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Houselogix need to be sold to C4!


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So I have never really thought about it before, because I don't sell drivers to customers. All of my drivers from houselogix (quite a few, and still more to come) add up to A LOT of money. With the CAD exchange right now, it is astronomical. Buy $200 garage door system (At lowes on sale, the entire Myq garage door 1/2 horse with network interface and belt drive) and then pay $200 for the driver with Houselogix. 

What do you think the chances are the same thing will happen as extra vegetables? I had about $1000 in extra veg drivers when they all became free. What do you think the chances are that will happen again? I get it, the effort going into these drivers, they deserve to get paid that, and we wouldn't have anything without it because C4 is a bunch of jack arses and don't have teams of people making drivers around the clock, but...  There really should be a better system, no? Do you guys really make that much off of marking up drivers for customers? Does someone really pay $70 for a thermostat and then pay $200 to get a driver for it? (honeywell WIFI)

Seems so backwards. C4 should pay to buy drivers from houselogix in my opinion. Hell, charge the customer a small monthly fee for access to "premium drivers". I would be more happy with that! I often change gear, and thankfully Houselogix is good with swapping a driver for a newer one and paying the difference but it really sucks. Now that I am setting up a system for a family member and can't swing the driver cost, it really get put into perspective. All of the gear, and no driver to use it.... 

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So basically, drivers are expensive, I want a way for them to be free?

The few drivers I've purchased have been reasonably priced, but even $200 isn't crazy depending on the level of complication. Keep in mind these fees are usually one time fees with you getting continual updates too.

Yeah, it would be great if c4 did more in house, but I'm happy to pay others to fill in the gap.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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29 minutes ago, control.four said:

If you buy a Porsche then you shouldn't be concerned about gas prices.....

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

We dont all drive Porsche's. !

I did inquire the cost of installing my system .......... didn't realize I was just supposed to wright a blank cheque :P

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IDK about you guys, but I like to go to work and get paid for it :)  I am ok with software costing money.  the HouseLogix drivers can be a little expensive at times, but it's not like Windows were they are going to be selling 100's of Millions of copies...so I get it.

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I agree with getting paid for work done and that I should pay for the drivers no issues there.

There are quite a few drivers I would like to have in my system but I dont drive a Porsche.

I have never written any software or driver,I wouldn't know where to start. It just seems to me that some of the simpler drivers are a tad pricy, but like I said what do I know!

So I will keep driving my old Volvo and buy the drivers I can afford. :rolleyes:

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It's a ripoff. People have already started with the car comparisons and tired fallacies of trying to justify paying $200 for a thermostat driver that other automation systems give for free.

Control4 has a good system on the back-end and a good UI on the front end. Unfortunately their business model is still stuck in the past.

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Just now, therockhr said:

It's a ripoff. People have already started with the car comparisons and tired fallacies of trying to justify paying $200 for a thermostat driver that other automation systems give for free.

Control4 has a good system on the back-end and a good UI on the front end. Unfortunately their business model is still stuck in the past.

is it control4 or houselogix?  would you rather have control4 have a closed api with no 3rd party developers?  If developers can't make money on a platform they will leave and go elsewhere....The volume of sales is tiny compared to the amount of work to make the drivers.  And it's not like everyone uses the same thermostat where a company could sell millions of copies...

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Just now, msgreenf said:

is it control4 or houselogix?  would you rather have control4 have a closed api with no 3rd party developers?  If developers can't make money on a platform they will leave and go elsewhere....The volume of sales is tiny compared to the amount of work to make the drivers.  And it's not like everyone uses the same thermostat where a company could sell millions of copies...

It's Control4 not making drivers for pretty common components. It's embarrassing that the Honeywell Wifi driver cost $200. If control4 doesnt have the resources in house then they should contract it out and buy it from them.

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18 minutes ago, therockhr said:

It's Control4 not making drivers for pretty common components. It's embarrassing that the Honeywell Wifi driver cost $200. If control4 doesnt have the resources in house then they should contract it out and buy it from them.

I have never seen control4 make a statement that they have a driver for everything and anything....

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12 minutes ago, msgreenf said:

I have never seen control4 make a statement that they have a driver for everything and anything....

http://www.control4.com/blog/2014/08/frozen--dont-let-the-cold-bother-you

http://www.honeywell.com/newsroom/pressreleases/2013/09/honeywell-announces-cloud-api-program-with-home-automation-software-developers

If you are going to have a blog post on your site talking about the thermostats and also be mentioned as a partner in the official release from the company, you would think they would dedicate some resources so someone doesn't have to pay extra for it to work.

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So apparently no one read my entire post. 

I get why they are expensive. I get that Houselogix resells for others (like Chow, Domaudeo, EricSales, etc)
These guys do deserve the money. They are hardworking and have built some amazing products. The goal is that they would be paid by C4 from licensing models, not from the consumer direct. 

My issue (and I am not the first one to bring up this point, it has been argued on here a lot) is that C4 is targeted just to millionaires. There is a whole other class of people that CAN and SHOULD have access to C4 to compete with the Winks, SmartThings, etc. of the world. 

It isn't that $200 is too high! It is that $200 to control a $70 piece of hardware is high :)

I am not saying these people shouldn't be paid, but you are right and I also said that they shouldn't be free so I am not sure why 5 people above all made ludicrous assumptions that I was just being ridiculous and cheap. I did mention a monthly tier fee to C4 where they are paying developers for access to "premium drivers".


Here is the only reason why this comes up - other products ARE doing these drivers for free... simple ones. I am not going to say that Chow's plex full driver should be free. There is already a free plex driver that is "good" floating around. But if you want the Cadillac, then you buy the Chow driver and I think it is an amazing driver for the price. I would have paid a bit more for it even. Any issues with it right now are because of Plex, and not because of his work. What he did is phenomenal. 

However; the honeywell wifi driver? lol.. come on. You honestly think this should be $150 for a $70 CAD thermostat? What about the MyQ? I use the free MyQ driver and it is awesome. Why pay $150 for it? 

Maybe I went to the extreme by saying Houselogix should be bought out. I will clarify and digress to the real point. C4 needs to do a better job to keep up with competition and provide basic drivers for free as others currently are. 

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1 minute ago, badjesus said:

Maybe I went to the extreme by saying Houselogix should be bought out. I will clarify and digress to the real point. C4 needs to do a better job to keep up with competition and provide basic drivers for free as others currently are. 

i agree with that statement

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29 minutes ago, msgreenf said:

I have never seen control4 make a statement that they have a driver for everything and anything....

Are you on glue? :) 
Well they do actually make statements very similar to this, lol. I have seen banners saying "Control 4 your life" then in the sub text like "You can control anything from lights, tv, security....."

So yeah.. they do make this statement. Maybe not flat out... but they do insinuate it FOR SURE

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You guys are all myopic. 

"Control4 doesn't have a driver for X brand that I sell, so they don't care about developing drivers!!!!"  /ignores the dozens of drivers Control4 writes each month. Heck, they even post a list of them on the dealer forums.

Control4 will NEVER be able to provide drivers that cover the entire spectrum of devices that people want to sell. A healthy 3rd-party development ecosystem is FAR more efficient than Control4 trying to do everything.

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12 minutes ago, digitaltrader said:

That was supposed to be the purpose of the EV acquisition, but looks like all the programmers rebranded under another name.

Yes and No. The acquisition was never for the individual contractors. I do still like that people like Chow are out there. It really enhances how I use my system. Some premium things I am fine with. I think we agree on all of this so I am just playing devil's advocate to my own point now :)

The thing is, I started to add up all of the little things that my brother in law is going to have to pay for drivers for, and realized how many thousands I have spent in drivers... and then realized... damn... this is a waste! And most customers are not familiar with these costs when they start to plan. 

I don't have all of the answers, but there has to be a better way and I personally feel that C4 needs to eat SOME of this cost. 

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6 minutes ago, thegreatheed said:

You guys are all myopic. 

"Control4 doesn't have a driver for X brand that I sell, so they don't care about developing drivers!!!!"  /ignores the dozens of drivers Control4 writes each month. Heck, they even post a list of them on the dealer forums.

Control4 will NEVER be able to provide drivers that cover the entire spectrum of devices that people want to sell. A healthy 3rd-party development ecosystem is FAR more efficient than Control4 trying to do everything.

Myopic, no. We are talking about the PRIMARY devices that the majority of their competitors are doing by default. Like a honeywell thermostat. 

But because companies like Houselogix have a driver already, C4 ignored them. 

I would say that is the exact opposite of myopic. We are seeing all angles to the game. 

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28 minutes ago, chesterwilson said:

Control4 doesn't have an updated IT-100 driver, I'm guessing it's because HouseLogix is selling one.  If Control4 truly wants to be a software company it needs to have updated drivers for the most common components.

 

 

This is such a good point. Why would C4 step on the toes of their primary developer helping to drive their business? 
Houselogix does as much for C4 in my opinion from a customer stand point as C4 does on it's hardware. Maybe even more at this stage of the game. 

Some of those drivers are KEY to every day usability for a younger generation of people getting in to C4. 

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Just now, thegreatheed said:

If I was describing the most popular tstat, I would say Nest. Not Honeywell WiFi. But that doesn't fit your narrative, so, "myopic".

Because I used one example I am myopic? lol Ok. So first of all, look at sales over time. Honeywell is actually number 1. 
And, we wouldn't even have NEST if it wasn't for the extra vegetables acquisition which is sort of what we are talking about. 

What about the new security drivers for vista series? Or is that also myopic because it is the brand honeywell? 

What about Myq? What about other popular smart devices that competitors are launching for free? 

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