Amber Neely
Wink customers will soon have to pay a monthly subscription fee to access any of the smart home hardware that they have purchased.
Wink claims that the move is necessary, as the one-time cost of buying a Wink product is incapable of sustaining their business. The company will require all users to pay a $5 a month subscription fee by May 13, which gives users less than one week of notice.
Wink primarily makes smart home lighting and home security devices but also allows users to connect other brands' devices to their Wink Hub. Wink has partnered with Amazon, Google Nest, Honeywell, Ring, Philips Hue, GE, Sonos, iHome, Sylvania and many others.
They cite recent economic events — likely the ongoing coronavirus pandemic — and long-term costs as the reason for the transition.
"Wink has taken many steps in an effort to keep your Hub's blue light on, however, long term costs and recent economic events have caused additional strain on our business," the blog post reads. "In order to provide for development and continued growth, we are transitioning to a $4.99 monthly subscription, starting on May 13, 2020."
The company tells customers that should they not pay the fee, they'll lose access to all Wink devices in the app, including voice controls and all automations.
The transition will not allow users to be grandfathered in on a legacy plan. If a customer has spent a significant amount of money outfitting their home with Wink lightbulbs or a Wink security system, they'll be expected to begin paying a monthly fee on May 13.
Understandably, Wink customers were outraged. After Wink posted the update to their Twitter page, customers began airing grievances in the reply section.
Bye bye @TheWinkApp. It's bad enough you trying to come back and get more money from loyal customers (your products aren't exactly cheap) but to only give us 1 week is ridiculous.
— Chris Bentz (@cbentz83) May 6, 2020
Less then a week's notice for long term customers of yours? No real incentive to keep it. I love my Wink but this is not the way on such short notice. You just dug your own grave on this one.
— Adam (@Frayne182) May 6, 2020
This isn't the first time Wink has disappointed its customers, either. In 2019, many users discovered that second-hand Google Nest Cam Indoor models connected to Wink hub would send images of their home to the device's previous owner. Google quickly rolled out a fix, but users were understandably upset.
Update May 12, 2020: Wink in an email to customers on Tuesday said it has extended the subscription deadline to May 20, 2020, giving users an additional week to sign up for the service.
Andrew Orr
Marko Zivkovic
Christine McKee
Malcolm Owen
68 Comments
This would be illegal in some jurisdictions.
The worst things that ever happened to computers were the in-app purchase and subscription software.
There is no way this is legal. If they were upfront about a subscription becoming mandatory at some point that's fine, or if the subscription added extra features in addition to what it came with then also fine. But to suddenly start charging for access to something that was working perfectly well before and had no indication it will stop working at some point without more money is extortion. Their claim that "the one-time cost of buying a Wink product is incapable of sustaining their business" is something they should have worked out in the first place, it's not exactly a fortune to use a couple of AWS instances for this kind of thing - and is no excuse to start charging people.
It would be like buying a car outright, then 6 months later the manufacturer getting into financial difficulty, going back to its old customers and saying "oh by the way we didn't tell you at the time but we're struggling financially so you need to pay us $$ per month to continue using the car you already paid for". Uh, nah.
Where is Wink's business plan? How could they believe one-time purchasers of their products could sustain their business?
Did Wink believe they could sustain the business through selling advertising?