Homeseer 2.0 Ready for Release?

[Dean Roddey]

Nows you chance to really promote your CQC... Perhaps you should offer some discounts because HS users are really vaunerble right now. Perhaps you should run a contest on cocoontech and give away a copy or two just to get things started.

We are considering a 'trade up' deal for HS users, where you'd get a nice discount for converting from HS. We know that some won't be able to do it because of this or that device that they really have to have but we don't support, but for the rest we'd like to give them a choice now that they are are looking at where they want to go.

 

[Skibum]

Squintz... ya should have started a poll on the HS board, or better yet linked to this poll.

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

by Squintz: Nows you chance to really promote your CQC... Perhaps you should offer some discounts because HS users are really vaunerble right now. Perhaps you should run a contest on cocoontech and give away a copy or two just to get things started.

Squintz:

Dean has already graciously donated a copy of his software for a past CocoonTech contest back in May (thanks again for that Dean).

HERE was the tread for that previous contest.

BSR

 

[Squintz]

I forgot about that BSR. How comw we have not heard any feedback about it?

 

[Dean Roddey]

Oh yeh, I meant to bring that up. The winner ended up getting involved in the beta testing of some other product, and so decided that he wasn't going to go the CQC way. So if you want to re-run the giveaway, that's cool with me.

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

Honestly, I'm not trying to take sides here but let me ask one simple question. How many of you guys purchased a copy of Microsoft Windows operating system and ROUTINELY download patches and upgrades for that system? Heck, I bet you even have a process on your machine that does this automatically! <_<

I am also willing to bet you paid a LOT more than a lousy $39 for this privilege as well!!

Let's just give this some perspective shall we.

I'm glancing at the software I have installed and or played around with. Lets start with Norton Antivirus. Every year I have to update this POS with a license just to keep the "virus library definitions" current. That plus the fact that I can't reinstall this on the SAME machine without major errors, plus it is always needing to upgrade itself at least once a month. It will lock up my Outlook at least once or twice a month also. Plus once I actually tried calling tech support. Got someone who could not speak English and never did solve my problem. Followups no help either. If you didn't find the "canned" answer on their website you were SOL!

Hmmm, what's next, Microsoft Office. Well, look at the paragraph above about Microsoft operating systems.

Roxio Easy CD Creator. Not to bad, but again, revision updates (and not major ones at that) are not free.

Quicken 2001. This works and I have not performed the yearly price upgrade because the features I actually use are EXACTLY the same in their current versions.

DataPilot Software (cell phone): Purchased this because they said it would work with my LG phone, then found out that the "next" version would work and not the current one. Luckily the update was free. Since then I upgraded with a USB phone and tried Emailing and calling tech support with no response (just to see if the USB interface would work with the version I currently had).

ACDC systems (photo editing software). Here is an interesting one. I purchased this older version because they advertised upgrades would be free. Less than one year after I owned this they came up with a "major" upgrade that all of a sudden wasn't free. When I asked them about this they said that major upgrades were not free!

Girder: Version I have now was free at the time, but to get the latest one I have to pay for it.

J River Media Center: Well version 10 works but again, have to pay for an upgrade if I want the current version (BTW, I think I used version 10 for less than a year).

Homeseer: A major rewrite of the software, 24/7 active tech support forum, ability to leave help tickets, owner/creators of the company actively participate on the tech support forums, and only $39 for the upgrade.

Yea, Homeseer software has its problems, but what software doesn't? Why are we soooo willing to participate in the "upgrade" machine set up for other software we routinely use, but give this particular one this "extra" scrutiny!?!?

I think that it's passion myself. Maybe to Homeseer' demise, but users get "hooked" to certain software and it seems to somehow become sort of an obsession that none of our other software loaded on our PC has become.

I not saying to stop the criticism, a little is healthy no matter what your opinion, but come on, lets give this some perspective shall we!

Of course the above is my opinion and I have never sold myself as an expert here!

 

[Skibum]

Downloading a patch for a recently discovered vulnerability is a far cry from paying for software that has not even been through beta before release. Software that generates over 50 complaints a day and numerous unanswered helpdesk tickets. Software ahat purports to be an upgrade, yet does not support existing devices, or offer an upgrade path.

 

[WayneW]

How many of you guys purchased a copy of Microsoft Windows operating system and ROUTINELY download patches and upgrades for that system? Heck, I bet you even have a process on your machine that does this automatically! <_<

BSR, I don't think any of us here are complaining about the $39 price, but I admit there were a couple of posts on the HST board. It has been the lack of information, the conflicting policies, the extremely short (IMHO) 45 day upgrade discount window and the general attitude about some things that have gotten the reactions. Now, this is after HST have been dangling HS2 for almost a full year and promising a release (or at least a public beta) for 7-8 months or so.

And in answer to your challenge, I did NOT purchase Windows (or any other app) when everybody I know was complaining about all the bugs in it under the pressure to do it "real soon" or it would cost me significantly more later.

And most of those other apps don't have to run unattended 24/7, so maybe we do judge HA software by a different scale.

I have known Tinker for years and was aware of Rich and HS for a number of years before I switched to it. Since I already had a mature HA system, I was warned by multiple people to not bother with HS until it became more stable and feature rich, otherwise I would be going backwards. So every person has to decide when a product or piece of software is right for them. I just resent having to decide within 45 days or so. I don't recall every seeing any other software with such a short upgrade window. And I don't think they will get many takers at $99, but time will tell.

 

[Rauco]

BSR -

First of all, very well said, but - I personally have no problem paying for the upgrade. When the $39 price was announced I thought it was very fair.... but $99? Not so sure, at least not for an update that seems unnecesary and wanted more by HST than the users.

On top of that, the feeling of being railroaded into upgradeing before the deadline along with changing deadline dates.... that has me feeling a bit put out. As a plug-in developer I also have the pressure of having to buy just so I can re-write for the app.

I trust HST to put out a quality piece of software, and they have yet to disappointment me. HS is a great product and kudos to Rich and team! But calling a beta final to rush release, and then telling people they have a month to buy before the price more than doubles makes me doubt their marketing plan - a lot.

 

[DavidL]

If you use HS2 with no plugins, it is now reliable. If you use the HS 2 tested plugins, it is also reliable. If you use other than a HS2 tested plugin, it won't work.
I haven't touched 1.7 in about 1 1/2 months. I have strictly been running HS2 beta and now prod. Now, I have been doing nightly reboots during testing various plugin updates and beta builds. But, I do leave it on all day and check in via net every afternoon and things generally have been running fine. Now that almost all of my plugins are HS2.0 compatible, I am in good shape.
1951 is CONSIDERABLY more stable than earlier betas. Being it will probably take a month to get extensive 1.7 systems all upgraded, cleaned up, backed up, and running, by then things should be leave it alone stable.
If I were starting from scratch and only had a few devices, I would start with HS2.0. If I had over 300 devices in a 1.7 and wanted to do a totally clean install, I might consider a new 1.7 install, add all devices in the old HS gui, and then switch it to HS2.0prod. This is because the new web gui in my opinion is a lot slower to do mass updates than the old gui. I would then do regular updates in HS2.0 web gui.

 

[WayneW]

1951 is CONSIDERABLY more stable than earlier betas.

David, I am not trying to pick on you, but being able to say that "1951 is CONSIDERABLY more stable than earlier betas" seems to be hard to believe since 1951 has only been released for 24 hours or so. Does that mean that the other betas were unusable? If so, then why were they released? Why not release 1951 as beta and if it doesn't blow up like the other betas in a day or two, THEN it can be called a release product.

 

[TCassio]

First let me say that I am new to HS (30 days) I purchased 1.7, and purchased the upgrade to 2.0 and didn't have a problem with that. What I have a problem with is the lack of support. I have 5 trouble tichets in the works in the last 10 days with no response form the homeseer crew. If not for the forum, Id still be waiting for answers. After spending $200 on a piece of software I should at least get a response. I hate to say this but I will. When I first got into HA I made the mistake of purchaseing X10 controller and software, and had a boat load of problems. I went for months with out getting answers for problems that existed so I decided to go else where. I kinda fell that way again. What good is having the ability to submit a trouble ticket if you get no response. I can understand not responding to all trouble tickets while the product is in Beta, but now that it has been officially released, there should be no excuse for not getting a response on problems.

 

[jwilson56]

Lets see... the $99 upgrade (maybe somewhere down the distant road) might be worth the dozen hours of fighting the now bug ridden version people are being forced into trying

John

 

[WayneW]

Lets see... the $99 upgrade (maybe somewhere down the distant road) might be worth the dozen hours of fighting the now bug ridden version people are being forced into trying

John

Well, I am not being forced into trying anything. But I am being forced to possibly purchase software that I have no intention of using at this stage. Part of that is that I don't have the time or desire to fight through all the bugs on software I paid for and depend upon to run my house 24/7.

But I agree, if you think you will want the upgrade in the future and you think that the product will meet your needs and you think that HST will still be around to support it, then the $39 investment now is a good idea. I haven't decided yet, it will probably be a last minute decision for me.

 

[DavidL]

WayneW,
What I meant to say is EACH beta got considerable more stable. The current build 1951, I was the first to download it and has been running error free since, with just about all of the HS2.0 plugins plus a few more development ones.

I did not mean to say the 1951 was tons better than 1950. 1950 wasnt' too bad either. I seem to remember a speaker.exe error once in a while with it.

The other betas were released because they were just that - betas. I expect problems in beta software. I also expect fewer (but some) in production software. I manage several large scale production software applications at work and one of today's meetings was multilingual error handling. If this "mission critical" production application was expected to not have any errors, why the meeting on error messages? <_<

HS2 betas haven't crashed on me since probably the first 2.0 beta a couple of months ago. Most errors I have found are usually just messages, a plugin that stops functioning (but all else is fine), and trouble with shutting down HS issues. This is in decreasing order of frequency. If you look through my beta posts, they are for the most part all documented as part of the beta testing.