How many ways you can milk a cow? - Indigo Up To Date, Next?

I just want to clarify something in case I came off as being snobbish...

Indigo Domotics is a US based company in which successful companies primarily operate under the economic ideology of capitalism. They own their company outright and have every right to run it as they see fit.

Second: My big gripe, that perhaps was missed in my rant, is what exactly is the agenda of this thread? Having many correspondence with both Matt and Jay over the years and knowing what their experience is, it's pretty clear this decision wasn't decided upon on a whim. The post originator will likely have no luck changing their minds, nor changing the minds of those who support whatever business model Indigo Domotics chooses to be viable in the long-term.

I don't plan to change their mind. I am making my frustration visible as I am encouraging others to walk away from this product as I will do very shortly. Yes is capitalism, supply and demand and all that BS but you as a product owner you need to strike the right balance. Why can't they go the Home & Professional/Business versions route? I pay less if I have a very basic environment and if you need more features knock yourself out and pay for the Pro version. Don't get me started as I already had enough

I just want to clarify something in case I came off as being snobbish...

Indigo Domotics is a US based company in which successful companies primarily operate under the economic ideology of capitalism. They own their company outright and have every right to run it as they see fit.

Second: My big gripe, that perhaps was missed in my rant, is what exactly is the agenda of this thread? Having many correspondence with both Matt and Jay over the years and knowing what their experience is, it's pretty clear this decision wasn't decided upon on a whim. The post originator will likely have no luck changing their minds, nor changing the minds of those who support whatever business model Indigo Domotics chooses to be viable in the long-term.

I don't plan to change their mind. I am making my frustration visible as I am encouraging others to walk away from this product as I will do very shortly.

You certainly have every right to voice your opinion and vote with your feet should you choose to do so. If the product isn't supporting what you want it to do, you should move on to another product that better suits your needs. This is no different than any other product. I don't understand why you would encourage others to walk away, though. Why the vendetta?

Yes is capitalism, supply and demand and all that BS but you as a product owner you need to strike the right balance. Why can't they go the Home & Professional/Business versions route? I pay less if I have a very basic environment and if you need more features knock yourself out and pay for the Pro version. Don't get me started as I already had enough

When you purchase whichever version you choose, Indigo Domo will support it for a very long time from the standpoint of fixing bugs and ensuring stability--much longer than many companies. But this is not the same as guaranteeing the inclusion of all future functionality. It's not "supply and demand and all that BS", it's commerce. If the software does what you want at the time that you buy it, then you got your money's worth. If the new version of the software doesn't do what you want it to do, you should buy something else.

[matt (support)]

I don't plan to change their mind. I am making my frustration visible as I am encouraging others to walk away from this product as I will do very shortly. Yes is capitalism, supply and demand and all that BS but you as a product owner you need to strike the right balance. Why can't they go the Home & Professional/Business versions route? I pay less if I have a very basic environment and if you need more features knock yourself out and pay for the Pro version. Don't get me started as I already had enough

Ethan – We understand, as you have made it clear, the subscription model isn't going to work for you. We know that whenever we make any type of pricing or payment change it isn't going to satisfy 100% of our customers and that is okay. We have thought through several different business models in great detail and believe the direction we have chosen will be best for both our customers, in terms of value and delivering new functionality more often, and for us as a business. I understand you may disagree with that, but there isn't anything else to discuss on the matter.

While we very rarely have to moderate forum posts here (I think we've only done so 3 or 4 times in the past 14 years), if you attempt to start a campaign to encourage switching to other products the result will be a forum ban. The purpose of the forum is to support the Indigo platform and to provide an open forum for useful communication between us (the developers) and our customers.

I'm sorry Indigo isn't going to be the solution for you, and we wish you luck on your future home automation explorations.

As you wish Matt. I am just openly venting my frustration with your ways and trying to influence as well as seeking alternatives . I leave it to the other folks make their own decisions as they should.

While we very rarely have to moderate forum posts here (I think we've only done so 3 or 4 times in the past 14 years), if you attempt to start a campaign to encourage switching to other products the result will be a forum ban. The purpose of the forum is to support the Indigo platform and to provide an open forum for useful communication between us (the developers) and our customers.

I'm sorry Indigo isn't going to be the solution for you, and we wish you luck on your future home automation explorations.

Thanks for keep the replies clear and professional Matt. Probably time to shut down this thread. I did want to add one comment though as I had left Indigo several years ago to try alternatives. It was before you supported Z-Wave so I actually switched my whole house from Insteon to Z-wave. My first thought is I shouldn't have wasted the money switching. Neither system is perfect and a lot of the envisioned "advantages" of the wider used Z-Wave haven't been the benefit I expected.

But more to the point, I've looked into and used multiple other systems now. Most recently SmartThings. Before that, Vera 3 and I also looked into Wink. Wink has filed for bankruptcy. Vera's interface was horrible and it was clunky writing my own scripts (It uses Lua, which is easy to learn, but no where near as ubiquitous as Python). Smarthings was simply unreliable and at least for version 1 of the hub, didn't work when you lost connection to their server. How did Smarthings reward their early customers? You had to buy the version 2 of the hub at full price. This was about 3 months after I had bought the first hub. No thanks.

The grass is greener over the septic tank because there's a lot of s*** underneath it.

Keep up the good work. I'm getting excited to see what's in store for version 7.

I agree with you simdude. As a casual user, who is not much of a programmer, I've got to say that all of you developers out here really make this product what it is. (So thanks to all of you for the awesome support and the great work on your own plugin contributions!!)

After being out here lurking in the forum halls for 6 months or so, it's easy to see that the spirit of support that's prevalent here in these forums stems from Matt and Jay, and their willingness to help us all as more than just a means to a paycheck.

As has been said out here already, this is also a business, and it needs to be a lucrative enough business to promote growth. But, it also needs to be lucrative enough to make the effort worth the rewards for Matt and Jay. IMHO, they put a lot of effort out here to do the right things and strike that balance between a reliable product and an innovative one, and I believe that this new model was built with that same balance in mind. So, thanks guys. I'm sure there will be some adjustments as you work out thus shift in your model, and I'm hoping they will work out for us all in the end. For now, I'm certainly willing to support it, in hopes we will all be here next year working on our own home automation personal tweaks and improvements, sharing ideas and frustrations, while Matt, Jay, and possibly other new members of the Indigo clan, continue to hone the system and add new functionality at a frenetic pace

See you all in the version 7 forums soon to come )

Just a quick note that I'm generally not in favor of this kind of business model for a variety of reasons..... I use Avid software at work (Pro-Tools-HD) and just did the upgrade to their "subscription" model of business, very begrudgingly. Something about this model just rubs me the wrong way. And frankly, Avid has done nothing less than an abysmal job of explaining how it will work to their users. Only time will tell if this works out for them or not.

However, I must say that I have absolutely no reservations to moving to this kind of pricing with Indigo. The newsletter was very specific as to what would be included, and equally importantly, what would not be included in a subscription. Something Avid simply hasn't been able to articulate, even to this date.

The only thing that would change my mind is if the Reflector Service is REQUIRED for remote access, thereby making remote access un-available without a subscription. And while I guess there is a price-point that would make subscribing un-attractive to me, without a doubt the investment for just the Indigo Software has been well worth every penny, and then some.

At this point, I honestly don't know if I could live without Indigo now. And for me, the incredible job that both Jay and Matt do, along with the entire Indigo community to help everyone with answers is priceless. I'm no programmer by any means, but with everyone's help, I've constructed some very basic Pyton scripts that fill my needs.

Like many users, I've downloaded numerous 3rd party plug-ins, and while they are great, no doubt some concrete financial incentives for those developers would only increase both the number of plugins, and their quality.

So, hats off to Jay and Matt, the Indigo Developer Community, and the entire Indigo user base as well. I am looking forward to Indigo 7.0, and can't wait to see what changes and additions have been included, and what the developer community will come up with next.

Don't go the route of hey, you need new features, pay up, pay more, we make the rules as we go. Just ask me to pay upfront and be done with it. Don't lock me in and play this silly childish business model game.

Updates should be included in the up front cost.

We have always charged for major upgrades (technically there was one exception to this, but it was for a good reason). We have never been a pay-once-and-get-free-upgrades for life business model. There is no way we would be in business if we were. That model works for some types of software, which don't have to evolve significantly over their lifespan, but isn't viable for a home automation platform like Indigo.

Sorry I haven't logged in for a while. I have no problem paying for major upgrades as that has always been the norm...I was referring to basic updates/bug fixes of a single version. Switching to a subscription service plus charging for each update/bug fix is not the way to go though IMHO. It will drive people away from your product.

[matt (support)]

Switching to a subscription service plus charging for each update/bug fix is not the way to go though IMHO. It will drive people away from your product.

That is not what we are doing. Re-read the blog post for the details.

Switching to a subscription service plus charging for each update/bug fix is not the way to go though IMHO. It will drive people away from your product.

That is not what we are doing. Re-read the blog post for the details.

Now that I've finished reading through this thread I see that so my apologies. Have you guys determined a price yet? As I may have mentioned before, many people of limited means (people with disabilities) use Indigo as their only way of being able to independently control their homes and they may not be able to afford a high, yearly price.

Of course the Indigo model would include Reflector, which was already an actual subscription service.

If you install OS X Server ($20) on your Mac since Indigo can only run on a Mac and open a port for Indigo you don't need the reflector subscription.

You don't need mac server for that. Set up port forwarding on on your router -- that's all you need no other config



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You don't need mac server for that. Set up port forwarding on on your router -- that's all you need no other config



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Actually, that isn't everything as the IP address assigned to you will normally change from time to time. You need to know that address in order to access your home remotely. So after you setup the port forwarding you will then also want to setup a Dynamic DNS service (dyndns.org, no-ip.org are a couple of providers). Once IPv4 goes away this won't be as much of a problem. But until then we still have to deal with it.

[jay (support)]

Actually, that isn't everything as the IP address assigned to you will normally change from time to time. You need to know that address in order to access your home remotely. So after you setup the port forwarding you will then also want to setup a Dynamic DNS service (dyndns.org, no-ip.org are a couple of providers). Once IPv4 goes away this won't be as much of a problem. But until then we still have to deal with it.

And, on top of that, if you want the connection to be SSL protected (as it is with a reflector) then you'll need to implement a reverse proxy on your Indigo Server Mac and get an SSL certificate. Just saying, the reflector does quite a bit for you.

And, on top of that, if you want the connection to be SSL protected (as it is with a reflector) then you'll need to implement a reverse proxy on your Indigo Server Mac and get an SSL certificate. Just saying, the reflector does quite a bit for you.

It would be nice if Indigo 7 had built in support for secure comms without reflector. I really wish i could use it, but alas it’s too slow for use with the graphical control pages i have and also my work wifi has blacklisted it for some strange reason. :/