wink subscription fees

[renegade600]

wink went to the dark side.  they will be charging 5 bucks a month if you want to keep using their hub.  Good think I moved all my bulbs to the hue hub.  just hope this is not a sign of things to come with the others.   

https://www.engadget.com/wink-monthly-subscription-234146666.html

[jwlv]

Wink's death warrant was signed in 2016. Now they're digging the hole.

Here is the discussion on it from that time:
https://www.echotalk.org/index.php/topic,658.msg3992.html#msg3992

[renegade600]

Wink's death warrant was signed in 2016. Now they're digging the hole.

Here is the discussion on it from that time:
https://www.echotalk.org/index.php/topic,658.msg3992.html#msg3992

One of my old threads  :-)   Since then wink was sold again to I.am.   For the last year or so, they really had no products to sell.   I think they quit manufacturing the wink hub because every once in while I would  checked for newer hubs and they never had any stock.  I doubt they will last much longer because these days most smart home devices are by-passing the hub and going wifi or bluetooth.    That was one reason why I decided to move from the wink hub to hue.   I believe they are doing the subscription thing to try to keep their head above water.   I keep waiting for the others to start their own subscription plans - even one for amazon echo.

[jwlv]

This is the reason why I always buy name brand devices when it comes to smart devices. Any IOT device needs the backing of a financially strong company to keep going.

I had two things that went dark on me in the past few years.

First was the Pebble Smartwatch. It began as a Kickstarter. It was cool to have one of the first smart watches on the market before Apple and everybody else. But eventually Fitbit bought out Pebble and killed the product and the company. I don't think it was ever their intention to continue the Pebble brand or product line although their official statement was to use Pebble's technology.

The other one was a cheapo smart plug made by Buzzi Blackloud. They turned off their servers in 2019. The smart plugs are just bricks now. I'm surprised they even lasted till 2019.