New shipment date for Homey?

MarcoWijk · January 2016

Although I understand that the delays in delivery are frustrating, in my view it's a manufacturing problem, NOT a product problem as a whole.

I'm really disapointed. You're all Backers, right? So stand by Homey! I don't understand some of the negative reactions on wanting to get it to Mediamarkt. Really, a bit more trust in Homey guys. Homey works, as simple as that.

Also i see some posts about bugs etc. etc. It's like people WANT a lot of bugs. Why? So you can pat yourself on the back that you found one, and then whine on the forum that it isn't fixed fast enough? The bugfixing is mostly in it's controls/interface. At first we had to "invent" some "work arounds" to get some stuff working, but Athom fixed it. At this moment Homey is easy to use for "none geeks" .

Some seem to asume that Homey is buggy as hell and the people who test them are some dufuses who don't know what they are doing. Why is that?! Speaking for myself, i'm spending plenty of my time testing. But bills have to be paid also (read: work). So excuse me for getting a little p*ssed that some suggest I don't know what i'm doing, or I am not testing enough. I'm sure this goes for the rest of us "testers".

Sorry to be a spoiler: Homey just does what it's supposed to do, period.

We even discovered on some small features that Homey is cappable to do more stuff then originally intended.

For what i've seen, most delays are in the licensing such as spotify and youtube. So if anyone knows how to speed that up, be my guest. (not talking about kuddo's) The apps are standing by according to Athom.

All i want to say, nagging about Homey in Mediamarkt, doesn't do Homey any credit as a product.

To answer @MarcoF 's questions:

- The core programming is really outstanding.
- The testers are giving Homey hell, and it survives.
- If non techies get Homey,?... they'll love it! (And hey, it's domotica, so they probably will have a (little) interest in tech anyway.)

blusser · January 2016

Too bad that homey will be in stock after the yearly "BTW weg er mee" sale at MM which starts in a few hours

It would save us +/- 17% of the price, (althrough I've no issues to pay it "extra" for an awesome product such as Homey)

Edit, all domotica is excluded from the sale

MarcoF · January 2016

@MarcoWijk;
first batch backers;

let us see some great video's from homey GUI?
what are the real world experiences?
share some flows (so others can see whats possible)?
Is the Android app doing its job
What are the findings/experiances with a big Zwave network?
How did migration goes?
etc etc

The forum is/was screaming for info from Athom and this could be a great point for First Batch backers to kick in

About bugs;
I hate them especially the once that buzzzz.....
But seriously, i have trust in the Athom team (

) but see the issues open for so long....

On avarage good quality code has 3 defects per 1000 lines of code during in-house testing and 0.1 defect per 1000 lines of code in released product (Cobb and Mills 1990). Don't know in which fase Homey is and how many lines of code it has.... 20 issues sounds really low and I REALLY(!!) hope that where all of them

KaKu/Homewizard can be found in a lot of homes(my uncle and aunt has one, both working as "nurses" in a hospital and no techie and liked the Homey idea), its low/entry level of domotica.
Homey is also placed in this market, so "henk & ingrid" will buy it.

DieterKoblenz · January 2016

MarcoWijk said:

I'm really disappointed. You're all Backers, right? So stand by Homey! I don't understand some of the negative reactions on wanting to get it to Mediamarkt. Really, a bit more trust in Homey guys. Homey works, as simple as that.

Not everyone here is a backer

More important: if we have to trust you on your blue eyes Homey works... I'l believe it when I see my own Homey function. You can be disappointed but you are one of the few playing with a Homey. All the speculation about delivery dates and bugs is tiresome and though I still think Athom is lacking (just) on-time communication I too believe that eventually they will deliver a good product for a mixed market.

All these discussions between the eternal optimists and the quick pessimist cloud the forum in such a way that almost every topic is hijacked with unrelated posts and makes it difficult for new users to find answers. That's why I still would love to see a FAQ topic stickied on top where we can point new and existing users to. With clear questions like "is Spotify supported?" and clear answers like "Spotify connect is not supported because of licensing issues. Check this topic for more information about Spotify progress".

MarcoF · January 2016

The search function of the forum is not so good and also make it nearly impossible to find stuff.

tunf · January 2016

So if mediamarkt is going to sell them i prefer to order one there... BTW weg ermee action gives 21% discount.

Strange move btw, no working environment, no wiki, no big scale experiance and a retailer that can kill a startup
Well, lets see what happens, hope you all stay alive.

MarcoF · January 2016

tunf;
its not(!) 21 discount.
€100 - 21% = €79,00
€79 + 21% = €95.59

21% BTW discount is in reality 17,x% discount AND domotica is ruled out of discount.

Vincent · January 2016

tunf said:

So if mediamarkt is going to sell them i prefer to order one there..

Soon could mean anything from tomorrow or six months from now.

Pulsar · January 2016

Meh, MediaMarkt is still at the "Available soon" phase. Us backers and preorders have been in the "delivered in 6 weeks or less" stage for at least 8 months now. That probably means MM will get to sell these by Christmas 2017. By that time the bugs will be out and the software will be ready.

All is well

kriebelkous · January 2016

MarcoWijk said:

Although I understand that the delays in delivery are frustrating, in my view it's a manufacturing problem, NOT a product problem as a whole.

I'm really disapointed. You're all Backers, right? So stand by Homey! I don't understand some of the negative reactions on wanting to get it to Mediamarkt. Really, a bit more trust in Homey guys. Homey works, as simple as that.

Also i see some posts about bugs etc. etc. It's like people WANT a lot of bugs. Why? So you can pat yourself on the back that you found one, and then whine on the forum that it isn't fixed fast enough? The bugfixing is mostly in it's controls/interface. At first we had to "invent" some "work arounds" to get some stuff working, but Athom fixed it. At this moment Homey is easy to use for "none geeks" .

Some seem to asume that Homey is buggy as hell and the people who test them are some dufuses who don't know what they are doing. Why is that?! Speaking for myself, i'm spending plenty of my time testing. But bills have to be paid also (read: work). So excuse me for getting a little p*ssed that some suggest I don't know what i'm doing, or I am not testing enough. I'm sure this goes for the rest of us "testers".

Sorry to be a spoiler: Homey just does what it's supposed to do, period.

We even discovered on some small features that Homey is cappable to do more stuff then originally intended.

For what i've seen, most delays are in the licensing such as spotify and youtube. So if anyone knows how to speed that up, be my guest. (not talking about kuddo's) The apps are standing by according to Athom.

All i want to say, nagging about Homey in Mediamarkt, doesn't do Homey any credit as a product.

To answer @MarcoF 's questions:

- The core programming is really outstanding.
- The testers are giving Homey hell, and it survives.
- If non techies get Homey,?... they'll love it! (And hey, it's domotica, so they probably will have a (little) interest in tech anyway.)

Hang on.. i did not see a single claim from anyone who thinks its a bad idea to go retail.. and if you want to give homey a big audience then mediamarkt is the best move..
I also did not claim that honey is very buggy... i just linked to the current bug list.. and those few bugs are not really a problem for me.

I thank all (and i think i did that previously to) the guys that already have a homey that they test and report bugs.. i am sure the programming is excelent. And never claimed otherwise.

But..

The photo taken suggests its coming soon (it would be useless and silly to use valuable marketing space and tools for a product that is not coming within a few months).. leaving no or little time to fix bugs after a field test.11 homeys delivered is not a field test no matter the (much appreciated) effort you put in troubleshooting.. there is not to much load on (external) servers etc the same wat a few hundred homeys would cause.

Troubleshooting for us is very different than troubleshooting when in retail... you wont get feedback from the costumer (mm forbids direct communication to the costumer in most cases because of privacy reasons)
Feedback from us is very different than from a store. We will provide way more info to the athom team than a store would. Making it very hard to find out if the stores claim was justified. This all costs money.

The team might use a rest, take a step back and observe how all honeys in the field operate before taking on the next challenge..

Doing this right after delivery of the pre-orders is very very risky.. and if it goes south it would be messy.

That is all i am saying. Most of it is from first hand experience, and stuff i learned over time working with vendors.
My goal here is not to be negative.. rather than hope the team doesn't get ahead of itself and puts all his chips on one vendor.
Is it so bad to want to give my 2 cents advising some caution because i want homey to succeed in a part of business you happen to know very well? Is it so bad for me to hope they do not make a commonly made mistake by new businesses?

Backing a company also means being critical from time to time. You cannot build a company on only positive comments. Sometimes you hope to get proved wrong when giving advice.. This is one of those cases

MarcoWijk · January 2016

kriebelkous said:

Hang on.. i did not see a single claim from anyone who thinks its a bad idea to go retail.. and if you want to give homey a big audience then mediamarkt is the best move..
I also did not claim that honey is very buggy... i just linked to the current bug list.. and those bugs are not really a...

@kriebelkous That's fair, but I wasn't refering to 'If' Homey should go to Mediamarkt, but i was refering to some who thought it was too early. The product is ready in the sense that's it's working as expected and intended. I agree manufacturing a large amount is a problem at this time. So (to be optimistic) i hope Athom can keep up with the demand Homey will create. On the other hand, the product is steady enough that they should have more time to focus on manufacturing, because the product is 'good'.

For instance, I haven't had a single crash since one of the first update a fews weeks ago. To be honest they fixed it almost in the first week. In my opinion, that shows how robust the programming is. I really expected it to crash far more often and over a far longer period. Even my Wii still crashes sometimes, even after all it's years of updates. Homey doesn't crash anymore, and i'm pretty sure won't in the future. (note: Depending on the user-made apps ofcourse).

The point i'm trying to make is: Yes, Homey could have been released far earlier, but by not doing that they've released a product that needs some tweaking, nothing more. I know it's hard to believe, but those are the facts so far (even to my surprise).

Like I said, the interface/gui is still a work in progress, but functions are working and are really easy to use. The hardware and core programming are as solid as a rock. It's really simple and good enough to release for retail and for 'Henk' and 'Ingrid' to use (@MarcoF) (.. although i hate using those names as comparison... sorry)

MarcoF · January 2016

OK, fair!

Minor glitches can happen.
But, its the GUI and the Apps that will make or break the system/platform.

Two days ago I got the AndroidTV and if you read the Sony community forum.... then you should not buy it... A lot of users complain about crashes, blue/black screen, no sound, etc. etc. After 2 days, a lot of playing around, installing some apps and about 10 hours of screen time, we had non of these problems. Fact is there are a lot of people complaining (a few brought the TV back to the seller).

AndroidTV:
https://community.sony.nl/t5/televisions/2015-bravia-android-tv-issues/m-p/2106650#M40215

Lets see what the future brings

KoenMartens · January 2016

MarcoF said:
But, its the GUI and the Apps that will make or break the system/platform.

No, not in this case. It would be the case if there is a comparible product to Homey (like Android vs Apple, there GUI and Apps, along with options like Siri/Google Now etc) make or break one or the other. However, there is no competition for Homey at the moment. The closest thing is Amazon Echo, which is (I believe) not commercially available in The Netherlands, nor does it nearly have the capabilities of Homey (only bluetooth and WiFi if I recall correctly).

The thing that makes or breaks Homey is whether or not it can (relatively easily) control the most-used domotica, such as TV, receivers, AirPlay, SONOS, Spotify, Blinds, Lights, things like that, without failure. It seems to me, with the user feedback I've read so far, that this is the case (spare for a few exceptions which are out of Athom's hands, such as Spotify).

agagilent · January 2016

I am new to the Homey device, I worked with raspberry and domoticz, but after having fun with playing around I like to have something more solid. What I find surprising is that I cannot find good reviews or examples of the popular use cases. That is a bit of a suppose to me. I found a couple of very limited demo's on youtube, is there more that proves all the promises?

It sounds all great, but I like to see first

MarcoF · January 2016

@KoenMartens;
Ok, so without the apps its a great product?
Close Homey's App-store and see whats left of Homeys functionality (almost nothing).
GUI almost the same case.... Make a crappy web/smartphone GUI and people will run away because its not intuitive.

My Vera3 has no supported App and its the biggest reason for me to move to a new platform (ok, I can upgrade my Vera3 UI5 to UI7 with app, but then i need to rewrite all my custom code)...

The (hard/soft -ware) look and feel is making of breaking the product.

I really

for what if seen and hoping is works even better though.

KoenMartens · January 2016

MarcoF said:

@KoenMartens;
Ok, so without the apps its a great product?
Close Homey's App-store and see whats left of Homeys functionality (almost nothing).

No, but the apps that are on there NOW are enough that the rest will NOT "make or break" the system. They are nice to have, they will improve Homey, but they are not essential. Same story with the GUI. The GUI as it is NOW is good enough that Homey can perform properly as product. A better GUI is desired, but not essential.

Next to this, you are, believe it or not, not the target audience MediaMarkt is going for. They are looking for customers that have standard TVs/Receivers, maybe a Hue light or two, and perhaps some KlikAanKlikUit or similar stuff.

MarcoF · January 2016

@KoenMartens ;
With

MarcoWijk · January 2016

KoenMartens said:

MarcoF said:

@KoenMartens;
Ok, so without the apps its a great product?
Close Homey's App-store and see whats left of Homeys functionality (almost nothing).

No, but the apps that are on there NOW are enough that the rest will NOT "make or break" the system. They are nice to have, they will improve Homey, but they are not essential. Same story with the GUI. The GUI as it is NOW is good enough that Homey can perform properly as product. A better GUI is desired, but not essential.

Next to this, you are, believe it or not, not the target audience MediaMarkt is going for. They are looking for customers that have standard TVs/Receivers, maybe a Hue light or two, and perhaps some KlikAanKlikUit or similar stuff.

+1, Homey already is an 'as is/plug & play' product for use. More specified apps will only make it more powerfull

MarcoF · January 2016

Very funny to see what happend today

MarcelKuijper · January 2016

MarcoF said:

tunf;
its not(!) 21 discount.
€100 - 21% = €79,00
€79 + 21% = €95.59

21% BTW discount is in reality 17,x% discount AND domotica is ruled out of discount.

if ppl rly think they get a discount at all when these days hit at MM, you probably lived under a rock for a couple of months, and probably deserve spending more money on items that used to be cheaper in the first place.

look further then mm, most of the time ur over paying even when u get a "discount"

WathLamers · January 2016

there is no discount on domotica (and other stuff)
Also Apple products zijn "uitgezonderd"

tunf · January 2016

i already orderd as the first customer this year (pre order) so it is not needed to get one there but i tried to make clear that the forget about all the people making this product happen and listen to the large retailers, i hope that going to mm is not the end of a great product. The other parts also needs to be availble and if there is no room for money other retailers will not sell them but do have the expertise needed for a complete setup.

DaneeDeKruyff · January 2016

Hmm, I'm busy one day and this thread is hijacked and derailed!

Let's get back on track, when will we get our homeys?

WathLamers · January 2016

perhaps you call a bookmaker....

Reflow · January 2016

DaneeDeKruyff said:

Hmm, I'm busy one day and this thread is hijacked and derailed!

Let's get back on track, when will we get our homeys?

Watch out for @MarcoF , he is going to complain on you if you keep asking when we will receive our Homeys

Lets do some bad speculations based on Emile's reply for geeks next week:

Geek Backers €239,- (430 pcs)
Estimated shipment: January 22 2016
New date: Februari 3e 2016

Regular € 229,- & Early Bird € 199,- &Super Early Bird € 179,- (400 pcs)
Estimated shipment: January 30 2016
New date: Februari 11 2016

Pre-orders € 299,- (1000+ pcs)
Estimated shipment: 15 February 2016
New date: Februari 27 2016

Based on the delay and current dates haha.. Once again these are speculations! Hope I'm wrong and receive my Homey sooner..

TimVanSteenbergen · January 2016

Dzjeez, waiting always gets harder the longer it takes. The last leds weigh the heaviest. But let's not frustrate the manufacturing process with our frustrations. It gets to them, as you can see in Emile's post of couple of days ago:

Emile on January 19

I hope you guys can imagine this really is a downer for everyone, probably mostly everyone at Athom. I'd like to ask you to stay positive! It's no fun for us to work and be creative when the forum gets a negative vibe. We are using the extra time wisely to create a better Out-of-the-box experience for everyone who is to receive their Homey next, of course :-)

So here's my 2cents, just for good vibes and inspiration:

MarcoF · January 2016

Maybe the First Batch backers can take wind out of Athom sails and ease our painful waiting by uploading some nice pic's/screenshots/movies/full reviews/created flows/added device/etc.

Phuturist · January 2016

I have been reading this topic for a while now. My opinion is that some people claim to much influence on the decision that Athom makes just because that backed the product but that is just me. What does annoy me is that Athom does not respond to these developments and give some clarity on what their plans are. Being transparent creates a lot more good will instead of all the speculation going on right now. Even if it's not quite clear and plans are still being worked out, just say so. Makes us understand what is going on.

Just my two pennies.

MarcoF · January 2016

+ 1.000.000 (

's) to communication

Delta · January 2016

It must be that they are - to much focused- to get the job done, and forget the world around them! I have start the discussion now several times, and see no concrete reaction!
to have a focus/ to be focused is all right. To have focus and lose the real world is dangerous.
i understand that this comes from a deep feeling in putting the Homey in the market in it's upmost form.

New shipment date for Homey?

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