Risco cloud to be a chargeable service

[secureiam]

I have received notification today that the currently free Risco cloud service is to be phased out and replaced with a chargeable service.

The details of costs are not yet known, along with when the process will start.

This is not a major surprise as the industry as a whole are looking at charging for this service going forward.

 

[GalaxyGuy]

Aren't installers charging £10 a month to their customers for this at the moment? I suppose Risco want some of that to pay for their developers and infrastructure.

 

[secureiam]

I know we do not charge our customers access to any services that we get for free.

We would charge for setting things up obviously, but charging annually for a free service isn't something we would do.

That said all manufacturers are all rolling out charges bit by bit in one way or another. So those with free apps should get used to charges being introduced.

Like Pyronix they are also offering a user direct option, I suspect that may upset some installers.

 

[GalaxyGuy]

It would be advisable for customers and installers to opt for a panel / range that does not tie them to the manufacturers cloud based service. I.e. an app that gives basic direct control over the alarm, but if you're willing to pay for the cloud based service as an extra, you'd get all the bells and whistles like push notifications, video recording, etc. for your subscription.

 

[secureiam]

Your not tied to them for control, as for others they are all considering it in some shape or form.

there are apps out there that do facilitate this not sure I know of any that are truly free mind.

 

[GalaxyGuy]

I suppose the dependency question is answered if at any point the Pyronix and Texecom apps stop working due to some web services issue. I've seen reports here and on other sites that people cannot connect to their systems when the services go down, so that hints that the apps are not communicating directly with the panels and need to call the web service for one reason or another. Am I wrong about this. What stops the app controlling the panel in these cases ?

Honeywell's GX app is free and has no tie with any paid service - it's direct to the panel connection. That said, it's got some annoying features and the push notification doesn't work reliably. My alternative SelfMon apps are free for the Galaxy, but if you want the alarm reporting, then you need to pay a minimal amount for the account. The infrastructure costs £100's every month, so requires this to remain viable. I imagine Texecom, Risco, etc all have huge costs for in-house and external development, costing hundreds of thousands each year and that must eat into the product margins. It's not as if these are global products, so the volumes cannot be that big.

 

[secureiam]

not familiar with GX (so read the brochure), however Texecom Connect is cloud based, Old App isn't direct connection to the panel through a com ip, Texecom dont charge for the basic connection via the cloud but that time will come to fund the infra structure and to have some revenue I have no doubt.

Given the configuration for the router on the GX I guess thats port forwarding like the old texecom app and the push goes through an arc just like the old texecom app did (manufacturer controlled).

you can create your own apps if you wish.

either system wont work with a power cut as router down unless on UPS and wont work where you cant get a good signal on the smart phone.

whilst there have been issues with the servers in the past they have become better, but I suspect thats because they are putting more money into the infra structure and hence why they all want to start charging

 

[GalaxyGuy]

Yes, the Honeywell is port forwarding, but does use proper AES with RSA session key exchange. Texecom eventually added a fixed AES key to their app, but the ARC messaging was still open the last time I looked. I'd imagine they'd have fixed that with the smart com. I take it users don't need to add a panel generated key into the app with the smartcom anymore and there's some decent session based key exchange now ?

Anyway, I suppose we'll see what happens over the next year or two as the purse strings are tightened across the country / world...

 

[secureiam]

yeup