OK, it probably was unfair! Sorry Peter.
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If a company has been built on makers efforts, then I think they have a moral, if not business obligation to support them.
As a former manufacturing business owner, I can also see this from both points of view. However, and I have first hand experience of this, supporting the people who have contributed ideas, solutions or helped get the business of the ground, is good for the long term survival of the company. My business development managers disagreed strongly with this, concentrating on this years bottom line - but 15 years in, they were starting to come around. I sold the business in 2012 and itâs still going strong with the same ethos.
I feel its time, Blynk starts to release its own hardware. Who ever buys devices from Blynk those devices can connect to the cloud and if extra widgets are needed users can pay one time fee for the widgets.
This way Blynk can generate more revenue. This way there will be no heaps n heaps of unused or free accounts. Only genuine users will be onboard.
Just my thoughts.
Who ever feels its a good idea, please raise hands.
I guess my idea is not bad. But there may be practical difficulties, but i am not able to think of any at 2:30AM 
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This is something I hear a lot lately, and Iâm constantly questioning what does exactly this statement mean?
Here are my, Blynk founderâs, thoughts on it:
- We build a product that makers needed. Successful Kickstarter campaign was a first proof that product is needed.
- Over 500k+ engineers are using Blynk today. There are definitely makers among them. Another proof that itâs a good idea and realization.
- We released the first version which was completely free for everyone. We charged for public cloud convenience, but anyone could run their own server at no charge. The server was open-source.
- We made it possible to connect virtually any device to the Internet. The libraries are still open-source.
- Throughout ~7 years we got just a handful of pull requests to our open-source code and a couple of really nice contributions (e.g. Node Red plugin). These people are
- Since ~2014 we keep the dialog open and listen to the community feedback. Of course we make final decisions, but itâs obvious that we added a ton of features community asked for.
- Forum is run by amazing admins, @PeteKnight obviously being one of the biggest contributors ever. I donât know why and how he does that, but Iâm extremely grateful for his contribution
- Community reports issues - we fix them. Still, over 90% of bugs are fixed before being released. Considering the complexity of Blynk, such ratio is normal. We are unable to test everything in every possible environment.
- Makers create a lot of content on Blynk making it more popular.
So how exactly Blynk is built on makerâs effort? If itâs about items 7-9, then what drives that in the first place? I donât know for sure, but I hope that itâs because people love the product and it brings value for them.
Blynk team is doing impossible, especially during the most difficult times. You can disagree, but I believe that itâs their incredible effort that makes Blynk in the first place. You are welcome to enjoy it!
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Arduino cloud have free variant and the second cost just 1,99/month, Blynk is much more expensive, so wrong example
Looks, Blynk could be good, but the limitations are big, and the cheapest plan is for me extremely expensive, I paid for the energy in the first version and use public cloud this service was canceled and offered just temporary discount. I am willing to pay but your plan is out of my possibilities, you ask more than my Internet or TV provider. BTW I do not like monthly charge, if you calculate for 10 year you can realize how expensive is your service.
Second what is the guaranties that the service will work after few months or years? I would need to reprogram all my devices again???
No from my point of view SaS is bullshit and move services to the cloud is not good idea, I will move back to the old blynk with my own Rpi server.
I fully agree with you SimonR, the price is to high for home use projects. I am not selling the products to other and not generating profit on it.
@PeteKnight did you realize that blynk is almost same price like Office 365? your expectations are out of real life.
I think that reason why Blynk will be limited to 10 datastreams is that they did not reach their income expectation after âupgardeâ and realized that must limit more free users. What next if your plan will not fit your expectation? One datastream? or just limit free account for week. I wish you to reach your expectation, but I afraid that Blynk is dead.
Yes, they have a free version, but what do you get with that?
The $1.99 per month version (which by the way you canât pay monthly) gives you 2 devices and 10 variables (datastreams in Blynk speak), which is the same as you get with the Blynk free plan.
In my book thatâs a perfect example of how Blynkâs free plan offers better value for money than the Arduino Cloud product.
Pete.
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Even i agree on this ânot making profitâ
But at Blynkâs perspective, free plan users are just burden. Utilising the server space but nothing else.
So when free users are in thousands/lakhsâŚâŚ just think what will be the situation!!
This is really hard to explain, as everyone has their own POV. And everyone are right on their POV.
But Blynk has to do what has be done to keep the business running.
They have already lost one business model âBlynk legacyâ, now they are not ready loose again.
Atleast they shouldnât have removed the onetime activation feature â5$â. They removed it way to early.
Atleast this would have generated some revenue, but now its â0â from free users.
âSOMETHING IS BETTER THAN NOTHINGâ
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I donât think itâs accurate to say this.
Blynk tried the âenergy purchaseâ pricing model, and realised that it wasnât a financially viable approach, so when Blynk was re-written to give more features and simpler scalability a different pricing model was adopted.
I think the issue with that model was that it opened-up a means of exploitation which was never intended, by creating a way of bypassing some of the things they were trying to achieve with the structured pricing model.
I think that in hindsight that model should never have been used in Blynk IoT, and it was removed as soon as they realised their mistake.
Pete.
Energy system was not the culprit, it was the local server that managed to sink the ship. Thats the truth.
Releasing the local server without any subscription system meant that it could be exploited by people wanting to run commercial projects without paying for them.
But, the energy purchase system didnât venerate ongoing revenue, it just created an ongoing commitment on Blynkâs part to keep hosting a service for these users. I think the days of one-off purchases for Blynk features are gone as a result, because itâs not a sustainable business model.
Pete.
What is your opinion on Blynk releasing their own hardware?
Makes no sense to me.
Blynk are a software company and developing, selling and supporting hardware is a very different proposition. Thatâs not to say that some Blynk staff donât have the skill set, but when you consider the costs of design, manufacture, distribution, compliance approval, warranty etc then theyâll never compete with the likes of Sonoff on price.
There was I believe a brief interaction with Sparkfun who produced the BlynkBoard, but that seems to have fizzled-out now.
Not surprising really, when you consider how cheap NodeMCU and ESP32 boards are from places like AliExpress and Banggood and the resources available to help people get going with this hardware.
Pete.
Agreed!!
Edit:
Cant they just rebrand an existing dev board and sell them? So that can save money on RnD and much more like you mentioned.
This way, they can make profit on the hardware and users get to use the cloud service.
There was a âBlynk boardâ by Sparkfun time ago, I remember that the background at the app was red if that board was selected. It was an Esp8266 and it seems it didnât achieve what Blynk expected.
Correction: BlynkBoard achieved what we expected, and collaboration with Sparkfun was very productive. Weâre working on something new, and itâs indeed hardware-related. However, weâre not currently designing any new hardware in-house.
There are different views on the value/logic of free accounts.
I think it gives a lot of goodwill.
If students are allowed free access with some limitations, then they are likely both to spread the word and once in a job situation they are likely to choose this product commercially.
I am retired, but I still spread the word on how easy this is to use to potential Blynk customers from later generationsâŚ
I would like to compare with the providers of the excellent software Autodesk Fusion 360. That is a very powerful cloud-based 3D modeling, CAD, CAM, CAE, and PCB software platform for product design and manufacturing. All designs are saved in their cloud.
They have a program for students and hobbyists that gives very close to full functionality, free of charge.
I use it a lot for 3D designs.
They have some limitations that make it a bit cumbersome to use commercially, but for a hobbyist it is extremely powerful.
I am certain that the purpose of that is not to be nice, but to attract commercial users long term.
Blynk would be great for me if I could use all the widgets but still be limited to the current number of templates, devices and datastreams. Hard to see the logic behind the limitation in use of widgets. I canât see that those eat precious server space.
I think that a good free program will benefit the company long term, but that is of course only my humble opinion.
Leif
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How will this apply to those of us you gave 5 free devices to for early adoption??
Is it 10 streams per device or just 10 streams for the free account??