New era of woo

[cwood]

Xensr to me always looked like being potentially the best of the bunch. The Trace also had GPS tracking and the ability to automatically edit and post info on GoPro videos. Shame both of them went out of business!

Because its damn hard to build a business like this from scratch...hardware, software, marketing, shipping, support and a side of social networking,,...people have no idea.

Someone said they spent all the money on yachts... Pretty funny and totally out to lunch. They have had a number of direction switches, tries and fails, probably investors questioning decisions...yet are finding a way to eke out a business. I for one signed up quickly because we have so much fun with it....and I know from experience how difficult it is.

It's not like a well funded side trip for a big device company that has all the time in the world to figure out a profitable path. They started from scratch. I admire them.

[mark van haze]

Admire them for what? For trying to squeeze out cash on an app that will add very little value to anybody with a Woo and even less for anybody without one?

Moves like these aren't beneficial to the image of Woo, in my eyes it's just damaging their reputation and they must have done the math on the possible financial return for their subscription plan while smoking fat spliffs. Trying to capture any social media vibes beyond what the initial app offered was always going to be futile. They are battling giants here and so their best bet is/was to use them for sharing recorded sessions, not trying to build some pie in the sky Woo social platform and charge for it.

Further more, I'm smelling data collection here, possibly selling those profiles for ads. Should that be the case, and you get charged for it on top... Well.

[CaliRider]

Trying to capture any social media vibes beyond what the initial app offered was always going to be futile. They are battling giants here and so their best bet is/was to use them for sharing recorded sessions, not trying to build some pie in the sky Woo social platform and charge for it.

Further more, I'm smelling data collection here, possibly selling those profiles for ads. Should that be the case, and you get charged for it on top... Well.

charging for a non necessary functionality seems futile. if someone wants to gps track there are plenty of free apps out there. is the allure of being in the woo community worth $70 a year? Mind you, that adds up quick - $70/$140/$230/$300 just to be in a social community with a feature which is widely available for free. let alone charge you for a feature where you have to take your darn phone with you! lol and if you have a woo Leo wants to charge you.

instead of buying a woo you should have just bought a smartwatch (apple watch). this is why i used the sessions app. it was either spend $$$$ on a woo which i'll use ONLY when I'm kiting, or a smartwatch which i used every day. oh, and it also tracks my kite sessions with sessions, snowboard sessions with slopes, MTB sessions with runtastic mtb and i get a discount on my health insurance because i track all my heart rate/exercises. lets face it that niche devices like woo trace xenser piq are not long for this world. my nerd buddy has a few broken woos of all versions and guess what? they are ALL THE SAME. The original version can run the same firmware as the woo 3 - leo has just been getting you guys to buy new sensors every other year when all you needed was a firmware update. its a damn ponzi scheme which has about run its course. no more money to squeeze out of getting you to buy their hardware so now leo is trying to get you to subscribe to their app with features available for free elsewhere. what a joke.

there are free trackers for almost evert smartwatch out there - if you want to share your gps activity in a cool way with sick gps videos, try https://www.relive.cc

my biggest issue with the sessions app is that its on my wrist so the jump information can sometimes be low but when i see all the jump info from my friends woo, its all about the same anyways with their errors and crap. i don't care about knowing EXACTLY how high i jump, its close enough and thats cool with me. my gps tracks are dead on and I'm getting more into surfing and the sessions app has a surfing mode and it tracks all my waves caught/attempted, etc...and man do i need to catch more waves per!! LOL someone in another thread said the tech to give us dead accurate jump heights would be stupid expensive and honestly id rather buy a new board and I'm in the market for a new harness as well. i need those to ride, not some silly jump tracker gadget.

[CALencioni]

WOO Discount
If you own a WOO, you get two benefits - you get a hefty discount on the annual subscription, AND we'll lock this price in for the next three years! How does it work? Install the latest app and connect your WOO device. The annual price will automatically be updated use it as a discount code to get the first year at an introductory price of $19.99 (vs. $69.99 for non WOO users). That's less than a cup of coffee per month ($1.67/month when billed annually). That not enough, if you subscribe with your WOO as a discount before June 1, 2019, we'll "grandfather" you into this price for the next three years. As we develop, the price for the subscription will increase, though if you use your WOO as a discount now, you'll be locked in ("grandfathered") at the initial purchase price point for three years!

We have a limited quantity available at this price tier, and we expect to reach the next (and even the next) tier rather quickly, so hurry up to get the best deal!

New users
For non-WOO users, the annual price is $69.99 ($5.83/month when billed annually, 42% off of the monthly price), and the monthly subscription fee is $9.99.

I don't get it,

1. Are they saying if I buy a woo before June 1st, I get grandfathered in as an existing user?

2. Do I need a woo to use this service, or can i just run this all through my apple watch without a woo? example- a free app in the iOS store is "sessions" and works at tracking my jump counts and height through my watch.

3. Is a "non-woo" user considered a user that owns a watch, pays the subscription fee for all metrics, but doesn't own a woo?

[Tony in FL]

Rather than needing to find a phone or watch that can stand up to a harsh salt water environment perhaps design it so that the Woo app can extract GPS data from GoPro either directly or from offloaded video files. That could be slick. Many of us already have a GoPro and they seem to be built tough.

And speaking of GoPro, why hasn't Woo come out with a WOOvie Editor that works for Windows so that we can blend Woo stats with GoPro video without having to own a Mac?

direct offload video from gopro with gps? dude that was so 2016!!
https://www.iksurfmag.com/kitesurfing-n ... uch-video/
seriously that is siiiiiick! from what i know the sessions i use was made by xenser but what the hell ever happened with this video edit thingy??!? cause now that I've seen that i WANT IT!

OK, but my point was that Woo could make the value proposition better if they could leverage a GoPro to get the GPS data, rather than requiring us to bring a phone or watch out into the water.

[CaliRider]

Rather than needing to find a phone or watch that can stand up to a harsh salt water environment perhaps design it so that the Woo app can extract GPS data from GoPro either directly or from offloaded video files. That could be slick. Many of us already have a GoPro and they seem to be built tough.

And speaking of GoPro, why hasn't Woo come out with a WOOvie Editor that works for Windows so that we can blend Woo stats with GoPro video without having to own a Mac?

direct offload video from gopro with gps? dude that was so 2016!!
https://www.iksurfmag.com/kitesurfing-n ... uch-video/
seriously that is siiiiiick! from what i know the sessions i use was made by xenser but what the hell ever happened with this video edit thingy??!? cause now that I've seen that i WANT IT!

OK, but my point was that Woo could make the value proposition better if they could leverage a GoPro to get the GPS data, rather than requiring us to bring a phone or watch out into the water.

What if GoPros had kite jump data and you didn’t neeed a woo....

[bc-sf]

WOO Discount
If you own a WOO, you get two benefits - you get a hefty discount on the annual subscription, AND we'll lock this price in for the next three years! How does it work? Install the latest app and connect your WOO device. The annual price will automatically be updated use it as a discount code to get the first year at an introductory price of $19.99 (vs. $69.99 for non WOO users). That's less than a cup of coffee per month ($1.67/month when billed annually). That not enough, if you subscribe with your WOO as a discount before June 1, 2019, we'll "grandfather" you into this price for the next three years. As we develop, the price for the subscription will increase, though if you use your WOO as a discount now, you'll be locked in ("grandfathered") at the initial purchase price point for three years!

We have a limited quantity available at this price tier, and we expect to reach the next (and even the next) tier rather quickly, so hurry up to get the best deal!

New users
For non-WOO users, the annual price is $69.99 ($5.83/month when billed annually, 42% off of the monthly price), and the monthly subscription fee is $9.99.

I don't get it,

1. Are they saying if I buy a woo before June 1st, I get grandfathered in as an existing user?

2. Do I need a woo to use this service, or can i just run this all through my apple watch without a woo? example- a free app in the iOS store is "sessions" and works at tracking my jump counts and height through my watch.

3. Is a "non-woo" user considered a user that owns a watch, pays the subscription fee for all metrics, but doesn't own a woo?

Their website is like most crap websites nowadays. All glossy hype and no real info (kinda reminds one of Fyre festival marketing!). It would be nice if they would show some example screenshots of the service.

I think you got it right from what i can tell- if you buy a woo and then sign up for their new 'service', you'll get the $20/year access. (or you can buy the woo and just use it as a list of your jump heights according to whatever algorithm).

No business can survive for long selling a one time widget (and forget customer service!) (long live xensr and trace!). We put such high expectations for a $200 nicknack. I would consider the subscription fee as a way to support the service and future product development, or at least server maintenance (ahem sessions app).
I can't imagine why anyone without a woo would want to pay $70/year to see what their smartwatch/phone already tells them for free. I don't imagine I would be willing to pay that with a woo, but $20 doesn't buy much these days (here in SF)

[CaliRider]

No business can survive for long selling a one time widget (and forget customer service!) (long live xensr and trace!). We put such high expectations for a $200 nicknack. I would consider the subscription fee as a way to support the service and future product development, or at least server maintenance (ahem sessions app).
I can't imagine why anyone without a woo would want to pay $70/year to see what their smartwatch/phone already tells them for free. I don't imagine I would be willing to pay that with a woo, but $20 doesn't buy much these days (here in SF)

good points and like minds! i think sessions app is worth $9 a month compared to the woo app but that still seems pricey. ? I know its free but they *should* charge for it. really. its saved me from buying a woo2 and woo 3 so thats worth $420 in savings right there! hahahahaha (dude, 420, who knew?)

what would you pay for it?

and yeah, $20 doesnt buy sh&t in SF. LOL

[Tony in FL]

direct offload video from gopro with gps? dude that was so 2016!!
https://www.iksurfmag.com/kitesurfing-n ... uch-video/
seriously that is siiiiiick! from what i know the sessions i use was made by xenser but what the hell ever happened with this video edit thingy??!? cause now that I've seen that i WANT IT!

OK, but my point was that Woo could make the value proposition better if they could leverage a GoPro to get the GPS data, rather than requiring us to bring a phone or watch out into the water.

What if GoPros had kite jump data and you didn’t neeed a woo....

That would be great - would rather have just one device to manage.

[CALencioni]

double post