Perhaps due to frustrating and unreliable home automation products that seemingly haven’t caught on combined with some bad bets by Quirky, Wink appears to be in dire straights – despite cash infusions from GE and a decent retail footprint. Amidst that backdrop, Michal Wolf wonders who might step in to pick up the pieces and walks us through a variety of large companies … that probably have zero interest.
I’d say it’s pretty dang difficult to handicap the suitors … given an unknown pool – the number of companies with money, for what I’d expect is a low valuation, is huge and could come from all sort of unexpected angles. Plus, beyond the Googles and Apples are smaller companies like D-Link trying to build out a home automation business.
Frankly, if I were in the market, I’d only be interested in Wink’s IP and the core employees — letting “Wink” itself die, but having the team take everything they learned to quickly build a better Wink or something to tap into Apple HomeKit, as the current product and service just seems too flakey (in our limited time with it – Adam and I both unloaded units). Further, not sure how many customers Wink currently has, but any buyer could conceivably also end up with those significant support costs yet bank no new revenue without a recurring service fee. It probably sounds cutthroat, but the smart money would jettison them.
View Comments
It’s a shame no one stuck with it. For the past 4 months it has been rock solid.
I have an exhaust fan in my attic plugged into a pivot power genius. I got the wink tripper and put it on the attic door. Now when i open the door, the fan turns on within 3 seconds. Close door, fan off.
It hasn’t messed up once in the 2 months i’ve been using it. BIG difference from last fall when nothing worked.
I also have about 8 Link lights(GE and Cree) that have been working flawlessly.
Anthony, deciding when to launch is a fine art - you want the product to be mature enough to be well received but early enough to be a market leader. Sadly, what Wink initially released was beta quality (Amazon even suspended sales) and you usually only get a single shot at generating positive perception.
I've given up on Wink and transitioned over to Staples Connect. Glad I didn't invest heavily in the "Wink specific" products and stuck with the standards based stuff and Lutron products.
"Further, not sure how many customers Wink currently has, but any buyer could conceivably also end up with those significant support costs yet bank no new revenue without a recurring service fee."
Couldn't they just change the privacy terms and monetize the user base by selling surveillance info to data tracking firms?