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New shipment date for Homey?

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Comments

  • MarcoFMarcoF Member
    edited January 2016
    Because it's a Kickstarter project the work there ass of and the only thing we have to do is; wait :smile: 

    Freemann is waiting from may 2014 (20 months) :blush: 
  • In General
    The strangest point for me is to see in the beginning of a Kickstarters project enthousiastic people who demonstrate their new product and ask support for it!! You can see how the product looks like and work. This give the suggestion that the major things are ready for this product. After this they collect mney for support. After this it takes, mostly, a long time, even longer than they said, to release this product. This could be the basic thing for a not understanding, next to, mostly, poor communication..

  • Delta said:
    In General
    The strangest point for me is to see in the beginning of a Kickstarters project enthousiastic people who demonstrate their new product and ask support for it!! You can see how the product looks like and work. This give the suggestion that the major things are ready for this product. After this they collect mney for support. After this it takes, mostly, a long time, even longer than they said, to release this product. This could be the basic thing for a not understanding, next to, mostly, poor communication..

    Thats the trick isn't it? Startups don't have a large investor or R&D budget large tech companies have so they need to present their project in a way it already almost exists and present the most ideal timeframe ever to attract as many backers as possible. Homey is no different. Backers are not buyers, they are investors and with every investment comes risk ;) Something a lot of backers are not fully aware off. I think that the kickstarter projects that delivered what they promised at the promised time are very limited. 
  • MarcoFMarcoF Member
    edited January 2016
    Athom has a minimum budget of €1.203.918,= (investing round of June 2015 + kickstart budget)
    Pre-order = 1000 * €299 = €299.000

    Minimum total budget: €1.503.918,=

    I think real investors get/demand more information then we get.

    I backed 5 "Kickstarters";
    2 delivered before the deadline,
    1 is behind (Homey),
    1 can still deliver before the deadline (MOVE–motorize blinds and shade) and
    1 indiegogo is 5 month behind(akolyt the key to a better driving).

    So maybe 3 out of 5 deliver on schedule.

    And don't forget that there are 943 (13+430+400+100) backers and over a 1000 PRE-ORDER == normal customer who are in a lot of cases are waiting for more then a year. Those people order from a web-form/shop on the Athom site with first a BIG promise for delivery in summer 2015 and later Januari 2016.

    Little story behind "Homey" in the kickstarter campaign:
  • And, in my opinion at least, if this device would be build by Samsung or Google it would cost at least half more!
    That is, if it isn't any campaign device.
  • Maybe Athom can just deliver the Homey to people that keep asking for their product. Just deliver it as is. "Here you have it. Now stop whining!" That will make them understand why it was better to wait :smile: 

    Emile does a lot of direct communication. That's way better than I have seen from any other Kickstarter. I think Athom could improve the regular scheduled communication and set proper expectations on a public central channel like their website. Now people have to go through forums, kickstarter, Slack, Github, Gathering of Tweakers. Just make a weekly post on your website telling the people what you have done last week and what you plan to do next week. Should be 30 minutes max.

    But still I think they are doing a great job. I have also backed NEEO on Kickstarter. If you think Homey his issues with communication you should definitely check out the NEEO Kickstarter comments. It will probably make you stop complaining for ever :smiley: 
  • MarcoFMarcoF Member
    edited January 2016
    I'm not whining about the delay, i'm a bit disappointed in the communication.
    If the don't know when it will be delivered, don't sell pre-order with the promise to deliver on month X in year X.

    And about;
    Just deliver it as is. "Here you have it. Now stop whining!"

    The may send it to me with 2 years full warranty and i will test it from front to back and left to right. But I think the can't deliver because there's (almost) no Homey assembled.

    I'm also started to develop a small App and want to test it and as long I have no Homey I can't test....I can use my time better to optimize my Vera3 :smile: 
  • edited January 2016




  • Sarcasme?!
  • MarcoF said:
    I'm not whining about the delay, i'm a bit disappointed in the communication.
    If the don't know when it will be delivered, don't sell pre-order with the promise to deliver on month X in year X.

    And about;
    Just deliver it as is. "Here you have it. Now stop whining!"

    The may send it to me with 2 years full warranty and i will test it from front to back and left to right. But I think the can't deliver because there's (almost) no Homey assembled.
    Imho you can't accuse Athom of lack of communication. Emile replies to the questions on this forum several times a day. The only thing that Athom can be accused of, is of being too optimistic in their estimates. They could have made a very pessimistic estimate and said "shipment before December 2016" and then they would still be very much on track. I'm sure that, with the experience they gained on this project, they would make much better estimates if they started development of a Homey v2...

    And with regard to delivering you the Homey "as is"... do keep in mind that that's hardware only. You would not be able to test/use most of it, because most of the software isn't finished yet. So yes, they can give you 2 years full warranty on the hardware (starting now), but you would not be able to actually use/test most of it until several months from now... would you prefer to have a Homey gathering up dust at your home, until the software is finished? Personally, I can wait, and I'd much rather see those first Homeys in the hands of developers who can help develop the apps for it...
  • MarcoF said:


    Sarcasme?!
    no sorry, i wrote aboute something about NEEO (see last comment there) but wasnt sure if it was true or something so tried to delete my comment :) but dont know how... :)

  • MarcoFMarcoF Member
    edited January 2016
    @Bumblez;
    I'm shocked to read the software part is not finish and it could take several months for its ready.

    Is this true?!
    ------------------------------------------------------------
    MarcoF said:


    Sarcasme?!
    no sorry, i wrote aboute something about NEEO (see last comment there) but wasnt sure if it was true or something so tried to delete my comment but dont know how...

    I've read it :wink: 
    I meant the comment on the Neeo kickstarter page is Sarcasme :wink: 

    Just cancelled my Neeo order :worried: 
  • MarcoF said:

    I'm also started to develop a small App and want to test it and as long I have no Homey I can't test....I can use my time better to optimize my Vera3 :smile: 
    I'm not sure if that's a better use of your time :smile:  I've had a vera for quite a while now, and if you're looking for an example of bad customer service / bad product, there you have it. The thing crashes quite regularly, every once in a while wipes all scenes / programming, and customer service doesn't respond and/or erases forum questions...

    Actually this was one of the reasons I backed homey!


  • no sorry, i wrote aboute something about NEEO (see last comment there) but wasnt sure if it was true or something so tried to delete my comment :) but dont know how... :)

    Yeah, as far as I can tell, the comment you linked about NEEO, was made by a backer, not by one of the people working on the project. So I wouldn't put too much faith in that comment either...
  • @rvdm;
    My Vera3 is running voor almost 2 years. I had some issues with it, but the last year is runs OK.
    I don't use the scene, except for scheduling own code/functions, and almost all logic is based on my own code.

    I'm also still on UI5, because of the poor compatibility and support :wink: 

    But coding and not able to test and learn from it, that's not my thing. 
  • MarcoF said:
    @rvdm;
    My Vera3 is running voor almost 2 years. I had some issues with it, but the last year is runs OK.
    I don't use the scene, except for scheduling own code/functions, and almost all logic is based on my own code.

    I'm also still on UI5, because of the poor compatibility and support :wink: 

    But coding and not able to test and learn from it, that's not my thing. 
    I won't complain too much about the vera, but it suffices to say I hope it can be reduced to a doorstop soon. I also had a bunch of my own code to work around the issues in vera itself. From the looks of it, Homey will be able to do much more. I was planning to port my Toon library to Homey, but noticed the Athom guys apparently already did that, so I'll see how that works ;)
  • Just curious to hear about how production is going. Is the speed as planned and are the latest given shipping estimates still accurate?
  • +1 Very curious!
  • +1 on above!
  • +1 pretty curious! :)
  • At the end of the week the first real batch should be shipped to Geek backers.. Honestly hope they will make that deadline (would be a first ;))
  • I have my doubts, especially if you look at the "showstoppers" in the Git issue list.


  • MarcoF said:
    I have my doubts, especially if you look at the "showstoppers" in the Git issue list.


    Indeed! 
  • honeyhoney Member
    edited January 2016

    Happy that someone raised the question before the `predicted` date. The tendency used to be that people started asking these on the date. Than a not too painful relatively near future date has been thrown-in and everybody was happy and silenced till the next date.

    @MarcoF ;; I hope that is not holding back the production. Those are software issues which naturally surfaces after the product launches and can be fixed at any time. After all most us are geeks, we can go along with such things for a while.

    As most of us pre-ordered the product so I feel that after one year has the right to ask such straight forward questions:

    • Did Global Electronics allocated sufficient resources, manpower to achieve 300-400 pcs/week?
    • How many Homeys has been fully assembled so far?
    • Do they have all the component needed?
    • Are there any major issues they did not have when manufactured the first 13 pieces?

    Not angry, or frustrated or anything like that about the delay. It is about the transparent communication (which I believe many complained about recently).  We expect clear communications and real answers in this case.

  • It's indeed for the weekly update :).
  • MarcoFMarcoF Member
    edited January 2016
    My reaction was on @DieterKoblenz about the "deadline" :wink: 

    Lets say 80% of the "Geeks" are "real" GEEKS, then 20%(almost 100 Homey's) of the so called "Geeks" are not so Geek and Athom has a big problem. But i don't believe 80% of the geeks are real geeks and have also that amount of patience a geek could/should have.

    I don't believe Athom will ship the product with such issues. 

    1. IR problems, 
    2. no bluetooth audio
    3. no bluetooth low energy, 
    4. 433/HUE light/socket issues,
    5. "hotfix" for the crash issue, 
    6. updater issues (1:11 reported this, Geek badge 430 homeys can result in >40 homeys having troubles updating),
    7. etc.
    I'm also a bit disappointed in the speed issues are solved.

    Issues is created by Firstbadge backer, Athom has a question and in most of the cases it takes days before the issue owner responses to that question. 
  • I think it is better not to be to eager to get those Homey's out in the field just because then they are delivered. Better solve some issues now instead of getting a lot off users frustrated because there are some issues. That would be a disaster for the product itself (and yes i'm also very eager to get my Homey, not a geek, but preorder).
  • honeyhoney Member
    edited January 2016
    @MarcoF You are right about the not so Geeks. However this should not affect the hardware production. They might wish to postpone the shipping resulting a bigger combined batch but the production should be on track.

    @kastleman Issues will always will surface. You can`t just hold it back a product forever just because there are some issues. If there are more users more issues will be identified.

  • MarcoFMarcoF Member
    edited January 2016
    Production numbers are only important if the product can be shipped.
    If the product can't be shipped, its totally not important if GE is producing 10 or 1000 Homey's a week or if there are 10 of 1000 homey in stock.

    With 500 a week the can ship all Kickstarter Homeys within 2 or maybe 3 weeks. 

    I think its more important that we try to involve the FirstBadge backer more to fix the issues.
    And some more info/communication from Athom would also be appreciated. After the locked topic about the estimated shipping dates, there's again a deadly silence.
  • honeyhoney Member
    edited January 2016
    It is definitely nowhere close to 500 pieces/week. When was that when the first batch came of the production line? Ohh yes the production speed matters. If they do 50 pcs / week the new preorders can hope to get their before Christmas. Also fixing those issues are matter of couple of weeks but production is couple of months. 
This discussion has been closed.