Milking the Indigo Cow???

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Posted on
Mon Nov 21, 2016 8:31 pm
ethanw offline

Milking the Indigo Cow???

You know my already stated position on finding creative ways to milk this cow even more. I see that now is reality. I am very very disappointed with the route you took and I will absolutely consider moving to something else. I really hope that Apple catches up and we will no longer need Indigo. You guys putting focus on making more $$$ rather than finding better ways to compete , mark my word partners, this will be the end of it. Wish you luck and I am not putting your work down, just your lost ways.

http://www.indigodomo.com/blog/2016/11/09/indigo-date/

It will be nice to see some kind of model where free plugin developers are being paid back for their time as their plugins attracts many customers.

Posted on
Mon Nov 21, 2016 9:55 pm
FlyingDiver offline
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Re: Milking the Indigo Cow???

Apple catches up? HomeKit will never do the kinds of things Indigo and the other full-blown automation systems do. It's just not designed for that.

You made your viewpoint on this very clear when the Indigo Up to Date program was first announced, months ago. You were the minority opinion then, and you still are today.

Go ahead, switch to something else. No one here is going to stop you.

joe (aka FlyingDiver)
my plugins: http://forums.indigodomo.com/viewforum.php?f=177

Posted on
Tue Nov 22, 2016 1:25 am
neilk offline
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Location: Reading, UK

Re: Milking the Indigo Cow???

I am struggling a little bit understanding really what the problem is. Back in November this guy was off to Apple who if I recall were going to eat Indigo's lunch. Am I the only one here who sees the irony in that ridiculous statement. Let's go to the company that is the master of monetising forced obscelence with an offering that doesn't even aim to approach the same market. If any company over milks the cow for limited innovation at least in the post Jobs era then Apple are are a good example.
This is very much a amateur/hobbyist offering with total flexibility and openess. I get some people would prefer a truly Open Source approach and are used to free. My personal preference is a solid supported platform with a focus on reliability and stability to run my home. For this use case I don't want to be on the bleeding edge, and my view is that is what attracts and retains the developer community to greatly enhance the product.
I really do not get the anger at people who are finding a reasonable model to earn money. The approach to subscription is a fair step to an ongoing revenue stream for the guys without going to a model that terminates usage when the subscription ends. If I don't see value I will stop paying and won't be penalised and in many ways think a little more would help accelerate development and reward the guys for their work fairly.

If it is not for you and other options work better for you then great, but otherwise let it go.

Posted on
Tue Nov 22, 2016 1:58 am
durosity offline
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Re: Milking the Indigo Cow???

HomeKit really really isn't a home automation system. It's a remote control. Sure you can setup a handful of triggers to do a handful of tasks, but they're pretty darn limited. I doubt that homekit will ever come near to indigo in it's functionality, and it'll be quite intentional.

I don't know why people are getting so het up about this. Vote with your money.. if you don't like Indigo 7 don't buy it. Simple as that.

Computer says no.

Posted on
Tue Nov 22, 2016 4:55 am
marketability offline
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Re: Milking the Indigo Cow???

Indigo - specialist solution, niche, ever evolving, continuous development required to keep pace with 3rd party change, hardware vendor agnostic, etc.
all for next to bugger all £/$ upfront and an entirely acceptable £/$ fee per year

Can't see what the problem is - strikes me as excellent value :-)

as long as the cow delivers milk - I'm happy to milk it - and pay for the privilege

Posted on
Tue Nov 22, 2016 6:07 am
mat offline
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Re: Milking the Indigo Cow???

I pay netflix about £7.50 a month, I pay amazon about the same. I have a fully intelligent house (well growing there). For that I am happy to pay Matt & Jay about the same - I actually think its a very reasonable price and probably the best supported software with (almost) full community support behind it. What other software do you wake up in the morning and theres not only full support, but new plugins too?

Please don't waste your time writing again. Indigo does not tickle your fancy, Subway doesn't mine. Grow up and use what you want. I for one do not need you bad mouthing what has clearly been a tough 12 months for two businessmen with a great product. If they don't turn you on every morning, let apple. Simples!

Late 2018 mini 10.14

Posted on
Tue Nov 22, 2016 9:06 am
johnpolasek offline
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Location: Aggieland, Texas

Re: Milking the Indigo Cow???

durosity wrote:
I don't know why people are getting so het up about this. Vote with your money.. if you don't like Indigo 7 don't buy it. Simple as that.


I'll second, third and forth that... Personally, I think Indigo is so far ahead of everybody else that they aren't even visible in the rearview mirror for two reasons;

1. Cross platform capabilities (some of it user supported, but supported nonetheless). In my home control/security system, I'm currently using Z-wave, Insteon, RFX ,rPi, Weathersnoop, URL cameras, and XML parsed "devices" all in a consistent, easily accessed UI, which includes:

2. A powerful and easily configurable graphical output capability that operates across the web as well as Apple and Android product.

When I see Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Homeseer, or anybody else pull all those things into a form that kiosk pro can allow my mom to start and stop her sprinkler zones on a plot plan of her yard after checking how much it rained last night, I'll evaluate whether it's time to move to a different platform...

But if all you want to do is the whizzbang "SIri (or Alexa), lock all the doors" and NOTHING else, by all means don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Posted on
Tue Nov 22, 2016 10:06 am
roussell offline
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Re: Milking the Indigo Cow???

Indigo is expensive now, huh? Well let's take a look at a competing product (which I own so know this first-hand).

For things controlled in my home:
Homeseer HS3 Pro : $599.95
Insteon Plugin (HS plugin is old and basic so I needed this, but even this one is incomplete): $59.95
Ezflora Irrigation control (requires Insteon plugin above): $29.95
Insteon Thermostat (requires Insteon plugin above): $29.95
Vista alarm (AD2USB interface) plugin: $49.95
Weather plugin (there are some free ones, but they're crap): $39.95
iTunes control (I used this before Sonos): $49.95
Sonos Control: FREE!!! (well, it's in beta so who knows what it'll be when released)
DirecTV control: $29.95
Kodi/XBMC: $39.95
iPhone tracking - "RSFindMyDevice": $29.95
"UltraPioneerAVR3" Pioneer receiver: $39.95
"BLOnkyo" Onkyo receiver: $29.95

TOTAL: $1029.40

Plus, if you don't have Windows, factor in the cost of a machine and/or license for that. Yes... HS will run on Linux, but several of the plugins won't, and HS recommends Windows for the best experience. Don't even try on a Mac - I can refer you to my bug reports where they were closed citing that there are known problems and they can't recommend OS X...

It's worth noting that the plugins above don't even cover my full Indigo installation, it would take another $150 or so to duplicate everything, but I gave up...

So exactly how much "milking" are Jay and Matt doing??? Perhaps our concept of math is different. How many years of "Indigo up to date" could I purchase for the above expenditure??? Another point: the control software is most likely the least expensive part of any HA installation, but is also the most complex and requires the most care and feeding, and surely YOUR TIME is worth something?? How much time do you want to spend getting "free" (or expensive and buggy) software to work correctly in your environment.

Best of luck where ever you land -but if you don't like it- simply move on. Bitching and moaning like a spoiled kid will get you nowhere, even on the free product's forums.

Terry

Posted on
Tue Nov 22, 2016 10:35 am
durosity offline
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Re: Milking the Indigo Cow???

I'm curious, why do you own homeseer?

Computer says no.

Posted on
Tue Nov 22, 2016 11:05 am
roussell offline
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Re: Milking the Indigo Cow???

durosity wrote:
I'm curious, why do you own homeseer?


I was single and had disposable income, plus I like to tinker. :shock: I first considered HS back when I was consulting and doing local HA and home theater installs. Frankly it was too buggy to ever put in a customer's home. I still play with all sorts of stuff though, and have several VMs with a wide variety of HA apps installed. Way back in the day, I had my own set of scripts that spoke to a few X10 modules, then when I started getting serious (this is almost 20 years ago), I bounced between HouseBot, MisterHosue, Premise, HAL2000, HCS, PowerHome, and one of the first versions of Homeseer. I settled on Housebot and used it for years until it was clear it wasn't growing with me, so I moved to Indigo and have been happy since.

Lately, I am more about AV instead of automation and had reconsidered HS a year or so ago because their mobile interface and functionality is very robust, however it too is extremely buggy. The mobile client support is awful with Android and iOS versions having numerous (but different) bugs and seemingly the only people having success (my definition of the word) are the ones that use Windows clients. My house is entirely OS X and Linux with the exception of one Windows VM that gets powered up when I have to do something specific, so switching platforms house-wide would be a major pain and expenditure. In the end I decided that stability, support and ease-of-use were more important, and I could either wait patiently on the features I needed, or write them myself in a dedicated user interface (taking the patience route, thus far). Unless something happens to Apple/MacOS that forces a change, I can't see me moving away from Indigo for a very long time, although I'll still play with the free stuff from time to time, because I like to tinker... :wink:

Terry

Posted on
Tue Nov 22, 2016 2:33 pm
RogueProeliator offline
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Re: Milking the Indigo Cow???

Lately, I am more about AV instead of automation and had reconsidered HS a year or so ago because their mobile interface and functionality is very robust, however it too is extremely buggy

Curious about this... what exactly do they provide that made it robust in this area as compared to Indigo? Native GUI for A/V devices or something?

Posted on
Tue Nov 22, 2016 6:42 pm
roussell offline
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Re: Milking the Indigo Cow???

RogueProeliator wrote:
Curious about this... what exactly do they provide that made it robust in this area as compared to Indigo? Native GUI for A/V devices or something?


It's really not anything that advanced, though the software itself does have some understanding of audio/video control types that plugins can leverage. In their touch designer and client, it's more about the controls available that allow for a better experience. Things like list boxes (multi select, etc..) allow for easy playlist manipulation, controls that display html content inline let you throw pretty much anything inside the page, pop-ups, pretty good layer control, sliders that you can tie to devices, or to other client controls (like list boxes) etc. things like that... The designer, like most other parts is pretty buggy and to be proficient, you have to know your way around some of the gotchas, so much time on their forums is needed. The designer is separate (including separate cost if you don't go with "pro") from the automation server and unlike the HA server administration -which is all web-based- the designer is a Windows client only application. The designer interface itself reminds me of the old VB6 editor; tools and controls on the left, workspace in the middle and properties on the right. Projects are deployed to mobile device in a weird kind of way that mostly works but always has a hokey feel and I was always left wondering if it would actually work. I did like that the "server" knew about each of the mobile clients though, and you have the ability to trigger pop-ups, screen changes, alerts on individual clients. You can also push sound (alerts, speech) to the mobile clients, but that rarely worked well for me on Android of IOS devices. My understanding is that it works well on Windows clients but I have no experience with it.

Terry

Posted on
Tue Nov 22, 2016 11:27 pm
kw123 offline
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Milking the Indigo Cow???

If Matt and Jay don't make money= no indigo.

I spend >$10k on things besides indigo. So the indigo fee is small a part at least for me.

We could discuss if the indigo model limits the market penetration: requires some technical understanding - steeper learning curve than some basic remote control systems. And eventually the products in the market will mature and add more functionality, but indigo will do too.

I am happy with it and it is my hobby


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Posted on
Wed Nov 23, 2016 12:08 pm
ethanw offline

Re: Milking the Indigo Cow???

I already did. I will no longer invest on the Indigo product. I can't believe you guys don't see this right in front of your eyes. Sure keep on paying if you have money to waste.

So I am on 6 now. As soon as I purchase a new piece of hardware I have to upgrade 7 since 6 don't support it.
As soon as I purchase another new and unsupported piece of hardware, 7 won't support it unless I buy the "up-to-date" subscription
This is not like we're buying new hardware every month, but once in a while we may buy a new device. For that only new device I now have to move to 7 and also pay the "up-to date"
Why not keep the old pay model? I rather have them say, hey look, this don't pay the bills anymore, we need to increase prices. I will be FINE with that. But the whole speed for updates on new hardware excuse is absolute BS if you ask me. Just a clever scheme to make more money. How isn't that double, triple dipping, holding the customer for a ransom now? After making serious investment in this hardware and software? Just say'n partners. Keep on spending as far as my concern goes.

And yes I voted with my valet

And if you want to keep the things fair how are the plugin developers getting a break? I hope they're. That was one of the reason I decided to switch to Indigo.

durosity wrote:

I don't know why people are getting so het up about this. Vote with your money.. if you don't like Indigo 7 don't buy it. Simple as that.

Posted on
Wed Nov 23, 2016 12:19 pm
jay (support) offline
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Re: Milking the Indigo Cow???

ethanw is now banned from the forums. We've only rarely (3 in our history) banned anyone from the forums and it's a very hard decision for us. But he clearly was not contributing anything useful to the community, which is what this forum is for.

Jay (Indigo Support)
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