$70 IS WAY TOO EXPENSIVE

Well in this case I have to defend Davis a little bit…

The problem is that Davis is way overpriced even in the US. The fact that it costs three times my monthly salary is that all the electronics imported from overseas are much more expensive here in Europe because you have to pay the shipping and especially the tax.

The thing with Chinese products is that basically, the quality is the same… believe it or not, it is like that, the truth is, even the “well known brands” today manufacture in China (Apple, Samsung etc etc…) and the parts inside the Chinese products are often the exact same… The only reason they can afford to sell for fraction of the price is that they dont really worry about patents… They usually start by selling products where they have minimal investments into development, they simply copy others, once they make some money they start developing their own and because they are now serious competition to others, the others must reduce their price as well.

Davis would be stupid if they lowered the price, they know they can afford to be overpriced because people dont really have an alternative. But look at brands like Huawei, Xaomi… they make mobile phones that are basically equivalent to all those Galaxy S6, iPhones… and they cost half. It is only a matter of time before Apple, Samsung, Sony etc. will either reduce the price or their sales will drop significantly.

Except for certain items I can’t agree with “way overpriced”. This is a low volume, specialty item, not something they can buy from a high volume third party manufacturer and stick a Davis label on. Look at RainWise or Campbell pricing, Davis appears to me to be priced for its market position.

Oregon Scientific, a Chinese company despite appearances, list priced their WMR-300 VP2 clone at $649, I found the street price around $500.

Hello Jachym…any previews of what your templates are going to look like? and will they be USA User friendly?

What a cheapskate…

Think it too expensive, write your own or purchase elsewhere.

How many software companies that develop and allows LIFETIME support and upgrades no matter the amount of versions and upgrades the software goes through?
And I dare say there is no software that equals the functionality, features etc. than WD. Go fly your “Cumulus” software flag, leave us alone cause we simply do not care.

In a nutshell… leave, air your opinion someplace else. You sound like a person who:
a. has got a bone to grind against Brian or someone related,
b. a jerk who does nothing more than look for and thrive on a reason to whine and complain and WD just happened to make the list today or
c. simply just wants to start some $h1t for the sake of just being an a$$.
d. Is a POMPOUS ASS THAT TRULY FEELS AND BELIEVES HE IS SUPERIOR, IN ALL WAY, TO ANY AND ALL IN THIS GROUP.

I looked at your app… briefly, and found it… what was the term used by another… useless… yeah, absolutely useless. 1500 other apps do the same thing so nothing special there…

Go somewhere where maybe someone will agree with you… Here, there is not much in the way of non-loyal “subjects” even when one pisses off the “king” as I have on numerous occasions, and probably will again with this little outburst but screw it, someone has got to say it and say it non-politically correct, whatever the hell that even means, I shall stay loyal to the cause. Simply go away as no one cares for your opinion. Your a pompous jerk that believes he is superior in some way when in reality is just another drop in the pond. So you work for Microsoft, and that impresses me NOT 1 second!!! Bow to your words because you work for a large software company (who, in my humble opinion, gets something right about once every 10 years while the rest of their “efforts” is nothing more then a patch fest and an abject failure) People like you with the arrogance and the “better then you” attitude make me want to take my largest firearm and place it right near the main bread pan and pull the trigger. I loath people like you and to wonder why all the hostility when you believe you can walk into a room, shoot your wad and then have the faked audacity to be surprised at all the backlash? What of freakin idiot.

I’m betting your so-called support, if there is any, meets with attitude like this to the “stupid” people related to your worthless software. Be very careful how high you stick your nose up as when it rains you could drown…

Now the moderators may officially ban me from the group since I spoke my piece and without concern that I may have insulted, hurt or otherwise destroyed this jackasses high opinion of himself.

Hi,

oh, well Ive been working on it since about March quite intensively. Right now I am in the very last stage where some people have already got a first version, which they are testing. I had entrance exams for PhD last week, which meant I had to study the last couple of months and in addition a full-time and part-time job, so it took slightly longer than I expected, but hopefully, right now I am finally getting close to the first release.

I will send you a link to a video of what it will look like, but… that video is from April and since then I added many new features, so take that as more like just to get an idea of what it will do and how it will look like.

With regards to whether it will be USA user friendly, Im not 100% sure I understand what you mean. Basically it will work like this - you will download a “basic” version. This version will contain the core template files and a few general sections - the main one will be the one concentrated on the display of weather station data (statistics, graphs, tables etc.). Then a few more, one script for forecasts, one for METARs, one for climate, then a few astronomy-related (sunrise/sunset, moon phase, daylength etc.), some general pages (contact, about station, links etc.).

And then, there will be the possibility to download new stuff. I called this “plugins”. So you will have a list of these plugins, where you will simply choose the ones you want and in a matter of a few seconds, download it and the actual install process is a matter of 5s too, because these will be specifically made for this template and will require no coding or anything. And these plugins will contain more specific scripts. My plan is that after I release the core template, I will continue developing this and release new and new stuff… I already have a to do list where I currently have more than 80 different scripts I want to add so this will be a never ending work in progress :smiley: Of course I will also be updating and further developing the already existing ones. At the beginning there will already be a few plugins available, for example a page for displaying radar images with the possibility to start it as animation etc. and this I have in several versions - one for the US, one for Europe, one for Australia… so you can then choose which one you want or you can even install all of them. Otherwise, there is of course the possibility of changing not just the design, font etc with a single command, but also possibility to choose any units you like and also language. There is one single configuration file you have to set up, where you simply write for example “F” instead of “C” and everything will be in degrees F etc.

This will then all depend on how users like it. If they like it at all and if so, what are the most demanded things. That will then set the priority in which I will be adding stuff.

Im now also working on a webpage, the actual webpage of the template, this page will have several sections - the homepage with general info, a download section, a wiki (i.e. the documentation with install instructions etc.), plugins page (a page where you will be able to download the plugins, with their description, a demo etc.) and a blog page, where I will be posting about what is new after I release it.

As you can see, I have relatively big plans :smiley: And since I am first of all not a programmer, second I started learning it 2yrs ago and just do it during nights and third, have 2 other jobs and school, it does take a bit of time. Currently my guess is it will be ready within about 2-3 weeks maximum though. There is just several bugs I still need to fix and I also have to finish the documentation and finish the actual design and content of the template page.

Here are some links to a video with an example of what it looked like in April (just general idea because I added lot of new stuff, but the overall concept stays the same):

I readed the thread and got todays best laugh…Thanks for that :smiley:
Someones of you (not the OP) did yourselves totally ridiculous from external peep point of view.

The OP have have his full rights to mentoin if he thinks the software is too expensive and you others have no right to bash him for that. Nor requesting the thread to be closed nor asking him to go elswhere either. Isn’t this WD’s supportforum?

The only reason for why the wx-stuffs are so damn pricely are lack of competition, nothing else. Just look at Davis.

@Nico
Davis not overpiced? Laugh no:2. Aren’t a pice with a minimal PCB + 30 cm wire whats manfacturing costs are well below $40 and are sold for $180 not overpriced?? (Tempsensor, prices may be wrong but you get the idea)

@Jachym
You didn’t look at Germany for the Davis?
You can get the cabled VP2 for 345

[quote author=weatherc link=topic=60864.msg486102#msg486102 date=1436109442]
I readed the thread and got todays best laugh…Thanks for that :smiley:
Someones of you (not the OP) did yourselves totally ridiculous from external peep point of view.

The OP have have his full rights to mentoin if he thinks the software is too expensive and you others have no right to bash him for that. Nor requesting the thread to be closed nor asking him to go elswhere either. Isn’t this WD’s supportforum?

The only reason for why the wx-stuffs are so damn pricely are lack of competition, nothing else. Just look at Davis.

@Nico
Davis not overpiced? Laugh no:2. Aren’t a pice with a minimal PCB + 30 cm wire whats manfacturing costs are well below $40 and are sold for $180 not overpriced?? (Tempsensor, prices may be wrong but you get the idea)

@Jachym
You didn’t look at Germany for the Davis?
You can get the cabled VP2 for 345

Not only is it overpriced, it is old technology. Is your mobile phone over 10 years old? (Mine was until 2 years ago, but I was reluctantly forced to change it because it didn’t have Bluetooth to pair with the car.) Yet the VP2 is over 10 years old in its conception and it really shows it age, with superseded technology for some items. A couple of years ago, I submitted to Davis some quick and easy suggestions for improvements. The reply was to say that they agreed it was time for VP3 but they were working on it without a time scale.

I wrote my thoughts about this at another forum so if you are interested you can have a look:

http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=25410.0

and

http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=21073.msg242512#msg242512

Apparently you didn’t read what I wrote:

“the overpriced weatherlink logger”
“Except for certain items”

And for the record I’m no fan of their business practices since the “green dot logger” affair :wink:

The bottom line is that there is no equivalent station available for a lower price and Davis is a private company whose only duty is to maintain a healthy business. If there was really a possibility to sell an equivalent station, with similar support, for a much lower price, don’t you think it would have happened years ago?

I do have a free app available (WDliveapp)
despite costs available with that (i.e yearly compiler new version upgrade costs, yearly apple developer costs, etc)
also the hours that are put into developing and supporting a software need to be offset by what you could earn if you did something else instead with that time
Luckily I enjoy this job
Because the US$ is currently strong I could drop the price…or run specials at times (and promote that when that will start…e.g 50% off for a limited time)…how does that sound?

Well if I was to buy it, I would want the Plus version, and even then, you were probably looking at prices for a used one

Nope, new one in a big German webshop. Our finnish dealer have similar robbery-prices you mentonied so it have been searched quite a bit for better prices :lol:
What i forgot from my list earlier was the 3rd party datalogger instead of the robbery-priced Davis one.

Not only is it overpriced, it is old technology.

Totally agree!

also the hours that are put into developing and supporting a software need to be offset by what you could earn if you did something else instead with that time

this is exactly what very often people dont realize… fortunately in my case, I like doing it and like helping others with their weather sites so I can do it in my free time and as much as I would love to spend more time with it, I just cant afford dropping the part-time job I have in addition to my normal full-time job in the Czech NWS

Could you send me a link to where they offer a new Davis Pro 2 Plus for that price? (I would have to have the wireless version as I cant have a cable here in my flat, but still, they would probably have wireless version much cheaper too, the best price I was able to find was at least twice as much (plus the shipping and also more difficult in case you need to apply the warranty)

I never said my example was a Plus. It was a cabled basic. If you want all the bells and whistles and wireless its of course much more expensive. Whats btw another rip-off from Davis, hundreds bucks for just one wireless link instead of cable…

The shop is echtshop.de. They have had resonable prices for years alltought the prices have increased now when euro have dropped towards USD.
The site is in German only and the support speak “bad english” but the things works well.

Thanks, I will look at it right now, I do speak German, so its ok.

EDIT: OK, so just looked at it… the cheapest cabled one, without any FARS etc. and not the Plus version is 650 EUR… so thats about what I found and unfortunately I would need the wifi anyway and then once you invest so much, I think it is worth paying a bit more and getting the Plus version and then you are way over 1000 EUR already…

Do NOT degrade yourself Brian for a few whiners. You have a product currently no one can beat. Earn your money as the never ending time and effort is well worth the current fee without playing games to grab a few of those, who obviously do not even know its full capabilities, to sway you into dropping your pricing, even temporarily. If they want to try it for the built in trial period then decide they do not like it, or would “maybe” purchase it at a reduced cost is a ploy to get you to play their game. Leave it as is.

Its ok, Im sure from what I read here and my personal opinion, Brian is way on top of things and such comments dont really stress him :smiley:

Why don’t you say what you really think?

Think it was time this thread was put to bed