Now we have to pay for remote access? Disappointing if true
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Feel the same way. Another way to soak their customer base. It should be grandfathered in and then charge new customers. The reason I bought the unit was to avoid monthly or annual charges for services. Obviously they are having trouble maintaining their servers and the cost of the hardware isn't enough.
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They have no right to change an agreement in which we purchased the unit for in the first place. We purchased this after doing our due diligence to find a free service device that had remote management capabilities. Any changes to that agreement changes the intended use of the product for current users. If this goes through I certainly will not be paying a monthly fee, will not ever purchase rain machine again, will give my honest feedback about this reversal to all my friends and contractors, which I suspect will have a negative effects on any new customer considering a purchase to look elsewhere. i don't really see how this will benefit rain machine.
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When reviewing the Premium Service page, the wording implies that the Premium Service is required for the RainMachine to adjust schedules based on the weather. So based on this, we will be back to manually changing schedules based on rain/weather.
Hopefully they clarify this further.
Here is the quote from their premium page as of June 3rd:
https://www.rainmachine.com/premium/
"Schedules automatically adapt to weather changes so you get better results and save water and money."
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I just received and read the email about the shift to "Premium Services" as well. I have to be honest, this is such a poor judgement call on Green Electronic's part. I get it, business models created years ago may not stand up the test of time and may require adjustment to ensure company's success and bottom line. After all, if the company closes it doesn't help anyone, so I get the move to offer subscription based services as additional revenue - many companies do that these days. However, the way it is executed and communicated is just a kick in the face for everyone who made an investment into your product and got the company to where it is today, it is extremely unprofessional and such a breach of trust.
You can't offer "Premium Services" by simply taking away features that were part of the product when it was purchased and now require customers to pay for them. Like many others, I purchased your top of the line toch screen model in 2015 from Amazon which listed smart schedule as well as remote access from anywhere as included features. In fact, it still lists all those features now (although the product is no longer available on Amazon) on the page. It blows my mind that decision was made to simply drop some of the product features and make customers pay on-going costs in order to get the same functionality back.
If the decision was made that business requires to move to a subscription model, here are some suggestions that would make much more sense and show fairness and some good judgement:
- Send earlier announcement to the existing customers so they have time to react
- Ideally, "grandfather" existing customers in since the features were committed to at the time of device purchase and purchasing decision was made on the list of features included and require new customers to sign up for Premium Services if they chose to. I don't know the number of existing customers and on-going costs, so if this is not a sustainable business model, at the least offer a 1-year free Premium to the existing customers to match what new customers are getting. The fact that existing customers (i.e. people who already invested into you business) get only 30 days trial is laughable and insulting.
- Develop additional NEW services that would only be available for premium subscription. This makes much more sense then taking away existing features.I hope you can revisit this decision and make it right for your existing customers that purchased Rainmachine based on the features you are now taking away. Continuing on this course will cause more damage then the perceived benefits you think the new subscription model will bring.
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This makes me angry. +1 to what everyone said above. I would like to look into what Ian said, as I am also a NY State resident, we will contact the Attorney General.
Yefim said it well...
I hope you can revisit this decision and make it right for your existing customers that purchased Rainmachine based on the features you are now taking away. Continuing on this course will cause more damage then the perceived benefits you think the new subscription model will bring.
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Yefim you nailed it! I only use this feature when Im out too far from my home wifi while checking/repairing sprinklers. I rarely use it. But I do use it. Its one of the main reasons I chose Rain Machine when I was looking for a new controller. I understand that a business cant operate in the red. You said it best, "It blows my mind that decision was made to simply drop some of the product features and make customers pay on-going costs in order to get the same functionality back".
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I'm with everyone else here this is obviously a huge disappointment. I've championed Rain Machine over there (more popular) competitors to a number of people due to my happiness with it. Unfortunately, I will regret that if the people I've convinced to buy one now have to pay a fee to get the same features they've had.
I may head on over to another product at this point, although Rain Machine already has my money for their hardware, so maybe no one cares.
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No way. This is why I bought rain machine in the first place. And have been recommending it to (and even buying it as gifts for) friends and family. I won't be recommending or purchasing a rain machine again. Not going to sign up for the Premium service. I'll take that $29 and spend it towards a new device.
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I was very irritated by the news of the premium service charge for remote access. I did my research when I bought and made sure remote access was allowed. Now you plan to take it away unless we pay fee. Unless this is reconsidered, I will no longer recommend this brand and I will be in the market for a new controller. I would rather invest in a device that meets my needs than to pay for a service, just to get the remote access that was taken away. In today’s environment, where purchase options are so plentiful, this is a very poor decision. From what I am reading above, seems like a lot of people agree.
Sincerely,
A previously loyal customer. -
Looks like you are supposed to be able to according to https://support.rainmachine.com/hc/en-us/articles/6491261659415-Direct-Access-Port-Forwarding-
It also seems if you read the comparison both free and premium do include the weather forecast data access, the * and ** are footnotes as to what they are. The "cloud" limitation seems to be to the IFTTT/Alexa etc functions that need a cloud service.
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It is just unacceptable to delete functionnalities paid by current user when they buy the product. The high price of the product is totaly connected to this remote fonctionality.
If they do not change this position, I suggest we could set up a class action type.
Is somebody able to create a common place for disapointed users where we could coordonate ??? ( I am not sure the Rain machine forum will support that ;-))
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This is very very disappointing. As a longtime RainMachine user (since 2015) and also a major advocate for their products (to friends and family) over competing sprinkler systems, this is a poor decision to alienate their customer base with this announcement. If they choose to remove existing features for existing users, which were present at the time I bought my RM, then I will happily leave this platform and advocate the same to my friends and family. They should have grandfathered existing users to the "premium" plan, with new users being offered the subscription option. I love how companies think that changing the rules for a paid-for-product won't upset people or cause their company negative impact...
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I got the email this morning and I'm in disbelief. You can hardly connect to this thing locally as it is, whereas the cloud access always worked. In addition, I have a big yard and when I'm working on a sprinkler head I use the app to turn on/off the zone to test a repair, make major pattern adjustments, etc. and I use the remote feature all the time because the WiFi doesn't cover that far out. And now come to find out based on what someone else wrote here that the automatic schedule adjustment based on weather won't work unless you are a premium subscriber, and I'm thinking, well maybe I won't be a customer at all! For the price they are charging, I will literally just go purchase a competing product and rip and replace my Rainmachine unit entirely. It won't take me but 15 minutes to put in a new product.
As the others have said, you better re-think this plan or your effort to gain some income is going to result in you going under.
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This is 100% illegal. You cannot sell a product with features included, then take away those features for more money later. This is absolutely illegal. They will get sued, as they absolutely should, if they try to move forward with this. They can make this change for new potential customers, as long as they clearly state these things are not included without the subscription plan, but they CANNOT start charging current customers for features we already paid for in the product itself. Fraud!
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Sorry Jetered, but unfortunately in this day and age of everything being software based, that comes with terms and conditions (that most people gloss over instead of reading) and I button that says "I Accept" whenever we use these software based "things". The Rain Machine current (and very likely previous) agreement that we've agreed to-- as of that of almost any company-- says that they can change or remove features at any time. So, they've told us they can change them and we've accepted that term as a condition of use of the product. Definitely sucks. Definitely poor customer treatment. Not illegal.
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@Jeff E - I'm not saying that it is a slam dunk case, but certainly there is a strong argument against RM. Your statement is a good one, but you forget that these are not features that are simply being taken away. They are being taken away unless we pay for them AGAIN. These are/were advertised features that are/were included in the product. You can't simply remove those things and be completely scott free based on ToS. Also, you have to agree to the ToS prior to the purchase, which I did not do, and I'm assuming most people did not do, therefore that doesn't entirely stand on it's own. Finally, even if they get away with removing the features based on a ToS agreement, they could/can be sued based on FTC deceptive advertising violations. It's clearly stated by the FTC:
According to the FTC's Deception Policy Statement, an ad is deceptive if it contains a statement - or omits information - that:
-Is likely to mislead consumers acting reasonably under the circumstances; and
-Is "material" - that is, important to a consumer's decision to buy or use the product.We'll see what happens, but as I said before, I'm done with RM, regardless whether or not they backpedal on this or not. They clearly showed the type of company they and exactly how they value their customers. I'm done!
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So, now my posts here have a "Pending approval" flag on them. I guess I'm speaking too much truth and the RM folks have decided to censor me unless they approve of what I have to say. No one will probably see this because they won't allow it to be posted. I guess I'm off to reddit to make some noise there where they can't silence me.
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Those that bought this product based upon the advertising of remote access and some other features should be grandfather in. All costs are going up for everyone. This is not s reason to screw those that have trusted this company however. Cost increases should be handled with new purchases unless contractual. I bought this product based upon free remote access along with the other features advertised and as a requirement to my previous purchase. I am not a lawyer but at a minimum this is unethical.
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Interesting. This new page was added 1.5 hrs ago under Community >> Announcements
I just setup direct access and it was pretty easy and seems to work just like it did via their proxy so we can maybe still access what we always have? As long as the weather and watering algorithms aren't premium then I'm good this way. However, I will also add that I work in IT and have 23 years of IT experience, have a custom setup router and previously configured DDNS so I only needed to add a quick port forward and manually add to my app. For the "regular" user this could be a little complicated.
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Many before me has already expressed the feelings i am having about this. Not at all happy with where this is going, especially as i purchased my device with the specific feature of being able to remote into it from outside my own lan.
Really hope RM takes a step back on this decision and continues to offer the services that the product was advertised with for those that purchased it before this new premium service came to be.
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