When businesses get short on cash, they only have a couple of solutions. It happened to a Worcester, MA cable smart home alarm system early this year and has happened recently to another smart-home hub company when they decided to implement a pay as you go monthly subscription service. Wink had not used this model, and customers bought consumers paid cash for their hardware, and the app was free to use. Winks package was blazoned with the message hub “no monthly fees or subscriptions.” and expected that to be the case. Wink will not “grandfather” in any current owners. The app was always free to use. They surprised their customers with an announcement that these would now be required to pay a monthly subscription service fee that does not provide any new or additional features. If not paid, customers would lose access to all their wink products on May 13, 2020, and the wink network altogether.

Additionally, there is a significant update to complete before May 30, 2020. The monthly subscription service does not provide any additional or new features. Pay up or lose access permanently.