MIOS Acquisition

Quixote · September 25, 2018, 7:09am

Having waded through all 17 pages of this thread, I have a ton of opinions and ideas to express, but I’d just like to get my initial thoughts out here in case Melih hasn’t been scared off yet.

I don’t give a 5#!t about if the controller can be 10 bucks. The day I put a $10 controller in charge of my home’s functions and security is the day I start to live in a tent in my front yard. If you can bring the price down that low and still achieve an admirable performance and level of security, then take that model, amp it up times 20 and I’ll buy the new and improved version for $200. The majority of people here are not living in a third world country and I’m sorry if I sound uncompassionate, but as a “power user”, I’m not willing to adopt an inferior product so the rest of the world can catch up with us. Build two versions and let people decide between a $10 version or a proper $200+ device. If I were trying to skimp on this stuff I’d be buying stuff off of Alibaba and Taobao and cobbling crap together. I want quality and performance. PLEASE.

The other thing is that I will never pay a subscription fee. I would be happy to pay for a MAJOR update once a year, but I will would never want to be leaking money for something that is not guaranteed or even evident before I pay for it. My preference would be to pay a little more for the initial unit with a promise that it will be supported for a certain time, after which I can expect to pay for improvements (not repairs to something that should have already been included in the initial product, of course).

kwieto · September 25, 2018, 7:58am

I see that there is a big discussion about cheap vs. expensive.
To put my .3$ into discussion, the real question is if both equations: “cheap = poor” and “expensive = well built” are true in the modern world. And I personally doubt.

There are too much examples showing that “expensive” become more dependent on marketing and company’s business model (i.e. where you replace damaged device rather than repair it or offering very good return policy) than on the real quality of the product. Apple is one of such examples (I don’t want to start discussion about it, there are not bad products, just way overpriced comparing to what they offer).

There also a lot of examples showing that “cheap” too often mean “same product but without big brand logo on it”. Take Zipato from Z-wave world, where you can buy exact clones of their devices on Aliexpress for a 1/3 of the price. Or other re-branded products from the z-wave world (there is a lot of “no name” or niche devices which, attached to the controller are recognized as Philio, TKB, Qubino…).

From my personal perspective I would say that “knowledge is the power”. You can buy quality product for a factor of its price if you know that it is marketed by comapny A, produced by company B and sold by B under the C brand as well.
What I want to tell is that too often price has nothing to do with the real production and even R&D costs, but it is more kind of an estimation about “how much would our potential customers consider as reasonable price”. If you convince customers that your product is worth 2 times more than the one from your competitor (take Apple or HomeSeer as examples), then you won, regardless if it really is 2 times better or not.

Of course the truth is somewhere in between. I doubt in reliable HA controller with good support for $5, but I also wouldn’t pay $500 for it.

As for subscription model, I would consider it if it was bundled with hardware (i.e. you pay monthly fee, but you don’t pay for hardware or you have really big discount on it). I don’t see any benefits from typical model used for software (you pay monthly fee when you use application, when you stop you loose everything or at best have your system “freezed”) in HA sector.

Quixote · September 25, 2018, 8:28am

I think you may be mistaking my post as a comment on marketing rather than engineering and quality components.
I can get by for a week on $20 by buying “no name” products at the grocery store. Those same or extremely similar products would cost twice that if I were seduced by brand names and fancy packaging.
There is no way that I will enjoy that week, eating fillet steak, lobster and asparagus though. These are the fundamental rules of the universe.

kwieto · September 25, 2018, 9:30am

Sure, but then we don’t talk about a quality but about a performance.
For example, a Raspberry Pi is a good quality product, although its performance is not very high.
And infamous Galaxy Note 7 performed very good, just exploded from time to time due to poor quality of the battery.

Then the real question is if you really need a lobster?
Or a 600HP car, when you use it just for driving to work and grocery store, never exceeding 80km/h speed?
Sure, its nice to have it, but sometimes more is worse, as it needs more maintenance, for example.

Looking at specifications of controllers provided by main HA manufacturers (Vera, HomeSeer, Zipato, Fibaro, etc.) most of them fit into a level of Raspberry Pi (about $30-40, the real cost probably half of this or less, rest of the price you pay is for support and software development).
And that is enough so buying a $500 computer for that purpose would be an overkill. OK, it maybe would be 0.001s faster than the one for $100, but is such difference worth the money?

I’ve recently bought Raspberry Pi as an interface between some bluetooth plant sensors and a watering system. I considered Pi 3 B+ for that purpose, but finally bought Pi Zero. The specifications are not very impressive, but I simply don’t need a top of the class computer to handle couple of sensors and pass a command to turn on a watering device to Vera.

slelieveld · September 25, 2018, 8:00pm

I do not care about the hardware, as long as the firmware is good (UI7) meaning GOOD device integration (Zwave) and a good app framework. I am happy with the current vera hardware (with a good firmware). All other is not that important imho.

Quixote · September 25, 2018, 8:36pm

Sure, but then we don’t talk about a quality but about a performance.
For example, a Raspberry Pi is a good quality product, although its performance is not very high.
And infamous Galaxy Note 7 performed very good, just exploded from time to time due to poor quality of the battery.

Then the real question is if you really need a lobster?
Or a 600HP car, when you use it just for driving to work and grocery store, never exceeding 80km/h speed?
Sure, its nice to have it, but sometimes more is worse, as it needs more maintenance, for example.

Looking at specifications of controllers provided by main HA manufacturers (Vera, HomeSeer, Zipato, Fibaro, etc.) most of them fit into a level of Raspberry Pi (about $30-40, the real cost probably half of this or less, rest of the price you pay is for support and software development).
And that is enough so buying a $500 computer for that purpose would be an overkill. OK, it maybe would be 0.001s faster than the one for $100, but is such difference worth the money?

I’ve recently bought Raspberry Pi as an interface between some bluetooth plant sensors and a watering system. I considered Pi 3 B+ for that purpose, but finally bought Pi Zero. The specifications are not very impressive, but I simply don’t need a top of the class computer to handle couple of sensors and pass a command to turn on a watering device to Vera.[/quote]

Your points are sound and I’m not arguing against them. This is precisely why I mentioned that there should be 2 versions: a $10 one and a $200 one (for example). Your needs may not be the same as mine. For sure it would be overkill to have a $500 system just to water your tomatoes. I use the Vera to off-load a lot of rules from my Elk-M1G alarm system since there is not a lot of space memory-wise for rules, and the system is quite limited in what I can connect to it easily. I can trigger my LIFX lights to react to different conditions that the Elk sends to the Vera, but it’s very slow. What I would like is quality AND performance, as I stated in my first post, and I’m willing to pay a little more for it. I’ve been teetering on the edge of buying a Homeseer system for a while now, but since this new development I have reason to stick around a while longer and see what comes out of this.

kigmatzomat · September 26, 2018, 4:08am

That’s a straw man when it comes to computers. More powerful systems running the same OS require the same maintenance. Design tolerances are different but there are no consumables to change for computers.

For example, a Raspberry Pi is a good quality product, although its performance is not very high.
Looking at specifications of controllers provided by main HA manufacturers (Vera, HomeSeer, Zipato, Fibaro, etc.) most of them fit into a level of Raspberry Pi (about $30-40, the real cost probably half of this or less, rest of the price you pay is for support and software development).

Pi 3 is much more powerful than vera. Pi3 is a quad-core 1.2 GHz a53 cpu with 1gb ram. Vera is at best a dual core 900Mhz mips with 512mb ram for the secure. All other veras are single core. So Pi3 is @4x more powerful than the most recent vera and more like 8x-15x more powerful than prior models. Veras are more powerful than wink or smartthings, but those have cloud servers to handle some of the processing.

I don’t know about fibaro hardware but a Pi3 is minimum hardware for homeseer. Could be part of the reason homeseers outperform vera.

I've recently bought Raspberry Pi as an interface between some bluetooth plant sensors and a watering system. I considered Pi 3 B+ for that purpose, but finally bought Pi Zero. The specifications are not very impressive, but I simply don't need a top of the class computer to handle couple of sensors and pass a command to turn on a watering device to Vera.

That pi zero (1Ghz cpu & 512mb ram) is more powerful than a veraPlus (880mhz 256mb) and not terribly far from a vera secure (dual 880mhz 512mb).

I don’t think HA needs a 7th gen core i7 PC. But putting a $35 pi3b and a $40 zwave stick in there really should be table stakes, considering how much of a boost it is.

And keep in mind, a veraplus costs $150 while a Homeseer zee2 costs $199. For $50 you get a lot more hardware and a robust, reliable platform.

kwieto · September 26, 2018, 8:00pm

Then it is maybe about your incapability to explain things, but your first post was like “cheaper product for sure will be underperforming crap”, which I simply disagree.

By the way, my main setup is about 50 devices (physical, if you consider from logical point of view, there is about 200, including sensors, switches, cameras, cloud connected services, etc). And it is manageable by Plus (as @kigmatzomat calculated, about 4 times slower than $35 Pi) without much troubles. The main problems I have with Plus are not related to the hardware but to the firmware (i.e. too small amount of memory reserved for system/plugin files).
OK, it can be faster sometimes, but 4 times faster would be enough.

If you want to pay extra $$$ just to feel better because you bought a “deluxe” version (no matter that you’ll use 1/10th of its capacity), then do it, as the popular saying in my country state: “who will forbid the rich?”

kwieto · September 26, 2018, 9:13pm

Yes and no. You don’t change oil in a faster computer, but you have to provide more power, secure better cooling, etc.
This is why for example for some tasks (including home automation) less powerful but fanless machines are preferred.

This only confirms my claim of “fitting into Pi level” (or less)

I don’t know exact specification of current Fibaro’s HC2, but the previous revision (HC) was a clone of Vera 3, just with a different firmware.
For HomeSeer, their other Trollers are not a speed daemons. Again, this only support the claim that you don’t need a super computer for home automation.

And this is more or less what I claimed above. Given that a company like Vera for sure would have some discounts from the consumer market price, the real cost of hardware enough for most HA purposes shouldn’t exceed $50 level.
The rest of the price is in software and support.

Which supports only 5 plugins and if you want more you need to pay $399.
This is the topic for other discussion, but also confirms that hardware parts are not the major cost driver here.

kigmatzomat · September 26, 2018, 11:42pm

Which supports only 5 plugins and if you want more you need to pay $399.
This is the topic for other discussion, but also confirms that hardware parts are not the major cost driver here.[/quote]

Which supports my argument that using anything less than Pi3 is being miserly. If vera got the SOCs for free, it would only be $35 cheaper to make. So why shouldn’t vera use hardware that is 400% more capable?

And comparing Homeseer plugins to vera apps are not apples to apples. The base Homeseer system covers a whole host of things that require vera apps (pleg/pltc, virtual sensors/switches, idoor/itemp, logging, timers, counters).

And HomeSeer doesn’t crash.

Quixote · September 27, 2018, 8:06am

Then it is maybe about your incapability to explain things, but your first post was like “cheaper product for sure will be underperforming crap”, which I simply disagree.

By the way, my main setup is about 50 devices (physical, if you consider from logical point of view, there is about 200, including sensors, switches, cameras, cloud connected services, etc). And it is manageable by Plus (as @kigmatzomat calculated, about 4 times slower than $35 Pi) without much troubles. The main problems I have with Plus are not related to the hardware but to the firmware (i.e. too small amount of memory reserved for system/plugin files).
OK, it can be faster sometimes, but 4 times faster would be enough.

If you want to pay extra $$$ just to feel better because you bought a “deluxe” version (no matter that you’ll use 1/10th of its capacity), then do it, as the popular saying in my country state: “who will forbid the rich?”[/quote]

Looks like it’s more that you’re incapable of reading. I LITERALLY said the exact words, “I want quality AND performance”. I also said that if the $10 one works fine, then make a better one (with the same cost to performance ratio, obviously) for the people that want faster performance and more memory. If you’re going to take shots at me, at least get your facts straight.
If I need a “deluxe” version so that my lights come on the instant motion is detected and reboots are quicker, then so be it. It’s not that I want to waste my money or that I have a lot to spare – I just want to spend it where it counts. I do not have faith in a $10 product that has the ability to unlock my doors to tech-savvy criminals.

kwieto · September 27, 2018, 9:39am

I’m not against it, I just say that you can have enough performance for a relatively low price.
Yes, you could build Vera on a better hardware without much need to increase the price. I don’t know, maybe they have long term exclusive contract with Sercomm? But even in that case they can push Sercomm to build something better.

I don’t want to start a discussion which is better. My point is that the hardware difference itself between Zee2 and SEL is not worth $200, so the majority of cost is due to the difference in software (and the only difference in software is the plugin limit) = the software (including its stability, versality, etc.) is the major cost driver.

JimMac · September 27, 2018, 7:40pm

I’m another user that has been around since the first closed beta hardware trials. I’ve seen everything and so far lived through it all. I’m here mostly because I hate monthly payments plus I like to write my own code and create hardware when products don’t do what I want them to do.

I’m content with playing the wait and see game. If the $10+ controller proves to be as promised then great, if not I remain on my Plus and/or consider other HA products. I push my Plus hard (120+ devices) so I really hope the “new” controller blows the doors off the Plus in performance. I think melih got the message load & clear that the performance cannot be sacrificed for cost savings so give him and his team time to win us over, after all their future depends on it. In melih defense he needs to satisfy some very hard core users, clean up the current firmware mess and develop hardware. That’s going to take time but if they communicate with this forum on their progress as they go that would be a positive step in the right direction for me. Silence only creates speculation and anger.

fredthetiredman · September 28, 2018, 2:04pm

I really hate that most of these companies come out “guns blazing”…Buy our super products at XX dollars, and then they DONT work !!! They pass of the issues to “customer service” or tech support. The tech support person is like "please wait our engineers/developers are working on a solution. Please buy our “next-gen” products. Iris/lowes is a good example. I understand that we have different RF standards- But HEY here is a brilliant idea… let’s pick a “standard” and use it!!! Z-wave!!!

I did like the fact that VERA attempted to integrate other company’s rf format into them (Zigbee-kinda,wifi-etc) . But once again only partially supported…Some ZigBee devices, some insteon and so on. I am sure its a combination of limited hardware and engineer people resources. Vera has very poor IP camera support. I have a home computer based BLUE IRIS that has 18 cameras - to date vera can connect to 1 camera!!! Vera is going to a monthly fee option for additional cameras. Blue iris platform which has no fee monthly soooooo much better. Please figure out -no way i will pay monthly for this existing offer with a clunky interface.

UI5,UI7 once again nice attempts. The GUI is just clunky and “computer nerd” at best. Really does the average consumer care about LUUP? say what?!? The “scenes/scripts” could be more clear. The consumer has to learn…learn and really take the effort to figure stuff out…squirrel !!..who has time for that…squirrel !! Some exploring can be fun - but when you have unofficial " added on" to fix issues and to add functionality, you may have a crappy product -MAY!!! Look at windows 10 GUI for example!! unofficial GUI hack until next CEO seen what the people actually needed/wanted!! Then finally corrected it.

I own 3 Vera platforms- running only one currently. I do hope thing will improve for the best. Best of luck. Thank you

ndstate · October 4, 2018, 4:34am

Wow, lots of hostility around here. Welcome to the new team and good luck. Hopefully you are able to develop a better product than the last team.

melih must know what he is doing, he is a billionaire after all.

Sorin · October 4, 2018, 8:01am

Thank you, @ndstate

sky320 · October 4, 2018, 9:40pm

There seems to be a lot of disbelief that Melih wants to follow through with his claims. If you look at what he has done to this point I feel he should be given the chance to prove himself. With a proven track record as we see with Comodo Group and the free security apps that have been released by his company and he still became a billionaire we should sit back a be patient, I for one have invested heavily in this system found a ?fairly ? stable firmware and hope that he comes through. Melih?s track record shows he should. Just my two cents.

Mike_Yeager · October 5, 2018, 12:04am

If Vera becomes a stable platform and device support catches up, I’ll come back to it. Until then, I’m watching and waiting. My Vera is still in use for a select few devices and as a bridge to HA for Alexa…

kdschlosser · October 5, 2018, 12:58am

I had stated this to a CEO of MIOS in an E-Mail. I stated that I blamed him for the disaster of UI7 and the lack of proper support by the employees of MIOS. I stated I blamed him because he was not aware of what was going on. The indians are only as good as the chief. There was a mistake made by an employee, a statement made to the plugin developers. This has never been fully corrected. It is something I think should be addressed properly. Truth is the plugin developers expand the capabilities of your software/hardware… this is something they do for free in most cases… what!!! Free development!!! now why in the world would an IOT development company not want that??.. These plugin developers also discover and usually provide solutions for problems. without the need for a “paid” employee to have to spend the time to troubleshoot and locate an issue. There is yet another plus.

I am one of the developers/administrators of a Windows based HA program called EventGhost. We are opensource/opensupport One of my firm beliefs is that a single person with a problem is one problem to many. There is always a bug. even if it is the user not understanding the directions. that is a bug. the directions are not clear enough. everyone gets responded to.

How hard is it to keep a paid employee happy and doing their job to the best of their ability???
How hard do you think it is to keep a volunteer that gets no pay happy and doing the best they can…

Want to know what gives more job satisfaction then money?? Gratitude, gratitude from the users. not from the suits they work for. Everyone and I do mean everyone has a wicked greed for something they choose not to acknowledge.

Let me ask you this. If a friend asks you to help them move to a new apt… and you say yes… and you show up and help out… Now I know and you know that you really don’t want to be doing it… Then why are you??.. whats the motivation?? where is the gain? There is always a gain, that is why we do. You do it for the feeling you get when that person shows their gratitude and gives you praise for helping… It makes you happy because you made them happy.

Support should be modeled in the exact same manner. Every single employee… from you the CEO right down to the janitor should have to spend one hour each day on this forum more advanced people answer the phones. The purpose to it is first off the employees get to meet the people that are using the product… they will also get to see how mistakes made on the development end of things impacts the users. If said employee does not have an answer to the question… then they tell the user that… and they also say to the user But I am going to locate the individual that may have the knowledge… It is a learning tool for every single employee of the company… I will say this as well. The sense of pride that employee is going to feel when the user gets all excited that their issue is solved. or whatever crazy scene they were making finally works properly. is something that they will never get from a paycheck.

doing this is also going to turn the company into a team environment. everyone is going to have some kind of an idea of who does what and where to get answers.

There is only good that can become from doing this. as a company benefit… happy consumers… happy consumers = referrals = $$$

as an example. look at Samsung. each and every day more and more people are jumping ship. not buying their products… because they do not care about the user. and to be honest their support sucks. This is mainly because the people do not know what it is their company makes and they do not know what it can and cannot do. Training is boring… no one wants to sit there and listen to a lecture or watch some kind of a presentation.

hands on… is and has always been the best way to learn.

Fix the support… this will fix the issues with the software… leading to a good company reputation people will have no issue opening their wallets for… Friends have no problems spending money with friends.

Bt you as CEO you have to lead. you have to do the exact same as everyone else. no exceptions. You are in no way better then any of the employees you employ. You need to have as much user interaction as they do… that is the only way you can keep a grasp on what is really going on.

melih · October 5, 2018, 1:38am

[quote=“kdschlosser, post:239, topic:199656”]I had stated this to a CEO of MIOS in an E-Mail. I stated that I blamed him for the disaster of UI7 and the lack of proper support by the employees of MIOS. I stated I blamed him because he was not aware of what was going on. The indians are only as good as the chief. There was a mistake made by an employee, a statement made to the plugin developers. This has never been fully corrected. It is something I think should be addressed properly. Truth is the plugin developers expand the capabilities of your software/hardware… this is something they do for free in most cases… what!!! Free development!!! now why in the world would an IOT development company not want that??.. These plugin developers also discover and usually provide solutions for problems. without the need for a “paid” employee to have to spend the time to troubleshoot and locate an issue. There is yet another plus.