Indigo up-to-date scheme

Dear Matt and Jay

I have just received notice that my up-to-date subscription will soon be due.
I would have to question whether the up-to-date scheme is still being actively pursued.
When announced, the main reason given was to allow more regular updates and not have to wait for major releases.
Looking back, the number of bug fix releases has been minimal and many devices have been waiting for definitions for months.
Version 7 had 3 bug fix updates in the first 3 months after which no more updates appeared until version 7.1 was released 9 months later.
Since the release of 7.1.1 in November there have been no more fixes
I have recently seen a comment from one of you that 7.2 will be released " before the end of the year".
Reading the Blog announcement from November 2016 the impression is made that minor (7.x) releases would be quarterly events.

Don't get me wrong, I am dedicated user of Indigo, indeed I am dependent on it for basic functionality of lighting, heating etc.
I just get the impression that the focus is now on encouraging independent (volunteer) developers to add plug-ins while many functions that have "been on the list" for month or even years do not materialize.
Please prove me wrong, and tell me there is a release just around the corner to add things like alignment tools for control pages, dedicated up/down icons for shutters, updated definitions for devices released in the past year etc, etc.

Tim

[matt (support)]

Hi Tim,

We have an Indigo 7.1.2 version that will be released soon-ish, and a larger 7.2 release in the works. We've been doing a lot of under-the-hood work to make releasing more frequently possible, albeit it has taken longer to complete than we had hoped (the irony isn't lost on me). We've also spent quite a bit of time getting the plugin store rolled out to make plugins more discoverable and easier to update.

There is a focus on building out Indigo as a platform, which means more plugin APIs (including Web restful APIs), better authentication schemes, etc. Indigo's success has been and will continue to be tied to making it an attractive platform on which one can build reliable plugins and extensions. That doesn't mean there won't be user side or UI improvements by any means, but continuing to improve (and complete) Indigo's API will remain as one of our main focuses.

On a side question to this have you considered a monthly pay option for it? It’d make things a lot easier for me and the way SWIMBO organises the money!


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[jay (support)]

On a side question to this have you considered a monthly pay option for it? It’d make things a lot easier for me and the way SWIMBO organises the money!

We've considered it, though implementation is more complex than one might expect. We also didn't have a huge uptake in monthly reflectors (vs yearly reflectors) so that led us to just implement yearly subscriptions and see what the feedback was. I think you're actually the first to ask about monthly in fact.

Talking as someone who has tens of thousands of subscribers, both monthly and periodically, I can tell you that I think a monthly subscription to Indigo would be a mistake on a number of levels. One is that if someone's card changes or if they otherwise forget to pay their monthly bill then their home automation breaks. The other, from a business model, is it's 1,000% more trouble to deal with monthly re-ups than with yearly.

[jay (support)]

One is that if someone's card changes or if they otherwise forget to pay their monthly bill then their home automation breaks.

As we've said several times (in other threads and in the blog post that describes UTD), Indigo will not break if the subscription lapses. It will continue to chug along dutifully. The only thing that will stop working is your reflector if you are using one. If you happen to be out of town, that could definitely be a problem, but the core of your automation which is running in your home will continue to work.

Just want to make sure everyone is clear about what happens when a subscription expires – users can continue to run their current version of Indigo indefinitely.

As we've said several times (in other threads and in the blog post that describes UTD), Indigo will not break if the subscription lapses

Sorry, I didn't mean it in that way, I meant it in the reflector issue kind of way.

Indeed I know monthly vs yearly billing is far more of a pain (I work accounting support) as C4W said. I did consider the monthly reflector option back when it first appeared but ultimately rejected it simply because reflector is so slow here


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