Update, Feb 4 (11:45 am ET): Service should be back up for most Wink hubs
What you need to know
- Wink's smart home platform has been suffering from a widespread outage for a week.
- Wink says it has identified the issue and is working on implementing a fix.
- The smart home platform faced a similar days-long outage in September last year.
Smart home platform Wink, which switched to a subscription service in July last year, has been facing "connectivity issues" for a week.
As reported by the folks at Android Police, Wink acknowledged the issues on January 25 and issued an update on the same day saying it was investigating the issue. Two days later, Wink claimed it had identified the issue and was implementing a fix. Disappointingly, however, the company hasn't been able to resolve the issues yet and its smart home platform is still down.
Wink's status page shows it is suffering a major outage across all its integrations – including Ring, August, Alexa, Nest, Google Home, IFTTT, and Arlo. The company's homepage and email support aren't operational, either. While local control continued to work for some Wink users in the first few days of the outage, many claim that is no longer the case.
This isn't the first time that Wink has faced a days-long outage. In September last year, the company suffered a similar outage, roughly a month after switching to a subscription service. Unsurprisingly, several Wink customers have taken to social media platforms such as Twitter to express their displeasure with the long outage.
Right where @TheWinkApp devices should be!#wink#sucks#customerservice#smartDevices#Hub#outage pic.twitter.com/gpTwISN8jfRight where @TheWinkApp devices should be!#wink#sucks#customerservice#smartDevices#Hub#outage pic.twitter.com/gpTwISN8jf— Felix (@FelixGGoinsIII) February 1, 2021February 1, 2021
Not working for 5 days and you charged my account during the outage? Implementing a fix for 2 days? Done. Hubitat ordered. Wink hubs going in the trash https://t.co/Zyh82SuSrINot working for 5 days and you charged my account during the outage? Implementing a fix for 2 days? Done. Hubitat ordered. Wink hubs going in the trash https://t.co/Zyh82SuSrI— Sean Russell (@CAMPSRSean) January 30, 2021January 30, 2021
As spotted by Android Police, the Wink subreddit is now filled with recommended alternatives and reviews of rival products and services.
Update, Feb 4 (11:45am ET) ― Wink reports that most Hubs should be back online
If you managed to stick around while Wink was enduring a 10-day outage, then you should be happy to learn that Wink services have started coming back online after the company reported that a fix was being implemented. In a status update on February 3rd, the company said that it was applying a solution, and as of today, "most" Hubs should be back online.
Wink also issued a statement regarding the outage, saying that it was applying a 25% discount to its subscribers for this and next month:
During the time that our service was inactive, we implemented a proactive subscription discount to our subscribers. All Wink subscribers are receiving a 25% discount on their current monthly charge and no action needs to be taken. We will also be applying an additional 25% discount on next month's subscription charge to all users.We intend to make this right and work to guarantee that nothing of this nature happens again.In addition to resolving the issue that occurred, our team is working tirelessly to optimize the Wink Backend and our API now that it is back up. The measures we are implementing will ensure that our system will remain stable going forward.
Amazon Echo (4th Generation)
The 4th-gen Amazon Echo offers a striking new design and much better sound than the previous generation. It also has a built-in Zigbee smart hub, allowing you to easily connect and control nearly all your smart home devices.
