Another re-Branding

Why does the forum logo now say "RoomieRemote" ? Are we due for another rebranding?

Also, it seems really dead around here (even for this slow forum). Is everything still cool ?

I wouldn't call it a re-brand when it's the actual brand. Our name was always Roomie Remote. It's the name of the company and has been since 2011. The product of the company has been called Simple Control since October 2015, but that did not change the company name which you still can see on the App Store, copyrights, or many other places. In general lately, I'm preferring the actual brand (actually, I always preferred it, but Simple Control was not my choice). Whether I do anything further to return to the main brand, I'm not sure yet. Walking around CEDIA '18 with my original Roomie expo shirt from CEDIA '13, I must say everyone knows Roomie. Simple Control as a brand has never had nearly the reach that Roomie has. For right now I just changed a couple things to reflect the actual brand as an experiment.

Broadly, the niche market that Simple Control targeted didn't work which was clear since at least early 2017. Turning the ship back to the broader market we originally targeted is a lot easier said than done. Such work is in progress, but when you go down a road for several years, it means you're basically neglecting another road. If we're able to make the changes underway for this Fall, it may be that renaming to the main brand could be a good way to indicate that we have changed direction (a while ago).

There's an enormous amount of work left to be done, and not just on the product, but there is a Fall release planned.

Regarding the forum, the ability to find an answer by searching here is high. The noise is low. On the other hand, the forum causes a lot of confusion because many users don't read the notices and think this forum is a support mechanism. No matter how many pinned notices, global alerts, or whatever I do, the number of users that ignore it all and just post the most basic and easily handled support questions that need to be submitted with the right support details to resolve is pretty high. That means this forum needs a lot of moderation – every day a few messages need to be manually redirected to support.

The concept needs a rethink. I look at other support forums and they're either super-heavy moderation with low participation (Apple) or a cess-pool of angry users with problems and a rare support reply reminding people to contact support (SmartThings). I have tried the latter path responding to some threads here reminding people to contact support. It doesn't really fix anything. If I had to pick one, I'd pick the Apple path which is most similar to this forum so that at least it is easy to search and bad/wrong information is not left up, but choosing neither and doing something "better" is really what I'm looking for.

Looking forward to the fall release.

My thoughts on support.

You’ve directed a couple of my requests to support, taken down my posts, or turned them into private threads. Honestly, I’d have preferred a different approach. Ultimately my questions got answered, but the impression I got was I had to be mindful of how I interacted with the company to not “do it the wrong way.” This has led me to not ask questions I might otherwise have asked because honestly worried I might get banned or something.

Probably not your intention. But I like to self-solve. The more I can read, search, ask questions, get answers, converse, interact, etc. the more beneficial I find the experience. Plus I can self-solve at 2am or on the weekend or whenever. And I feel like I can usually self-solve faster than waiting for a response from support as a general rule.

I’d prefer a knowledge base approach where once your support sees an issue, finds a resolution, vets it, maybe cleans it up a bit then publish it and make it searchable. This is sort of the Microsoft approach which is what I grew up on.

For those of us a little newer to the product - I’ve only ever known it as Simple Control - what sort of is the vision? My initial impression was a product aimed at people who want the power of Control4 - and maybe more - without the proprietary lock-in, custom AV integrators, etc. I also thought it was aimed at a DIY market that was pretty technical and willing - even desire - to do customizations with lots of flexibility. I’ve found it has mostly met my expectations though I’d prefer something I could troubleshoot myself a little easier (log files).

I agree with this sentiment. Maybe a forum could be established like 'users helping users' or something where it is a messy free for all (great opportunity for a pinned notice that no one will read :). Nothing is perfect and there is value in interacting with other users, camaraderie, random info and advice that is offered, and just current thinking and help from others makes a forum fun and useful. Most savvy users of the internet have figured out that there is old info that needs to be weeded out, as evidenced by the google search completion that now routinely shows years at the end where users are looking for current info. Just a few thoughts and also the new (old) direction sounds good. I've only ever used SC but a more diy centric approach will be great and a looser more user based forum would go great with that. I don't think you have to choose moderated or not, just have both and let the user decide.