thedriverslab Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 Dear Control4 Driver developers: TheDriversLab is happy to announce Homeation, a platform that will revolutionize the way home automation works.Although information is still scarce as the platform is going through tests, we believe that now is the time to give all Driver developers the opportunity of familiarizing themselves with the platform so they can benefit the most once it launches. To learn a little more about the up and coming platform, please review the following flyer (or see attached): https://thedriverslab.com/marketing/dev-flyer.pdf To be part of the launch, please contact us at: EarlyDev @ TheDriversLab.com or call us at: (855) 866-7433 extension 3.dev-flyer.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdepaola Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 I want to be interested, and I want to contact you, but could this be any more vague of a post or flyer? It basically tells us nothing. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedriverslab Posted January 28, 2014 Author Share Posted January 28, 2014 As we had mentioned in our post, details are limited at this time as the platform is not public yet. The flyer includes couple of screen-shots of the platform. We would love to discuss further details over the phone. All the best, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digitaltrader Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 I think it's their version of the c4store. Looks like a platform to embed encryption into your drivers and sell them for a fee to dealers. Similar extra vegetables it looks like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdepaola Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 Also what I'm thinking, they could have just said that Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinytom Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 Beware dealt with these people on the echobee driver. All they want you to do is test there product, find all their errors, spend hours communicating with them. All for free and then turn around and want to sell you the product at retail Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedriverslab Posted January 28, 2014 Author Share Posted January 28, 2014 tinytom:We apologize if you had a problem with one of our products previously. We do have hundreds of satisfied customers who vouch for our quality of products and service.We would love to discuss the details of your issue and compensate you for your aggravation. Feel free to contact us at (855) 866-7433. To clarify, our platform is by no means a comparable to any of the existing players in the field. TheDriversLab currently offers similar website to theirs. Homeation is a large scale platform that offers a lot of features to benefit all the parties involved. We will share more information as we get closer to launch. We are currently allowing Driver developers to gain early-access so they are familiar with the different functions of the platform and provide them with SDK so they could enhance their Drivers with better debugging tools. Please give us a call or email and we will be happy to address all of your questions. All the best, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digitaltrader Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 tinytom:We apologize if you had a problem with one of our products previously. We do have hundreds of satisfied customers who vouch for our quality of products and service.We would love to discuss the details of your issue and compensate you for your aggravation. Feel free to contact us at (855) 866-7433. To clarify, our platform is by no means a comparable to any of the existing players in the field. TheDriversLab currently offers similar website to theirs. Homeation is a large scale platform that offers a lot of features to benefit all the parties involved. We will share more information as we get closer to launch. We are currently allowing Driver developers to gain early-access so they are familiar with the different functions of the platform and provide them with SDK so they could enhance their Drivers with better debugging tools. Please give us a call or email and we will be happy to address all of your questions. All the best,When is the expected launch? Why not tells us what is different than the others so as to get us excited. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ericscales Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 Beware dealt with these people on the echobee driver. All they want you to do is test there product, find all their errors, spend hours communicating with them. All for free and then turn around and want to sell you the product at retail I'm not privy to your situation but I found some minor glitches in the Ecobee driver (in which a few of them turned out to be issues on the Ecobee side with their API). Everyone at TheDriversLab that I worked with were top notch and spent the time with me to get things working right. They literally cranked out bug fixes within hours. Not only that, but they were great to deal with, very personable and the total opposite of the current outsourced help desk rage (e.g., call into India, sit with someone for 30 minutes that tells you to reboot and do everything you've already done, etc. etc.. My experience has been amazing to say the least. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msgreenf Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 I had the same experience with them - I found bugs, they fixed. Good people to deal with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pstuart Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 Beware dealt with these people on the echobee driver. All they want you to do is test there product, find all their errors, spend hours communicating with them. All for free and then turn around and want to sell you the product at retailWait, what? They want you to communicate with them, improving the product and you want to get paid for this? On top of it, how dare they ask you to sell their product at the MSRP (Manufacturer's SUGGESTED RETAIL Price). I'm going to ask Google and Microsoft to pay me for "testing" their products... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedriverslab Posted February 2, 2014 Author Share Posted February 2, 2014 Thank you for all of your great support! After we've received a lot of your calls and a lot of questions, here is a list of some of answers to some of the common questions we've received: - Homeation will serve as a complete platform to serve both the driver developers, the dealers, and the end-consumer. - The platform supports listing of both Free drivers (at no charge) and Licensed drivers (for a revenue share model). - The licensing management system does not use serial numbers for activation but rather a unique encryption model that automatically authenticates a customer's project and installs its drivers. Therefore, if the driver already includes an activation process, it could be removed. - The platform will automatically install purchased drivers on the consumers' controller and will allow to transfer those licenses when a new controller is purchased. - Driver support will be provided by the developer and many tools for such support would be provided. Such as, messaging system, debugging tools, etc. - Developers will be able to send email campaigns to dealers who have purchased their drivers or whose customers have purchased their drivers. - Driver updates would be rolled out automatically to all or a subset of customers (for small rollouts) - The SDK is not required for inclusion. It does provide with access to different functions that enable further debugging capabilities from the Homeation dashboard. For example, one could report different driver crashes and those would appear in their dashboard along with the environment information to allow for easier debugging of issues. - Some of the analytics data would include the devices, OS versions, locations, and other insights into the consumers' environment to allow for better understanding of where to focus future developments. - Homeation supports separate pricing for end-consumers and for dealers. End-consumers would not be able to see special dealer pricing, though the dealers would be able to see both prices. Promotions and coupon codes systems are also available for the developer. - Only consumers who have purchased the drivers will have permission to leave feedback/review. Homeation is trying to better the way dealers, developers, and end-consumer interact by empowering each group to act more efficient and leverage data share to make better choices. There is a lot more to Homeation and we will share more information as we get closer to launch. We will also start accepting dealer applications for early-access soon. We are very excited to share with you details about the system. We have invested a lot of time and money to make this a better place and a superior experience for all of us. Please feel free to contact us with any questions. All the best, - Homeation Team Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pstuart Posted February 2, 2014 Share Posted February 2, 2014 - The licensing management system does not use serial numbers for activation but rather a unique encryption model that automatically authenticates a customer's project and installs its drivers. Therefore, if the driver already includes an activation process, it could be removed. Wait, what? If I buy a license from you a developer or someone else can remotely remove my driver or my access to it? - The platform will automatically install purchased drivers on the consumers' controller and will allow to transfer those licenses when a new controller is purchased. So you are pushing the drivers down to the controller? I assume this then requires an always on connection? What assurances do we have that someone else can't push a rogue driver down to a system you have access to? What level of encryption, if any will the push of the driver use? - Developers will be able to send email campaigns to dealers who have purchased their drivers or whose customers have purchased their drivers. Will developers actually know the dealers names who bought, or will this be a blind push? - Driver updates would be rolled out automatically to all or a subset of customers (for small rollouts) Again, assuming this means they are pushed down, is there any way for the end user to stop a push from being recieved? - Some of the analytics data would include the devices, OS versions, locations, and other insights into the consumers' environment to allow for better understanding of where to focus future developments. Will you be offering any sort of opt-in/out to the end user on data collection? What are you data retention policies? - Only consumers who have purchased the drivers will have permission to leave feedback/review. So will feedback/reviews be anonymized, or if someone leaves a bad review/feedback, what's stopping the developer from just pulling the driver from the user? What refund policy will you have for the end user / dealer? What about copyright enforcement / complaints? If someone claims a driver you sell is interfering with their IP, will you stop distribution, or will you actually turn off the driver in question from all consumers? What about end of life of your service? Assuming you don't last forever, what assurances do end users have that their purchased drivers will continue to function after your servers are gone? Sounds like a major platform, I'm curious, but also cautious do to many security and long term viability questions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdepaola Posted February 2, 2014 Share Posted February 2, 2014 I believe he was saying that if your driver already has encryption you don't have to use theirs. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pstuart Posted February 2, 2014 Share Posted February 2, 2014 So any encrypted code could be injected into a system? Sounds like a great platform to compromise. Nothing like providing a giant back door into your system. At least port forwarding was unencrypted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdepaola Posted February 2, 2014 Share Posted February 2, 2014 Doesn't the same apply with every driver then as most are encrypted within DriverWorks Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pstuart Posted February 2, 2014 Share Posted February 2, 2014 Yes, but at least the dealer and end user installs the driver once and doesn't leave a back door open to stream in updates for the driver. Since, presumably there is no CRC or other type of validation the code is correct, someone could inject encrypted code into someone's system using this proposed method. Time will tell, but these types of "auto delivery" systems are inherently vulnerable. Far worse then port forwarding, IMO. Complete remote code execution would be possible by a man in the middle type attack vector. Worst thing is, they'd never know it was happening, other then the driver might stop working... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godzilla Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 u mean like EV's auto updating? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pstuart Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 Yup. But there's is completely optional and not needed for driver to function. And that, I believe is a request from the driver not the other way around. So the request goes to ev. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedriverslab Posted February 3, 2014 Author Share Posted February 3, 2014 pstuart: Great questions! Here are the answers:Wait, what? If I buy a license from you a developer or someone else can remotely remove my driver or my access to it? Every end-user "links" their account with a dealer. The end-user has the choice of switching to as between dealers. Only the end-user and their dealer can add/remove Drivers from one's project.So you are pushing the drivers down to the controller? I assume this then requires an always on connection? The system requires an "Agent" driver to be installed on the Control4 box. The box then checks-in with the platform to see if it has any new "purchases".What assurances do we have that someone else can't push a rogue driver down to a system you have access to? Only the end-user and their dealer can add a Driver to the system. All drivers are going through an approval process to ensure there is malicious code in it.What level of encryption, if any will the push of the driver use? All Drivers utilize Control4's built in encryption. On top of that, each driver is uniquely encrypted with an AES encryption. Therefore, if two users purchase the same driver, each one will receive a different file due to encryption.Will developers actually know the dealers names who bought, or will this be a blind push? The messaging system will be anonymized. The Developer will not have access to contact information. Dealers will have an option to opt out of email notifications for such messages.Again, assuming this means they are pushed down, is there any way for the end user to stop a push from being recieved? All Beta releases require an approval from the end-user to participate in such beta. Consumers can opt out of automatic updates for Driver and instead will receive a notification when such updates become available.Will you be offering any sort of opt-in/out to the end user on data collection? We comply fully with standard consumer advocacy and will allow users to opt out of data collection. All data collection will be used anonymously.What are you data retention policies? All data is encrypted and we fully comply with PCI and even higher banking standards for data retention. Data is not erased and backed up in multi-level facilities.So will feedback/reviews be anonymized, or if someone leaves a bad review/feedback, what's stopping the developer from just pulling the driver from the user? Reviews will be associated with ones screen name. Although developers can send a message to a user to try and resolve such reviews, they cannot remove a specific user's Driver once that is purchased. What refund policy will you have for the end user / dealer? The exact contractual details of refunds have not been determined, however, the general guidelines that we are working to establish include a 10 days refund policy.What about copyright enforcement / complaints? If someone claims a driver you sell is interfering with their IP, will you stop distribution, or will you actually turn off the driver in question from all consumers? Those would be treated on a case-by-case scenario, resolving the matter with the holder of IP. We do vet all Developer applications to ensure the highest quality of content on the platform.What about end of life of your service? Assuming you don't last forever, what assurances do end users have that their purchased drivers will continue to function after your servers are gone? The Drivers do not require the presence of the platform to operate. We do have procedures in place for such an event to ensure no interruption in service for purchased Drivers. It is important to say that we've hired some of the best security and privacy experts in the financial industry to work on this project to ensure the highest levels of security. One of the main goals behind this platform was to make life easier, while more secure. Homeation will provide a more secure delivery method than exists today and will ensure higher confidence for both the end-consumer with their home systems and the developer that their code is not compromised. We welcome any questions that you may have. The magnitude of the platform is large and we could not cover all details in one post. We will continually share more details as we advance towards launch. We are eager to share more information and some screen shots in the upcoming days. All the best, - Homeation Team Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdepaola Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 This seems like a huge financial endeavor for what at least for now has a small potential client base. Best of luck to you. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pstuart Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 Only the end-user and their dealer can add a Driver to the system. All drivers are going through an approval process to ensure there is malicious code in it.I am sure you meant, that there isn't malicious code in it So, as some one who originally bought the Nest Driver from another developer, and then had it pulled from the market. I was offered no refund on the purchase. What will you policy be if something similar crops up? For example, if I hosted my Simple Sonos driver with you, and Sonos decides they want to send you a cease and desist (highly unlikely, but anything is possible) but yet I only used their documented API, would you pull the driver? Drivers are typically written to interface two products together. As independent developers not under direct license to integrate with these parties, or even having to resort to reverse engineering protocols and authentication layers, we are walking a fine line to add functionality to Control4, outside their control... As there are other HA companies that might have exclusive integration deals, you can understand that these companies might get litigious protecting their market, not their IP. I think its important to find a driver provider that will not bow to the pressures these product manufacturers can put on 3rd party integrators over back room exclusive deals. I support your efforts, I'm just really concerned about the long term viability of 3rd party driver support for this platform. Frankly, Control4 should just offer bounties to developers to create drivers for integration... Anyway, look forward to your launch, If you want to talk further, let me know, I might be interested. Depends on the revenue share model and if its worth the time... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedriverslab Posted February 3, 2014 Author Share Posted February 3, 2014 pstuart: You are correct, we would ensure that no malicious code is inside the scripts As far as cease-and-desist. We have retained the services of attorneys to deal with such matters and once those arise, we will utilize our user-base to structure a deal between the developer and the manufacturer. In cases such deals would not be accomplished and the manufacturer would insist on revoking any user, who to an extent is also their customer, from using such Driver, we will issue full refunds to all end-users. It is up to the Developer to ensure that they comply with all laws when creating a Driver. It should not be the end-consumer's problem. Hopefully that clarifies our stand in the matter. We would love to address any of your questions or concerns over the phone or via email. It is also important to note that we are a technology partner of Control4 and are working with the company to ensure continual support and future-proofing and obviously have received their "blessing" in launching this platform. All the best, - Homeation Staff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyanE Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 You may want to modify your last paragraph; Control4 does not "bless" companies, even those that have signed SDK licensing agreements with Control4. FYI, I believe if you peruse (or have your retained lawyers peruse) your contract signed with Control4, you'll find that you're not allowed to state that Control4 endorses ("blesses") your company or products. i.e. "No Endorsement; Co-Branding". RyanE P.S. Note: I'm not saying *anything* about the actual value or usefulness of your services, they could be best thing since toasted bread with a generous helping of Nutella, the Original Hazelnut Spread (TM, R), but they're not "blessed" by Control4. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedriverslab Posted February 3, 2014 Author Share Posted February 3, 2014 RyanE: Although the company has not officially made any statements with their "blessing" of our platform, we have had meetings with individuals in the company and have received their "blessing". Hopefully that clarifies. All the best, - Homeation Staff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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