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Wink Moving to a Monthly Subscription UPDATE - Deadline Extended

Posted on 5/6/20 at 3:27 pm
Posted by RickAstley
Reno, Nevada
Member since May 2011
1994 posts
Posted on 5/6/20 at 3:27 pm
For any of you looking to part ways with Wink, today has never been a better time. Wink is moving to a monthly subscription starting on 5/13. Here's the release:

quote:

Wink’s mission for the past 5+ years has been to provide users with a ‘Simpler, Smarter Home,’ while maintaining privacy for our customers. Our approach to simplicity and security has driven our design from the user experience to the technology behind the scenes.

We understand that a smart home is something that needs to be trusted and dependable, and we recognize that recent events have created some uncertainty around the reliability of the system. We apologize for these inconveniences and want to share some background information as well as the path forward.

Since 2014, Wink has grown to support more than 4 million connected devices. During this time, Wink has relied solely on the one-time fee derived from hardware sales to cover ongoing cloud costs, development and customer support. Providing users with local and remote access to their devices will always come at a cost for Wink, and over the years we have made great progress toward reducing these costs so that we can maintain that feature.

Wink has taken many steps in an effort to keep your Hub’s blue light on, however, long term costs and recent economic events have caused additional strain on our business. Unlike companies that sell user data to offset costs associated with offering free services, we do not. Data privacy is one of Wink’s core values, and we believe that user data should never be sold for marketing or any purpose.

We have a lot of great ideas on how to expand on Wink’s capabilities and satisfy the many requests from our user base. In order to provide for development and continued growth, we are transitioning to a $4.99 monthly subscription, starting on May 13, 2020. This fee is designed to be as modest as possible. Your support will enable us to continue providing you with the functionality that you’ve come to rely on, and focus on accelerating new integrations and app features.

Should you choose not to sign up for a subscription you will no longer be able to access your Wink devices from the app, with voice control or through the API, and your automations will be disabled on May 13. Your device connections, settings and automations can be reactivated if you decide to subscribe at a later date.

Our user community is integral to Wink, and we want to continue to be your trusted smart home provider. Visit subscription.wink.com to subscribe.


UPDATE:
Wink has extended the deadline per today's announcement.

quote:

We have received a lot of feedback from you regarding the recent announcement of our subscription service. Many of you have led the way by endorsing us through subscriptions and we are extremely grateful for that show of support. We will be focusing our efforts on stabilizing, improving and enhancing Wink through the subscriptions we receive, as we strive toward being the best smart home experience.

We understand that this is a sudden change during a difficult time for many and we regret if this change has caused you any inconvenience. We can appreciate that some of you may need additional time to subscribe or make alternate considerations. We listened and have extended the deadline by an additional week so you now have until May 20, 2020, to subscribe. For those who have already signed up, there is no further action required, and you will not be billed until May 20.

For users who we may have missed with our original announcement, you can learn more about our coming subscription service on our blog. Visit subscription.wink.com to subscribe.
This post was edited on 5/12/20 at 5:06 pm
Posted by CAD703X
Liberty Island
Member since Jul 2008
77829 posts
Posted on 5/6/20 at 3:31 pm to
oh for fricks sake
Posted by Korkstand
Member since Nov 2003
28678 posts
Posted on 5/6/20 at 4:17 pm to
quote:

oh for fricks sake
Posted by mctiger1985
Baton Rouge
Member since Oct 2009
3693 posts
Posted on 5/6/20 at 5:35 pm to
Got most of mine moved off. Have to figure out what to do with 5 relays. Smartthings and Hubitat have handlers, but no idea of the reliability. Looks like I'll lose the Power Pivot Genius as well.
Posted by ILikeLSUToo
Central, LA
Member since Jan 2008
18018 posts
Posted on 5/6/20 at 5:41 pm to
Last nail in the coffin for this prestigious blackeyed peas company.

Need something else for my Z-wave devices. Recommendations?
Posted by runforrestrun
Baton Rouge
Member since May 2013
805 posts
Posted on 5/6/20 at 5:51 pm to
quote:

Last nail in the coffin for this prestigious blackeyed peas company. Need something else for my Z-wave devices. Recommendations?


I just ordered a SmartThings hub. No clue how good it is, but I assume it’ll be around longer.
This post was edited on 5/6/20 at 5:52 pm
Posted by Hulkklogan
Baton Rouge, LA
Member since Oct 2010
43294 posts
Posted on 5/6/20 at 6:19 pm to
I only have one thing that uses my Wink hub so moving will be easy. Also need suggestions... The device I use is compatible with Nexia and SmartThings. I use Alexa for voice control and have 5 Echoes and soon an Echo Show 5.. so integration with Alexa is a must.
Posted by Korkstand
Member since Nov 2003
28678 posts
Posted on 5/6/20 at 6:42 pm to
quote:

Need something else for my Z-wave devices. Recommendations?
I would probably go with a DIY hub with open source software if you want to avoid having to change to something new every couple of years.
Posted by Hulkklogan
Baton Rouge, LA
Member since Oct 2010
43294 posts
Posted on 5/6/20 at 7:04 pm to
I looked into getting a raspberry pi to do that, but thinking about just getting the zwave USB stick and using my desktop pc. Doesn't seem like the open source software would eat up many resources.
Posted by CarRamrod
Spurbury, VT
Member since Dec 2006
57404 posts
Posted on 5/6/20 at 10:10 pm to


Will he is.
Posted by CarRamrod
Spurbury, VT
Member since Dec 2006
57404 posts
Posted on 5/6/20 at 10:14 pm to
It doesn't but if you want to run it on your PC you would need to run it in a virtual machine. I ended up buying a little mini pc on eBay for 120 bucks. Way more powerful than an rpi.
Posted by Hulkklogan
Baton Rouge, LA
Member since Oct 2010
43294 posts
Posted on 5/7/20 at 6:27 am to
Eh probably worth something like the rpi instead of a VM then. I'm not into sacrificing my already limited gaming performance

Most of my home automation things have WiFi built in and work with Alexa directly, it's a damn deadbolt that doesn't.
Posted by mchias1
Member since Dec 2009
800 posts
Posted on 5/7/20 at 6:49 am to
The issue with a pi is you either need an external HDD or get a quality SD card designed to written to a lot. Most automation software keeps histories and that destroys cheap SD cards with all the writes/erases.

Just an FYI from someone who has ruined a couple of SD cards.
Posted by Hulkklogan
Baton Rouge, LA
Member since Oct 2010
43294 posts
Posted on 5/7/20 at 6:53 am to
Sounds like they need to make one with NVME storage
Posted by RickAstley
Reno, Nevada
Member since May 2011
1994 posts
Posted on 5/7/20 at 8:42 am to
I've been using a Samsung Smartthings hub for nearly 2 years now. I had 0 problems transitioning from Wink to Samsung as far as getting devices paired and setting up routines. The interface is different, but overall it is easy to learn.

Like some of the others have said, if you want a more DIY approach, look at Home Assistant for an alternative. It'll require local hardware (either your PC or lighter device), but ultimately you've separated yourself from the cloud in the process.
Posted by CAD703X
Liberty Island
Member since Jul 2008
77829 posts
Posted on 5/7/20 at 9:25 am to
i have a hubitat which is all local control like my plex server but i still have 50+ devices to migrate and some are a PitA to move like the zwave door locks. internet was out for 2 days here due to the storms so i quickly learned what works (plex locally) and what doesn't (hd homerun wnated to 'call home' before granting my access to my OTA tv channels)

i'm done w/ the cloud except when i use alexa or google to access my local device.*

*thats a lie. i still have a hue hub with lots of doodads connected.

the home hub should have ALWAYS been 100% local with the option to add API access from a 3rd party source. it should have NEVER required a trip around the world to get confirmation of the command to turn a light on or off. zigbee and zwave and even lutron are superior technologies for this exact reason; as long as your house has power your HA routines should work except for anything you set up specifically in alexa or google or apple.

this is what i get. i said when i started the wink megathread years ago on here this was probably going to happen but i did it anyway.
This post was edited on 5/7/20 at 9:29 am
Posted by guedeaux
Tardis
Member since Jan 2008
13608 posts
Posted on 5/7/20 at 9:47 am to
quote:

It doesn't but if you want to run it on your PC you would need to run it in a virtual machine. I ended up buying a little mini pc on eBay for 120 bucks. Way more powerful than an rpi.


I just transitioned my Home Assistant to a tiny PC from a pi3. It is night and day. Logbook used to take several minutes to populate, now it takes seconds. Snapshots take less than 2 minutes. Server restarts are about 10 seconds.

I'm now working on getting real-time person/object detection for my RTSP cameras. Using the pi3 and a Google Coral accelerator.

Best decision I made was getting rid of Wink and switching to HA. Next best decision was switching to a pc from the pi.
Posted by CarRamrod
Spurbury, VT
Member since Dec 2006
57404 posts
Posted on 5/7/20 at 4:28 pm to
quote:

Most of my home automation things have WiFi built in and work with Alexa directly, it's a damn deadbolt that doesn't.


yea through a cloud. You internet goes out or that company goes under you devices are dead in the water. Then you learn about tasmota or esphome and you get everything controller locally.
Posted by Hulkklogan
Baton Rouge, LA
Member since Oct 2010
43294 posts
Posted on 5/7/20 at 4:36 pm to
I suppose you're right. But I don't have much right now, some lamps on smart plugs, Ecobee thermostat, and the deadbolt. None that is a huge deal when the internet is out. Since I want to replace Wink anyway I'll look into a localized solution looking forward for when we inevitably add more smart stuff.
Posted by Christopher Columbo
Member since Jun 2015
2079 posts
Posted on 5/7/20 at 4:55 pm to
I took everything off the wink hub a few months agao. I'm using the Ring alarm base now. Pretty easy to switch. Just make sure you release the devices in Wink before you kill it. Otherwise you'll have to factory reset things.
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