Sparkfun seem to like the idea https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13794
Congratulations to Blynk, you deserve it.
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I have setup my local server for the blynk and i don’t use the cloud… Why must pay for energy?
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I must say I kind of agree with the above statement. I run a local server so most of the cloud costs I’d pay for using energy I"m not even using. Isn’t it a possibility to add a separate payment plan for local server users? After all, we are not using bandwidth and resources in the cloud.
As vmware, Microsoft and Citrix do, there are many types of licenses depending on the usage of their products. I’d be happy to pay a yearly fee for full usage of everything on a local device instead of cloud. I can imagine the more Blynk is used, the more the cloud resources will cost. Let’s say I’d pay 40$ a year for a full Local license and someone else pays as they go along because they use cloud services and use energy.
People like to be able to choose what suits their needs best. I’m intending to use Blynk as a product to demonstrate IoT on schools and other educational events, but with the Energy I think the fun will be drained out soon (pun intended!). Choice is, I think, what most people struggle here with. I definitely think you guys need to be paid, one way or the other, but I’m not 100% sure this is the right way and I think we need to able to make choices on how to support Blynk 
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I love Blynk, I enjoy a lot playing with it and my Arduinos but I don’t like the idea of loosing Energy every time I remove a widget… I want to support Blynk and I’d rather pay for a full license and feel free to add and remove widgets everytime I want.
Moreover I’m a Local server guy… I don’t use your server, for you no matter the number of widgets I add to my dashboards.
We will fix it today-tomorrow. Please be patient. We do our best. Sorry for inconveniences and thank you for supporting us.
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Dear all we just did new Android update with STORE FIXES. Please update ASAP. Version is 1.10.1.
What’s new :
- On widget removal (recycling) you get back 100% of energy;
- New project doesn’t take any energy anymore;
- Recycling enabled for old projects;
- All Blynkers get +2000 of energy to compensate bugs in previous release;
Sorry for inconveniences and bugs in previous release as usual any feedback is welcomed!
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I grabbed the update from the App store - and at that time I had 1,900 points left - now I have 3,900 points left. That’s definitely an improvement. I think you might still wish to consider a difference between those using your server and those using their own. For me to add another history graph, all using my own hardware, costs 900 points a time. Seems somewhat excessive.
Pete.
@scargill , we will check your energy balance.
Blynk is not only a server, or apps or libraries. It’s a complete platform, a service. So if you use your own server, you still use Blynk apps for example.
We made such an impressive open source cloud. @Dmitriy put all of his expertise into making it optimized so well, that it can handle more than 1000 requests/sec even on a $5 Raspberry Pi. We, of course, need to pay for servers and global distribution, but it’s not the largest expense of our startup.
Guys, we’ve got some bad reviews on Android Store due to the switching to paid services. Which was expected, but still pretty downing.
If you like Blynk, may we ask you to update or put a review there? Thanks!
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I believe that is a fair and balanced price model. Thank you.
I will do this right now. You and your project surely deserve it!
Totally agree, the ‘Energy’ concept just seems like a way of obscuring the PAYG update/introduction. Why not just be open, clear and honest - you will now have to pay £? for widgets x, y and z? I will not be ‘buying energy’ I will be paying for the use of a widget.
Also tell people up front in detail what the cost structure will be so they can make an informed decision.
Just to make sure I am being open and clear; I think PAYG is a great idea and am fine with it. I just don’t like the silly language it has been obscured by.
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I would kindly ask you to research the subject, before saying something is silly. There is a team of people working on that, evaluating every decision made.
We would be happy not to deal with any in-between currency, but then we would need to set a min $1 price for every widget. Because it’s the minimum price for an in-app purchase on iOS and Android.
Would that work for you?
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Thanks for the quick reply, but the currency was not the issue at all, just I am in England so I wrote £; could be $ or Euro… whatever.
I was just saying I do not think the language makes it clear about the charging system and up front information about pricing.
As @deejayspinz said above really.
Please help us with the messaging. We would really appreciate that.
Thanks
I think you’ve done your best, many are not aware of the costs that a company has to sustain, especially in your situation that until a few days ago you offered your services for free. I personally approve of this change and are more than happy to pay for a service that is already at a great level and that can only get better, listen to users is your strength, but give it due importance, at the end user always want everything for free …
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Understand the work you’ve put into the cloud - however you will understand that there are those of us who prefer to host ourselves. If my heating system goes off - I have only myself to blame and can quickly fix anything locally - if I have the whole house controlled by a remote server and that goes down - I have no service agreement - no claim back - nothing - I just have to take your word that your service - no matter how good - will stay there for the life of the product (which could be several years) and not go down. Like others I’ve heard the 99.9% claims of many ISPs and none of that helps when it is not working and there is ZILCH you can do about it. If my external internet were to go down (which it does at least in the UK but I suspect everywhere else) I would be entirely stuffed until it came back up.
So for those demonstrating - playing - having fun etc or unable to host their own server - that is stunning - but for me - I want everything to continue to work at least internally without relying on others.
I’ve not said anything either way on the App store - I will wait to see how developments come - promised improvements and additions. Up to now I’m happier than I was yesterday.
I would make a note, I have deleted a series of widgets that I had entered before the payment system, I noticed that I have received 150% of energy, basically a gauge that costs me 200 returns 300, if I try to add new costs 300 instead of 200.
Gauge costs 300. So 150% indeed 100%. This is Android bug showing 200 instead of 300. Thank you for pointing it.
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