Elgato Shifting to Focus 'Exclusively' on Line of Eve HomeKit Devices

[MacRumors]

Elgato Systems today announced that it will shift its focus "exclusively" to its line of HomeKit-connected Eve devices, in the process rebranding itself to "Eve Systems." At the same time, it confirmed plans to sell its streaming accessory division Elgato Gaming to peripheral company Corsair to continue life as a separate brand.

Under its new name, the company said that Eve Systems will offer a "constantly expanding ecosystem" of accessories that are designed exclusively for HomeKit. It also told users to look out for the next line of product announcements coming to IFA Berlin in a few months, running from August 31 through September 5.

In the announcement, Elgato founder and CEO of Eve Systems Markus Fest explained that the Eve product line will benefit from a "focused team and a dedicated organization" thanks to the gaming division's sale.

"Today, the Gaming space is more dynamic and exciting than ever, and we sought a larger partner to help us capitalize on the phenomenal opportunities ahead" said Markus Fest, Elgato's founder and now CEO of Eve Systems.

"Our gaming business has been wildly successful, and that success is inextricably linked to the Elgato brand. The brand has been with us for almost twenty years and we are obviously a little sad to see it go, but Corsair is a fantastic company and will be a great new home for Elgato. At the same time our Eve product line will benefit from a focused team and a dedicated organization. This move will further strengthen both product families."

For products that don't fall under the Eve or Gaming categories -- like Elgato's thunderbolt docks -- the company confirmed that anything that is not an Eve device will also be joining Elgato Gaming under Corsair.

The most recent HomeKit product announcements from the company came with the Eve Aqua and Eve Flare. Eve Aqua connects to your outdoor water system so you can control your sprinklers or other irrigation system through the Home app or Siri. For European users, the Eve Flare lamp is a portable LED lamp that offers six hours of illumination on one charge.

Otheriwse, the company sells numerous Eve devices on Apple.com, including the Elgato Eve Degree Connected Weather Station, Light Switch, Wireless Motion Sensor, Room Sensor, Energy Smart Plug, Button, and more.

Article Link: Elgato Shifting to Focus 'Exclusively' on Line of Eve HomeKit Devices

 

[adamjackson]

This is the same company that got famous from their "EyeTV" product, a cable tuner box that you could use to watch live TV via FireWire on your Mac. Any company participating in the Apple landscape with premium products needs to evolve and HomeKit focus makes more sense.

 

[longofest]

This is the same company that got famous from their "EyeTV" product, a cable tuner box that you could use to watch live TV via FireWire on your Mac. Any company participating in the Apple landscape with premium products needs to evolve and HomeKit focus makes more sense.

I still have my original EyeTV, which actually used USB 1 and MPEG1. Everyone was like "why not firewire/Mpeg4" at the time, but it worked alright.

 

[Fall Under Cerulean Kites]

I want to know what happened to the Eve Extend. The current state of Bluetooth LE devices limits usability for those with large homes. Short of forking out hundreds of dollars for additional Apple TVs and running them headless in closets, I have no way to communicate with my Schlage locks via HomeKit.

 

[DeepIn2U]

This is the same company that got famous from their "EyeTV" product, a cable tuner box that you could use to watch live TV via FireWire on your Mac. Any company participating in the Apple landscape with premium products needs to evolve and HomeKit focus makes more sense.

Maybe yet they make grreat and compelling Thunderbolt hubs. Let’s see how the competition fairs.

 

[silvetti]

With Xiaomi Aqara entering this market by year end, Elgato needs to step up their game because their (almost all HomeKit ones) prices are way high...

I have a few Elgato products and they are really well built and features are nice. But when xiaomi will come with HomeKit outlets at half price it will be interesting.

I love competition!

 

[iJC-1976]

Hopefully they will work on the product line's connectivity issues. I have 3 Eve Light Switches and they constantly fail have to be reset if I want to use them with HomeKit.

 

[justperry]

With Xiaomi Aqara entering this market by year end, Elgato needs to step up their game because their (almost all HomeKit ones) prices are way high...

I have a few Elgato products and they are really well built and features are nice. But when xiaomi will come with HomeKit outlets at half price it will be interesting.

I love competition!

I am not sure you can compare these two, pretty sure eve has these special chips in them which were needed before, Apple now has new rules for Homekit, those chips are not needed anymore so now it's cheaper to make Homekit enabled stuff.

 

[silvetti]

I am not sure you can compare these two, pretty sure eve has these special chips in them which were needed before, Apple now has new rules for Homekit, those chips are not needed anymore so now it's cheaper to make Homekit enabled stuff.

I hope you are right.

 

[justperry]

I hope you are right.

How HomeKit's software authentication works

 

[silvetti]

How HomeKit's software authentication works

I meant that software authentication is optional. So Elgato might choose to continue using hardware (as they don’t have a hub) and keep prices high.
I’m not blaming Elgato only, philips hue lights are also another example of overpriced.

 

[justperry]

I meant that software authentication is optional. So Elgato might choose to continue using hardware (as they don’t have a hub) and keep prices high.
I’m not blaming Elgato only, philips hue lights are also another example of overpriced.

I agree they are on the expensive side, but I also had Chinese stuff, it works and seems to be a solid product but you'll just don't know if they are safe to use.

Xiaomi has some good stuff, but as long as you buy them from online Chinese vendors you just don't know if it's a copy or not.

 

[Janichsan]

"Our gaming business has been wildly successful, and that success is inextricably linked to the Elgato brand."

"…so we totally thought it makes sense to sell off this successful division."

Business logic.

This is the same company that got famous from their "EyeTV" product, …

…which was another successful product line until they decided to sell it off to Geniatech, who ran the brand into the ground.

 

[harriska2]

…which was another successful product line until they decided to sell it off to Geniatech, who ran the brand in the ground.

Rip eyeTV. Geniatech is horrible and totally broke the software. I wish I could find the old version before Geniatech.

 

[ozthegweat]

Still haven't released the new Eve Home that was promised for March 2018:
https://www.evehome.com/en/news/the-most-popular-indoor-sensor-for-homekit-gets-even-better

 

[Pupi]

I own 2 Elgato Eve Energy (euro plug), and while they are nice when they work, they tend to start to fail after a few months, you turn them on and off and they don’t really change state, even if you hear a little “click” coming from inside, and their status changes for Homekit. E.g, you turn them off but they stay on, light on, and still letting power through, although they change to “off” in homekit. Not very impressed for the price, hoping for more players to come to this field.

 

[walstib]

I have several Eve HomeKit devices and they all have one thing in common — none of them work very well.

They have ongoing connectivity issues.

Unless they improve performance, I won’t be buying any more.

 

[kurticus]

I want to know what happened to the Eve Extend. The current state of Bluetooth LE devices limits usability for those with large homes. Short of forking out hundreds of dollars for additional Apple TVs and running them headless in closets, I have no way to communicate with my Schlage locks via HomeKit.

This is essentially what I've had to do. I have 2 ATV 4Ks, in use with TVs (1 in basement, 1 on main floor) and a 3rd headless ATV 4th gen (non-4K) in a closet in a basement bedroom near the back of the house so my Schlage locks on the front and back of the house have sufficient BT LE proximity. I also have an August lock on my garage door - it has both WiFi and BT but is too far away for BT, so I put an old 4th gen. Airport Base Station in the garage in wireless extend mode.

Yes, it's some extra dollars - but everything works amazingly smooth.

 

[macduke]

It's good that they are because it seems like many companies don't care. Hopefully Corsair takes care of these other products like Weber did with the iGrill. I've actually been eyeing their higher-end game capture cards that do real-time broadcast as a means to connect my Xbox to an iMac as a display if I end up upgrading to that instead of the Mac Pro in the next year. I have an older model that I used for a while when I used to produce gaming content and it was a good product.

I hope that at some point they expand their weather product to a fully fledged station. It would be neat to be able to ask Siri about current conditions outside my house, and tie-in HomeKit actions. For instance, if the rain collector hasn't detected enough rain then it will calculate how long it should run the sprinkler system to compensate. It can also factor in how much water to use based on temperature, humidity, and even evaporation rates caused by higher wind speeds. I imagine there are other things you could hook into data like this that I haven't thought of yet, but mostly I want it because I'm a weather geek. Netatmo makes a personal weather station with accessories that would suit my needs if they added HomeKit, though I wonder if Siri Shortcuts in iOS 12 would be able to do what I need if they can add support for it.

I'd also like to see them make an alarm system to hook into all of their sensors. Ring's new alarm system is coming out on July 4th but as far as I can tell it doesn't support HomeKit. They've been promising support for my doorbell and floodlight for ages so who knows. They're also owned by Amazon now which makes me hesitant, but I don't think these interior products have microphones or cameras so I think I'm good? I might hold off on early bugs, check out reviews, and get it during a holiday sale. The $10/mo service for 24/7 home monitoring with LTE backup plus DVR for all of my cameras is really tempting. I already pay $6/mo for both cameras now so it's a great deal. But I trust Elgato more.

 

[Junior117]

Well, this is a bit disappointing. I really liked their gaming products. I mean, at least Corsair will probably take good care of it and not mess it up, but... I don't know. As long as they don't mess with the quality of the products, I guess this is fine.

 

[Kaibelf]

It's good that they are because it seems like many companies don't care. Hopefully Corsair takes care of these other products like Weber did with the iGrill.

What a bizarre coincidence. I LITERALLY was just talking about iGrill as a potential buy for my patio about an hour ago. I'm on the fence. What are your thoughts on it? I have the Weber, but I am always leery when a company like that tries to do things alien to them (I'm looking at you, Nokia/Withings).

 

[beanbaguk]

I'm another Eve user and agree they need to sort out the Bluetooth LE issues.

• The range is simply not good enough. Where is Eve Extend?!?! It was announced a year ago and still nothing.
• Why won't they use WiFi on the mains connected products? I use two sockets but even using one as a Christmas tree controller was touch and go. The BT range is simply terrible. It wasn't able to connect to my ATV4 box which was about 10m away but hidden by my couch and a table. Pretty poor.
• They MUST reduce their prices. I've been tempted with their new room thermometer and humidity sensor, but €60 is just too much when I can pick up a Xiaomi one for $10. Yes, it doesn't have HomeKit, but the additional $60 is a lot to justify that!
• I also find their stuff is very slow to respond. I've also got a lot of Philips Hue lights throughout my home. There are serious delays when interacting between the two. Maybe it's a HomeKit issue, who knows.

Either way, Eve need to up their game and with some mentioning Xiaomi entering the marketing, this could get very interesting!

 

[Smigit]

With Xiaomi Aqara entering this market by year end, Elgato needs to step up their game because their (almost all HomeKit ones) prices are way high...

Install Home Assistant (or Homebridge) and you can already hook up Xiaomi gear. You need to get a hub but after that the sensors are wayyyyy cheaper then Elgato's and even upfront a Xiaomi hub + sensor is considerably cheaper than any Elgato kit. I realise the Eve lineup has the Homekit authentication hardware costs to cover, but they now need to pivot and reduce prices which may or may not mean using software authentication. Many of Eve's products are very interchangeable with other companies, especially things like Door sensors etc if you're going to use Apples Home app to configure things, so they need to be price competitive.

I actually find the much cheaper Xiaomi stuff works better than Elgato's. The use of Bluetooth is a bit of an issue, especially if you have an Apple TV as a hub and there's a distance between the hardware. Frankly the Zigbee used by the cheaper options is a much more suitable protocol for home automation.

 

[George Dawes]

I bought quite a few of their eyetv tv/sat gizmos , they worked brilliantly in their day

Now with streaming tv and the appletv , recording stuff has become redundant imo

I wish them well in their future endeavours !

 

[silvetti]

Install Home Assistant (or Homebridge) and you can already hook up Xiaomi gear. You need to get a hub but after that the sensors are wayyyyy cheaper then Elgato's and even upfront a Xiaomi hub + sensor is considerably cheaper than any Elgato kit. I realise the Eve lineup has the Homekit authentication hardware costs to cover, but they now need to pivot and reduce prices which may or may not mean using software authentication. Many of Eve's products are very interchangeable with other companies, especially things like Door sensors etc if you're going to use Apples Home app to configure things, so they need to be price competitive.

I actually find the much cheaper Xiaomi stuff works better than Elgato's. The use of Bluetooth is a bit of an issue, especially if you have an Apple TV as a hub and there's a distance between the hardware. Frankly the Zigbee used by the cheaper options is a much more suitable protocol for home automation.

Yeah I know
I have Z-Wave devices (thru Razberry GPIO module) and I used IKEA TRÅDFRI lights (before they got HomeKit added) as well
Works quite nicely.
I also ordered myself a hub, 4 temperature (humidity,temp,pressure) sensors and 2 water sensors (for floods) for the same price as a Elgato Eve Power outlet.
Even with the Apple chip, that’s still WAY to high price, for me at least