Introducing Blynk Energy - first paid services

Forgive me if that was explained already but here it goes…

How does this pay structure work with folks that run their own private/local server? My plan is to run the app and server offline - completely disconnected from the internet.

You can do it easily and without internet.

google rules for in-App purchases is sample…
no refund can be done you can contact App developer.
it’s like that.

what is the exchange rate to USD ?
how many energy units = to 1 USD ?
or it’s about the importance and based on most demand widget has higher value?
sorry i’am accountant by profession.

UPDATE

i just got the update late it seams, now it’s clear . but the Energy lost in recycling is wrong decision
as we used to do a lot of changes before to reach final design.
and makers never reach a final design as you always have the desire to change and improve things…

Are we able to rearrange widgets without having to recycle them? In the past I’ve had to delete things from the project because it took up too much space making it impossible to slide things around. Once i got things where I wanted them I would then add the large widget back.

Based on the pricing in the app, looks like $.001 USD down to $.0007 USD per Energy Unit, base on buying $.99 or $19.99, respectively.

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Whats with us who kickstarted the Digistump Oak with the “Blynk and a box full of widgets” Addon? I’m logged in with the E-Mail I used and still only have 1000 Energy. The other annoncement said we’d get lifetime accounts (http://community.blynk.cc/t/blynk-will-introduce-paid-subscription-in-q1-2016/3177/58)

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@Kaeltis - you’ll get email with redeeming instructions shortly.

@Pavel Great, thank you so much :slight_smile:

Will there still be a basic free package as outlined in the previous plan?

@myggle yes, You have 2000 energy for free. Also Your energy will never go below 1000. (well, it will, but all you need to do remove and create project again).

Also you can create instructable and we will provide you with free energy.

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What about those of us who blog about Blynk and bring it more exposure? http://www.plastibots.com/index.php/2015/06/11/iot-garage-monitor-with-finger-print-sensor/

Also… I’ll add, Im not looking for a free ride here. I havent paid a red cent for this app and love it. Still trying to understand how this whole pricing model works… Guess I’ll just have to keep driving and see how it works! :slight_smile:

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Surely! Please PM @Dmitriy

I tried to purchase energy for my local server but my purchase ended up going toward my cloud account. How is energy purchased for local server account, and where would/is the information stored for the local account.

@arduinewb Purchases are separate thing, it is tied with google, not with Blynk. So purchase is done via internet and stored on local server.

@Pavel maybe a “sandbox” page on the app to design the layouts?

one with infinite free adds etc but doesn’t actually work with a Token and hardware??

Hi I can explain how you pay, and few can put tags do not understand anything because now you have to pay, if I can explain I would be very grateful

Well, 1 USD is 0.9€ right now but in blink when I click the 0.99USD it converts to 1.07€.

Yeah I backed $20 for all the widgets and an expectation of Bluetooth maybe I was wrong about that last bit. So 3 things

  1. You shouldn’t be charging for a service that says soon next to the word help on the website and where the documentation link on the website is just text. Expecting people to pay (especially the model you’ve chosen) for an incompletely documented product isn’t fair, until there’s comprehensive guidance for all features, you’re profiting from not informing people whether you mean to or not.

I take that back, I looked through chrome on my laptop and there is loads of documentation, , i wtick by the first sentence, it’s just a web updating issue rather than a documentation one, it doesn’t say that there is any documentation when you view the site on a mobile and see the footer. And it says Soon next to the word help, If it didn’t say soon I would have looked before now, that simple thing has put me off using this for months, what a waste of time.

  1. This pricing model is confusing and messy and apparently not bug free, I lost 500 energy not creating a project, I haven’t looked any further, I paid for widgets already and now I’m what? Hiring them?

Just tell people what they’re paying for, one free project, if you want more, a subscription for concurrent projects, like every other service. This energy thing is convoluted and patronising.

Did someone say they needed energy for a self hosted server, if that’s the case, I can’t see what you are charging for, rental of a licence? No because that’d be a fixed term and cost. I hope I’ve misunderstood that because charging people for ‘energy’ if they’re are hosting their own server is just grabbing money.

edit: another thread does suggest you will need energy on a self sted server, how exactly are you planning on implementing this on an open source piece of software? I will just remove the code, as will anyone else who doesn’t want to pay you for not doing anything. Unless you’re providing a service somehow, but as it’s been stated that the server doesn’t need to be connected to the internet, i dont see how you could be providing anything to justify charging those people for using their on server.

  1. Lastly I already paid $20 backing you, then I backed the airboard, so I basically backed you for the full set, twice, and never complained because i was told i had the full set of widgets, not that i have access to them for free for a year. If this is the way this app is going, it’s a shame, there are a lot of apps and services that are similar to this but not as polished, firmata does half of this stuff without a server in the middle if you want. What is your service providing that we’re paying for? Message queueing? It seems like you’re charging for the app like it’s a service but it isn’t, it’s a gui designer, charge for the app, charge extra for fancier widgets or themes or something. Then bill the server usage separately like a real product but explain what it’s doing because amazon SQS is $0.50/million messages so you’d have to be processing billions and billions to justify charging in this way if thats all your server is doing.

I’m so let down by this, not even announcing that it was going to happen a couple of versions in advance to let this community discuss before you changed the whole concept of the app is disrespectful, especially to the people who backed the initial development and paid extra so this would be great, and not this.

If you don’t fix this it’ll only take weeks for someone to take you apart, this isn’t 2 years ago, Oracle, Cisco, Google and Microsoft are in this arena, if you’re lucky one of them will buy you, rather than just build a better version amazon already have an app builder, they could add something like this to the iot service in a weekend. You’ve only got community support holding you up, so dont lose it,

I hope you work this out in the next couple of weeks because I really wanted this to be the best IoT device gui maker, and you were getting there. Disrupt or Die is Cisco’s current motto and this isn’t disrupting anything so beware of the big fish.

i just got the update late it seams, now it’s clear . but the Energy lost in recycling is wrong decision
as we used to do a lot of changes before to reach final design.
and makers never reach a final design as you always have the desire to change and improve things…

I thought by reading this entire post, I would understand how all of this works. I am truthfully only more confused. Is there somewhere I can go that explains the entire thing? I understand that I am paying for widgets. Are the widgets using battery each time I use the widget? Or do I buy a widget once and can use it forever? Maybe its just me but this is all very confusing. I have projects that I have given to people to test. I would like to be able to tell them how much it will cost them to use the project so they can decide if they want to participate in my testing.
Thanks

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