@PeteKnight thanks for your feedback. BTW, if you check the roadmap portal - a lot of things were implemented. Especially top requested ones. But I agree that communication should be better. Now we have resources for that and will try to be much better.
@Greggan, unfortunately, I can’t agree with you simply based on data:
Only a small fraction of current Blynk users use Local Server. The majority prefer the convenience of a hosted server.
In the 7 years we got only a few commits to the server code. Awesome if you was one of them !
We’ve always offered Blynk Cloud at no additional charge and with no limits (10msgs/sec is incomparable with any IoT platform out there). Best part: we still can afford that.
Less experienced users decide that Local Server is for them (without no expertise for that) and create additional load on our tech support team. Which is not supported monetary as the server is free.
If you were a product manager of Blynk, what would be a reason to support this feature?
The case for local server are pretty-much as defined in the documentation…
Why do I need Local Blynk Server?
Better security. You are the only one who knows about the server. You can setup security policies tied to your specific needs (MAC, IPs, login names, etc). You can also make it accessible only within your private network.
Better stability. No need to rely on 3rd party Cloud solution. You have the full control.
Lower latency. Server is as close to you as it could be.
Maximum privacy. All data is stored locally and is not shared with anyone.
But as @Pavel says, local server makes no sense from Blynk’s point of view, mostly because Blynk has no control over whether the server is used for commercial reasons.
However, there have been mixed messages from Blynk regarding local server for Blynk.360 and it would be nice if there was a definitive statement from Blynk along the lines of “we have no plans to implement local server in the foreseeable future” if that is the case, so that existing users know where they stand when it comes to this issue.
I received an email today from @MariiaDrozhak saying “Blynk new platform is officially out of BETA!”
It appears that the date of 25th June is when my 1 month of free PRO access (a thank you for being a beta tester) and that new users can sign-up to Blynk.360 immediately.
This makes the questions about what widgets are available in the Basic version, and what the Transaction Caps are, more important.
Yes. But that’s not the main problem. The main problem is that developing the local server requires additional effort. I would say It would give ~20% to the server maintenance cost for us. So that’s why for now we decided to drop it.
Also a Node Red/MQTT user here, and same as @PeteKnight mentioned above I will be keeping my fingers crossed that the existing Blynk system is maintained.
I don’t like the $4.99 monthly charging, and not sure I want to pay $4.99 for each device. (I wonder if my Pi running node red would run as one device?). I spent enough on ‘energy’ and that seemed fair as a one of payment, free to use as I wished.
In fact although a beta tester I did not actually try the system for more than a couple of hours, seems way overly complicated for my personal needs. I am grateful for the original Blynk app and cloud server, it’s been a great run and I think it still may be the best front-end solution, however I will need to look for a replacement if it is dropped.
A few points I am not clear on:
Is there ever going to be a ‘switch off’ of Blynk 1.0 cloud support?
Will the original Blynk app continue to be available for those who want to run the original local server?
Can the community continue to support the local server via pull requests?
I think the simple solution is to use a single device, provided that the number of virtual pins isn’t restricted.
I started off creating multiple devices, but if I was going to do it again in V1.0 I’d use one plus a spreadsheet to keep track of what each one is used for.
In a way V2.,0 makes that easier as the datastreams have names (aliases I guess) so the spreadsheet might be redundant.
I think that’s much easier for Android users who can download the .apk file and continue to use the app even if it disappears from the play store - provided that it still works with their current Android version.
I think it will be mobile OS changes that eventually kill-off v1.0
As previously mentioned, we don’t have any plans to switch off old Blynk in the nearest future. It will continue running for a half-year or even much longer.
Yes, but it won’t be getting any updates/improvements. We may also limit an ability to register new accounts (this should only affect our Public Cloud).
Sure.
The updated server software became much more complicated to install and maintain (which is expected, taking into account all of the new features). Right now we offer “on-premises” installation of Blynk.Cloud for Enterprise customers only, and there’s no plan to open-source the full version of it in the foreseeable future.
MQTT support is in our plans. In fact, the Datastreams concept is abstracting-away the Blynk’s Virtual Pins, and that was designed exactly to support other protocols (not only MQTT).
I am convinced that if blynk V1 goes to become fully open source, we are a lot of users able to make it evolve faster than the last 3 years you did.
Why don’t you provide us the source code and keep V2 for commercial busyness only?
Many of us are using local server, it’s more secure, more stable and can be used even if our ISP is down.
@Blynk_Coeur
While I understand your sentiments, in the seven years of completely free Blynk on Local Servers, almost nobody contributed neither to server code nor to open libraries.
Don’t consider my question being offensive in any way, but did you make any pull requests throughout these years?
I totally agree! And I will also add that the trust in the company BLYNK is irretrievably undermined! What is a YEAR OF SUPPORT for people who have invested time and money in the development of various IoT devices based on this wonderful Blynk system. The developers have chosen a destructive path of development, this is their right, but they will definitely lose part of their loyal audience.
We are also disappointed with the way how some community members treated our work by for example abusing the use of local servers for business purposes or using it to build Blynk competitors.
This model is not working, unfortunately. We might consider selling local server licenses for the new version of Blynk at some point, but there is no ETA and certainty.
The old version will continue to work for as long as it makes economic sense, but I would definitely recommend migrating to the new one. It’s going to be 100x times better than the old one, I guarantee you will not be disappointed.
Thank you for the great effort
I have purchased energy on dozens of devices. If you stop the old platform, I will have a big problem with my customers. Please keep the old platform because it is a wonderful platform and we cannot do without it.
Of course I will move to the new platform but I don’t want to pay huge amount to my old customers
Please do not neglect the development of the application to be compatible with Android updates
!
