The concept was great, but execution to the concept has not yet happened.

Not only is it a flaky mess (there is no consistency at all), but if you read the support pages I read initially, it looks like Donald Trump may have written them.

For all the lack of reliability, or even accuracy in the documentation, the author believes that saying it is great and wonderful, makes it great and wonderful. The creator opines that all the problems with getting these to work are due to someone else’s failures. It’s not the SiB, it’s the crazy iOS versions with all those pesky screen sizes, and too many versions, and other “stuff” which is just “them” not working very well for this super amazing easy to use SiB product.

In the real world of developing products for a market, the product should work with the infrastructure it is supposedly designed to interface with. The creator of these has chosen to blame the infrastructure as the problem, rather than the poorly executed product.

A great example of how badly the documentation is developed, is the explanation on how to reset the device to factory settings, when the app can no longer be used (or in the majority of cases some people indicate, never did work, and stalled mid-pairing), it states that one should press the button which will turn green, and then about 12 seconds after pressing the button the light will turn white...at that point, quickly release the button, and repeat this for a total of 3 times.

Sounds simple, but the app can’t find it via WiFi (2.4GHz on Eero mesh) or Bluetooth...and trying to restart the process from factory state unfortunately results in this pattern: button push, after about 5 seconds changes to flashing white, which after releasing and pressing the button again, does absolutely nothing (stays in flashing white mode until it powers down again). Another variant attempted was to continue holding until 12 seconds (ignoring that the white light has been flashing since about 5 seconds in) and then release and try again...no difference (that white light will just flash until it powers down). And yet another...just keep holding the button to see if the white light will eventually stop flashing...and it does...when it powers down again.

The creator obviously prefers Android to iOS, but using an Android phone has fared no better, and that changes nothing about the factory reset process, which is app independent. At best on either the iOS or Android phone, it has found the device, and then begun the process of setting it up which invariably stalls.

I have about 50 other devices installed around my home. Some are less reliable than others, and interoperability is still challenging for some. But I have never experienced anything even 1/20th as troublesome as this.

I live and breath IoT, and IIoT. I designed the software for the first network router to interface with UPnP and expose a UI in the system tray to control it (back then we just called these things connected products, rather than IoT). I was on the UPnP steering committee, so I had the luxury of preparing for it before UPnP hit the market as part of the ancient Windows Millennium.

I designed the IIoT system for the third largest manufacturing site in the US (After Tesla and Boeing), and that system gathers millions and millions of data points on a daily basis, running mission critical systems. I am not a newbie to technology, but I am a newbie to experiencing this level of failure in a shipped product.

So, if someone tries to tell me that the issue is with everything else, rather than this piece of junk (which as of yet has never connected (all three of them)), I am unable to align with that logical fallacy.

Rather than act like Donald Trump and try to talk this into being a quality product, just admit it needs work, not that everything else does, and work on fixing it, rather than try to talk people into believing that it is the infrastructure.

Anyone in the tech sector recognizes (or should), that there is a significant amount of complexity in making all these things come together. It’s hard. But as tech creators we have to make it work...if we want it to truly be successful...and when it has a problem, we look at it, determine what needs to change, and then handle it. That’s how it is done.

Some of the excuses I have read on this site indicate that people are throwing around buzzwords, and the person receiving that information doesn’t have sufficient technical expertise to call them on the BS, so they get passed along. Many of the points raised aren’t even “things”.

What I received should have been called a prototype at best. For all the functionality it has demonstrated in my highly networked home with many different types of devices with different types of connectivity (Zigbee, ZWave, WiFi (again, yes I have 2.4GHz)), and different software solutions (HomeKit, Google Home, SmartThings, Hue, Kasa, Sylvania, HomeBridge on RPi, etc.), this should be called a mockup.

Thanks for responding Mark.

I think it is important to make sure that it is understood that this isn’t meant as an ad hominem attack. However, I read a number of items looking for information, and rather than finding it, I found reasons for things not to work.

As I said, this shouldn’t have gone out as it is. It should have been allowed to bake a little more before it got out in the wild.

As we often say over in this area, it only takes one “Oh, crap!”, to erase one hundred “Attaboys”.

This post was due to a buildup of annoyance over a period of time...and the site is not helpful.

A great response would be to provide information on how to resolve the problems.

The response doesn’t touch on how the documentation doesn’t match how it works.

How do I reset it?

Why doesn’t it behave as documented?

If there is a different way, why isn’t that added to the documentation?

People throw out these ideas about 1000’s of developers and big companies...as though because one has had success in various efforts, it must be an indication of massive resources. But, nope....1 developer.....so, it doesn’t make sense to get bogged down with scale comments. My experience required making software run across various OSs, and hardware platforms as well. While I was working as an Engineer in Japan, I had to make hardware work to simulate completely foreign hardware and OSs, without even having access to the full specifications. So, I get it.

The comment regarding UPnP is a little confusing, so I also don’t know how to respond either. UPnP isn’t a technology related to this development, it was just an example of doing something that was IoT, many years ago before IoT was even cool (or a thing). If you don’t know what UPnP is, it’s a bit niche and unimportant, but somehow seemed to be a trigger of some sort as “good for you”. Unless the SiB is negotiating for specific ports to be opened in the firewall (which would probably be a big security concern), UPnP wouldn’t be involved.

I wasn’t really looking for a response to the comments per se....I was looking for some new information, and to help raise awareness that this appears to be going nowhere, at least for now.

I was very excited to give this a try....I talked other people into joining the Kickstarter.....but now I wish I had not.

Much of my commentary on technical content has to do with a common thread of tech people often assuming that someone else is non-technical. I want to make sure it’s understood that is not actually the case. I am also an EE, with various designs in place. I wrote firmware, drivers, and software....I love tech. I want this to work.

I get that software is hard...but usually when you are having too many issues with versions of different OSs, the code is a little too crunchy, and does not support sufficient abstraction, which makes it overly dependent. That may be what you and your team are working on right now, but it isn’t there yet.

Do you have any expected timeframe for getting out of this state?

I unfortunately have to assume that since the response doesn’t include any additional tips or clarifications, that these are known issues without resolution at this time.

What does one do with three little blocks that can’t be reset to factory state, and can’t communicate with access points, or phones to complete the process?

Hi Mark,

If it wasn’t obvious from my previous posts, I have gone through all the documentation I can find.

The steps you list are steps that I have already tried.

As mentioned, the SiBs won’t go into that mode. They do not show up with an SSID in the list of those to select, although at one point in the far past they did.

That’s why I’m trying to reset them to the factory mode, which I described in the first post. They will not pick up on BT, WiFi, and won’t reset.

I wouldn’t have posted, if I hadn’t already tried all the things I can find. Same results with Android and iPhone....I had some hope with the more recent release of the iPhone version to add BT support, but no improvement.

Yeah the UI had some issues with certain devices/versions of OS and did that, but we've sorted it out with BT.

For Android is due to the aggressiveness in which Android tries to switch back to an active internet connection when it doesn't find it.

The pairing process doesn't require an AP for most of it, only for when it verifies the credentials entered.

For most of the pairing, its about talking directly between the mobile and the SiB, no AP involvement.

So with that wifi scan method you bypass the UI because SiBs do go into AP mode when the pairing process starts.

Yes, something must have gone wrong indeed during the pairing process that you followed. Reset was definitely harder in the version you have and even I tried to do it and failed many times. This is why it was moved to the handset now, super smooth and easy.

Your firmware doesn't have the BT support of the current pairing method, so upgrading SiMP etc will not help in your case.

Reset is exactly as you've been trying, press from the start over 10s till light change, then very quickly release and repeat 3 times. IF that didn't work, you can send them all to:

PoBox 26065, San Diego, 92196.

We'll send you back 3 new ones with the latest f/w.

Regards,
Mark