The Cloud Model is flawed

Community Playground General Discussions
#21

I’d rather have much less cloud than anymore.

I want my new Ezlo hub to be fully local with a local simple one line http command Api for controlling devices on / off and running scenes etc. And the damn thing must keep the correct time somehow when the Internet is down in the house.

I dont need a cloud gateway for remote access necessary, I could always punch a port through my VPN tunnel and routers firewall to gain access as long as their is some password security to the Ezlo hub.

I think perhaps some Ezlo cloud services could be paid for, like the gateway and other cloud to cloud integrations with other services and platforms.

Personally I would be happy with a higher up front cost for the Ezlo hub hardware over a monthly subscription. £150 to £200 seems reasonable for the spec of the hardware and promised firmware.

However a $2 a month and a new hub every 4 years doesn’t sound bad at all.

I’d be also happy paying an upfront cost for the dashboard app and designer app.

Again if it works well and supports all the devices we have been asking for and there is a decent inbuilt drag and drop blocky logic engine and a very good dashboard app that can be fully customised it’s going to be a win.

I’d even pay a little extra for some Ezlo made plugins like a Harmony plugin as we have now.

I just don’t want to be ripped off and forced out due to pricing that I cannot afford.

I can’t afford Crestron or Control 4 or even Homeseer and its plugins for that matter.

I have the technical skills and knowledge to go open source if I really had the desire, I’d look at Home Assistant but would have to learn a new platform from scratch.

However before that happens I am going to stick around whilst the new Ezlo platform comes out of beta and hopefully I won’t need to fully jump ship. But still its gonna be learning a new system all over again.

Or if I was feeling flush, I could just drop £500 plus on the new Fibaro HC3 hub and go that route. But that would be a big investment upfront.

5 Likes
#22

I initially bought my Vera plus years ago specifically because it operated locally and the large community and app infrastructure. Today I view each of those assets as being severely weakened. Never, ever again will I be hoodwinked by a company to rely on their cloud. When is my one week deadline coming? The culture here has changed significantly. When I started with MCV, there were personalities, that made videos that were helpful. There was enthusiasm. Current culture feels user hostile (1000 year bans). Is current management listening to their users or talking to them? I appreciate that companies need to profit. I was hoping to spend more money at your company by buying ever increasingly bigger and more powerful hubs. You’re releasing increasingly smaller hubs. I feel like it’s reasonable to charge a small monthly for your optional cloud services like Alexa integration. I would really like to see a cultural shift to a more user focused mindset.

5 Likes
#23

My problem boils down to this. When I add zwave appliances and switches, I view these as capital expenditures to my home. They become part of the home. If there is a reliance on a third party cloud for the home to operate something as simple as turning on a switch, then this is a no-go. When it comes time to sell this house I don’t want to be running around removing and replacing switches.

Just had a friend doing this because some of his stuff was reliant on subscriptions to make the equipment work. People are now going to go through the house and find wall plates with blanks and switches that don’t do anything. I want to simply de-register the hub and leave instructions for the new owner to sign up if they want. If they don’t then at least the house still works.

The notion of telling the realtor to let the buyer know that yeah if you want it to work you need to have a subscription with ezlo is not an option for me. Why would I risk a capital investment like this? You don’t want home buyers classifying your house as the one with the weird light switches all over the place.

4 Likes
#24

I have to say, I’ve read this up and down and I simply don’t see what the cloud brings to the party. All the costs that @melih lists appear to be pretty much standard opex items and, with many business models would be covered by sales (of, in this case, hardware) just like, for example, Apple or Zyxel (just as of a couple of examples in my own house that have given me free updates of late)

I wonder if this is really a statement that it’s not possible to run ‘this’ HA business without a subscription model.

C

#25

its not about cloud vs local…
its about If you want to pay once, expect no support after 4 years problem…(whether its local or not…because even a hub operating locally needs firmware update, integration update etc…which cost money)…
So you pay one off…fine…all good…that money will last x many years…(roughly 3-4 years at best)…etc etc…

The problem is: Who will pay for the developers?

#26

A lot of users fail to comprehend the “built in obsolescence” model. As I mentioned above, the average appliance has a working life of three years. Assuming you’re going down the appliance route it’s fair to say that a user should expect three years trouble free operation. After that the expectation is they purchase the next generation model in the line.

The cloud concept was conceived by those who thought that here was an easy buck to be made at some stage in the future. Feed the tech junkie the cloud free of charge, get them dependent and then incrementally increase the monthly sub. Personally as a manufacturer/supplier of appliances I’d steer well clear of that business model.

4 Likes
#27

Of course, the world is now occupied by a generation too busy/lazy to save their music collection as MP3s, thus are willing to pay monthly for cloud access to something they already own. Money just waiting to be reaped.

Can’t blame startups and VCs for trying to ride that magic money making carpet. Heck, Kurig made billions off people’s refusal to brew a simple 50-cent pot of coffee. A sign of our times. MS and Adobe have been chumming the SAS waters for years now, based on solid decisions.

Flawed as the cloud seems, it’s so ubiquitous these days for sound business reasons; that’s the part you sell off later to make more millions, even kill to begin anew. Stringify, Dark Sky, CitySourced, JungleDisk, Dash, etc. All smart (and now very wealthy) guys.

Customers? Not so happy all the time.

4 Likes
#28

I disagree, yes you can. Whether they listen is another story.
Kurig inventor even blames himself.

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#29

Well, Apple (just as an example) seem to do OK for phone sales. Of course there’s a load of add on products and I have no idea if the phone devs are cross funded by (for example) Apple TV devs. I get updates to my OSes pretty regularly.
Not sure I’m following you
C

2 Likes
#30

Thats where funding for developers can come from, also paying for ongoing support start charging after a free period.

1 Like
#31

It can but it doesn’t have to.

I guess my point is that I don’t want any cloud services in my HA. Per the title I think it’s completely unsuited and un-necessary for this use case.

The concept of then asking fora subscription model to add functionality appeals to me even less. I’m struggling to think of anything in this space that I would pay a subscription for. I guess as I’ve never had to in any of my HA products for something like 15 years.

Wouldn’t mind so much paying for FW upgrades (assuming there was a track record of improved functionality, device support and stability) This was the case with Indigo / Domotics software (clearly not FW, but a stand alone product with versioned releases.

Not sure I’m making sense :slight_smile:
C

3 Likes
#32

I agree to some extent with you.
have you ever donated to a developer?

What about full alexa integration, all devices, triggers and TTS, would you pay extra?

2 Likes
#33

This would have been an interesting discussion to have back when MCV first tempted us with the idea of IFTTT integration for Vera. They suits were all like, “Costs money!”

And we were like, “Do it!”

And then years went by with cricket sounds. :-1:

I’ve always felt that “to make gobs of money” is about the worst reason to embark on any project. Whereas an app well executed and delivered with care and precision is fully deserving of the wheelbarrowful of cash I will throw at it.

Huge fan of the Donation model! I think it wins every time. Would I pay for firmware updates? Yes, IF they demonstrably work to improve my gear.

As to this thread, we already have commitment from corporate that local-only is an option. Doesn’t mean it has to be the ONLY option, however, and I can easily envision them trying to leverage/monetize the API somehow (e.g. paid tiers by # calls per day, variable slots, external links, latency, etc.). Not saying I’d appreciate it, LOL!

2 Likes
#34

Yes I’ve donated to a developer.

Would I pay extra? It depends what I’m buying.

  1. If I’m buying a system that has these capabilities from day one, then I’d pay more than I would for a system that does not. More features tends to be more expensive product.
  2. Would I pay a subscription fee to add these from the same company? Probably not. I’d want them built in and pay a higher up front.
  3. Would I pay a subscription fee to a different company for these add ons? Possibly. But as a different product.

We’re sort of drifting away from the flawed nature of the cloud model ;). But I guess where I am is : If you sell me a box for a (not inconsderable) fee, I expect that box to work and possibly some updates to be delivered before it becomes EOL. I’m not interested in then continuing to fund your company by paying monthly to use the box that I’ve already paid for
Perhaps an analogy would be: Buy a fridge, now you have to pay a monthly fee to make the temperature go below 4C. I’d just buy a fridge that goes to 3C from the outset.
If you want to give me a box and then I pay monthly for the services: Whole different proposition. Cable TV over here, or internet access. Sure I pay a monthly fee, but they give me the hardware I need to access their service.

Being that as it may I still have very significant reservations about connecting any cloud to my home automation.

C

1 Like
#35

Half of the flawed nature of cloud is funding(they run out it stops working)
I am not just talking subscription one of payments to.
When i bought my vera it did not have Alexa, it was added years later, free. Just saying i would have paided for full inegration (not this half finished integration).

1 Like
#36

If like to add that IF A PRODUCT IS GOOD ENOUGH TO RECOMMEND TO OTHERS, it pays for itself many times over. After I got my Vera, it never fulfilled all of its potential, hence I never once suggested someone else go buy one.

Besides you (150?) guys, I know of NO ONE WHO EVERY HEARD OF OR PURCHASED a Vera product. So I know the company isn’t “making it up in volume (sales)”. That’s gonna be a mighty steep slope to climb. Apple, Fitbit, Crocs, etc. all nailed it.

Make people want one and this debate about ongoing dev costs practically vanishes. (Sorry, it was me who hijacked this thread…)

1 Like
#37

But MCV / Ezlo did not add Alexa. Someone else did…

C

2 Likes
#38

Aggree with you last comments 1000%

you
can not hijack an open discussion. All aspects welcome.

1 Like
#39

Nice point. I’ve had discussions about other people wanting to be able to do what I can do but it very rapidly breaks down into the technical issues and the operational problems.

C

1 Like
#40

Are you sure about that as you have to login to get.vera to make changes?