On November 16, 2017 at 14:19, Brad Humphrey said...
I think it hilarious the guys promoting multi-apps.
Why is that funny? How old are your clients? Do they know what apps are even? Anyone under 40, and especially under 35, should have the brain power to operate several different apps and not be confused or frustrated at all. I have clients who prefer using all the native apps because they give them way more control and functionality than most of what gets ported over into a C4 or an Elan UI. And who is to say you cannot do both? Use the control system app for basic control, and if you want to get into the nitty gritty, you can open the Lutron app or the Tivo app and tweak away.
This is no different than the coffee table with 5-6 remotes laying on it. Sure it works fine but with a lot more steps and frustration; especially when you hit a wrong button or can't remember/figure out how to do it (sound recently familiar?).
That is the whole point of selling a universal remote with a control system. Of course I have seen a dealer or two on here promoting that as well (no control system - and we're not talking 1 source bedroom setup). Pathetic! I feel sorry for their customers.
Frustration for whom? The people who are not smart enough to use 6 remotes? You would be right. But plenty of people are fully capable of making sense of 6 remotes. I can do it. My kids can do it. My mom could not do it....definitely not. In fact, more people probably get by just fine with 6 remotes than have custom programmed expensive remotes that they have to call someone and pay them to re-program it if they decide to change things up. You just do not run into those people very often in your line of work. As long as the customers are happy, no reason to feel sorry for them.
We had a lady to whom we sold a URC remote. Her son came home from college and got mad at her and made her return it because she could just use 3 remotes to work things, and it was easy. She reluctantly called us to return it. Even though we charged her a restocking fee, and labor to remove it, the couple hundred dollars she saved was well worth it....to her son. I did feel sorry for her. But whaddya do? I was not going to get in the middle of their dysfunctional family issues....I leave that to Maury and Springer. :)
Having a custom app, programmed to take care of multiple tasks, is the exact same thing.
The biggest problem we face today, unlike 1-way IR commands, 2-way apps are a moving target. The equipment or service we are trying to control can (and does) change all the time. Making it very frustrating. I blame this on the manufacture & service providers for the 'hack' of BS they throw out at the public. Things can update, things can improve, but most of the time it doesn't mean the backend has to be broken to accomplish this. It is the crappy programmers and software engineers these companies have, that are the source of the problem.
You just brought up my biggest beef with the whole evolution of our industry. The control system manufacturers have little to no control over what 3rd party vendors do with their APIs, protocols, hardware, firmware, etc. So things do change rapidly. Things sometimes also "break" in this process. THAT is more frustrating than trying to use 3 apps instead of 1, or 6 remotes instead of 1. And even more frustrating than that, is the lack of quality control and true beta testing. There just is not enough time to conduct thorough and proper testing on this stuff because they are pushing it out so fast to meet some meaningless deadline, and then they just go into bug fixing mode once they start getting feedback from us. It is horrible. By far the most annoying thing for me.
We were just told by our Tivo rep this week that we need to be charging at least 3 hours to set up a new Tivo DVR, and an additional hour for each Mini. And then we have to set it all up at our office 2-3 weeks ahead of time so we can have time to resolve any issues before installing it in a client's home. Then we need to have 3 cable cards from the cable co. because 2/3 just do not work. WTF? That sounds amazing! We should probably charge $50/month so we can babysit the Tivo in case it acts up.
The right product for the job is still the only right way to do this job. Sometimes that means leaving a coffee table littered with remote controls. Sometimes it means downloading more than 1 app. Sometimes it means not assuming our clients are completely helpless. Sometimes, they are, and we sell them the simple to use universal remote and the single basic UI so we can create the illusion that they know what they are doing. :)
