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Author Topic: Good deal on Zymatic  (Read 7426 times)

Offline Stevie

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Re: Good deal on Zymatic
« Reply #45 on: May 03, 2017, 09:09:02 am »
How reliant is the zymatic on the company staying in business? Is it useless without access to their web based apps?

They promise to open source if the company goes out of business.

Also, I don't have a link, but, I saw an open source project that had reverse engineering the communication protocol. The commands are all HTML get and put.  I only took a quick look but it seemed like it might pretty easy to spoof a connection to Picobrew with a Python script.
Still scary. It's quite a bit more expensive than a nest cam or automated sprinkler system. They should make the machine its own webserver or offer a Raspberry Pi webserver SD card. They don't need to go open source now, but they should offer an offline solution for a $2000 appliance.

Offline tommymorris

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Re: Good deal on Zymatic
« Reply #46 on: May 03, 2017, 09:10:14 am »
How reliant is the zymatic on the company staying in business? Is it useless without access to their web based apps?

They promise to open source if the company goes out of business.

Also, I don't have a link, but, I saw an open source project that had reverse engineering the communication protocol. The commands are all HTML get and put.  I only took a quick look but it seemed like it might pretty easy to spoof a connection to Picobrew with a Python script.
Still scary. It's quite a bit more expensive than a nest cam or automated sprinkler system. They should make the machine its own webserver or offer a Raspberry Pi webserver SD card. They don't need to go open source now, but they should offer an offline solution for a $2000 appliance.
I agree.

Online denny

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Re: Good deal on Zymatic
« Reply #47 on: May 03, 2017, 09:50:10 am »
How reliant is the zymatic on the company staying in business? Is it useless without access to their web based apps?

Based on what I know and have seen, there's nothing to worry about.
Life begins at 60.....1.060, that is!

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Offline Stevie

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Re: Good deal on Zymatic
« Reply #48 on: May 03, 2017, 09:57:25 am »
How reliant is the zymatic on the company staying in business? Is it useless without access to their web based apps?

Based on what I know and have seen, there's nothing to worry about.
They are a tech company. They make money when people upgrade to new tech. Being reliant on their web apps puts your appliance in their hands. It's essentially a $2,000 lease.

Again, adding an offline mode would be a welcome addition.

Online denny

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Re: Good deal on Zymatic
« Reply #49 on: May 03, 2017, 10:27:45 am »
How reliant is the zymatic on the company staying in business? Is it useless without access to their web based apps?

Based on what I know and have seen, there's nothing to worry about.
They are a tech company. They make money when people upgrade to new tech. Being reliant on their web apps puts your appliance in their hands. It's essentially a $2,000 lease.

Again, adding an offline mode would be a welcome addition.

Yes, it would indeed.  But not having it is not a reason to not buy one.
Life begins at 60.....1.060, that is!

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The best, sharpest, funniest, weirdest and most knowledgable minds in home brewing contribute on the AHA forum. - Alewyfe

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell

Offline Stevie

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Re: Good deal on Zymatic
« Reply #50 on: May 03, 2017, 10:33:44 am »
For me it is. $2k ($1.3k in this refurb deal) is a lot of money to put into a handshake deal with a tech company. You never know what can happen.

Offline tommymorris

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Good deal on Zymatic
« Reply #51 on: May 03, 2017, 10:36:07 am »
How reliant is the zymatic on the company staying in business? Is it useless without access to their web based apps?

Based on what I know and have seen, there's nothing to worry about.
They are a tech company. They make money when people upgrade to new tech. Being reliant on their web apps puts your appliance in their hands. It's essentially a $2,000 lease.

Again, adding an offline mode would be a welcome addition.
I think the new business model is PicoBrew makes money when people buy picopaks. This is a recurring revenue stream. I think Zymatics are nice but they will never grow huge with just revenue from brewing system sales.

Even the new latest development announcement was for a bigger (5-10 gallon) machine to brew beer at restaurants; enable brewpubs with no probrewer expense and far less capital investment. I think they will sell prefabricated recipes for that, also.

Offline Stevie

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Re: Good deal on Zymatic
« Reply #52 on: May 03, 2017, 10:49:51 am »
Just to note, I want one. There is a very strong possibility that I will need to reduce my brewing footprint in the next year. I will likely opt for a small K-RIMS system that I put together myself. I'll look into the third party hacks that are out there, but still an official offline mode is a top priority for me.