Wink HUBs Bricked! Wink to issue recalls to fix

Community Playground General Discussions
1

FYI My Wink Hub has been down for most of today. Solid Orange light even after several power down resets. I am not sure when it actually started. Found the website to check on the situation and look for updates.

I just got an email saying that Wink will send out a box to pack up the hub and return to Wink for an update. Here is a copy of the status update.

NOTICE OF SERVICE OUTAGE & HUB REPLACEMENT PROGRAM Subscribe
Identified - Wink Hubs experienced a complete service disruption between the hours of 12:40pm ET and 11:00 ET on April 18th.

Throughout this outage, all Wink homes were completely secure and never vulnerable. In fact, the root cause of our service disruption was caused by a security measure we implemented in the early days of the program.

Since the dawn of Wink we?ve worked hard to provide our customers with the most secure home automation platform available.

Because of a misconfiguration of the aforementioned security measure, Wink Hubs lost their connection to the internet for an extended period of time. During this time, users were not able to control their Hub-dependent devices with the Wink app. Schedules and Robots also did not function.

While we were able to recover and reconnect the majority of hubs, many of our users with Wink Hubs were emailed and asked to return their hub and await a replacement.

Additionally, we are immediately suspending all sales of Wink Hubs across all retail channels. We expect to resume sales within the week.

We are incredibly sorry for the inconvenience caused here. If you would like to talk to a service representative, call us at 844-WINK-APP or find us on Twitter @TheWinkApp.

FAQ

Was my home ever vulnerable during the outage?
Throughout this outage, all Wink homes were completely secure and never vulnerable. In fact, the root cause of our service disruption stemmed from our commitment to security.

What caused the outage?
Due to a security measure that was initially put in place to protect Wink users, Wink Hubs lost connection to the internet for an extended period of time. During this time, users were not able to control their hub-dependent devices with the Wink app. Schedules and Robots also did not function.

Does my Wink Hub still work?
We?ve contacted all Wink Hub users to update them on the status of their Hubs. Many Wink Hubs have been recovered and reconnected. If you were impacted further, we?re asking you please return your Wink Hub to us (we?ll provide a box and return label) and we?ll get it back to you soon. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. If your Hub appears to not be functioning properly, please give us a call at 844-WINK-APP.

Were other Wink-compatible products impacted by the outage?
No. The outage only impacted the Wink Hub.

How often do you expect this to happen?
This was an incredibly rare and unique circumstance. It was completely avoidable and is extremely embarrassing for us. Moving forward we will work very hard to ensure an outage like this never happens again. Since our launch in July, we?ve had very few outages and take great pride in our uptime.

My Wink Hub doesn?t work anymore, what do I do?
First off, we deeply apologize for the inconvenience. You should by now have received an email from Wink with additional instructions to get your Wink Hub replaced free of charge. We?re asking users whose Hubs no longer connect to Wink Servers to please fill out this form and we?ll make sure a replacement Hub is sent to you soon. If you would like to talk to a service representative, please call us at 844-WINK-APP or contact us on Twitter at @TheWinkApp.

Why can?t you fix my Hub over the air?
We were able to fix a majority of Hubs through a software push, but due to the circumstances of this particular outage, certain Hubs were no longer online - therefore we were unable to update the software on the Hub. We?ve asked these users to send their Hub back for a replacement.

Can I return my Hub to my local retail store?
The fastest way to resolve your issue is to participate in our replacement program. Local stores will not have inventory of the Wink Hub for some time.

If my Hub is replaced by Wink, will I have to re-setup all my devices?
We?re optimistic that we?ll return your Hub in fully working order and that you won?t have to go through the setup and pairing process again. If you do, we?ll let you know, but we?re working hard to make sure this doesn?t happen.

What are you talking about, I didn?t have any outage?
Fantastic! Don?t worry about it.
Apr 19, 04:31 UTC

I am not sure how widespread this is. BTW, I did do the latest update to the Hub (0.85.0).

I hope you were not affected. We will see how this all plays out.

-bob

2

This is a known issue that has been discussed in the Wink Hub Plugin thread [url=http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,30007.0.html]http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,30007.0.html[/url]… Check the last few pages of the thread for details…

Short answer…

A factory fresh hub ships with firmware version 00.00 which contains a security certificate that expired on April 14, 2015… Updated firmware before version 00.82 contained the same (now expired) certificate… Firmware 00.82 (release on April 14, 2015) contained a new certificate that expired on April 18, 2015… If you took the firmware update to version 00.85, your hub should be ok… If you didn’t upgrade, your hub is now unable to connect to the Wink server and can not be commanded to update the firmware and resolve the issue…

If your Wink Hub is rooted, you can manually upgrade the firmware on your hub, and will not need to send your hub for “repair”…

3

[quote=“rbakley, post:1, topic:186962”]How often do you expect this to happen?
This was an incredibly rare and unique circumstance. It was completely avoidable and is extremely embarrassing for us. Moving forward we will work very hard to ensure an outage like this never happens again. Since our launch in July, we?ve had very few outages and take great pride in our uptime.[/quote]

Impressive that they say it their own fault and it could be avoided. You don’t see this nowadays in most companies anymore. I am not only talking about micasaverde , but about companies in general. Nowadays it is all about blaming someone else, so a manager doesn’t lose his bonus.

Sorry it is a bit off topic, but a thumbs up for this company!

Cor

4

[quote=“Cor, post:3, topic:186962”][quote=“rbakley, post:1, topic:186962”]How often do you expect this to happen?
This was an incredibly rare and unique circumstance. It was completely avoidable and is extremely embarrassing for us. Moving forward we will work very hard to ensure an outage like this never happens again. Since our launch in July, we?ve had very few outages and take great pride in our uptime.[/quote]

Impressive that they say it their own fault and it could be avoided. You don’t see this nowadays in most companies anymore. I am not only talking about micasaverde , but about companies in general. Nowadays it is all about blaming someone else, so a manager doesn’t lose his bonus.

Sorry it is a bit off topic, but a thumbs up for this company!

Cor[/quote]

I completely agree,… however it’s still an armatureistic mistake, that is going to cost them BIG… Do they have the capital to recover from a mistake this big, this early on…?

5

[quote=“ServiceXp”][quote=“Cor, post:3, topic:186962”][quote=“rbakley, post:1, topic:186962”]How often do you expect this to happen?
This was an incredibly rare and unique circumstance. It was completely avoidable and is extremely embarrassing for us. Moving forward we will work very hard to ensure an outage like this never happens again. Since our launch in July, we?ve had very few outages and take great pride in our uptime.[/quote]

Impressive that they say it their own fault and it could be avoided. You don’t see this nowadays in most companies anymore. I am not only talking about micasaverde , but about companies in general. Nowadays it is all about blaming someone else, so a manager doesn’t lose his bonus.

Sorry it is a bit off topic, but a thumbs up for this company!

Cor[/quote]

I completely agree,… however it’s still an armatureistic mistake, that is going to cost them BIG… Do they have the capital to recover from a mistake this big, this early on…?[/quote]

As a dissatisfied Wink experimenter, I hope this kills the company. Wink in my experience has been nothing but an unreliable time waster. I have paired and repaired and paired again. I come home to wink lights off that should be on. On that should be off 20% of the time. The WAF of wink is less than tolerant and wink has made my future HA budget questionable. I cheaped out and got lured into the free hub with some bulbs and got screwed. The correct way to HA is wired switches and local control. Wireless bulbs and cloud control only are a novelty solution with many problems. I made the mistake 2 months ago by replacing a manual light timer that worked for 15 years at my business with a wink hub. Since then it has not activated the lights 3 random nights and now I need a new hub. The timer never in 15 years missed an event.

6

Of course, the most interesting thing is that those of us who rooted our Winks were able to manually upgrade and SAVE them the cost of shipping and repairing those hubs. Another plus for the openness of Vera–and why I am willing to put up with the Vera’s warts, because at least the patient doesn’t die.

7

Guess I have a bricked dead Wink then. Still sitting in the box as I haven’t had a chance to play with it. Guess I had better figure out how to root the PoS so I can avoid having to send it back, getting it updated and losing the capability to root it.

8

Short answer:
one needs to be insane to hand over the total control of the home automation to the cloud.
This snafu alone shows - that your family and home security and control depends on a singular person who does or does not program a security certificate without which your home automation and control does not work; the certificate over which you have no control what so ever.
I wish my brain still worked as it used to - I would root the WINK, but I cannot do it, until a good sole puts out a script that twill do all the right way. My major problem is that I am not Linux trainable and the instructions given are not in the fixed space fonts so I cannot reproduce a single line of instruction without making dozens of syntax and grammar errors. So I do not use WINK - although having it controlled by Ver3 would be a dream come true.
The good part - it was cheap enough - the bad part is that, unless I have it rooted, I do not want the company to send me a fixed unit - I want my money back.
That company would be well served if it opened up the WINK, i.e. rooted it officially for all to participate, and by setting the security by private/public key that we generate not the company. An option to have exclusively local control with free dynamic dns access to your unit would be even better. But they want to be the private NSA and it backfired.

9

I just received another email from Wink after submitting my information to return the dead hub. They are offering a $50 dollar discount on wink.com and it expires on 5/22/15.

Went to 2 different Home Depot’s today to stock up on weekend landscaping supplies and while I was there, I checked to see if they still had hubs on the shelves. I don’t know if they didn’t have any or they were pulled from the shelves but they were nowhere to be found. On the way home I stopped into Target to see if they had any and they had 4 sitting on the shelf. Grabbed one and headed for the checkout, expecting to be denied purchasing it. Was able to checkout without a problem.

I don’t know if I will try to root it, sell it on eBay or end up returning it.

So if you are looking for one, try Target stores.

-bob

10

If you have never configured the unit, you can root it and manually upgrade it…

11

What’s the best way to do that? Granted, I’m Unix and command shell savvy but trying to find tutorials on it my head started spinning as there are a number and all seem different. Not quite sure which one to go for. The main requirement is that it has to work with your plugin. :slight_smile:

12

UPDATE:

Wink just sent out an email to affected users. They have a self-service plan for affected users. It involves changing the DNS server entries in your internet router and rebooting your wink hub. I haven’t tried this just yet, but will tonight if I get a chance.

Info at

recovery.wink.com

-bob

13

[quote=“rbakley”]UPDATE:

Wink just sent out an email to affected users. They have a self-service plan for affected users. It involves changing the DNS server entries in your internet router and rebooting your wink hub. I haven’t tried this just yet, but will tonight if I get a chance.

Info at

recovery.wink.com

-bob[/quote]

The fix worked for me, but I just don’t see this fix as a fix that can be used by the bulk of the Wink target audience. I know many people who have no idea how to access their router settings. I thought wink was targeting the “set it and forget it soccer mom, needs some instructions to hang a picture dad” crowd.

14

Mine just got the update and is back working again after the “fix”. Be prepared to wait about 20 minutes for it to finish. For a while there it seemed like it was stuck on flashing yellow. The instructions mentioned that if it stayed at flashing “pink” it would need to have it’s wireless settings reset. At this point I used the wink app on my phone and noticed it stated the hub was updating. About 5 minutes later it finally made it to the normal blue connected light and all is well.

-bob

15

The DNS server “fix” worked for me, took all of about 5 min total. I ordered a Quirky+GE Refuel Propane Tank Gauge for 15.22 (shipping) with the sorry rebate “deal”… Not bad for 5 min worth of work I say…