why is Blynk 2.0 more difficult to register than Blynk 1.0. Why canât you set a password right on the APP but have to send the link to the mail causing trouble. I think only when I need to recover my password will I send the link to the mail
We have to verify the email, as in Blynk 1.0 we were blocked very often by mail providers due to non-valid emails. Also, very often our mails were in spam. Now thatâs fixed.
However, I agree we can simplify that flow and we have few ideas, however thatâs not a priority right now.
we should add the function of registering an account with a phone number
According to Blynk V2âs current charging method, it is only suitable for research purposes, it is not intended for developers who want to commercialize the product.
Product developers when selling products to the market they cannot collect additional monthly fees like Blynk V2 is doing, Blynk V2 is hurting developersâ rights, so they will not choose Blynk V2 (for small apps, maybe big apps or Blynk V2 accept discounts with developers, I donât know).
For me, it is impossible for me to apply Blynk V2 commercially, because the profit margin for consumer products is not enough to maintain the cost of Blynk V2 and it cannot compete with other products in the market.
When Blynk V2 was released, I personally thought âif youâre self-employed or you have big world-class partners, you survive, otherwise the profits will be lower than V1â (as of now) Now, if you later adjust the price or add more valuable features, I donât know.)
Blynk IoT is much more suitable for developers who wish to commercialise their products. The entry costs for using Blynk Legacy commercially were much higher than the Blynk IoT costs.
Pete.
Blynk IoT is designed for commercial use in the first place.
You have to put cloud platform fee price in your product cost. You canât make a product with the price 10$ and sell 10 items. You either need a big scale or a high margin.
The current 50$ monthly fee is a super low price for the platform with web and apps and a lot of features we provide out of the box.
I think what youâre looking for is Blynk.Discovery, that is not yet released. It is more beneficial for the low cost products.
He is talking in perspective of customer.
Lets say we buy SONOFF, OAKTER, PHILIPS HUE, WIPRO SMART BULB, etc etc etcâŚ
We (customer) buy the product. Use it for life time. No additional cost what so ever. If the product fails !! We buy a new one.
These smart plugs or switches costs about 10$. Super cheap !! No subscription !! Nothing. Just one time investment.
But if i release a product using Blynk i will have to collect subscription from my customers every month or add upfront cost for 5-10yrs: this is will hike the price to 100$ !!
So people will tend to lean toward well known brand rather an looking forward to buy a product from a startup with 10 times the cost of well known brandâŚ
THIS IS THE HEAVY HIT FOR STARTUPâs
If every other companies are on subscription basis, even we could have worked out some competitive subscription plans. BUT NONE OF THEM have THAT.
I really feel that we need to have some kind of strategy to overcome this. Even Blynk is/was a startup so I guess you guys can understand the struggle of startup.
The cheapest way is to source product from Cheap China ! 
Rebrand n sell !
No setup cost No server maintenance No RnD required !! Just money !!
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@Madhukesh I think your absolutely right, I bought sonoff switch it cost me 5$ only and I can use it for life time for free.
Now I rather blynk because itâs completely customizable, I can customize the device and the app the way I like which is a great advantage.
As far as I know, the blynk.discovery will be released soon, I think it might be a suitable choice for commercial use, it may help you to gain some profit without adding extra costs that will make your customers run away from you.
The issue is obviously one of scale.
Most Chinese companies who donât want to write, host and support their own app simply go to Tuya and get them to develop their app for them. I have no idea what the Tuya customisation costs are, but Iâd guess itâs much more than Blynkâs initial costs.
If a company designed a smart toaster for example, theyâll do their R&D, work-up a business case and try to secure the funding to put that product into production. The costs of doing this are enormous, especially when you take in to account certification, marketing and distribution. The cost of the app is insignificant in comparison, but is still a hefty up-front investment as part of the tooling-up process.
For a âone man bandâ type of company to develop their own app, or commission a developer to do it for them, would cost many times the cost of using Blynk.
Expecting Blynk to cut their profits to ensure that small start-ups can make a profit doesnât make much business sense does it?
Pete.
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Yes@Madhukesh
even echo dot costs rs 3000 - 4000 which is equal to blynks 1 month pay
If I made such devicesI had tp take their monthly subscription in my device costs as pavel said in earlier posts.
Take that I had 10 initial customers
I have to pay 3500 rs to blynk every month
Take that device can be used for 2 years
I have to pay blynk 84000 in 2 years
Consider I made a simple smart plug using esp8266 and a relay. Ithe device costs 500 approx. I want to sell it at 750 for my profit so to manageblynk I need to ad 8400 to my market price.
Total is9150 rupees
Amazon smart plug costs 1999 rupees that to is from a renowned company
I think itâs already here
Even if we dont want to develop a from their end. We just re-sell their product and make money. Hassle free business.
During first few months or years !! Startups dont have much customers. But even then we need pay the subscription to Blynk. And we cannot predict how customers will accept the product and start buying. I know this is nothing to do with Blynk.
But startups have a hard time if they want to start with blynk. Yeah according to blynk they are offering the cheapest plans, large cap companies can manage those types of cost. Not startups.
I want to ask you - how will you convince a customer to pay subscription ex(smart switch) ? Because adding upfront cost is not at all an option.
Already we all know we pay monthly bills for our phone, tv, internet, electricity, water etc etc. so along with this adding one more will surely be bad.
This is were the large cap companies are shining. And will continue to shine until we offer the same exp with lower cost.
I suggest Blynk to double the one time payment per device than now and provide more widgets and allow the same to be used for commercial use. This will definitely be a win win situation. I can guarantee there will be thousands of devices getting registered and thousands of companies approaching Blynk.
This will be a total revolution for BlynkIoT.
Please give a thought on this.
@Madhukesh agree with u on this, no IoT platforms such as google, Alexa, ifttt, charge subscription. The blynk subscription model will not work many places, why will even big commercial giants go for blynk cloud, when they have money to set up their own cloud servers. Take for eg UBER.
They do, they charge the business as Blynk does.
Because the cost of making a product like a Blynk with 5% of what we have starts from 100k at least just to have super basics that Blynk already has. Iâm not talking here about time to market. Wherewith Blynk you can do it in days (if you have ready firmware and product). With own solution youâll spend months at least. Our fastest business client launched the real product within 2 weeks after the subscription was paid. Can you imagine this speed with âown cloudâ?
This business model doesnât work, the one-time price should be either large or it should be subscription-based. For example, you buy a device for 5$ (currently), and it works for 10 years. That gives us ~4 cents per device per month. That is 20-100 times cheaper than any other IoT Platform out there. You wonât have even money for the salary for a single person with that model.
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I wouldnât be crazy enough to try and market a self-made smart switch. The market for smart switches is already flooded with Chinese products that are cheap because they sell millions of them.
If you want to develop and market a product then you first of all need to find a niche market where people are prepared to pay premium prices for a solution because there is currently no product to fill their needs.
This might be people who have exotic pets that are expensive and difficult to maintain, or owners of luxury products like boats or aircraft.
No startup company is going to attempt to produce a cheap product that already has a high market share and low unit cost. Blynk was a startup with a unique product, and there is still limited competition in that sector. They identified a gap in the market and produced a product to fill that gap. Experience has highlighted the flaws in their original product and pricing/marketing strategy and theyâve corrected that with their Version 2 product and pricing.
Complaining about the difficulty of competing with established Chinese companies who have multi-million dollar/yuan backing and blaming that on Blynk simply demonstrates a lack of business acumen and understanding of global marketing.
Pete.
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You took this personally. You in the sense the startup.
Yeah even this is true. But at the same time you will attracting thousands of devices per month and that should keep Blynk running. There will not be a single device for 10years⌠there will be millions n millions more on the way. This should not effect the salary part or any other aspects.
Is this some kind of joke ? Why will people having premium stuff come to some unknown startup? Rather they go for well known ultra famous companies for solutions.
Startups always gotta struggle. No matter what new or extraordinary features we offer!!!
Because those startups are the only people who are marketing an off-the-shelf solution for their needs.
You wouldnât commission a company like Itead (who make the Sonoff) to produce a bespoke solution, and Itead wouldnât be interested anyway unless they thought the market was large enough to sell enough units to make it worth their while.
You have to remember that the people who want these niche solutions donât know much about technology, otherwise they would have built their own solution. They understand the problem, and just want a solution that will work. Many startups begin with people who have the same niche interests, develop a solution, then share that with a few friends who also have the same interests and eventually realise that their product has some commercial value.
Pete.
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Considering our experience with the Blynk 1.0 - itâs not gonna happen. Because Blynk users are mainly makers, hardware engineers. And the number of these people is very small. Even 1% of them are business owners with ~100 devices on average thatâs gives very very small numbers that doesnât worth bothering. Thatâs why focusing business is much more beneficial, as businesses usually already have a devices and many of them.
Anyway, weâll try to exploit this model with Blynk.Discovery. Weâll see how it goes.
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hey us 1% should be happy that Dmitriy even gave us what we got ! this guy could of just said screw all of ya im going for the big biz, but he didnt and he is listening to all of us, this is probably one of the best platforms out there, and is only going to get better, yearly subscription of 4.99/month for the plus plan is cheap ! we are all just spoiled from the old ways, its time to move forward⌠
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I would be happy to pay $4.99 a month for the plus plan as well, but cannot do without a local server for some of my applications since they do not have persistent connections. Would love a âlocal serverâ that connects to the Blynk cloud periodically for smartphone access.