My CES 2015 report - chat with Lew Brown, and more...

Community Playground General Discussions
1

Hello beloved Vera community…

I spent the week at CES and thought I’d share some experiences and conversations I had with various companies, including our ‘uncle’ Lew Brown.

Seeing what was happening was both encouraging and disappointing at the same time. I spoke with most/all of the major players at CES in the Smart Home category… including Vera, Lowes, Securifi, Honeywell, Echostar/Sage, Belkin Wemo, Fibaro, Nexia, Pella, Philio, Flex, iControl, Insteon, and MANY more.

A few things became very clear, very fast…

  1. There is such a low barrier to entry that EVERYONE is getting into home automation at some level.
  2. Most companies are focusing on “control” plus very basic conditional (if/then) “automation” - not complex/branching automation as more of the power users here do.
  3. Companies that are not traditional HA are doing well, and better, than some that have been in the game for a while. Pella is a good example… thier door and window sensors are 3x smaller than all other sensors, including traditional alarm versions. The custom-install door sensor also has more features: open/closed/locked/unlocked - all others only tell you open/closed. Very impressive, and I’m not impressed easily.

Talking with Lew Brown…

Lew made it very clear: Vera is aiming at the lowest-common-denominator of users. I explained that this is what ‘almost’ everyone else is also doing and they are doing it better. This is why SmartThings and Nest were VERY quickly acquired by large companies. And, if you look at most of the other systems, they are drag-n-drop very simple UIs that create scenes/macros/whatever they call them in a few easy steps.

I explained my thoughts that Vera is being crushed from above and below… the new comers are not hampered by legacy (poor) code or ways of doing things. The companies aiming at the same user base does everything those users want, much better than Vera. The companies, like Fibaro, who can do more complex automation like Vera can, do it better that Vera in MANY ways. The Fibaro system is much more impressive, in every way, than Vera.

Talking with Honeywell, Fibaro, Pella, and others…

These companies get it. They are starting small and quickly ramping up on the complexity and thinking around how to make Home automation seamlessly integrate into everyone’s lives. Nest is the perfect example of this thinking.

I had in-depth discussions with the lead designer and lead engineer at Honeywell. If they stick on the path they are on, they will be a force for good in our goal to make automation mainstream. They are thinking deeply about how to take HA beyond smartphone control and simple conditional logic

In my opinion, Fibaro is the most impressive out of the gate for a power-user or SMB home automation business. They have a very polished system and some unique devices. I see them as the “I want a high-end system on a reasonable budget” system.

My conclusions…
It is clear to me the field is widening exponentially with easy access to both Z-Wave and Zigbee devices. Most are aiming at the same basic goal of targeting the lowest-common-denominator. The winner in this space will likely be new-comer start-ups (Piper/iControl, etc) and the largest incumbents (Samsung, Belkin, Google, Honeywell, etc). The next category will be the power-users and custom installers - the winner here is less easy to determine. I feel Fibaro is a strong leader and there are a few others very small new-entries into the space that could come up quickly if they get recognition. And even one big boy on the block who has the mental horsepower and financial backing, Honeywell. If the Control4’s of the world decided to step up (down really) they could easily own the mid-tier space.

Where does this leave Vera… most of you already know my answer to that, I’ll let you come to your own conclusion.

2

Thanks Aaron. How do you feel your comments to Lew Brown were received? Was he interested/open, disinterested/closed, defensive…?

3

[quote=“Aaron, post:1, topic:185233”]Hello beloved Vera community…

I spent the week at CES and thought I’d share some experiences and conversations I had with various companies, including our ‘uncle’ Lew Brown.

Seeing what was happening was both encouraging and disappointing at the same time. I spoke with most/all of the major players at CES in the Smart Home category… including Vera, Lowes, Securifi, Honeywell, Echostar/Sage, Belkin Wemo, Fibaro, Nexia, Pella, Philio, Flex, iControl, Insteon, and MANY more.

A few things became very clear, very fast…

  1. There is such a low barrier to entry that EVERYONE is getting into home automation at some level.
  2. Most companies are focusing on “control” plus very basic conditional (if/then) “automation” - not complex/branching automation as more of the power users here do.
  3. Companies that are not traditional HA are doing well, and better, than some that have been in the game for a while. Pella is a good example… thier door and window sensors are 3x smaller than all other sensors, including traditional alarm versions. The custom-install door sensor also has more features: open/closed/locked/unlocked - all others only tell you open/closed. Very impressive, and I’m not impressed easily.

Talking with Lew Brown…

Lew made it very clear: Vera is aiming at the lowest-common-denominator of users. I explained that this is what ‘almost’ everyone else is also doing and they are doing it better. This is why SmartThings and Nest were VERY quickly acquired by large companies. And, if you look at most of the other systems, they are drag-n-drop very simple UIs that create scenes/macros/whatever they call them in a few easy steps.

I explained my thoughts that Vera is being crushed from above and below… the new comers are not hampered by legacy (poor) code or ways of doing things. The companies aiming at the same user base does everything those users want, much better than Vera. The companies, like Fibaro, who can do more complex automation like Vera can, do it better that Vera in MANY ways. The Fibaro system is much more impressive, in every way, than Vera.

Talking with Honeywell, Fibaro, Pella, and others…

These companies get it. They are starting small and quickly ramping up on the complexity and thinking around how to make Home automation seamlessly integrate into everyone’s lives. Nest is the perfect example of this thinking.

I had in-depth discussions with the lead designer and lead engineer at Honeywell. If they stick on the path they are on, they will be a force for good in our goal to make automation mainstream. They are thinking deeply about how to take HA beyond smartphone control and simple conditional logic

In my opinion, Fibaro is the most impressive out of the gate for a power-user or SMB home automation business. They have a very polished system and some unique devices. I see them as the “I want a high-end system on a reasonable budget” system.

My conclusions…
It is clear to me the field is widening exponentially with easy access to both Z-Wave and Zigbee devices. Most are aiming at the same basic goal of targeting the lowest-common-denominator. The winner in this space will likely be new-comer start-ups (Piper/iControl, etc) and the largest incumbents (Samsung, Belkin, Google, Honeywell, etc). The next category will be the power-users and custom installers - the winner here is less easy to determine. I feel Fibaro is a strong leader and there are a few others very small new-entries into the space that could come up quickly if they get recognition. And even one big boy on the block who has the mental horsepower and financial backing, Honeywell. If the Control4’s of the world decided to step up (down really) they could easily own the mid-tier space.

Where does this leave Vera… most of you already know my answer to that, I’ll let you come to your own conclusion.[/quote]

I’m curious how Lee took the feedback?

Also, agree that Figaro looks nice… certainly better marketing. But forums indicate they are plagued with quality problems as well. Did you get that vibe?

4

[quote=“Aaron, post:1, topic:185233”]Hello beloved Vera community…

I spent the week at CES and thought I’d share some experiences and conversations I had with various companies, including our ‘uncle’ Lew Brown.

Seeing what was happening was both encouraging and disappointing at the same time. I spoke with most/all of the major players at CES in the Smart Home category… including Vera, Lowes, Securifi, Honeywell, Echostar/Sage, Belkin Wemo, Fibaro, Nexia, Pella, Philio, Flex, iControl, Insteon, and MANY more.

A few things became very clear, very fast…

  1. There is such a low barrier to entry that EVERYONE is getting into home automation at some level.
  2. Most companies are focusing on “control” plus very basic conditional (if/then) “automation” - not complex/branching automation as more of the power users here do.
  3. Companies that are not traditional HA are doing well, and better, than some that have been in the game for a while. Pella is a good example… thier door and window sensors are 3x smaller than all other sensors, including traditional alarm versions. The custom-install door sensor also has more features: open/closed/locked/unlocked - all others only tell you open/closed. Very impressive, and I’m not impressed easily.

Talking with Lew Brown…

Lew made it very clear: Vera is aiming at the lowest-common-denominator of users. I explained that this is what ‘almost’ everyone else is also doing and they are doing it better. This is why SmartThings and Nest were VERY quickly acquired by large companies. And, if you look at most of the other systems, they are drag-n-drop very simple UIs that create scenes/macros/whatever they call them in a few easy steps.

I explained my thoughts that Vera is being crushed from above and below… the new comers are not hampered by legacy (poor) code or ways of doing things. The companies aiming at the same user base does everything those users want, much better than Vera. The companies, like Fibaro, who can do more complex automation like Vera can, do it better that Vera in MANY ways. The Fibaro system is much more impressive, in every way, than Vera.

Talking with Honeywell, Fibaro, Pella, and others…

These companies get it. They are starting small and quickly ramping up on the complexity and thinking around how to make Home automation seamlessly integrate into everyone’s lives. Nest is the perfect example of this thinking.

I had in-depth discussions with the lead designer and lead engineer at Honeywell. If they stick on the path they are on, they will be a force for good in our goal to make automation mainstream. They are thinking deeply about how to take HA beyond smartphone control and simple conditional logic

In my opinion, Fibaro is the most impressive out of the gate for a power-user or SMB home automation business. They have a very polished system and some unique devices. I see them as the “I want a high-end system on a reasonable budget” system.

My conclusions…
It is clear to me the field is widening exponentially with easy access to both Z-Wave and Zigbee devices. Most are aiming at the same basic goal of targeting the lowest-common-denominator. The winner in this space will likely be new-comer start-ups (Piper/iControl, etc) and the largest incumbents (Samsung, Belkin, Google, Honeywell, etc). The next category will be the power-users and custom installers - the winner here is less easy to determine. I feel Fibaro is a strong leader and there are a few others very small new-entries into the space that could come up quickly if they get recognition. And even one big boy on the block who has the mental horsepower and financial backing, Honeywell. If the Control4’s of the world decided to step up (down really) they could easily own the mid-tier space.

Where does this leave Vera… most of you already know my answer to that, I’ll let you come to your own conclusion.[/quote]

Thanks for taking time to write this up. I was at CES as well and agree with much of what you said. The Pella shades were really nice–already wondering if they will be able to integrate. Also agree that Honeywell is a force to be reckoned with–I like the way they are thinking about HA.

My impression is that vera, because of the user community, has better developed support for alternative devices vs fibaro, but that may have changed since I last looked. Fibaro certainly wins on design. May be time to take a second look.

Vera seems to get that they have a pretty major issue with ui7; my hope is that resources will be coming in to improve functionality/design, but I do worry that fundamentally the company just doesn’t get good design. Would love to see them bring in more developers and an ideo-like firm.

5

commenting on your questions & comments…

My discussion with Lew was as I expected. He was very professional and very measured in his responses. He explained that they were going after the soccer-mom demographic. When I explained my thoughts on Vera being a much better mid-tier player than trying to be entry-level and compete against dozens of other companies; he defended his position and explained they were sticking with the low-end.

Most users here have been distracted by UI6, UI7, etc… this is all irrelevant to the business focus and direction, which is what I focus on.

It was crystal clear to me, Vera’s goals do not align with most of the regular users (power users) on this forum.

All companies, large/med/small, have limited resources with people, money and time. A small company like Vera especially. Vera is focused on becoming mainstream mom & pop solution. Thus, they can only do this by making an easy to use interface for simple control and limited automation - completely entry level stuff.

I suspect they are not going to hamper more custom/complex capabilities that the community may want - which already exists in the code base. BUT, don’t expect them to work on enhancements or bug fixes that are in this vein. They are clearly not interested in complex/mid-tier solutions.

Fibaro…
While no system is perfect, I think they ARE clearly interested and aiming at more complex / mid-tier solutions… while making the ‘simple stuff’ stay simple to do - and the more complex stuff simple to do also. I feel their overall methodology and design is far more robust than Vera and maybe anything else out there for low & mid tier. Their controller price is higher but in the grand scheme of things, for what you get compared to Vera, it looks to be well worth it.

@tb001 - you mention vera having better community support… maybe true but Vera has been around a lot longer and Vera REQUIRES community support to be usable for mid-tier. Fibaro does not have massive dependance on community code since there is a TON more built-in. I’d personally rather have the core system have the functionality then be dependent on the generosity of the community to add required core functionality because it does not exist, or is broken, in Vera’s code. Plus, at the rate Vera is going, there will not be many or any community coders left in a year or so.

I’ll be diving into more on this front very soon as I get a Fibaro system and start working on it.

6

Thanks for the info Aaron. Right now I’m somewhere between entry level and mid tier although even my setup is starting to get more complex. At this time, the Vera 3 does what I need it to do and I see it doing what I need it to do for the foreseeable future. As long as GetVera adds support for new devices, I can live with it’s limitations. But I do agree, take away the community and the plug-in app developers in that same community, a large chunk of Vera’s appeal will vanish. I much rather use Authomation or even Imperihome than Vera’s Android app. Without the Blue Irius plugin, 75% of my IP cams would not be supported. Without Multiswitch, I can’t run my DD-WRT presence detection and without the Yamaha plugin I’m unable to use my 2 HTR receivers as alarm clocks and remotely control them. Without the community and it’s knowledge and help, chances are I’d be using Vera for remote control as I would lack the knowhow to do anything else.
Although in my setup I don’t need to rely on it, I’m sure lots of people rely heavily on the PLEG plugin. Now imagine the Vera platform without all those bells and whistles.

I’m hoping by the time I’m forced to switch, OpenHab s mature enough or SmartThings has gone the way I’m hoping it will. Or perhaps Honeywell has done things right. As said, a $150 controller is nice, but considering how much money most of us invest in devices, even a $600 controller is worth it if it does exactly what you need it to do. I just realized I paid $299 for my main Vera 3 and $100 for my secondary so I’m already up to $400 on the controller front anyway.

7

[quote=“Aaron, post:5, topic:185233”]Fibaro…
While no system is perfect, I think they ARE clearly interested and aiming at more complex / mid-tier solutions… while making the ‘simple stuff’ stay simple to do - and the more complex stuff simple to do also. I feel their overall methodology and design is far more robust than Vera and maybe anything else out there for low & mid tier. Their controller price is higher but in the grand scheme of things, for what you get compared to Vera, it looks to be well worth it.

@tb001 - you mention vera having better community support… maybe true but Vera has been around a lot longer and Vera REQUIRES community support to be usable for mid-tier. Fibaro does not have massive dependance on community code since there is a TON more built-in. I’d personally rather have the core system have the functionality then be dependent on the generosity of the community to add required core functionality because it does not exist, or is broken, in Vera’s code. Plus, at the rate Vera is going, there will not be many or any community coders left in a year or so.

I’ll be diving into more on this front very soon as I get a Fibaro system and start working on it.[/quote]

Totally agree about vera requiring community support! Would much rather have all of these things supported by the actual company instead of the user base, though I do think there are limitations which will be problematic for most of the other systems. As I understand it, unless a third party device has opened up their API, Vera can’t integrate it natively. So requires them to do deals and pick and choose which third party to work with for garage doors, lights, etc… Something where the bigger guys will always have an advantage. I just don’t want the system I choose making that decision for me!

And for the record, I’m totally the soccer mom demographic they’re aiming for. I have zero idea how to port forward, set up a home network, etc… and have zero interest in learning how, which is why I’ve always used macs at home. And my husband is less tech savvy than I am. I found the first 4 months of setting up our system incredibly frustrating–these forums were the only thing that got me through it. That said, I think most people will quickly become frustrated at the lack of conditional programing in competing home control systems, as well as the lack of selection on third party devices. When I researched which system to buy (early last yr), it was quickly apparent that there were only a few platforms that could really do good conditional programming and only vera supported the devices I wanted to use, mostly.

I worry about the developers leaving as well and will be closely following your experience with Fibaro. I would love something that is more intuitive and less buggy and would switch in a heartbeat. I just want it to work with our other devices as well. Given the $ we’ve put into our system, the controller cost is a drop in the bucket!

8

[quote=“Aaron”]commenting on your questions & comments…

My discussion with Lew was as I expected. He was very professional and very measured in his responses. He explained that they were going after the soccer-mom demographic. When I explained my thoughts on Vera being a much better mid-tier player than trying to be entry-level and compete against dozens of other companies; he defended his position and explained they were sticking with the low-end.

Most users here have been distracted by UI6, UI7, etc… this is all irrelevant to the business focus and direction, which is what I focus on.

It was crystal clear to me, Vera’s goals do not align with most of the regular users (power users) on this forum.

All companies, large/med/small, have limited resources with people, money and time. A small company like Vera especially. Vera is focused on becoming mainstream mom & pop solution. Thus, they can only do this by making an easy to use interface for simple control and limited automation - completely entry level stuff.

I suspect they are not going to hamper more custom/complex capabilities that the community may want - which already exists in the code base. BUT, don’t expect them to work on enhancements or bug fixes that are in this vein. They are clearly not interested in complex/mid-tier solutions.[/quote]

Thanks for the CES updates.

As a vera user since about day one I felt this was the case. ( I had deep down hoped I was wrong) having had HA / HC and whole home audio and features like intercoms and central vacuum and alarm systems for over 30 years starting with X10 timers to x10 PC, home made relays and then homeseer. 20 years ago my alarm could door and window status to my pager. I thought by now we would be further down this road. Vera was leaps and bounds beyond those in potential. But those were more soccer mom / mainstream friendly IMHO. Heck x-10 worked well long before the internet existed. Somehow it was easy to make a system then that worked as reliably as we see systems like Wink today. There is NO way that someone ( average non computer savvy person) could buy Vera today and a handful of devices and just have a happy go plug and play system. No way without web searches and this forum. They sure as hell aren’t going to get timely installation help from Vera. Its a shame. There is certainly many options coming online, which is good. But personally i get tired of chasing products and being a beta tester every time i want to connect something that should be easily connectible eg: zwave devices . I believe there is a place for mid range products. Cellphones and tablets seem to do well as high priced products. Sadly it seems like everything else in this country, a race to the bottom determines the winner. Flood the market with marginal functioning subscription based services, and hook everyone for long term revenue. Which then everyone complains about quality and durability and total cost of ownership. Can’t have it both ways I suppose.
Sounds like Vera gave the forum and especially the hard working app and plugin devs a big Foo You. Without the plugins Vera could maybe turn on a light and change your temperature. I would like to see all the plugin devs pull all their apps. Host them somewhere else for paid download and see how well Vera does then. The real shame is that Vera is an 85% hardware device with a 50% firmware and all it need is a little tweaking in the right direction to go mainstream and midrange at the same time. The hard work has already been done. Hopefully someone will buy Vera Controls and either grow it or kill it and get us out of our self inflicted misery.

9

[quote=“osmosis, post:8, topic:185233”]As a vera user since about day one I felt this was the case. ( I had deep down hoped I was wrong) having had HA / HC and whole home audio and features like intercoms and central vacuum and alarm systems for over 30 years starting with X10 timers to x10 PC, home made relays and then homeseer. 20 years ago my alarm could door and window status to my pager. I thought by now we would be further down this road. Vera was leaps and bounds beyond those in potential. But those were more soccer mom / mainstream friendly IMHO. Heck x-10 worked well long before the internet existed. Somehow it was easy to make a system then that worked as reliably as we see systems like Wink today. There is NO way that someone ( average non computer savvy person) could buy Vera today and a handful of devices and just have a happy go plug and play system. No way without web searches and this forum. They sure as hell aren’t going to get timely installation help from Vera. Its a shame. There is certainly many options coming online, which is good. But personally i get tired of chasing products and being a beta tester every time i want to connect something that should be easily connectible eg: zwave devices . I believe there is a place for mid range products. Cellphones and tablets seem to do well as high priced products. Sadly it seems like everything else in this country, a race to the bottom determines the winner. Flood the market with marginal functioning subscription based services, and hook everyone for long term revenue. Which then everyone complains about quality and durability and total cost of ownership. Can’t have it both ways I suppose.
Sounds like Vera gave the forum and especially the hard working app and plugin devs a big Foo You. Without the plugins Vera could maybe turn on a light and change your temperature. I would like to see all the plugin devs pull all their apps. Host them somewhere else for paid download and see how well Vera does then. The real shame is that Vera is an 85% hardware device with a 50% firmware and all it need is a little tweaking in the right direction to go mainstream and midrange at the same time. The hard work has already been done. Hopefully someone will buy Vera Controls and either grow it or kill it and get us out of our self inflicted misery.[/quote]

Spot on, sir. The problem with most people on this forum is that they aren’t honest enough with themselves to realize how bad the management/product development of Vera really is.

The user community and plugin developers here made Vera a superior product… we can just as easily do that somewhere else with a product that has more potential and better product development/management.

Most of us spent <$200 for their Vera controller… that’s a drop in the HA investment bucket. I’m more than willing to chuck my unit when the right opportunity comes for a promising product and management philosophy behind it.

10

I suspect Vera is taking this route for quite rational reasons that have nothing to do with their current customer community. Sure, we are important but definitely not the business driver for them now. At least Lew was honest about the direction knowing full well how this group would take it. He could have just told us what we wanted to hear.

There is a lot of changes happening in the industry right now with immature new players getting snapped up for insane valuations. New controllers are coming out every week. Its getting crowded and the first movers that build their consumer brand will survive and the rest will get crowded out. The investors and leadership knows that if Vera continues to be a niche product, they may miss out on the big payout. Vera does not have the marketing and distribution power of the big guys, so for them to really grow and potentially get investment or acquired requires them to have a product that is simple for retail distribution channels which increases their run-rate business and valuation.

If that means abandoning the existing community of more advanced users, then so be it. Let’s be honest, most of us have little loyalty to Vera and they know it. Sure it is partially the fault of the company, but most of the initial power users grabbed on to Vera because it was one of the first, CHEAP, and flexible systems.
The moment that OpenHab or related platforms mature, most will jump there… not because we necessarily dislike Vera, but because its focus matches ours.

11

Exactly. They’re going after the larger market of low hanging fruit. Grab the easy money.

Making a superior product won’t necessarily make them more money. It’s more likely to make them less.

12

Your comments would be directionally accurate IF Vera was an attractive acquisition for a larger company or if they could be a player in the entry-level tier… I’m 99.9999% sure they have no relevance in both cases

I don’t see any way they would be attractive as an acquisition (if someone looks closely at the technology, market share, or following/hype they have - e.g. they DONT have). If they were attractive they’d have been snatched up.

Most large companies (Honeywell, iControls, Belkin, D-Link, Logitech, etc) are building their own solution, or (Samsung, Google, etc) buying the most attractive ones… Revolv, SmartThings, etc.

Vera’s ONLY HOPE is to be a niche player in the mid-tier space. This is where they are already have decent foundations.

I could - but won’t - explain much deeper WHY Vera is not now, and will never be (unless they have a ton of marketing funds) a major player in the space they are targeting on the entry-tier space.

At CES I spent many hours (dinner, drinks, 1x1 convos, etc) with VCs and CEOs in the home and professional space for industries like video, smart home, etc. One being the CEO for Tablo (tablotv.com). I know what they looking at, how they build businesses for acquisition, what they are thinking about in the industry. Vera is FAR from it.

13

Something to remember:

From my understanding, the Vera controllers are a secondary and less valuable market. Their primary product is their MiOS software that is run on other systems. The Vera rep even stated in the “Developer Email” thread that they were forced to bring UI7 to market early by their hardware partners. They are reaching for the low hanging fruit and Vera threw the VeraEdge into the market (a rebranded hardware from another source… or the other source is a rebranded VeraEdge… TV something… in the same thread a developer said he got one of the boxes).

Long story short… Vera cares about the MiOS software and does not really value the developer community. We are picking up the scraps of the table with a low cost system.

This “arrangement” works for some, not for others. Right now it works for me. The Vera3 on UI5 (with plug-ins) does what I need. The moment it doesn’t suit my needs I will be looking at the competitors.

What I want:
Local logic
Works with my devices
if/and/or capabilities
A simple plug into the router box (I don’t have the knowledge to set up my own server system)

Simple as that. I don’t care about “Vera”. I care about getting a product I can use.

14

The problem with MCV’s supposedly new “soccer mom strategy” is that UI7 sucks. It’s too buggy/non-intuitive for a beginning user, and it’s too buggy (with certain features deprecated) for us advanced users now.

They really don’t seem to get that first-adopters/power users like the folks in this forum are what drives a product mainstream. The average person asks the advice of people like us or systems integrators who are looking for a well put together product (meaning proper documentation, support, updates, etc). I’ve never been able to recommend Vera to anyone who’s ever seen my system because I know they wouldn’t have the time, patience or skill set to replicate the effort.

15

@Aaron the point is they need to make themselves to either a suitor or investors. I doubt their strategy is being done in a vacuum, but being guided some people that hopefully have some experience in this. I assume its their investors. Time will tell if it is the right one.

I do think MIOS is actually quite good platform even with its warts . it works 98% of the time really well. Otherwise I (and you) would have dumped it a long time ago. Smarthings and Revolve barely had a product and almost no market share, yet they got snapped up. Comparatively Vera does a lot more than others do. The MIOS platform has proved to be flexible and extensible while managing a very low price point. They know this and as @RHINESEL reminded us, their focus has been the OEM market. We get what is left, but its a choice we all made.

I fully agree with you that Vera does not have the marketing capability to get to the Soccer Mom demographic. Their best bet is getting hitched with a company that does. I assume it would be with one of their OEM partners (ie Bosch) that could acquire them very easily. There is very little hope for ‘niche’ players in this space. It is too immature market right now.

I have a house full of incredibly awesome ‘niche’ products that I was excited about when I purchased them. Almost all of them are now stranded with the companies gone or pivoting away from the great… to the good enough to grow. A niche is great for us but it will not expand or attract VC or acquisition (if that is their plan) unless there is a plan to take it mainstream. It is the MBA’s that make that decision, unfortunately not the engineers.

@TC1 . Can’t argue your point … UI7 sucks. Poor execution and a rushed release that has not delivered on its simplicity goals while also making it less useful for current users. I have a couple of friends starting UI7 from scratch… I will be curious what their experience will be without having any previous expectations and experience with HA.

16

I have been a Vera user for about 2 weeks. I have no experience with HA and my expectations were that there would be a learning curve, like most things, but that basic functionality would be pretty simple to achieve. I am extremely computer literate, even developing and programming specialized database applications from scratch.

I have two locks and a Vera Lite. In the two weeks I have had the system I have been able to achieve a level of functionality that I think is pretty good for a beginner, but pretty basic nonetheless. Without this forum it would have been impossible to achieve even the basic level of functions I have now. Not difficult, not time consuming, IMPOSSIBLE. The only thing I would have been able to do without the information here is open and close the locks remotely. That is it. That isn’t HA, that is a fancy on/off switch. I would be interested in your friend’s experiences as well. Please keep us informed.

I deal with “Soccer Moms” and their computers on a regular basis. If they believe that Vera is going to be marketed and used by soccer moms without a MASSIVE software overhaul they are living on a different planet than the third one from the sun.

17

[quote=“Aaron, post:5, topic:185233”]My discussion with Lew was as I expected. He was very professional and very measured in his responses. He explained that they were going after the soccer-mom demographic. When I explained my thoughts on Vera being a much better mid-tier player than trying to be entry-level and compete against dozens of other companies; he defended his position and explained they were sticking with the low-end.

Most users here have been distracted by UI6, UI7, etc… this is all irrelevant to the business focus and direction, which is what I focus on.

It was crystal clear to me, Vera’s goals do not align with most of the regular users (power users) on this forum.

All companies, large/med/small, have limited resources with people, money and time. A small company like Vera especially. Vera is focused on becoming mainstream mom & pop solution. Thus, they can only do this by making an easy to use interface for simple control and limited automation - completely entry level stuff.

I suspect they are not going to hamper more custom/complex capabilities that the community may want - which already exists in the code base. BUT, don’t expect them to work on enhancements or bug fixes that are in this vein. They are clearly not interested in complex/mid-tier solutions.[/quote]

@Aaron Very interesting write up. Thanks for taking the time. I came in on the very, very tail-end of your conversation w/ Lew at the show, but based on your initial post (and subsequent replies), I fear you’ve grossly misconstrued our position.

While we are endeavoring to expand our customer base more broadly, to say we are “going after the soccer-mom demographic” or “becoming mainstream mom & pop solution” is inaccurate. Quite the opposite, really.

The market has been inundated with smart home “solutions” over the last 24-36 months that are (effectively) nothing more than glorified remote controls. That’s the antithesis of our platform. The most powerful thing about Vera/MiOS isn’t what an end user can do, it’s what they no longer have to do. Day after day, week after week, year after year.

We are absolutely focused on (to use your parlance) complex/mid-tier solutions, as the distillation of this advanced automation and orchestration is exactly what mainstream consumers desire, albeit in a more approachable, turnkey fashion.

That’s what we’re engaged in today. Managing that fragile balance. Finding the right ratio that allows us to service both audiences, concurrently. It is, and will continue to be, a work in progress as both our audience and the marketplace as a whole evolves and matures.

To that end, we’re rolling out a new account based user designation feature this quarter that will help to improve the process. It allows power users to “opt in” to displaying all the “advanced” features, while the “standard” user designation leaves much of the highly technical underpinnings safely obfuscated from laymen users. This way each user segment has a more custom tailored experience, based on their specific wants and needs, without diluting or adversely affecting the other.

That said, if you walked away from the conversation feeling the way you do, there appears to have been a pretty significant breakdown in communication.

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I don’t know if I didn’t understand the initial post and the follow ups on fibaro, but please, take a look at the fibaro board, and look how things are working, or better not working…

UI7 has it’s problems, but those problems are nothing when you take a look at the fibaro forums.

BTW: I have a fibaro home center 2 and a fibaro home center light beside my vera lite…

19

[quote=“Colin Burke McClure, post:17, topic:185233”]@Aaron Very interesting write up. Thanks for taking the time. I came in on the very, very tail-end of your conversation w/ Lew at the show, but based on your initial post (and subsequent replies), I fear you’ve grossly misconstrued our position.

While we are endeavoring to expand our customer base more broadly, to say we are “going after the soccer-mom demographic” or “becoming mainstream mom & pop solution” is inaccurate. Quite the opposite, really.

The market has been inundated with smart home “solutions” over the last 24-36 months that are (effectively) nothing more than glorified remote controls. That’s the antithesis of our platform. The most powerful thing about Vera/MiOS isn’t what an end user can do, it’s what they no longer have to do. Day after day, week after week, year after year.

We are absolutely focused on (to use your parlance) complex/mid-tier solutions, as the distillation of this advanced automation and orchestration is exactly what mainstream consumers desire, albeit in a more approachable, turnkey fashion.

That’s what we’re engaged in today. Managing that fragile balance. Finding the right ratio that allows us to service both audiences, concurrently. It is, and will continue to be, a work in progress as both our audience and the marketplace as a whole evolves and matures.

To that end, we’re rolling out a new account based user designation feature this quarter that will help to improve the process. It allows power users to “opt in” to displaying all the “advanced” features, while the “standard” user designation leaves much of the highly technical underpinnings safely obfuscated from laymen users. This way each user segment has a more custom tailored experience, based on their specific wants and needs, without diluting or adversely affecting the other.

That said, if you walked away from the conversation feeling the way you do, there appears to have been a pretty significant breakdown in communication.[/quote]

Colin,
I appreciate you jumping in. I definitely got the message of “we are going after the broadest market” aka basic home-users since that is the broadest market. Lew is correct, that is the broadest market. Also the one where Vera does not, and likely will not excel if history is any measure. The only use case Lew sited was study Vera conducted and specifically an interview with a Mom with a child in her home. He wanted to make it easy for her and fulfill her needs. This is the exact same goal the market players, new and old, are doing. I think that war is really pretty much over before it begins… Belkin, Logitech, and a few others will win that easily - for many reasons.

Is that “Control” - yes, mostly… with some basic Conditional (If/Then) logic type automation.

The things many/most of the forum users do is far more complex, but I still call it mid-tier - I consider high-end to be Control4, Crestron, etc.
Hiding the complex structures are fine, and will only help with the soccer mom demo… it will not resolve core issues or lack of functionality.

Since Day 1 I felt Vera had a ton of potential and I still do. I bought the unit myself and have setup it for many others because of the functionality the COMMUNITY has provided, not the base platform. Many here use VERY LITTLE built-in functionality.

At the base functionality (sans raw LUA code capabilities) Vera would provide little more than any other system on the market in the same price point and it is FAR more difficult to use… I think most forum users feel the same and are in a similar situation - osmosis, post 7, is case in point confirming a tech savvy person would have serious difficulty even with base UI functions.

Over the past 2+ years we’ve seen Vera products stagnate; and post-UI5 step backward from functions and usability. Long-standing bugs don’t get fixed while time is spent the look’n’feel gets unneeded changes instead of time/effort placed on making a more robust core platform. If this is not the case, you have fooled everyone in this community and are hiding the improvements well :wink:

Vera has a ton of great users here (lost many too in the past 2 yrs), with excellent experience and some with fantastic coding prowess… yet we have not seen Vera leverage the community, and for the post part ignore them.

I’m still on Vera because I have a lot of time invested with 13 community coded plugins. But even the community code relies on the base system - which has issues at times so it is not more than 95% reliable.

Also, in discussion with coders like Richard, Garrett and some who are no longer using Vera… the Vera core system has limitations that care very difficult, and some times impossible to work around.

Examples…

  1. It is not possible to stop a scene one started. Vera does not use a concept of a transaction, thus once something starts it cannot be stopped.
  2. Controlling sequencing is very rudimentary and unreliable.
  • these are problematic with complex scenes.

And I’m not even going to go into the GUI issues.

With so many new players (as I mentioned in my first post) the options are enormous. They are using more robust coding, scene/control methodologies, and UIs (HTML5, RestFul, etc). It won’t be long before a solid alternative emerges. I give it ~1 year for there to be a viable alternative for mid-tier, maybe less.

Suggestions for Vera if they are serious about being a leader in this space…

  • Step up your community involvement
  • Greatly step up your community developer involvement: support current devs and embrace new ones. treat them better than you would your own employees… they seem to be adding more code than your own employees :wink:
  • embrace ~20 of the community members as an on-going, private, focus group. work to revamp all aspects of how the Vera interacts with the user: Scene creation, API interfaces, UI redesign, etc

I hope Vera takes all this to heart.

20

Colin, this is a GREAT way of describing the competition! I don’t need a remote control to turn on my lights as my house isn’t that big and I can walk over and turn on a light (yes, sometimes I am lazy and do it). The scenes/automation capabilities and IFTTT type functionality is why (despite some rough edges), I’m not giving up on Vera. However, I’d be real interested in some type of HomeKit integration such that 1 app could control devices that are integrated into Vera as well as devices that aren’t integrated.