Is cloud subscription worth it?

[haughty vessel]

Hi Guys,

I've been looking at the cloud subscription for quite some time, but have truly struggled seeing the value.

What is your opinion on it, would you recommend it and what are your most used features of cloud?

All of the base apps that are integrated into HA have away-from-home capabilities already.

Thanks in advance!

[silver notch]

One of the big reasons that I think that it is worth it is that you are directly supporting the project by having it. A bunch of people buy it purely for that reason and don't actually use anything from it.

The extra backup target is handy.
The voice stack stuff has also randomly been useful for me as a fallback if/when I am working on my local voice stack setup. I can switch stuff over to that to keep stuff running in the meantime.

[haughty vessel]

I'm all for supporting, but with everything being subscription based these days it's getting hard to justify all of the subscriptions 🤣

My google assistant is also linked with all the default apps from the smart products, so while the voice assistant is intriguing, I think it's not optimised enough to warrant it (based on Nabu's own information).

The remote access is the biggest attraction for me - but there's a free work around currently

[silver notch]

It is set up to be a subscription because it allows for more controlled financial planning.
But I do totally get the whole limiting your subscription count thing. A bunch of companies do abuse it to bleed you dry.

You could pay annually (you get 12 for 10 that way too) without having a renewal on then you can decide next year if you want to do it again or not.
That way has less of a subscription feel to it and more of one time support with some benefits for a year.

Everyone is going to have a slightly different opinion to if they think its worth it or not. I think it is hard to objectively come down on one side of the other.

[haughty vessel]

Appreciate the insight!
Guess I'm trying to just feel out the testimonials from people to see if they can't live without it once subscribing, or whether it's become more of a convenience to keep it rather than cancel etc.

[silver notch]

Yeah that is fair, For me its more convenience then necessity for sure. But the support aspect pushes me over the line.

Hopefully some others can drop their opinions in here too though.

[ocean trench]

i fully agree with Michael, it has great voice responds, online encrypted backup and you would support HA