This is the forum archive of Homey. For more information about Homey, visit the Official Homey website.
The Homey Community has been moved to https://community.athom.com.
This forum is now read-only for archive purposes.
The Homey Community has been moved to https://community.athom.com.
This forum is now read-only for archive purposes.
Closed
Project Update #28 - Thanks for the update guys!
GeurtDijker
Member
in Archive
For the people that missed the email:
Read it here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/athom/homey-the-living-room-talk-to-your-home/posts/1497522
The team is working hard
❤
Thanks!
Read it here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/athom/homey-the-living-room-talk-to-your-home/posts/1497522
The team is working hard
❤
Thanks!
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Sorry, there are here still a lot minor issues that makes that Homey can not taking over simple task from the KaKu ICS-1000. That is from version 0.8.14.
and quite frankly, I think that post is a slap in the face of every first batch and geek backer that has invested a lot of their free time in testing, posting bugs, be patient and being left in the dark with buges fixed in a firmware release that is not yet released to them.
Than you missed this i guess:
Luckily our First Batch and Geek backers have been a huge help so far in making Homey ready for the upcoming users. With 225 issues currently reported (and 150 closed!) so far, we'd like to thank everyone for keeping their patience while we're fixing as fast as we can! Seeing what the community does for each other really makes our job a lot of fun!
I understand that seeing the bug list etc i is hard to believe there are people that have minor or no problems at all.
keep in mind that maybe they only have 433 stuff etc (and as i understand that works), and you don't know how the use there Homey.
150 closed issues, well seems like it is part of the missleading marketing strategy. Closed issues but far from solved. Just close them, you know.
I also live on an other planet.
Give some space to the guys to do their job.™
Promis several releases a week and then not mentioning a word about the change of plans. In fact we haven't have a clue what their release plans are. How difficult can it be to plan the releases and stick to the dates. Whatever it takes! It will make everybody happy.
Ai ai yes I am sorry Hope to ship several updates is not the same as I promis no update the next 2 weeks
I have preordered and payed my geek homey about 10 months ago. At that time the delivery date was begin summer 2015 and all Geek editions (including the pre-order geeks) would be send first. When summer 2015 had passed the delivery date was put back one month after the other.
The fact that they came back on sending the geeks first and chose to send the kickstarter first is on the one hand understandable on the other hand the pre-orders payed significantly more and are real customers instaid of backers of a kick starter project. It is one to misinform your fans / backers its another to misinform your customers in my opinion.
Until now it has always been that the preorders would be send at roughly the same time as kickstarter backers, so i did not complain, but in this mail, about 10 months after ordering and paying there is not even an estimate in it on when the pre-orders will get there delivered. And instead of learning from there mistakes, when i would pre-order a new homey today it shows at the top 'Homey wordt in Maart 2016 verzonden. Reserveer de jouwe nu!'. 2 weeks ago at the same place it was feburari 2016. I guess that march will be a bit optimistic to.
To end positive. I still think homey is a nice product, i believe that the guys at Atom are working there buts off to fix these bugs and its going to get great. And as an employee at a software company i know how hard it sometimes can be to build great software and manage expectations from customers.
But serious guys get your act together, communication isn't that hard, just be open, you are a startup you have the 'gun factor'. There is no need to hide the bad news on your forum there are a lot of customers that haven't registered there. Just one mail every one - two weeks with an status update and real estimates that you can manage on when your customers can expect what they have payed for would make such a big difference. People can get mad as an result to an status update but its worse to say nothing and even more so to promise an update and don't give one.
About not communicating a timeline.. well, we don't communicate that because we just don't know. Before this, were complaints were about us missing deadlines. Now we say honestly we don't know, and it's not appreciated again. What else can we say?
https://forum.athom.com/discussion/555/shipment-software-status#latest
As for the timeline. I did not say i wanted a timeline. I rather have you saying we don't know we hope 4-5 weeks then call a date you already know you are not going to make.
I just want open and honest communication. It would be a lot better not to write in the pre-order page that the pre-orders will be delivered in summer 2015 or even march like its now if you know already its not going to happen.
You make a hard promise there, and if you don't make such a deadline i think it would be nice to send all your pre-order customers a mail like sorry we didn't make it.. You talk about risk because pre-orders are better protected by law i'm sure there is something in that same law about delivery of products
If you have a topic with the shipment status and you say at 8 feb. next week we know more it would be better not to wait till 21th and the forum has exploded to write an reaction but make sure its there on the 15th. It just takes 10 min of work to write a short update but it prevents the negative atmosphere that is taking form here on this forum.
Or better don't communicate those things true the forum but inform all your customers true a channel they all get (like the mail) and do so on a (more) regular basis. 300 euro is a lot of money and waiting a year on a electronic product is a long time, i think your customers deserve to be kept in the loop.
And my excuses for the fall out about the pre-orders not being in the mail. I missed the:
For the pre-orders and non-EU backers, this will be one or two weeks after the shipment of the Kickstarter units. Please note that shipping pre-orders is kind of a business risk for us, because they are better protected by law compared to Kickstarter. As a start-up, every cancelled pre-order hurts the company, so we really want to deliver Homey in a state that everyone is satisfied with!
bit.. Sorry!
This is not meant as a big whine post. Its just constructive criticism and to keep you sharp, running a company is not just about making a great product and technology its also about dealing with your customers that might be even more important and will get even more important in the upcomming months for you.
And yes its frustrating as hell that my homey (yes mine because i have payed for it
While this update is good, it would be better if we get a weekly update or so. Just share some more. I would say: every friday? What has happened last week, how are you guys doing? Maybe a pic of sweaty coders in the office working hard to crush the bugs
As said over and over again: manage the expectations. And yes, that's juggling and it is very hard.
Say you deliver a release every 2 weeks. At the start of the developing/testing period (sprint) you look at you list of changes/bugs (backlog) ordered by priority. Try to estimate how long it will take to solve these issues. You know how many hours you team can spend developing/testing. Make a list of the changes/bug you are going to deliver. If you think you need some extra room for the unexpected, plan the extra hours. Big changes/bugs could be split up or solved during more than 1 sprint. Ah I forgot, the standup. Take a few minutes every morning with the team to discus what has been done and what each member is going to do the coming day. Scrum in a nutshell.
We had the same problems with our customer. They thought that they never got what they asked for and way too late. We thought we worked as hard as we could to satisfy the customer. The customer wasn't very happy. It was all about expectation management. Now they know when and what they get. We never had any complaint since we use Scrum.
Just a friendly advice.
The solution to this: Despatch product to those who agree to not to return it because of software issues. We get a choice and you are not taking the return risk. Win-win!
+ We develop further apps taking more pressure off from your shoulders. + More people can support here the new customers with their questions. + More youtube videos and case studies.
In the current situation we don`t even see the light at the end of the tunnel. The rules of the game are changed so stochastically we can`t even imagine what will be the new thing after three weeks (apart of some new bugs). Please understand us. We have been so supportive when a hardware issue has surfaced and caused delays, those can`t be fixed later but software issues can be fixed. Pre-orders should not be considered less geeks and more problematic kids than the geek edition guys. Give us the choice. You help us we help you: community.
not knowing when you waiting is hard to keep thee faith
The downside to creating a larger user base this way is potentially that more bugs are found, which Athom may or may not have the resources to deal with. It appears they are working frantically to fix the bugs reported by the current user base. But it will also improve stability\maturity of the final product and make people who have been waiting for a very long time happy, if they choose to opt in.
While there probably are some legal considerations in this scenario aswell, i'd be happy to agree to a no-return policy in exchange for a speedier delivery of Homey.
I think it's a very good suggestion, but ofcourse it is up to Athom wether or not to present this option to pre-orderers.
Just only minor issues ??? I’m probably from the same planet as the other guys. A lot of things aren’t working, and will be fixed, but for now I’m disappointed. I expected that Homey would perform much better. All the online video’s look great but the outcome for me is not that slick. But I’ll wait for the next update. The promise is that it would fix a lot of things so I’m eager to test..
But with the current software release Homey is definitely not ready to be shipped in huge amounts. Please fix the bugs and let us test some more because now it’s absolutely not usable for "normal" users.
I’m still convinced that the Athom team will get it under control and that Homey will be a great product but it will take some extra time. To be honest it’s a Kickstarter project and a very complex one so I’ll give the team some more time. But don’t say that there are only minor issues………..
- give us weekly updates. Let's say every friday (or sooner when there's something major)
- tell us what's happened in the week
- tell us the good & the bad of the week
- give us *estimates* on timelines. we promise not to whine when you don't make them
This update is a good beginning, but it can be a *LOT* better. People want to know:
- what is in .18 and .19
- how are you guys doing? Yes, we do worry about you guys at Athom too
- release cycle
- estimates for shipping backers & pre-orders
You basically only answered the last question now and told us new software updates will be worth it....