I know it's a pain in the **edited** to have to now start thinking of what system to switch to, but it is not the end of the world at all.
When I left Iris in 2016, I made the switch of nearly 180 devices to SmartThings over the course of a weekend and within a week had recreated all of my rules. In December I moved nearly 400 devices from SmartThings to Hubitat over a 2 week period.
You can make the transition in the 60 days that Lowe's has given everyone, it's far from impossible.
When I clicked the link I had about 5 to 6 items, 3 being cameras.
I spent about 35 minutes on hold and with support. She was able to get me a custom
refund for the additional items. She was very nice and I asked, and no she won't have
a support job after the closure. Things could be worse than they've turned out for us.
Yes, but you had already done your research and decided what system you were going to go with. That research phase takes longer than the actual migration by far. You had plenty of time to make decisions. We've not been given that luxury. We have to migrate AND find a new system in time. It's not that simple. Especially since no one system is compatible with all of the various Iris devices.
So, I rounded up a couple of investors and got them interested, contacted one of the head hanchos at Iris, and here is our conversation. I omitted the names because he's probably just as unhappy about it shutting down as the rest of us and it's out of his hands.
Message 1:
Good afternoon ****, I was told you were the person to get in contact with concerning the Iris sale. I was contacted a couple of days ago by one of my big investor friends and he asked me to dig in to more details on what the asking price is and, if within his price range, what we need to do to get the books and talk about moving forward. Any information would be appreciated.
Message 2:
Hi Nick – yes Lowe’s is shutting down the platform and open sourcing per the announcements that were made yesterday.
All the best.
Message 5:
Thanks for the info ***. I just want to ask this one more way so that I may be sure I am telling my investor the right info. From what I gather, Lowes announced in November that it would be seeking a buyer for the company and continue supporting the clients until it found a buyer. Yesterday, in a surprise announcement, the clients were told that support would be ending in just a short two months. From the research that we have been able to do so far, there is very negative response from the current client base about both the shutdown and about the time given to switch over their systems.
Hi Nick – you are not the only company or individual to reach out with a similar offer.
I can’t comment on whether I agree or disagree with your logic, but there were not a shortage of buyers for Iris. The decision was made to shut it down. That decision was final.
Thanks for your consideration.
.....soooo?
Sounds like a decision by an executive team at Lowes that only cares about the bottom line and nothing else. This decision and the way Lowes has handled Iris over the years reeks of it. With that said, I'd love to know who actually was behind the major system decisions with the Iris brand and its direction. An enthusiast or someone connected to the community would have gotten us parity with at LEAST V1 of Iris. We went years with very little actual progress. Instead they kept adding "features" they thought people would want, instead of actually listening to their user base and what they wanted.
@virtu789 wrote:Very disappointing. A major reason I bought into IRIS was to have Lowes as a big reputable company behind it, with better prospects of maintaining a stable system and low pricing in the long run (plus an extra bonus of being able to walk into my local Lowes store to actually touch, buy, and return things). Now it’s all up in the air. We all know how these acquisitions go in reality. Sadly, either way IRIS as we know it has a bleak future. If it’s acquired by a major competitor, it will phase it out in favor of its own offering. If it’s acquired by a minor player in the field, they will not have enough resources to continue new product development or maintain low prices. Very sad, as it is indeed the top offering in terms of features, pricing, and overall appeal in the current market, and Lowes is basically throwing it all away. After investing my time to install all the sensors and create a stable and working IRIS setup, the real cost for consumers like me is beyond the actual money spent. It’s the DIY time I have to spend again down the road to adjust to whatever major changes the new owner will throw at us, or convert to another system altogether. You are really letting us down, Lowes!
well guess what, I was so wrong. I thought IRIS future options were bleak. Turns out it's not bleak. It's a downright fiasco. Never expected such a crashing swift termination and being left hanging out there with no time to adjust. Kudos Lowe's - proved me wrong again
Who is this being sold to?