Why do I have to pay again?

[jeff000]

I bought Mobilinc Pro on december 23rd 2012. Now on May 18th 2013 (although it could have stopped in the last week as I have been out of town in camp for a week) it is telling me my subscription has expired and I need to spend 30 bucks to get another year. But I purchased the app, not a subscription. And on top of that I didn't even get a year out of it.

And if you are going to charge 30 bucks a year are you going to at least add a feature or two every now and then?

 

There are 3 Android devices for every iDevice, why not show Android some love if you are charging this much for it? Sure you think that there isn't a market for android, but with a lackluster effort how do you expect to get more than a lackluster response?

[LeeG]

MobiLinc App is purchased. The MobiLinc Connect must have also been purchased which provides support for using MobiLinc anywhere in the world without having to know how to setup the ISY for remote access. MobiLinc Connect is by subscription and is optional. If you want to take on the effort to configure and maintain the ISY and router for remote access MobiLinc Connect is not needed. Your choice.

 

Here is the link to the MobiLinc Connect announcement

 

viewtopic.php?f=53&t=8208

[InsteonNut]

Jeff,

 

I responded to your email on our support account earlier this morning that is a duplicate of this post. For others reading this that might have the same question, here was my response:

 

Hi Jeff,

 

Your account should have expired in January per our 30-day trial of MobiLinc Connect. Around that time you should have received two emails from us. One about a week from expiration saying that the trial was about to expire and another one after the account expired. We recently discovered a bug in our backend that allowed a few accounts through after expiration that we fixed last weekend. It looks like your account was one that was inadvertently authorized which leads to the confusion as to why it expired now when it should have expired in January.

 

The MobiLinc Connect subscription is one way you can connect with your ISY. We think it’s the easiest and most reliable way to control your ISY in and out of your home, however, you have the option with our paid apps to make a direct connection instead if you are comfortable with network settings, firewall routing rules, setting up fixed IP addresses, etc. Some of our users really understand networking and would prefer to manage this on their own. For those that prefer this, the subscription isn’t required if MobiLinc is configured to make a direct connection to the ISY.

 

If you’d like to learn more about directly connecting to your ISY and setting up your network to allow this in and out of your home, please see the following link:

http://forum.mobilinc.com/viewtopic.php ... eb17311479

 

To answer your last question, yes, absolutely more features are coming to MobiLinc Connect and our paid subscribers. With our cloud service it puts us in a unique position to offer additional functionality like real-time push notifications not available any other way. This is a feature we are currently working on for MLC users.

 

Let me know if you have any questions.

Wes

 

In this post, this was added that wasn't in the support email we received:

There are 3 Android devices for every iDevice, why not show Android some love if you are charging this much for it? Sure you think that there isn't a market for android, but with a lackluster effort how do you expect to get more than a lackluster response?

 

We've never claimed that there isn't a market for Android. We've always stated that we have and will continue to support the Android platform as our resources allow. I take issue with the claim that our Andorid effect is "lackluster". If you feel this strongly about our Android effort, please email us at support@mobilinc.com to offer specific and constructive suggestions and feedback on how we can improve.

 

Wes

[arw01]

I agree with Wes here, you certainly have the option of NOT using the Mobilinc connect subscription service. You are talking $2.50 a month, skip a soda sometime when eating out. Wes has been a great developer and deserves your support if you need to control your system outside of your local network. Should you want to expose your isy to outside access directly, have the ability to forward ports on your router, want to forward ports on your router, etc. Then you don't need to spend a dime, but to invest your time instead.

 

Personally, I ran into some access issues with the subscription not working for me when I had internet access on my phone, I could not access the ISY, but could surf. These problems became substantially less when I set up a "sub-domain" pointed straight at my ISY and I have a DNS script that updates my outside website with my changing ip on the router from the cable company.

 

My phone can still occasionally allow me to surf but not access the isy, but exiting, or just waiting a bit brings back the connection. If I had not had this issue, I would have gladly purchased the subscription.

 

There are some enhancements I am waiting on, and if they are good enough, i would not mind an version upgrade fee. This thinking that you spend $20 and you have free software for life, is not realistic. Developers need a recurring source of income from subscriptions or adds, and I didn't notice any adds in my copy, did you

?

 

Alan

[jeff000]

I have to say thanks for the quick replies. And sorry for posting the question in more than one place.

 

 

We've never claimed that there isn't a market for Android. We've always stated that we have and will continue to support the Android platform as our resources allow. I take issue with the claim that our Andorid effect is "lackluster". If you feel this strongly about our Android effort, please email us at support@mobilinc.com to offer specific and constructive suggestions and feedback on how we can improve.

 

Wes

 

A couple of your posts from other threads. I will just put them here for you to read again.

 

 

 

Hi Jeff,

 

The Apple and Google platforms are quite different and require us to rewrite the code for each platform. We invested in the iOS platform for IP Cameras due to the overwhelming demand for this feature and we are evaluating the effort/return on porting this code over to Android/MobiLinc.

 

Wes

Hi Nikki and arw01,

 

Nikki, you are right in stating that there are at least or more Android handsets. What we've witnessed over the last few years as iOS and Android duke it out is the home automation space is absolutely dominated by iOS devices and users. As a result we skew heavily to iOS as that's where the majority user base resides. There are enough Android users out there to keep us engaged and supporting the Android platform, but we're having to focus our energy and limited resources on features that we think the respective platforms will respond to.

 

Unfortunately for Android users, the Android tablet market is not competing well with the iPad. Especially when you only look at the home automation user market. Because of the lack of demand, we've placed out MobiLinc HD plans on hold for Android.

 

We do have plans for adding IP Camera support after our Tasker integration is complete.

 

Hopefully this info helps to explain our new feature decisions. If you want to discuss further, please feel free to contact us at support@mobilinc.com

 

Wes

 

Of the ~15 people I know with insteon devices and mobilinc only one is on an apple device. Either your stats are flawed or seriously outdated at this point. Apple is getting destroyed in market share. It's hard to think that with more than double the devices the home automation demand wouldn't be at least equal. Maybe you just don't see the demand in your sales because you don't offer enough to the android crowd and are incorrectly correlating that to having a smaller home automation market.

I've found that the iphone users just whine a lot more than the android users in general. There are certainly other ip camera options for Android. But would be real nice to have it all rolled up nice into one account.

There is also the Elk security that is ios only.

 

 

I agree with Wes here, you certainly have the option of NOT using the Mobilinc connect subscription service. You are talking $2.50 a month, skip a soda sometime when eating out.

 

Knowing where the cost is from now, I really don't care. But seriously would like to see some advancement of the app. In the least catch it up to the Apple app.

2.50 a month is cheap and I seriously almost literally throw away much more than than in a month. But that charge is ridiculous for a cloud service as small as they are providing. Added features certainly shouldn't be too much to ask for, especially since those features are in the ios app.

That or android charge should be significantly smaller.

[arw01]

I agree, I want some more features to catch up. Variable display would be nice.

 

I would also like my mobilinc to update a variable if I use it on the internal network, which means I am home, vs on the outside address which could use some other variables in the house to set away quicker.

 

The ISY logging display is less friendly than I would like. From misterhouse I miss having a log for specific devices right at your fingertips. Be a good area for the mobilinc subscription to add on, pulling the isy log and parsing it out. I'd gladly pay the $2.50 a month to have better logging. I would like to know when this light or that sprinkler ran for how long in a nice list or etc.

 

Alan

[InsteonNut]

Jeff/Alan,

 

Since this post is duplicated in multiple places, I've responded over on the MobiLinc forums:

http://forum.mobilinc.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=2607&p=5002&sid=33f5fe566509c76a95f42c1a559eef19#p5002

 

Wes

[ISYhbsh01]

I am a bit fed up by all the talk & complaining about the Android version of Mobilinc’s so-called lack of “full support of the ISY†because it doesn’t have IP camera support.

 

Mobilinc is a home automation app to control an Insteon/ISY/SmartLinc network. Camera support has NOTHING to do with Insteon & home automation control. Would it be nice to have camera support within Mobilinc so when I switch on a light I can see it happening live? Sure. But so would be having Google Maps integrated in the app so on my way home while I adjust the A/C I should be able to see the traffic conditions on the road… Perhaps Mobilinc should also integrate email into the app so when I turn on/off some devices I can see the email notification within the app... Perhaps a music player should also be added to Mobilinc… You get the point. All of those things and more would be nice to have somehow in one app, but since they don’t really have much in common there are many separate apps available to do those things.

 

I speculate that the only reason it was added to the iOS version is because SmartHome’s app for the SmartLinc has it, so Mobilinc felt compelled to add it as well. But the bottom line is, that while IP camera support would be a nice feature, it really has nothing to do with what Mobilinc is all about. So if they are going to add this feature in the future, that’s great, but to knock Mobilinc for Android because it doesn’t have it now is not fair in my opinion.

 

Some have also added to the complaint mix the $20 price for the app which is relatively high compared to other apps in the Play Store. Well it’s pretty simple, as we all know home automation & Insteon so far are niche products, and the developer has to make up somehow for the low volume.

 

Finally, some have been saying in response to WES’ reply that he is working on Tasker integration, that they don’t understand what Tasker is, therefore they feel that IP camera support should have come before Tasker integration. I couldn’t disagree more. With tasker integration Mobilinc will open the floodgates for home automation sophistication on a level that could only have been dreamed of before. The possibilities of what could be done with tasker are really endless. The first thing I would do is to use tasker to open my front door for me automatically as I approach. Voice commands is also something I started looking into as it seems that the new release is approaching soon. So tasker integration –not camera support- is really what Mobilinc’s core mission is about: Home automation.

 

In conclusion: Mobilinc is an amazing app with excellent support, and is well worth its $20 price tag. I am looking forward & cannot wait for the release of Tasker integration.

 

P.S.

A while back I played a little with Tasker using REST commands. For testing purposes I set it up to send REST commands based on my phone being connected to my Bluetooth headset. It was amazing to watch how when I turned on my Bluetooth headset the light in the room turned on, and when I powered off my headset the light turned off. The problem was that I just couldn’t get REST commands to work with HTTPS so I didn’t go any further with it. Can’t wait for the official Tasker support within Mobilinc!

[arw01]

I am a bit fed up by all the talk & complaining about the Android version of Mobilinc’s so-called lack of “full support of the ISY†because it doesn’t have IP camera support.

 

Mobilinc is a home automation app to control an Insteon/ISY/SmartLinc network. Camera support has NOTHING to do with Insteon & home automation control.

\

 

I will take up task with this. Cameras are an INTEGRAL part of home automation. I expect my home automation system, and therefore Mobilinc when it gets there, to react to the cameras. When I have a program set up that deals with someone ringing the doorbell, I want my Mobilinc to show me who's at my front door as a reaction to an iolinc sending a signal.

 

If a car pulls into my driveway I want a live feed of who is there.

 

Many cameras support setting up motion alerts, and if you buy wisely, they support a robust enough web interface to use the REST commands to the ISY to set a state variable causing the alerts. Right now Mobilinc does not tie into the alert notifications feature on the Android and I do not know if they ever plan to do that. However, potentially, with Tasker I can bring some additional capabilities to my Mobilinc.

 

Hopefully, with the Tasker release, we can also get some variable support in the Android version as they have in the Ios version. It would make programming the ISY easier as you could have a second screen to watch the variable update while you work out the programming.

 

Soon, I envision, a tablet mounted in the kitchen, the hallway, and a couple of other locations that would show Mobilinc most of the time for controlling large parts of the house on a floorplan type basis, and when a camera has something to show, would give me a little popup window on the tablet I can press to enlarge or long press to record for a while, etc.