Upcoming changes to Wink subscription

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Dear Subscribers, 

We hope you are enjoying the convenience of Wink and the value of Wink app automations. We have always been driven to provide a meaningful and easy-to-use service that's everyday affordable. Over the years, this has become increasingly challenging as we absorbed the rising costs of hosting services and the added expense of some 3rd party integrations.

The impact we hope to have is great, but we’re always trying to keep your costs low. In order to keep you covered with convenient and meaningful features, we need to update the price of the Wink monthly subscription to $5.99. The new pricing for existing subscribers is effective starting on February 15th, 2024.

We look forward to expanding on our value through your continued support. Thank you sincerely for being a member of the Wink smart home community.

Manage your account online: subscription.wink.com

Contact Support: wink.com/help/contact  

-Wink

Wink Connectivity & Control Disruption

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We apologize for the ongoing system disruptions. Our teams have identified the issue that is impacting the Wink Core API. The Wink app remote control, voice controllers, Wink Hubs, API device connectivity, password resets, and other systems are affected. We have updated the online status page with available updates and are working towards implementing a solution. We sincerely appreciate your patience while we reconnect systems.

We suggest that users refrain from troubleshooting at this time. It is best to keep the Hub and router powered on. Please do not log out, disconnect devices, or edit settings. Wink Hubs and devices could automatically reconnect after systems are operational, but in some cases, users might need to power them off and back on or perform additional troubleshooting.

Wink Hubs could have Local Control over compatible devices when the app is connected using the same wireless network as the Hub. The Hub 2 can also store some basic automations locally and continue to trigger them. The feature is enabled automatically by the app and functions in the background. Users should be able to manually tap an icon for a supported device to control it. Connect to the same wireless network as the Hub and then interact with the icon for compatible devices in the app.

If the Hub or network is powered off or the various devices become disconnected from the Hub itself, the system may no longer have Local Control capabilities. Not all devices connect directly to the Hub. If a user is logged out of the application, wait until systems are online before signing in or resetting the password.

Wink Support team members can assist with device and account issues after the Wink Core API is back online. Please message if assistance is still needed after the systems are operational, or utilize our FAQ and the device help page for self-help resources.

-Wink Support

Update on the upcoming Wink Subscription

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Hello Wink Community,

We want to share updates about our Wink subscription - a vital change for Wink that will enable us to provide our customers with a strong and growing smart home experience. The change will bring about expanded support for new brand integrations and continue to bring enhancements through firmware and software updates.

Please know that we have adjusted our timelines since our initial announcement on May 6th to allow users more opportunity to make considerations. We were able to extend our service so that subscriptions will now begin on Monday, July 27th, 2020. All users who have not already subscribed will need to visit subscription.wink.com to sign up. Users with a Hub on their account should subscribe with the same email address that is registered with their Hub. Paid subscribers can continue using all of their connected devices, cloud services, automations, and 3rd party integrations.

Users who do not sign up will still have access to limited functionality without being charged. This will specifically allow for local control over select devices, such as those found in the Lights + Power menu, as well as Z-Wave connected Locks.

 
Wink Subscription Information.png
 

Our customer support team is available through email or messaging to help answer any questions. Sign up at subscription.wink.com today to access all of the great features in Wink.

Introducing Wink Subscription

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Wink’s mission for the past 5+ years has been to provide users with a ‘Simpler, Smarter Home,’ while maintaining privacy for our customers. Our approach to simplicity and security has driven our design from the user experience to the technology behind the scenes.

We understand that a smart home is something that needs to be trusted and dependable, and we recognize that recent events have created some uncertainty around the reliability of the system. We apologize for these inconveniences and want to share some background information as well as the path forward.

Since 2014, Wink has grown to support more than 4 million connected devices. During this time, Wink has relied solely on the one-time fee derived from hardware sales to cover ongoing cloud costs, development, and customer support. Providing users with local and remote access to their devices will always come at a cost for Wink, and over the years we have made great progress toward reducing these costs so that we can maintain that feature.

Wink has taken many steps in an effort to keep your Hub’s blue light on, however, long term costs and recent economic events have caused additional strain on our business. Unlike companies that sell user data to offset costs associated with offering free services, we do not. Data privacy is one of Wink’s core values, and we believe that user data should never be sold for marketing or any purpose.

Wink has been in a very rough spot, but thanks to your support, we are able to keep moving forward! It was not an easy decision to switch to a paid service, and we know that the short timeline put a lot of pressure on all of you, but we had no other way to continue the Wink service as it is currently known.

The support we have seen for our subscription service has been incredible. We feel we can extend Wink's free service for the time being, confident that we can set a new start date for the subscription service to begin, giving you all more time to use Wink (subscription-free) whether you signed up or not.

Our user community is integral to Wink, and we want to continue to be your trusted smart home provider. More information will be provided soon about our future plans. Please visit subscription.wink.com and subscribe to support our mission.

Important Update Regarding Works With Nest Integration

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Back in May, Google announced a change to their Nest ecosystem. The Works with Nest program is being discontinued and they are encouraging their users to migrate their Nest accounts to Google accounts. Unfortunately, doing so will permanently sever connections between Nest, Wink, and other 3rd Party Platforms.  

Thanks to an overwhelming response by the user base, Google is still allowing these 3rd Party Integrations to continue after August 31, 2019 if you follow these steps.

You can follow these steps to ensure that Nest products will continue to work with Wink beyond this date.

  • Do not migrate your Nest account to a Google account. Completing a Nest account migration will cause Wink and other Works with Nest integrations to be permanently disconnected. This process is not reversible.

  • Do not disconnect Nest from Wink after August 31st. If you disconnect Nest after this date, you will not be able to reconnect it. This will also affect users that choose not to migrate their Nest accounts to a Google account.

Additional information can be found in this blog post from Nest.

Wink is still dedicated to providing a streamlined home automation experience for our users in a single, unified app. There are times when our partners may make business changes and system updates which can heavily impact our users. Though these changes are often out of our control, we will always try to minimize the disturbance they cause, even if they are often times unavoidable. 

We apologize for any inconvenience and will always notify the Wink community and present alternative options as soon as we have them available. Should you have any further questions about the Works with Nest program and how it will impact your Wink ecosystem, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our Customer Support team. Give us a call at 1-844-Wink-App, or email us using Questions@Wink.com

Nest Camera API Integration Security

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As technology has grown to be such an integral part of our everyday lives, the security of our information and property has never been more important. Wink works closely with our partner brands to maintain our users’ security. We understand the importance of transparency in resolving such issues. If our users have any security concerns, we ask that they make an attempt at reasonable disclosure by immediately informing our team of their observations. You can find out more about Wink’s Security Researcher and Reporting Program on our page http://security.wink.com/.

On Wednesday, June 19th we received a report regarding our integration with Nest Cameras. A user appeared to have continued access to screenshots in the Wink app even after those cameras had been disconnected from the associated Nest account.

We immediately had our QA team work with several models of ‘Nest Cam’ and ‘Dropcam’ Wi-Fi cameras, as well as all other brands of supported Wi-Fi cameras, to determine if the issue could be reproduced. As our team was not able to reproduce the issue with any supported camera from any manufacturer, and the Wink/Nest integration relies exclusively on the Nest API, we also reached out to Nest and provided them with details of the incident.

As of 6/20/19 Nest had issued an update to all cameras in order to fix the issue. The patch requires no action from Nest or Wink users.

As always, the Wink support team is available to speak with users about any questions or concerns they may have. If you would like to speak with a representative, please reach out to our support center at 1-844-WINKAPP. To learn more about how Wink thinks about security, visit our site: https://www.wink.com/security/

NEW COMPATIBLE DEVICES

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In the last few months, our teams have been focused on updates that maintain and improve the back end system and Wink Hubs. Our goal has been to ensure that all Hubs and connected devices perform reliably with minimal downtime or interruptions to our users. Moving forward, we will be focused on new integrations, features, and functionality. We are happy to announce today the addition of the following devices that are now compatible with your Wink Hubs.

  • Sylvania RGBW Flexible Outdoor Strip

  • Sylvania RGBW Under Cabinet Lighting

  • Sengled RGBW Element Bulb

  • GE In-Wall Toggle Smart Switch

  • GE In-Wall Toggle Smart Dimmer

  • GE In-Wall Fan Control

  • GE In-Wall Touch Sensing Smart Dimmer

  • GE In-Wall Duplex Receptacle TR

  • GE Plug-In Switch (Single Plug)

  • GE Plug-In Switch (Dual Plug)

  • GE Plug-In Dimmer (Dual Plug)

  • GE Plug-In Dimmer w/USB (Dual Plug, Independent Control w/USB)

  • GE Plug-In Switch w/USB (Dual Plug, Independent Control w/USB)

  • GE Plug-In Outdoor Switch

  • GE Hinge Pin Smart Door Sensor

  • GE Portable Smart Motion Sensor

Additionally, we will be adjusting our customer support hours for the summer. Our live technicians will be available Monday through Friday, from 11am until 9pm Eastern at 1-844-Wink-App. We look forward to this opportunity to better serve your smart home. Please follow @TheWinkApp on Twitter for news and announcements.

Wink App Android Updates

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On 2/19 we released our Android app version 6.9.47.22883 with a whole slew of improvements. This afternoon we released app version: 6.9.47.22886. Today’s update fixed a bug which inhibited users from denying the location permissions prompt in the app.

Our teams continue working to streamline and improve the Wink experience and the app has been slimming down as well. The Wink app is now only about 60 MB for the initial app installation! We’ll keep making things faster, smaller, smarter, and even better than before.

App version: 6.9.47.22883

  • Bug fixes, such as:

    • Various crash fixes

    • Fixed issue with Chamberlain MyQ by removing Chamberlain MyQ as an option for a robot effect

    • Fixed issue with Philips Hue local group control

    • Fixed issue where users were unable to modify Robots from using a timeframe to using no timeframe

    • Fixed issue where using Ecobee thermostat Robots did not have option to select set-point

  • Changes, such as:

    • Several performance improvements

App version: 6.9.47.22886

  • Bug fixes, such as:

    • Resolved an issue with the Wink app not allowing user to Deny the Location Services prompt.

We would love to hear your feedback. Please update and rate the Wink app today! You can contact our friendly support for questions and troubleshooting. Our team is available at 1-844-946-5277 from 11am-9pm EST, Monday-Saturday. You can also email questions@wink.com, or DM @WinkSupport on Twitter.


Wink App Android Update Available

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Our latest update has some great improvements!

Version: 6.9.17.22594

This release includes bug fixes, such as:

  • Fixed issues with how the Wink app interfaces with the Hub on the local network

  • Improvements to Schlage user code management

  • Various app crash fixes

Please rate the Wink app, we’d love to hear your feedback. You can contact our support team at 1-844-946-5277, 11AM - 9PM EST, Monday - Saturday. You can also email questions@wink.com, or DM @WinkSupport on Twitter.


Introducing the Wink blog

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Wink’s mission is to make the smart home accessible. Whether it’s improving how users interact with our app or partnering with trusted brands to bring their products onto the Wink platform, that mission is the underlying driver behind everything we do.

Where it all started.

Where it all started.

Since our launch last July, we’ve experienced some amazing highs: We tripled the number of partner devices compatible with Wink, brought the Wink HUB to nearly 3,000 retail stores, and began adding a new Wink home every 60-90 seconds.

But, we’ve also seen some lows: The service disruption we experienced in April was proof positive that any company can make an error that impacts the people who rely on it.

No matter how high the highs or low the lows, we pride ourselves on our transparency and honesty when communicating with our customers, partners, and the industry.

With that in mind, we realize there is a growing need for an outlet to share what’s going on at Wink while helping people navigate the smart home.

And so today, we’re thrilled to introduce the Wink blog! We’re just getting started, but here’s what you can expect to see from us here:

  • The latest Wink product news and partnership announcements
  • Our take on topics currently bubbling up in the industry
  • Content that demystifies some of the common misconceptions or confusion surrounding the smart home
  • Tips and tricks to maximize the value of your smart home
  • Spotlights on the real people using Wink each and every day

We hope this will be a valuable resource for you, and we are excited to see it grow and evolve. Please check it out and let us know what you think!