I just thought I would share my thoughts on the recent Wink notice. I want to start by stating that a Wink Hub 1 was my first foray into home automation, and I had went that route because of the “prettiness” of the app compare to most others out there, and the fact I was new to all of this and didn’t know much.
After a short while I had grown frustrated with the fact that the whole setup was “Cloud first” and would fail whenever there was an interruption in my internet connection. This is what ultimately pushed me to research into other options and started me down the road to and with HA. Now it has been a very bumpy road to be sure, but, given I am a tinkerer, I have been very satisfied with the process and results.
I only bring this up because a few days ago a friend of mine mention he had heard about a company that was causing an uproar by switching to a subscription model, and this morning I had received an email from Wink about their move. This has made me feel even more justified in my choice and has started to tip me towards subscribing to NabuCasa.
I have been toying with enabling cloud access to HA and a few other services of mine myself so I know how to implement it, but I am so grateful for this software and community that, even though I don’t need it, I want to support it. Also it feels like a jab at cloud first products, since $5 a month is a fair price for cloud access to hardware, but HA does this as an addon, not as a “feature” that you have no choice in using.
So in conclusion I just wanted to air my thoughts and give some kudos to the developers and community.