Should I buy Sighthound Video?

[automate]

Looks like Sighthound has delivered and pushed a significant update. I am going to give it a try and I am really hoping I love it and can give my business to Sighthound. Will report back in 2 weeks.

[milhouse6]

I really like Sighthound but I admit my sentiments echo 303 and automate. False positives from tree shadows and passing vehicle lights have actually increased in number for me over the years (with no means of tweaking), and the time between notification receipt and actually being able to see either the stream or clip has gotten worse over time. I find I'm better off using other apps to quickly open camera streams when a Sighthound notification comes in to see what's going on in a reasonable amount of time.

And the subscription costs have not felt like good value over time. For me, IIRC every major version update has required purchasing a support extension.

We've been contemplating adding more cameras and upgrading from Basic to Pro. I saw the update to v4 available on my account and wanted to see if the advertised resource improvements would allow adding more cameras to an underpowered system. So I downloaded and installed v4. Oops! Turns out my account had expired almost a year prior. Long story short it uninstalled v3, replaced it with an unlicensed v4 in demo mode, and now I seem to have lost download access to v3.

If I do upgrade to Pro, will my support account be reset to the current purchase date? Or will it stay stuck in Jan 2016? I fear I may have to pay for two years of support, backdated to include a year of inactivity.

So for as much as I really want to stay with Sighthound, I'm debating a move to lower-priced software supported with PIR based human detection instead.

[Stephen Neish, CEO]

milhouse6,

You should not have lost access to the version you paid for. Log into your Sighthound web account and look under Download Sighthound Video and click the link "Looking for a previous version?".If you still don't see a 3.x version, e-mail support with your user name and we'll check your account. We can also look up your support history to answer that question.

I'm sorry you've had an issue with FPs. An update with changed thresholds will be out this week.

All Sighthound 4.x versions have dramatic performance improvements over 3.x versions. Most users report 50%-70% less CPU usage.

Let us know, either here or via support, if the new 4.0.2 version fixes the problems you've seen.

Again, apologies for the trouble you're having.

Stephen Neish, CEO

[303]

So a problem with a download gets a reply the same day, but foundational problems in the quality of the software and failing on what it promises to deliver get 0 replies ever?

[Stephen Neish, CEO]

Hi 303,

I was looking back through your blog posts. You asked for IFTTT integration and we added it. You asked for CPU performance improvements and we delivered 50%-70% performance improvement in 4.x. Most recently you asked for streaming video improvement to remote access and we replied the following day saying we were working on it. When you said you were still unhappy with the product I offered to buy your license back from you. I also see a long history of help our support team have provided to you on choices of cameras etc over the years. I deal with a lot of software companies and I wish they were as helpful as Sighthound has been. I'm sorry you are still not happy.

We can always improve, and the program isn't perfect, but it is heavily supported and gets better every release: https://www.sighthound.com/support/release-notes

Stephen Neish

[303]

Sure stephen, thanks. I think you're referring to my forum posts and contact with your team, not any blog posts.

As you might notice, those comments go back years. Devin and Ryan have been great in responsiveness over the years as well, and I've always been thankful they are willing to throw a beta my way when the opportunity arises.

You're kind of whitewashing my concerns for the sake of PR in your forums. I've maintained that the unresponsiveness of the mobile app is a complete dealbreaker for the usefulness of the product in a home security setting. When I posted about selling my license I was told that no, I cannot sell the product either:

topic12561

If you can find another post where you offered to buy it back, my memory is failing, but that's not really the point either.

You guys have been "working on" a more stable and less cpu-intensive server and a mobile app that actually shows images when i get a notification for years now. I'm glad you delivered on the CPU part but it's not like I singlehandedly asked for this in your forums and you bent over backwards to appease me. I mentioned it takes up 2x the cpu and memory in a post. That's it.

Look, I mean this with 100% authenticity that Ryan and Devin have been awesome at helping with the little things over the years, like making my settings better or helping debug something. It's not that i am unappreciative for their doing community outreach. And yeah your team certainly did reply to my post about mobile notifications -> streaming being useless over a year ago, and Ryan pushed me a beta that didn't fix it.

Hi Ryan.

Quick email. So I am a big supporter of sighthound yet also find it really fails when you need it.

Loud crash on our back porch just now. Load up sighthound for android. Tap clips. Wait wait wait wait wait loading and...server is unreachable.

This is the norm

Meanwhile the server is fine. I can access my home automation software, calibre, transmission, everything else running. The server is perfectly reachable.

So when this happens the software is basically useless to me. I have to load up another live camera app. That can't be what you guys intend.

How can I help you make this better?

Which didn't fix it then either.

So my post in this thread got 0 reply, and that was my point, you have 3 people here in this thread saying they are concerned about the development cycle and lack of improvement, and you're arguing with me about posts I made 2 years ago. The fact is the android app times out whenever i click on a notification, i said that years ago, i said it again in this thread, I have had to implement a really complex system of applescripts and animated gif to MMS on top of it to make it work even on par with securityspy, but you're charging me a subscription fee to maintain this level of quality.

I realize you're putting out 200 other fires, and you're just trying to do a good job by jumping in where you can to help. That said, I think a CEO who argues with his customers this way is a clear enough message. It's pretty clear I know what I'm getting out of this now and won't continue to bother you or your team. Many thanks to Ryan and Devin for being so helpful and great over the years.

[ropedrag]

Is OK, I find it to be legit 75% of the time.

I could wax on with all the issues we've had and the ONE time we needed it... etc, etc.

The $250 cost is steep but almost worth it. What's BS is the yearly fee for support (yeah the support I emailed for an answer to a question I had while on vacation a few weeks ago...... no reply!) and the glacially slow to come updates. I can appreciate these folks are in business but a $50 yearly fee, really?!?

With my experiences thus far I'd swap and not look back if we weren't frickin Mac users!

My $.02

[Stephen Neish, CEO]

Hello Ropedrag,

I'm sorry to hear that you didn't get a reply to your support enquiry. That's not what I want to see happen when people e-mail us for help. Would you mind forwarding that e-mail to [email protected], even if you no longer have the problem, so we can investigate how we failed?

Thank you,

Stephen Neish
CEO

[ryan]

@ropedrag - A response was sent on 2/9, the same day your message was received. Can you check your spam folders to see if perhaps our reply wound up there? I see that your reply email is different than the one listed in your signature so it may also have wound up in a less frequently checked account. If you're still having any trouble we'll be glad to help.

The support and upgrade subscription isn't as common in consumer software, but actually has a lot of customer-friendly benefits. It's fairly typical for upgrade prices of software to run 50-75% of the cost of a new license, unannounced in advance, and often with a limited window to take that offer before you're stuck paying for a full license again.

With the SV support and upgrade subscription you know the cost in advance - if there's a major version per year, the upgrade price would be 20% of a new license. There is also no expiration to the offer, if you hadn't upgraded in 3 years and you wanted the latest major version you'd be able to upgrade without paying full license cost. And of course if you choose not to upgrade your license is valid indefinitely with all versions you qualified for.

Not every update is going to speak to every customer. 4.0 has been a pretty monumental update for a lot of people, especially those with 10+ cameras or who had been waiting for audio. For those with fewer cameras or older non-h264 cameras it understandably isn't as exciting. If you're in that boat rest assured that we haven't stopped working and hope that future updates will have features and improvements that appeal to you. Remote access has been mentioned a few times and that's certainly a target. Work is underway, for example last week we discovered the source of an incompatibility with certain LG Android phones. We're in the middle of some changes to speed up live streams to all targets with good progress so far, and have more planned.

If anyone would like to have the opportunity to receive early versions of these and others and to provide feedback to help shape them you can fill out this form to register for the beta program. We're looking to expand this program in size and frequency of releases and adding ways to reward participants as well.

[ropedrag]

Ryan,

So what you are saying is that, as an example, my subscription is currently expired, there is no major upgrade in 2017 or 2018 or maybe there is but for some reason I don't personally see the need for it and decide to pass. Then in 2019 you have an amazing upgrade that I want.

At that time all I have to do is pay for the 12 month "support and upgrades" to have access to the latest and greatest software update?

I ask because what you stated appears to be different than what it states on your support and renewal page.

"After the first year, Subscriptions are optional. Users who choose not to renew a Subscription may still take advantage of free forum support and may purchase major version upgrades at full price.

Subscriptions must run concurrently, renewing on the anniversary of the date of your purchase. If you do not renew your Subscription on time and subsequently choose to do so, you will have to pay back to the time your last paid Subscription expired."

So in the example I laid out above is this upgrade in 2019 going to cost me $50, $150 or full retail?

Thanks,
JB