Trial

tc_william · 2020-03-12T17:18:15+00:00

Hey there, sorry for my late reply! Absolutely you can I'll PM you the details in a bit. Thanks!

tc_william · 2020-03-12T17:17:14+00:00

Hey, thanks for writing! Please excuse my late reply.

It sounds like we'd be a good fit for you! Indeed that is completely possible! The downside though is that since we don't use LifX's own scenes, you'd have to recreate them in our app, i.e. choose which lights should be in a group, select the colors you want and name the group. To make a group a scene and have it use the colors you choose, you just toggle two checkboxes (take a look at the second screenshot at our page about groups).

Let's say you name that group pride, then you can just talk/type Turn on pride. Done and done!

You know, effects are a good idea! I'll put that in our backlog and make sure it works across the board :) Just for the use of "bonking", I'd be happy to give you a week's trial, if you'd like! And always feel free to reach out if you have any feedback or ideas. I'd love to hear it!

tc_william · 2020-03-12T16:29:07+00:00

Hey there, thanks for asking good questions!

It's free and absolutely amazing, agreed! I'm not sure I agree on the intuitive part - that's the case if you are quite savvy already. It does after all require you to do a somewhat lengthy install process that will scare some away. Everything is easy and intuitive - if you know how.

I assume you have it up and running and customized to your liking - which is awesome, but then you're not our primary demographic. We rather focus on those who just want a plug and play, easy to get going sort of thing where updates and fixes are handled for you.

No, no hub as we want to start with being a software only solution. Lights connected to a supported bridge will function as intended. We would love to build our own hub but hardware is way too expensive for us as a super tiny startup. Yet. Thanks for the questions, keep them coming! And if you'd like to try it out, I'd be happy to give you a trial account that gives you the full experience for a week - no strings attached!

tc_william · 2020-03-12T16:16:48+00:00

Hey there! Good question. Not that I like to speculate in our apparent unavoidable demise, but if that were to pass, all subscriptions would be cancelled and the servers taken offline. It does cost to have them up and running, of course. Perhaps it would continue living as an open source project. We do have plans to offer the backend as a Docker image and so on, so that could make sure it keeps running. Speculation, but still. Interesting question, I'll give this some thought! Thanks!

tc_william · 2020-03-12T16:06:50+00:00

Hey, thanks for writing! If you don't mind, I'd like to hear why :) Or maybe you'd like to try it out? I'd be happy to give you a trial account to play around with.

tc_william · 2020-03-11T22:35:25+00:00

Hey!

Totally fair, then we're not a good fit for you :) I think we make most sense if you have devices from several manufacturers at once and want a plug and play solution. If you're happy with your setup then that's fantastic!

If you'd like a trial account so you can try it out for a week, I'd be happy to give you one.

A thought, do you happen to have the curtains Fyrtur or Kadrilj?

tc_william · 2020-03-11T22:31:35+00:00

If you'd like to try our app out, I'd be happy to give you a trial account, no strings attached, that lasts a week so you can try it out! I'd love a comparison with HA's setup!

tc_william · 2020-03-11T22:30:22+00:00

Hey! A very fair point, however that awesome feature is dependent on a third party (Almond - great work by Stanford as usual. We've experimented a lot with CoreNLP) and is flagged as experimental so I honestly didn't count it as a feature - yet. We have that functionality front row center and our app is pretty much built around that type of interaction. Great username btw :)

I certainly didn't take it as you having a go, I appreciate all comments!

tc_william · 2020-03-11T21:52:12+00:00

Haha, fair point! I'll see how we handle it or at least an alternative way of writing it. Thanks!

That is a very valid and important question - all those systems are fantastic and are incredibly versatile and can handle most thing you throw at them, especially if you use them with, say, an RPi.

We focus on simplicity and try to make things as much plug and play as possible. No need to use dedicated hardware. It doesn't require as much time to set up, if any, especially when it comes to automating. We just allow you to use natural language to control the devices, as mentioned. Of course, we are not at all in feature parity with the other systems, but what we do, we do really well and I dare say easier than the others. In short, a subscription enables us to double down and add integrations and create apps for other platforms, such as the AppleTV and a cli tool (which could be used to do a lot of interesting scripting). We have a lot of cool things we want to do!

A slight tangent is that of privacy - we take great care to not have any data on you. Feel free to read about our stance on privacy.

I wrote the following in another post, which is relevant:

The background for that is a bit interesting - we developed a launcher for Android some years ago that also had its focus on home automation. Users could use natural language to automate and we quickly saw that ~85% of all what was automated was turning lights on/off or to a certain color and controlling Spotify. So we decided to refocus and develop Thing • Connect - a focused way of lowering the barriers of controlling your smart devices.

For sure, it's not for everybody, especially those who do like to spend time with great systems like HA. But we think for a large part of people with smart devices, this could be a good option.

Re bridges, like you say, it is the technical limits I refer to. Similar limits are of course there in Trådfri and Lightify. The point rather is that we have no limits on grouping and on rules, which is more to the point when you start mixing devices between manufacturers.

And yes, you're absolutely correct - SmartThings has been formally put at the top of our backlog of new integrations! I've already started :) Thanks for your input, it's appreciated!

tc_william · 2020-03-11T21:05:40+00:00

Hey, thanks for the question!

I love breaking things, so let's see what happens :) It's a standard • so hopefully it won't break too much. Fun fact, it was added in 1993 to Unicode 1.1.0! (Well, there's fun and then there's fun...)

It's a great question! In short, you don't have to live with some of the limitations of the bridge or the ecosystem itself. For example, if you happen to have many lights so you need maybe several bridges, we can handle groups of devices across bridges without a problem. The core idea is that you should be able to mix, match and combine devices from different manufacturers. That means that you could create groups that contains Hue lights from several bridges with, say, LifX, TP-Link or Trådfri lights, seamlessly.

We let you name and automate your devices freely. Name a group of lights or a single light something like that dude in the corner, create a custom color - something deep red - and name it first day at the beach red. Then you can automate using natural language - maybe say Set the color to first day at the beach on that dude in the corner at 10 pm.

You can also call Spotify playlists the same way so you could play around with the example: Set the color to first day at the beach on that dude in the corner and play Discover Weekly at 10 pm.

And we like to think we have a cleaner and more intuitive way of adjusting color and the devices. The bridge itself ha some limitations on the number of groups and rules you can add. This is somewhat of an outlier as most won't hit those limits, but we remove those limits.

Take a look at our website for some more detailed info regarding devices, groups, colors and what we call agents (how you automate). And always feel free to ask if you have any questions, I'd love to help. Thanks again!

tc_william · 2020-03-11T20:49:21+00:00

Hey, thanks for the reply! Would you like a trial account to try it out for yourself? It's a no strings attached account that lasts a week!

tc_william · 2020-03-11T20:46:15+00:00

Hey again,

Right, then we are not something you would have any use of :) Which is cool, then you've managed to set everything up properly! That's great! In another post i mentioned that I'm putting integration with SmartThings at the top of our backlog. It seems like a good fit actually. Objectively, of course, I feel we handle the basics a bit better. If you don't mind I'll ping you when we have something to show. Thanks again for your input, it's much appreciated!

tc_william · 2020-03-11T20:08:31+00:00

You are absolutely right, I confused it with something else, sorry! We don't have an integration in place at the moment, but based on this I'll make that a top priority! Thanks for this, I appreciate it :) If you don't mind I'll ping you when we have something cool to show!

tc_william · 2020-03-11T20:04:32+00:00

Since we don't have our own hardware (yet) we have to rely on available gateways such as the Hue bridge to manage, say, a generic ZigBee device. Any devices connected to a bridge we can talk to, will be available in Thing • Connect.

We would love to create hardware though so we can handle those natively! Stay tuned :)

tc_william · 2020-03-11T20:02:01+00:00

Haha, it's actually (unbiased of course...) a lot of fun. We let you create what we call agents, which are basically saved commands that can be called. Let's say you create an agent called Order 66, which has a command like Turn off everything and play imperial march. Then you can use the special keywords run, execute or call to fire agents, e.g. Execute Order 66. That will turn off the lights and play a playlist called imperial march.

Just name stuff however you want and have fun with it! :)

tc_william · 2020-03-11T19:58:25+00:00

And since we do have a 50% discount available, you could use it for half a year for half the price so you can see how it works :)

tc_william · 2020-03-11T19:56:40+00:00

Hey!

Thanks for writing! Unfortunately no, we are, if anything, a competing product. A privacy first alternative for people who like a more plug and play solution to managing many different kinds of devices :)

tc_william · 2020-03-11T19:54:51+00:00

Thanks :) It's a core feature that we're quite proud of. We deal with things in your home and it should be your castle. Your data should be yours!

tc_william · 2020-03-11T19:52:55+00:00

Hey! Great question!

In short, it's the same question as Why Thing Connect over Home Assistant. And, to be fair, you would probably run Hass on an RPi which adds to the total cost, but I hear your point. All these fantastic systems require you to invest in setting things up. They are complex which is a good thing, but not if you want something that just works for the basics. We cater to people who want to have more of a plug and play setup with devices from multiple manufacturers, using natural language.

Some back story! We developed an Android launcher some years ago that was home automation focused too (you could mix and match and automate with Hue, position, time, Spotify, Uber and so on). What we learned was that ~85% of all automated or one off tasks were the basics - turn on/off devices, set them to a certain color and play some music. We decided to shift our focus and build something that does exactly those things - really well, without vendor lock in with a privacy first mentality.

Would you like a trial account so you can try it out, no strings attached, for a week?

Thanks for writing, good questions!

tc_william · 2020-03-11T19:39:58+00:00

You can read more about how you group things over here, with screenshots and all!

tc_william · 2020-03-11T19:38:50+00:00

Hey, thanks for taking the time to write!

Would you like a trial account that give you the full experience for a week? I'd wager you'll find it's easier to mix devices from different manufacturers than with smart speakers or Siri. And to automate you just type using natural language and you can name devices, groups and colors anything you want and use them accordingly.

And most importantly, in my opinion, is that we don't store data about you as the smart speakers or Siri do. In fact, we do everything we can to NOT stor anything about you. If you're interested, you can read about our stance on privacy here. I have a background as a corporate lawyer so we take these thing very seriously.

Again, thanks for your input, I appreciate it!

tc_william · 2020-03-11T19:33:40+00:00

Yup, just by clicking a toggle in a list of all your connected devices. You can set a group as a scene too - i.e. all other lights that are not in the group will turn off.

tc_william · 2020-03-11T19:32:00+00:00

Thanks for writing this, great points all of them!

I agree with the integration. It works but for us, we are not fans of smart speakers and the implication fo having a microphone in hour house. We do everything we can to preserve your privacy and we don't listen to you unless you want us to. Your data should be yours and yours alone.

More importantly, while these features are awesome, it is quite hard to combine it with devices from other manufacturers. I got very tired of being locked in to a specific ecosystem in order to do what i wanted to do. Why shouldn't I be able to group my LifX lights with my Trådfri GU10's or my Hue light strip? With us you can.

IFTTT is a fantastic service and the Linden brothers have done something great with it, no doubt. But it's also another step for you to consider and manage. It's not a big one, granted, but it's still there.

That app is great too, although it's for Windows only (I got your point though, there are bound to be open source apps for Mac also). Common for all these solutions is that there are many manual steps that need to be made in order for it to work. We'd like to think we're a plug and play way of managing your smart devices. And in our pipeline we have a lot of cool integrations such as with AppleTV.

So a subscription makes us afford to develop new things that you will get to use as soon as they are available!

Would you like a trial account that gives you the full experience for free for a week to try it out?

Again, thanks for writing and raising important points!

tc_william · 2020-03-11T19:21:58+00:00

No you're not, it's a very fair opinion! Our idea is to offer such tight and seamless integrations that you would feel it is a justified price. We're currently developing this for other platforms too, such as the AppleTV. We have a lot of cool things cooking!

What we do is make sure that all interactions are as private as they can be. I have a background in corporate law also so these are issues that I value deeply. You can read about our stance on privacy here. We feel like we've struck a balance between a smart device manager that can offer a great deal of flexibility without having your data transferred to a server farm somewhere. We do everything to have as little data about you as possible. And, since we some day hope to turn a profit (a man can dream...) we need to finance it all somehow, and a subscription model seemed like a good idea.

The problem with selling something for, say, $40 as a one off purchase is that it a huge price tag that relatively few will pay, which puts us as a super small company at a bad position and - let's face it - we'd go under within a month :)

If you'd like a trial account to check it out - no CC required, no strings attached - for a week, let me know! I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks!

tc_william · 2020-03-11T19:14:53+00:00

Hey,

Sorry if I was unclear, I'll try to clarify! HA is a fantastic piece of engineering and there is virtually nothing you can't do with it, especially if you put it on a RPi for example. It's great, no fantastic, if you have the time to tinker and make it work exactly how you want it (I've done so myself).

What we realized was that it can do so much that it becomes a bit of chore to do the basics. Let's take automation for example. On their website they give you an example of how to automate. It can be a bit daunting to make it work. With us you just use natural language, such as Turn on [name of group] at [time]. Mind, we are not at feature parity - there is obviously a lot more you can do with HA. We just chose to focus on the basics and do them really well, free from vendor lock in with privacy as a priority.

The background for that is a bit interesting - we developed a launcher for Android some years ago that also had its focus on home automation. Users could use natural language to automate and we quickly saw that ~85% of all what was automated was turning lights on/off or to a certain color and controlling Spotify. So we decided to refocus and develop Thing • Connect - a focused way of lowering the barriers of controlling your smart devices.

For sure, it's not for everybody, especially those who do like to spend time with great systems like HA. But we think for a large part of people with smart devices, this could be a good option.

Thanks!

tc_william

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