msgreenf Posted May 27, 2015 Share Posted May 27, 2015 http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/05/24/why-the-diy-smart-home-revolution-wont-work/That article says it all. Look who wrote it...Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chesterwilson Posted May 27, 2015 Share Posted May 27, 2015 I agree with a lot of what he had to say as it applies to the present, the future I'm not so sure of. If anything it reinforces, as you stated in your title, Control4 will always rely on a dealer network. It further reinforces my belief not to invest in CTRL... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rayk32 Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 If anyone of us on this forum were the CEO and CoB of Control4, we'd write that article too. We'd disparage all the upstarts and competitiors in order to justify our belief that "our way is the only way." That article is Control4 propaganda. You can always play CTRL options with the possibility of a takeover, acquisition or the stock value drops. I don't see the stock making any significant gains, because they don't appear to be making any groundbreaking technological advancements or making this affordable to the average homeowner so that the product will be ubiquitously adopted. We home automation geeks and early adopters can only hope that we don't end up with NeXT computers ... obsolete hardware, with bits and pieces of Control4's technology living on, in some other manufacturer's incompatible home automation product. Afterall, they can't seem to develop a stable intercom when voice and video over IP using SIP as the commucations protocol are hugely reliable ... in other companies' products. The Universal SIP driver is, at best, UNRELIABLE. To me, it's very telling when a company can't correctly implement a technology and doesn't seem to be taking the appropriate and urgent steps to make it right and at little or no cost for their customers. Based on the product announcements a few months ago, their focus is clearly on making their loyal customers feel the need to replace their expensive, single function touch screens with more expensive, single function touch screens. If the new touch screens fix the intercom reliability, Control4 should trade the old camera touch screens for free or a very small fee ($100 per trade). It was their incompetence that screwed their customers who purchased the intercom license and touch screens from their dealers. I'm not Canadian, but as Mike Holmes says "Make It Right". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Leeds UK Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 The man`s fooling himself. HA is starting to become everyday - even for non tech. Bought my Mum and Dad some Philip Hue light bulbs and the iKettle. Both in there 70`s and they set up Geo Fencing for the kettle and bulbs - Well chuffed when they showed by We had to drive around the estate just prove it work !!!! Some young kid will have one App controlling them all in soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blub Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 I highly disagree with this article for "small or micro" system / zone setups - for those / "small to middle" home owner the dealer models expense will scare them off to other companies.I am sure C4 will miss lots of revenue in this area. For larger systems I agree, this isn't DIY market and those customers have more important stuff to do than programming all day long and they do not care about clumsy integrations costs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
c4user3622 Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 Their stock has tanked with more to come and now this. It's this basically our way or the highway which will see the end of this company. They should be trying to figure out how to put this stuff in everyone's homes. It's not going to happen by telling everyone that your not smart enough to do this yourself but we will happily provide you with a dealer who doesn't know how to do this either. The only reason this company may still be alive is because of the dealers on this forum who are able to help out and provide a great service.Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turls Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 It's not going to happen by telling everyone that your not smart enough to do this yourself but we will happily provide you with a dealer who doesn't know how to do this either. This is true, just like you can get a bad plumber, you can get a bad Control4 dealer. But Control4 is such a niche that its not easy to find a replacement to fix a botched project, like it is to get a different plumber. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blub Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 Lol interesting comparison :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msgreenf Posted May 28, 2015 Author Share Posted May 28, 2015 Their stock has tanked with more to come and now this. It's this basically our way or the highway which will see the end of this company. They should be trying to figure out how to put this stuff in everyone's homes. It's not going to happen by telling everyone that your not smart enough to do this yourself but we will happily provide you with a dealer who doesn't know how to do this either. The only reason this company may still be alive is because of the dealers on this forum who are able to help out and provide a great service.Sent from my iPhone using TapatalkThe dealers on this forum represent a very small subset of installs of c4Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CFUG Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 Their stock has tanked with more to come and now this. It's this basically our way or the highway which will see the end of this company. They should be trying to figure out how to put this stuff in everyone's homes. It's not going to happen by telling everyone that your not smart enough to do this yourself but we will happily provide you with a dealer who doesn't know how to do this either. The only reason this company may still be alive is because of the dealers on this forum who are able to help out and provide a great service.Sent from my iPhone using TapatalkLittle basis for this comment. I know at least 4 systems where the HOs are not interested in any forum or installing anything. Sum value of their systems and potential for future sales could outweigh what 10 to 15 here will spend or have spent. The dealers here, by design, service a geo area. Remote stuff, for unknowns, is most likely not what they feel comfy doing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
therockhr Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/05/24/why-the-diy-smart-home-revolution-wont-work/That article says it all. Look who wrote it...Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Would have been better if this guy wrote it: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blub Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 Little basis for this comment. I know at least 4 systems where the HOs are not interested in any forum or installing anything. Sum value of their systems and potential for future sales could outweigh what 10 to 15 here will spend or have spent. The dealers here, by design, service a geo area. Remote stuff, for unknowns, is most likely not what they feel comfy doing. Part of proofing my point - the "big guys" do not want DIY. So there is always work and therefore revenue for dealers. So why scare the "small guys" with their DIY intentions of to other companies - dealers would still make money selling HW and by fixing DIY Noob's mistakes. The bigger a project get's the less likely you want/still want it to be DIY - from my perspective, more/limited DIY offering are a win win situation for both sides. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyknight Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 So why scare the "small guys" with their DIY intentions of to other companies - dealers would still make money selling HW and by fixing DIY Noob's mistakes. The bigger a project get's the less likely you want/still want it to be DIY - from my perspective, more/limited DIY offering are a win win situation for both sides. Support, support, support. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
therockhr Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 Part of proofing my point - the "big guys" do not want DIY. So there is always work and therefore revenue for dealers. So why scare the "small guys" with their DIY intentions of to other companies - dealers would still make money selling HW and by fixing DIY Noob's mistakes. The bigger a project get's the less likely you want/still want it to be DIY - from my perspective, more/limited DIY offering are a win win situation for both sides. The dealers don't see it as a win. C4 offering the software to anyone hurts them because they lose their advantage of exclusivity. If C4 thought they wouldn't lose any dealers by offering up the software to anyone, you better believe they would hire 3 or 4 technicians to handle phone, email and live chat support. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyanE Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 3 or 4 technicians to handle phone, email and live chat support. I think you're likely off by an order of magnitude or two. RyanE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rayk32 Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 Would have been better if this guy wrote it: LMAO!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
therockhr Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 I think you're likely off by an order of magnitude or two. RyanE Maybe but I doubt it. The wait times may be long but that is generally how all tech support is now. As I have said before, this forum, cocoontech and avsforum would shoulder most of the support. People generally hate calling and usually only do so to confirm that they have run into a bug or defect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seth_j Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 People generally hate calling and usually only do so to confirm that they have run into a bug or defect.Hahah.. nope. Nope nope nope. The VAST majority of people/dealers call just to hear their voices.. seriously. No one reads instructions. No one even tries. The first bump and hands are up.. call tech support! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rayk32 Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 I have nothing but great experiences with my dealer, they are awesome. It seems like most of us on this forum don't want to see the end of the dealer network because most of the dealers are invaluable to our C4 experience. The problem is that article should've never escaped that guy's brain or seen the light of day. Freedom of speech aside, CEO's should be keeping investors happy and strategizing with other smart people on how to keep the company viable, not writing propaganda. If you want your product to be the defacto standard, make your product rock solid and affordable so that every average homeowner wants it in their homes. The more installs, the more work for dealers ... they'll have so much work they'll request C4 to open up their software to DIYers and make their money on the backend fixing user errors, bugs and other issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blub Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 Support, support, support. Mhh I don't get your "support" message.... If I brake it and call you to fix it and you write me an invoice which I have to pay...you do make money. I am not asking for something for free here.I just see DIY as tool means to acquire customers and to expand, once started people usually buy more...ah well it is not my decision to make and I doubt C4 staff reads those threads anyway...so what..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thegreatheed Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 Some young kid will have one App controlling them all in soon.This is absolutely false. How is this kid going to gain access to all those devices with closed APIs? How is he going to control IR, RS232, IP, Z-wave, and ZigBee products all from an app? Like Martin said in the article, until there's an open, unified, and cheap standard/hardware for communications, a simple single ecosystem will never happen. The best solution until then(if it happens) is an automation system. Even when this happens, it won't control the entire market share, nor your 5 year old TV sets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyknight Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 Mhh I don't get your "support" message.... If I brake it and call you to fix it and you write me an invoice which I have to pay...you do make money. I am not asking for something for free here.I just see DIY as tool means to acquire customers and to expand, once started people usually buy more...ah well it is not my decision to make and I doubt C4 staff reads those threads anyway...so what..... Because if they do DIY the MUST have direct support for those DIY people - at least to some degree. You can claim all you want about "they can then call a dealer" but that's plain nonsense. Bringing out a DIY product without direct support is just no feasible. Do so and watch the whole product drown in it's own sorrow. DIY that gets nothing but complaints won't boost sales over the long run at all. Free or not free doesn't matter at all in this scenario. I'll say it again - stop thinking about this forum as anything being even remotely a representation of the end-user group.If the product as it stands goes full DIY and that with a tremendous amount of support (and I think Ryan for got a zero behind his 2 on the magnitude - remember that you're talking GLOBAL products here) - it'll be a laughing stock. Plenty of people on here have dealt with DEALERS not being able to grasp the whole product - the average Best Buy/Amazon Shopper will fare far worse.Sure, chances are a good amount of the members and a handful of the lurkers would do fine - but that's not any target worth going for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Leeds UK Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 I've seen one already and posted the YouTube advert on this forum before.Nest bought the companyC4 management are living in cloud cuckoo land and the share price backsThat up Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thegreatheed Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 I've seen one already and posted the YouTube advert on this forum before. Nest bought the company C4 management are living in cloud cuckoo land and the share price backs That up LOL No. An app cannot integrate Z-wave, ZigBee, IR, RS232 and thousands of APIs. It just can't. On your previous post, you claim "soon a kid will do this with one app" and now you claim "someone already did this and I posted it". Which is it? Has it been done or not? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Leeds UK Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 Revolv used a Hub for there app they were bought by Nest. The dealer model will work, however to grow you also need user interaction. Just like blackberry needs Apps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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