Wink's home automation service has been down for a whole day

Home automation service Wink has suffered a connectivity issue that has knocked out its equipment for the better part of a day. In a tweet, the company announced that it was investigating an issue “controlling devices connected to Wink,” adding that local control was unaffected. The company also urged users not to unplug their hubs or log out of their accounts while Wink looks to fix the problem. Problems with Wink’s service began at around 10am ET on the 25th, and the company hasn’t said much of note since then.

A number of users are understandably aggrieved, saying that they’re struggling to activate lights and seeing IFTTT triggers failing. One user said that they started noticing issues with their setup as early as Friday, although that may be unconnected to the current problem. We have reached out to Wink and will update this report if we get any response.

Smart home platforms are, by definition, not the sort of thing folks can live without in case of a prolonged outage. Wink, unfortunately, is not likely to have a great reserve of goodwill left with its customers after the last year. In May 2020, it abruptly announced that users would need to begin subscribing to a $5-per-month plan or their hardware would be shut down just one week later.

At the time, Wink said that the COVID-19-tinged economic climate had forced them to make the move, or it would be forced to sell user data. Unfortunately, paying for a service does raise user expectations, and the lengthy delay and lack of communication may be the last straw for some.

[Thanks ‘Weatherman’ for the tip!]

Update, Jan 29th 2021: Wink has posted an update to its status page saying that it has now identified the issue and is implenting a fix.