Local App update 8-2-13 Version 0.3.27

[dgd]

"I am sorry you are unhappy with it. It is a free service we offer. Maybe we should charge for it and then put an engineer on it full time to get it to do everything everyone wants? I do not know if people would pay $20, $30 or what for it? I am all ears and open to suggestions?"

Funny how people will complain about "free" software, and how it's not fulfilling their needs or their ideas about how it should work. Tell them to roll their own; the modbus registers are documented, and there are numerous libraries for reading modbus data into different languages. Go build your own local app and offer it for free.

That said tho, what you guys offer in the Local App AND MyMidnite.com are amazing, and definitely worth paying for. I know I would certainly pay for it since it's something I use a lot. Heck, I'm planning on charging for the iOS app I'm working on! You should too.

First I'd like to say I can see exactly laszlo's point in his posting. I believe he was actually complimenting Ryan as its patently  obvious to everyone that Ryan is a major asset to Midnite and its support environment.

I also believe that the idea that the Local App and MyMidnite should not be criticised because they are somehow free products is just a cop out excuse for some design omissions and whopper persistent bugs.
I also believe the MN software design and development people do a darn good job but clearly with insufficient resources to get on top of these issues.

I know several Classic users who ONLY purchased their Classic AFTER reviewing the MN web site and forum AND seeing that MN provided the Local App and MyMidnite software products. They bought into the CLASSIC package that includes the Local App and MyMN.
Its pretty clear to me that is why MN invested some resource in developing this software, to market/sell Classics and  enhance the MN experience for users.
These software and this forum and the fact that the MN support people, hardware and software design/development people talk to us in this forum is what IMHO pushes MN way above the competition

To address critics of LocalApp and MyMN  by reminding them its free and if they are not happy then go and do their own software is not an acceptable response or a professional approach to dealing with issues.
Saddens me to see end users also buying into this scheme - to put down those users  that point out LocalApp MyMN problems etc...

Note this is just my thoughts, no personal criticism of anyone intended.

dgd

[Westbranch]

I would like to join dgd in praising the MN crew, having been, a fair while ago, on the bleeding edge of a project that was a fair tad bigger than the My Midnite task.
We had far more than the small crew of enthusiasts that inhabit this forum to satisfy, all with slightly similar ideas, and in the end persevered to produce a rock solid program that met everyones needs but not necessarily their wants.   

Again THANKS to Robin and boB, et al for taking suggestions and constructive criticism as intended: to better the best charge controllers, IMHO, on the market  for the money, ie best value in its market niche.

Eric

[Halfcrazy]

"I am sorry you are unhappy with it. It is a free service we offer. Maybe we should charge for it and then put an engineer on it full time to get it to do everything everyone wants? I do not know if people would pay $20, $30 or what for it? I am all ears and open to suggestions?"

Funny how people will complain about "free" software, and how it's not fulfilling their needs or their ideas about how it should work. Tell them to roll their own; the modbus registers are documented, and there are numerous libraries for reading modbus data into different languages. Go build your own local app and offer it for free.

That said tho, what you guys offer in the Local App AND MyMidnite.com are amazing, and definitely worth paying for. I know I would certainly pay for it since it's something I use a lot. Heck, I'm planning on charging for the iOS app I'm working on! You should too.

First I'd like to say I can see exactly laszlo's point in his posting. I believe he was actually complimenting Ryan as its patently  obvious to everyone that Ryan is a major asset to Midnite and its support environment.

I also believe that the idea that the Local App and MyMidnite should not be criticised because they are somehow free products is just a cop out excuse for some design omissions and whopper persistent bugs.
I also believe the MN software design and development people do a darn good job but clearly with insufficient resources to get on top of these issues.

I know several Classic users who ONLY purchased their Classic AFTER reviewing the MN web site and forum AND seeing that MN provided the Local App and MyMidnite software products. They bought into the CLASSIC package that includes the Local App and MyMN.
Its pretty clear to me that is why MN invested some resource in developing this software, to market/sell Classics and  enhance the MN experience for users.
These software and this forum and the fact that the MN support people, hardware and software design/development people talk to us in this forum is what IMHO pushes MN way above the competition

To address critics of LocalApp and MyMN  by reminding them its free and if they are not happy then go and do their own software is not an acceptable response or a professional approach to dealing with issues.
Saddens me to see end users also buying into this scheme - to put down those users  that point out LocalApp MyMN problems etc...

Note this is just my thoughts, no personal criticism of anyone intended.

dgd

DGD
I do agree and can say that our goal is to make the Local App and My Midnite do everything everyone wants. The real issue is time and resources. At the moment the lead engineer on these 2 items (Andrew) has some very important items on his plate, (Like drag and drop firmware updating).

We have passed the Local App on to a new Engineer and he is feverishly getting it ported over to work as an Android App. As soon as he has this in its Beta stages he will be digging in to the Local App with both feet first.

I also agree using the statement "Its Free" is a cop out and do not mean it to sound that way. I guess what I am saying is we build a charge controller that is comparably priced (If not cheaper) then the competition so the monitoring is a non money maker if you will. If we added say $50 or more to the cost of the Classic to cover the software it would pay for another Engineer but that also would drive the cost up causing less people to buy the product. So as I see it we have a balancing act. We will do our best and will never come to the point where we say "We will not do any more work" on either of these products.

Please be patient with us on this but at the moment we have a lot of engineering projects going that are pretty intensive. The Inverter project is huge.

Ryan

[dgd]

We have passed the Local App on to a new Engineer and he is feverishly getting it ported over to work as an Android App. As soon as he has this in its Beta stages he will be digging in to the Local App with both feet first.

excellent news, apps we need 

So as I see it we have a balancing act. We will do our best and will never come to the point where we say "We will not do any more work" on either of these products.

Please be patient with us on this but at the moment we have a lot of engineering projects going that are pretty intensive. The Inverter project is huge.

I can appreciate its a resource balancing task. No criticism of anyone or MNs processes but end users, like me, always want bugs fixed now and new suggestions for features implemented asap or preferably yesterday.
Anyway I have patience  -  until tomorrow! or the next idea comes to mind or the next bug surfaces etc..

Please keep tolerating our impatience.

dgd

[Halfcrazy]

Yes and we truly do (At least I do) the kick in the but once in a while to keep us moving. Mike will be working hard towards getting the Local App up to speed. I am excited to get him into the meet and potatoes of the Local App. We wil need to start a thread "The bugs and Missing features we want Mike to FIX!" 

It should be a big help to get Mike involved as Andrew has almost enough work to keep him busy for a few days

Ryan

[laszlo]

Hi Ryan,

Sorry I have not been feeling well and did not have a chance to respond. My comment and intention was not about flaming you. I know and admire your work ethic. Somebody was saying you had made the call about defaulting to Celsius because you answer the phones late at night when nobody else does.

What I did try to  say is that MN attracted a lot of talented people with the great product and support who are already contributing a great deal back to Midnite  and it would be smarter for Midnite to leverage this talent and listen to their ideas. This would be similar to the platform effect being used by Apple -- create a platform, or ecosystem, to whihc other scan contribute  and then profit from it.

The LocalApp now is a more mature software than two years ago, and control over the look and feel customizations  -- the skin and the temp  display options  for example --  should be handed off to the end user. Also, the modbus part of talking to the Classic could be put into an API so other people could also write their own app using different GUI or no GUI at all. 

There is high quality and quantity  of open source software for charting, monitoring, and data representation  so the place where I would like to take Midnite is to be able to benefit from those tools and the contributions of the engineers who are on  this forum.

Not sure if I am supposed to take that as a compliment or an insult?

I am sorry I seam to be upsetting people, In the future I will try to answer questions better. I will say that the issue is manpower, We can devote engineering time to a free product or work on say an inverter. It is hard to justify hiring a full time engineer to work on a free product. I can see endless possibilities but it takes Engineers and time. The issue was the upset customers calling saying "I set this software to F and my data is still all in C"

I consider myself pretty darn close to a systems engineer and probably closer to a software engineer than anyone knows. But here on the forum I find myself playing politician not Engineer or support staff.

I will now put on my Engineer hat.

"Yes the Local App can do anything. It should sync with the PC that it is installed on and auto update the Classics clock at regular intervals. It should sense what language the user has picked and auto change its language and units of measure. It should offer all sorts of stuff. It truly could."

Now my political hat again
"I am sorry you are unhappy with it. It is a free service we offer. Maybe we should charge for it and then put an engineer on it full time to get it to do everything everyone wants? I do not know if people would pay $20, $30 or what for it? I am all ears and open to suggestions?"

Ryan