some seem a bit harsh around here, but I get it… we have been strung along for quite a while with a product that doesn’t work well or optimally for many people.
Frankly I am not super interested in a monthly charge, but I will pay a small amount (a few dollars/month) if they system works perfectly out of the box. No more workarounds, things randomly breaking, huge automation limitations, and just straight jankiness. Although it has been a bit fun, I am tired of sensors breaking, things simply not working. I want the system to actually work. And no claims that it will, prove it, then charge. Perhaps some services/options for free, some paid. That seems to be a popular setup.
tdlr: Make it work without all of the hassle.
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Just for clarity, are you expecting to pay for the dashboard (and additional product from what I can glean) to ensure the out of the box product works?
I’m just wondering if there’s a conflation of two issues. My personal view is that it should work out of the box whether I buy the dashboard or not.
YMMV
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I guess I should have clarified. I expect it to work out of the box, I will not pay if it doesn’t work. I guess I am just tired of Vera not working properly for even simple setups. I can see addons/additional features being an extra cost. I guess it all comes down to numbers. Can they keep developing a project without reoccurring income? I think not.
My Vera is shit hot. Always works for me.
Have a large Z-Wave network with complex PLEG logic and sweet Imperihome dashboards.
Sure it’s had its ups and downs with some FW updates and issues over the years, but I’ve never left or felt the need to look elsewhere.
Least I’m not like Paul Hibbert screaming on YouTube now that Tuya Smart Life are gonna shut down their IFTTT support and now none of their WiFi “smart” devices can be integrated outside of their own eco system and his whole HA system has gone to shit.
Maybe with flashing custom FW to gain back some local LAN control? He might recover.
Glad I stuck with Vera and Z-Wave devices. You get what you pay for and I’ve never used anything else but Z-Wave and Vera units.
EZLO You better rock you have a lot to live up too!
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That is the holy grail of computer control of the real world.
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Exactly! Thank you for recognizing it!
That is what we are trying to bring to the world!
After reading this post, I am not so sure I want to continue my journey with Ezlo.
I cannot accept the concept that the old user base does not generate revenue. You acquired Vera with all the revenue generated by the old user base (if you acquired it with debts, it’s your business decision). The old user base is what will allow you to sell your new stuff, otherwise why not creating a startup? It would have been a lot simpler? No, you bought the NAME, the community, and old user base that will allow you to sell more via upgrades vs. starting from scratch.
I bought many devices, the Vera lite, Vera edge, Vera plus, Vera secure (yes, less than 18 months ago). My home and my vacation home are currently fully automated with a Vera secure (100+ devices).
I was ok with the platform, even with all the limitations, because it allowed me to do pretty much anything I needed. The only critic I had was around new device integrations, since I own pretty much Fibaro devices and Qubino devices that took ages to get integrated.
I do not care who is the owner, I care that I have given Vera a lot of money (even recently). It’s enlighten to know that I am now considered a milking cow.
Back On topic, I have 3 iPad mini wall mounted in my home and two iPod touch: I have written an APP in swift, from scratch, where I can control everything from lights, A/C, blinds, scene, ip cameras, entrance gate. . . .
Everything is MQTT based, with a push mechanism status update instead of a pull. The MQTT plugin generate messages for every Vera event, and this allow me to do things like:
- “when the doorbell is pressed (zwave), popup on the iPad App the VLC streaming of the outside camera”. The camera is not part of Vera.
- "If there is no motion for 20 min in the room where the iPad/iPod is located (zwave), dim the ipad/ipod screen to the min to save energy, and do the opposite when motion is detected.
- the APP support text to speech (via MQTT)
- the APP has a tile to run radio station/music
- the APP has a weather tile (current and a popup for forecast)
- . . . .
A MUST for me is that the communication stay local, no cloud connection.
Not everything needs to be integrated into the EZLO platform, but everything can be integrated into an APP, where the device in question has a lot more horsepower.
Only the further integration/differentiation that you can get with an APP can justify a fee.
How much would I pay for something like this? If it is a great professional user interface, based on push and not pull, I would spend between $0.99 and $1.49 per month. More than that will be too much.
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agreed 100%! Whatever can be done locally must be done locally.
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