Man I have been a Remarkable user since the initial crowdfunding, but I feel like they are about to throw it.
Many of these features were free up until now. Yes, we get grandfathered in, for now, but you gotta agree to a new TOS which I am sure makes this a time limited offer if they so choose.
These niche devices need their community, people who are not only taking a lot of notes, drawing a ton or annotating many pdfs, but are willing to invest in this particular platform.
These people you probably want on your side as a company. And yet, look at this lackluster announcement.
Who is to read this and come away with a positive opinion? Current users don’t gain anything that wasn’t already free or announced. They just face the danger of eventually having to pay for what they thought was free.
And new users? 8 bucks for yet another cloud storage and little else.
I mean, I appreciate that we now teach revelation principle and two part tariffs in intro econ and mba classes, but you can also blow it in other ways, exhibit A: this announcement.
I started bullet journaling for work a couple of months ago, and I was about to pull the trigger on buying a remarkable because I like everything about bujo except for the book itself.
I was waiting for my next paycheck to buy one, and then this happened right before. Now I’m opting to just stick with my book.
Smooth move, remarkable.
My favorite part is how they tell you that you’re saving money on the hardware, but having just recently checked all the pricing I can tell you that they increased the base cost on everything to mitigate that.
$100/year or else I "won’t unlock the full potential of (my) paper tablet" that I just paid $400 for? $60/year for cloud storage? What happened to connecting to the Dropbox/OneDrive/iCloud storage I already have and calling it day? Oh, right, recurring revenue. (EDIT: OIC, 3rd-party cloud storage is in the $100/year tier. But then WTF would I need your unlimited cloud...oh, never mind.)
I've recently been trying to talk myself into a remarkable. Now I don't have to. Thanks, Remarkable.
Charging for cloud storage is fine, but gating features like Dropbox sync, handwriting recognition and sending emails behind the "premium" tier monthly subscription is ridiculous. If a $50 tablet can do all this out of the box, a $450+ one should as well, especially when it is sold specifically for the purpose of note taking.
Totally lame. I have tried so many note taking services and apps that my head spins when I think about it. Notion, Notability, OneNote, Evernote, Apple Notes, Google Keep, Squid, and more...
At this point, I am 100% OneNote and a physical paper notebook. I use OneNote on every single device I own including a Raspberry Pi. I use the handwriting features of OneNote with an iPad pro to sketch ideas while researching. I can also keep handwritten todo's for bigger projects organized with OneNote. I use klipper from my Desktop and Laptop to capture websites into OneNote books all organized by topic. I can get these on my iPhone and iPad. My garage houses my CNC and 3D printers running on Raspberry Pi's. I can look up settings and configurations for my machines inside the notebooks and modify them as needed or just copy and paste from notebook to commandline... all sync'ed to EVERY.DEVICE.I.OWN with a browser or native support in most cases.
These walled gardens are sooooo tired. My paper notebook is the backup and used when I want to sketch or think without distraction from the internet's ubiquitous pull. I take pictures and post those notes into OneNote every now and then to develop the idea further. OneNote on the iPhone makes that super simple and the friction is literally two clicks.
Sometimes, my handwriting will be legible enough to strait OCR into a notebook! I find the OCR to be remarkable for most things, but its not perfect and fails too. However, the whole ecosystem is very much worth the price!
I have a ReMarkable 1 and II (which I bought for my partner as a gift). They are nice e-readers that are well built. They really do fail on their key promise as a paper replacement however. The one saving grace of having spent so much money on the device is the "Send to ReMarkable" extension in my browser.
I received the email a few days ago telling my that those cloud based services, which were advertised as part of the product when we purchased it, would be switching to a subscription service.
Thew new service appears to be offered for FREE to us because we already purchased the devices. Phew!
That said, I think this is going to tank their sales going forward. The TCO on the device has now increased dramatically.
The new service is currently offered for free to people who purchased a device from them before October 12, 2021, if they accept the new terms and conditions. I have to wonder how long that free subscription will last. There is nothing in the notices they sent about how long the subscription will last. There are FAQ entries, which, rather than making any concrete promises, have statements like 'We plan to offer free access to Connect for as long as we're able to. There are things we can't control that might affect this', and 'If we do make any changes, we’ll strive to give you free access for as long as you want it'. This type of change seems vaguely familiar, and I would not be surprised if 'things we can't control' will happen to arise about one or two years from now.
When the change does happen, the new terms of service require you agree that, by them sending you an email with 30 days notice, you'll be deemed to automatically consent to any new charges and fees if you continue to use the service, so you'll probably want to keep a close eye on your inbox:
>reMarkable reserves the right to change the subscription fees or applicable charges and to institute new charges and fees, upon thirty (30) days prior notice (which may be sent by email). Your continued use of reMarkable Connect after the end of the notice period of the aforementioned changes to fees or charges constitute your consent to such fees or charges.
None of this affects me too much, as I've never used their cloud services, use syncthing for synchronization, and bought the device for its (partial) openness, even if that openness appears to have been forced on them by GPLv3 requirements.
I'm in the same boat. I use the rM extensively for meeting notes, but I have never been able to give up on having a paper notebook as well. The problem is mostly the ease of page-flicking; skipping forward and backward on an e-ink device is an O(N) operation, while in a physical book it is O(1). The same problem has basically forced me towards using a Kindle only for fiction where the content is linear - for technical material, I still buy physical books.
I have not figured out how to jump directly to chapters yet, and not sure if it’s possible. I uploaded a 900 page ebook, and gave up trying to browse to the page where I left off.
I’m a very happy ReMarkable 2 user, and I have pre-ordered it more than a year ago which means I don’t have to pay anything.
Yet I think the linked page is an example of a terrible marketing: instead of highlighting the benefits of the premium service, they are emphasizing how horrible your user experience will be if you don’t buy one.
Regardless of your stance on their pricing action, that’s a grave marketing mistake. I hope they will fix that.
The user group on Facebook did not take the news of this new subscription well at all.
Personally I’m on the fence about it, I got my remarkable 2 last year and I’ve been very pleased with all the updates and features they’ve added to it, I’m also pleased that existing purchasers and users are grandfathered in to the new plan.
What I’m less enthusiastic about is for the potential of new features being exclusive to a higher tier plan than the grandfathered connect plan.
I’m less enthusiastic about recommending the system to new users as well because of the initial expense of the tablet and the ongoing increased costs to ownership that new users will face.
I know many creative types who would love to use this solution, but the expense of the subscription on top of the cost of the device means that it’s prohibitively expensive for them.
I wish remarkable well with this venture because it was probably a difficult choice to make, the risks of potentially closing the door on some new users must have potentially outweighed the revenue gains on new customers. It can’t have sat well with everyone at the organisation, given how they’ve been so good with new features and updates to both versions of the hardware.
Completely agree with you. I preordered both gen 1 and gen 2, and after receiving the gen 2 I passed my gen 1 around among friends interested in remarkable to help them decide if the device fits their usage pattern.
IMO remarkable already have extremely stiff competition from the iPads, and the only advantage is it’s eink display. The iPad is pretty much better in every other dimension except for the eink display, but then it’s different rather than worse, since it allows for much more applications (graphics, movies, etc). I truly wish the best for remarkable and for them to start the flood of more high quality eink reader/writer devices.
There 3 Options:
1. Connect: $7.99 per month
2. Connect Lite: $4.99 per month
3. No Plan: but the device costs more
I dug in deep to find the prices so others don't have to. Personally, I'm fine with this model a lot of the great features are probably supported by doing compute in the cloud and there are also huge advantages to having storage in the cloud.
1. the device without subscription is crippled in unnecessary ways (access to third-party cloud-services like Dropbox, for instance)
2. the already high cost of the hardware relative to other options.
I've been looking at ReMarkable since I saw a prototype that a friend was using. But in the end I just knew it would join the pile of unused gadgets (with good intentions) that litter my home.
A subscription service really is the nail in the coffin for me.
Outside of Cloud Storage (which is is not worth $8/mo) and handwritting there is nothing in their services that require cloud..
The storage integration should be on the device, they choose to make it via the cloud service. There is no technical reason they could not have made it work directly on the device.
Further their 2 largest competitors in the Space, SuperNote, and Boox all seem to be able to offers these features and more for free.
This has soured me on reMarkable, and probably means that I won't buy the gen3 device when they get to it - despite me having been a big advocate for them until now.
Not everything needs to be a subscription. I don't care about your cloud storage (in fact, I would prefer to just use my own), and the other "features" should be table stakes for something which costs so much to buy in the first place.
Yeah at first glance this service's rollout seems terrible. You are dogged all through the checkout process with dark patterns and threats that your device will cost more while doing less if you don't subscribe... why would I buy this at all then?
There's a saying that for every trend there's an anti-trend. I do wonder when we'll reach a critical mass of subscription services such that a preference against subscriptions in general becomes a trend.
My impression is that the reMarkable has pretty poor hardware, and a rather exotic software (for a tablet). Which means they are limited in what they can do on the device, and the support they can harvest from community. Which also means, outsourcing stuff to the cloud is a natural effect, which means demanding money for running the cloud is also natural.
For similar reasons the device is expensive and still has a rather poor situation because it's quite special, with a relative small market. Which means it's trapped in a situation where it needs more supporting customers to deliver a good device, but to gain more customers it needs to deliver a good experience.
I got the e-mail to grandfather me in due to my recent purchase of the second gen device. It was a tough sell for many due to price before a subscription may doom it further.
I am surprised to see no mentioned of Onyx Boox Air in this thread. I bought it recently instead of Remarkable 2 and it's amazing.
You simply can't beat open ecosystem like android with some proprietary crap (unless you're FAANG). Having chrome browser fully in-sync with desktop one is a killer feature for me.
I went ahead and bought a boox air within a week of the original connect service announcement (yet to arrive). I originally wanted a RM after trying a coworker's RM1 but the connect announcement pushed me away.
With supernote currently giving a roadmap that improves handwriting recognition and boox allegedly having the ability to convert and search handwritten notes already, the remarkable connect plan is very unattractive.
User and avocate of the rm2 here; it completely replaced my notepad/s in and out of the office.
Worth mentioning that they have given lifetime access to existing customers, but I had been planning on giving devices to staff at the end of the year, this announcement has significantly cooled my enthusiasm.
If Remarkable staff are reading and are willing to extend the lifetime offer to existing clients for new purchases, feel free to speak up..
>Worth mentioning that they have given lifetime access to existing customers, but I had been planning on giving devices to staff at the end of the year, this announcement has significantly cooled my enthusiasm.
Notice that they avoid saying ‘lifetime’ anywhere, or saying anything about how long that access will last in their announcements and communications. They do discuss the length of the access in their FAQ, where they say that they plan to offer the free access for ´as long as we're able to’, but that ‘there are things we can't control that might affect this’, along with a number of other vague statements. The terms of service, even for the free subscription, has you agree that they can start charging you at any time after 30 days notice, with no other consent or acknowledgment from you. Everything seems to be written with the expectation of removing the free access after disappointment with the new subscription service subsides.
$WORK allotted each employee a $500USD stipend for our at-home office space. I was just about to buy the rm2, when this change occurred. Instantly soured me on the device.
I can use Dropbox and Google drive on a 2011 laptop running Win7, already EOL'd for 2 years. Even when desktop sync is no longer supported, the web client will still work.
What will happen when these guys get bored and move on to something else?
This does not make me very happy. I already own the tablet, so I get the service for free, but I can't recommend it anymore. For $ 100 per year, it's fairly expensive just to own. And without the service... I mean it's usable, but not something I'd recommend. reMarkable does not support USB mass storage, but it has a pretty buggy Web UI over USB - which will be your only choice if you choose to go with the No Plan route (as far as I understand it). I'd be fine if they were charging for "premium features", but the file synchronization PC - tablet is a needed feature.
We’re excited to be launching Connect, our brand new subscription service.
Connect replaces our existing cloud service and its associated features moving forward.
We want to offer all our existing customers full free access to Connect. Our way to thank all of you for believing in us right from the start.
All you need to do is log in to My reMarkable to view and accept our new terms and conditions.
Accept new terms and conditions
To ensure you can continue storing all your notes in the cloud, using our desktop and mobile apps, and enjoying features such as Handwriting conversion and Send by email, please accept our new terms and conditions.
Your free access to Connect includes all new launch features, such as integration with Google Drive and Screen Share, and applies regardless of if you own a reMarkable 1 or 2.
When assessing e-book / e-ink options earlier this year, what soured me on reMarkable was its anaemic onboard storage (16 GB) and lack of extensibility. I'd written the company regarding plans for expansion. When reMarkable II was announced ... and continued to have only 16GB storage, I passed. Note that the price differential between 16 and even 128 GB storage is only a few tens of dollars.
The notion of a Linux-based tablet was appealing. I hugely dislike Android. However I purchased an Onyx BOOX with 64 GB onboard storage. It is a fairly customised Android build (and largely de-Googled). This provides access to several useful apps (Firefox, Pocket, and Termux most notably), as well as built-in Bluetooth support meaning external keyboards can be used. (reMarkable supports this only through a hardware connection.)
I'd really like a viable Linux tablet. I'm keeping an eye on Pine's offerings. But reMarkable appear to be headed in an unfortunate direction.
My interpretation is that reMarkable are crippling onboard storage (much as Google have on Android devices) to drive adoption of cloud-based services, whether for surviellance (in Google's case) or subscription revenues (in reMarkable's).
Not at all surprised. This is pretty much the fate of all "minimalistic" devices like this (the freewrite comes to mind as well). Minimal just means that they reserve the right to put necessary features behind subscription walls.
What this also means long term is that any openness of the device is under a Damocles sword and will be actively expanded except where GPL demands it. The benefit of openness does not appear directly in a spreadsheet like a subscription service does, and if people start trying to supercede the subscription service, they will attack it.
When I see a hardware company shifting toward subscription revenue, it makes me wonder if they see decreasing revenue opportunities for their hardware business. Apple has shifted toward subscriptions, undoubtedly in part because they could see that iPhones are no longer changing significantly from year to year.
Could this be one of the reasons Remarkable is launching this service? Or are they just trying to get more revenue (and higher profit margins) out of their existing business?
> “When I see a hardware company shifting toward subscription revenue, it makes me wonder if they see decreasing revenue opportunities for their hardware business.”
it’s almost never because of a revenue decline. it’s almost certainly revenue plateauing that’s seen as a problem, in a political economy that simplistically only values ‘more’. i’m sure remarkable could be a good niche business (where niche is many, many millions of dollars), but that’s clearly not enough. diverting limited resources from developing better on-device software to cloud-based software is the telling move here. many companies are capable delivering enough incremental value over time to create a (more slowly) growing, sustainable business without instituting a subscription model (logitech or even pre-itunes apple, for instance).
reMarkable might do it for me if they had a more powerful CPU onboard and a way to get your code to run on it so the device can be tailored to solve more use-cases.
I'm hesitant to say I want an app-store, because it implies a lot of stuff I don't want, but something like an app-store would make it a very different proposition. It would turn a single use device into a platform. It feels a bit silly to point this out in 2021. I can't say I understand the reMarkable product strategy. There is something extremely Norwegian about it: let's limit our scope to what we're comfortable with and keep ambitions in check. We Norwegians like to play it safe - so we rarely make a difference when it comes to innovation.
I've been on the fence with reMarkable since it was launched. Waiting to see which direction it would head in. I think this announcement probably means it isn't going to be a device for me.
I'm simply not looking for yet another device that requires some form of ongoing engagement (monthly payment) to merely work. I try hard to reduce the number of things sucking money out of my account whether I use them or not.
In order to justify that it would have to be on par with my mobile in terms of "importance" - and right now the reMarkable kind of struggles to beat pen and paper for me. This makes me a bit sad, because I think there is a lot of untapped potential in eInk form factors. Especially form factors that lend themselves to interactivity.
I think reMarkable needs to multiply all their ambitions by an order of magnitude or two, find funding and get to work. This announcement feels a bit like they're giving up on having ambitions.
> "reMarkable might do it for me if they had a more powerful CPU onboard and a way to get your code to run on it so the device can be tailored to solve more use-cases."
The reMarkable is very intentionally an e-ink notebook and very little else. If you want a device that can be tailored to solve more use cases, one of the e-ink Android tablets would probably be a better choice.
It's telling that they (a) Never state how long the free access for existing customers will last, and (b) force you to agree to terms which say they can change the price within 30 days at any time they would like.
It is quite disappointing that they are trying to extract value via subscriptions for what is the functionality of a piece of hardware that they advertised.
I hope this won't undermine the openness of the device. It seems quite apparent that someone will use the root access of the device to implement the paid features on their own and package it as an alternative UI. And at that point, reMarkable has no other way to prevent that than by locking the device.
I was almost ready to buy a reMarkable 2 even though I don't really need one, because of how cool a gadget that thing is. You know what I mean, right? Looking for reasons and excuses, trying to justify the purchase no matter what.
After this change it should be possible for all European consumers to return their product on RMA.
The product is sold with a feature that makes it possible to convert notes to text. This feature _only_ work when having a subscription. Ie. without a subscription the product is broken, as the advertised feature does not work.
It's a real shame. I was seriously considering buying one of these when the next model came out but this is a hard "no" from me, and I don't think they could possibly regain trust after attempting this.
I was considering buying one as a gift, but there is no way I am going to saddle a family member with the cost of a subscription for what should be core functionality of a device.
What an absurdly idiotic thing to do. You can try this when you're WhatsApp or Google, and you have stickiness and network effects, but here? If you have more and more competitors every day (boox, kobo) and no serious moat, it is no time to turn into dicks (subscription for basic features).
I've recommended rM2 widely, and know of > 30 sales reMarkable made due to my recommendations. I will not be recommending it any longer.
So, some people recommended this thing to me for note taking. However, there was VERY aggressive marketing for it on my Facebook. I tend to react to aggressive marketing with an equal and opposite reaction so I don't have one.
And now... they want you to pay a subscription to access your Dropbox ? I'm guessing they spent too much money on marketing so now they need to recoup it somehow.
Ignoring all of the debates about business strategy etc, if you assume you'd be able to use the device for about 5-years before replacing it, this is effectively raising the price from $399 to $779 without adding any additional appealing features.
I've considered splurging on one of these and resisted at $400. Nearly $800 seems like a huge stretch.
Sigh. I really love my reMarkable 2 and recommended it to a number of people. Moving unlimited cloud storage behind a $5/mo paywall is the end of that. Deleting anything you haven't updated in 50 days means you have no backup for those notes if your device gets dropped. (Which happened to me.)
Even if I was okay with this, it makes me worry about the long term survival of the company.
For myself, I have my own backups from installing rsync with toltec. It'll be a few years (hopefully more if the hardware lasts) before I need to find an alternative.
They sent new features over the years (i own one since they came first to market). I do think it's better to pay for subscription and get updates to your device than be forced to buy a new device every two years to get new software (aka Android business model).
Going to tell my story, again, as I think it's important.
Remarkable seem like the type of company that are pouring money into marketing and not much else. To their detriment.
I bought a Remarkable 2 in September. Realized I did not want it, because it was missing a core feature I needed (the ability to search hand written notes, which Goodnotes does, Remarkable does not). Remarkable sends their products via DHL. Who, separately, are an awful shipment carrier.
I called DHL, to have them return to sender (requested by Remarkable). DHL, after 2 days failed to do this... they kept trying to contact whomever had the shipment... why they can't just mark it as return to sender in their system? No one knows.
The product arrived at my doorstep, no signature, just dropped on the porch. Okay.. great. I start the return process. It took Remarkable 4 days to get this process done. First day they email with a return portal, it couldn't find my purchase. Second day they finally respond to my plea for help and send a second portal. That one worked, but the Remarkable support team are terrible and sent incorrect instructions. 3rd day I finally got it squared away and they approved my return the 4th day, which I got shipped out on the 5th day (again via DHL). Oh, and one other mark against Remarkable, they kept referring to my return as "return for replacement" instead of "return for refund" so I had to correct them about 8 times to make sure they were actually going to refund instead of send me a replacement.
It arrives at a local hub. Where it is stuck for 30 days.
During this time, I call DHL to start an investigation as to why it's stalled. They spend 4 days unable to come up with an answer. Reach out to Remarkable again, they start their own investigation and say repeatedly that it is "on it's way." Meanwhile it doesn't move.
Now DHL is only Remarkable's problem in so far as they choose who their carrier is. I didn't get to choose to send it differently. So they can't control what DHL does, but they do need to take ownership of their terrible choice. IMO anyway, it's what I'd do as customer support.
While all this is happening, I'm asking for a refund because the product seems lost in shipment. Around day 20 I ask for a supervisor.
Supervisor responds twice, first time "we're issuing your refund and you should see it in 24 hours." then an hour later "We'll immediately issue you a refund when we receive the product which you'll see in 24-48 hours after."
After day 30 the product finally arrives in Hong Kong, they said 24-48 hours for a refund. 5 days later still no refund.
I thankfully, filed a dispute and it's being taken care of now. But my advice is avoid these clowns.
The product is kind of cool, but their support is awful. Their team is inept. They can't take responsibility for their shortcomings.
This was for a return, imagine dealing with this for an in warranty repair/replacement? Ugh. Awful.
To be clear, we're nearing 45 days from original cancellation and still no direct refund from Remarkable.
I’ve had a similar experience with my RM1 that had a broken screen when I started it for the first time. It literally took months before I could get a replacement. Their TrustPilot page is a stream of horror stories.
Just from a marketing perspective, I think it would have been wise if they'd held off their Google Drive integration announcement and made it part of their premium tier.
The terms of service are unclear for existing users. Can anyone on this thread add clarity for
1. How long is the term of the 'free' offer for existing users? No term is specified. Does that mean they will attempt billing (or cutoff service) after a year?
2. What exactly will happen to the existing online services, and when? They mention this is a transition but there's no timeline. Is this a new platform from scratch or just a paywall on what already exists?
zwaps|4 years ago
Many of these features were free up until now. Yes, we get grandfathered in, for now, but you gotta agree to a new TOS which I am sure makes this a time limited offer if they so choose.
These niche devices need their community, people who are not only taking a lot of notes, drawing a ton or annotating many pdfs, but are willing to invest in this particular platform.
These people you probably want on your side as a company. And yet, look at this lackluster announcement.
Who is to read this and come away with a positive opinion? Current users don’t gain anything that wasn’t already free or announced. They just face the danger of eventually having to pay for what they thought was free. And new users? 8 bucks for yet another cloud storage and little else.
I mean, I appreciate that we now teach revelation principle and two part tariffs in intro econ and mba classes, but you can also blow it in other ways, exhibit A: this announcement.
stronglikedan|4 years ago
tsuujin|4 years ago
I was waiting for my next paycheck to buy one, and then this happened right before. Now I’m opting to just stick with my book.
Smooth move, remarkable.
My favorite part is how they tell you that you’re saving money on the hardware, but having just recently checked all the pricing I can tell you that they increased the base cost on everything to mitigate that.
mikestew|4 years ago
I've recently been trying to talk myself into a remarkable. Now I don't have to. Thanks, Remarkable.
tonoto|4 years ago
paxys|4 years ago
davidandgoliath|4 years ago
monkmartinez|4 years ago
At this point, I am 100% OneNote and a physical paper notebook. I use OneNote on every single device I own including a Raspberry Pi. I use the handwriting features of OneNote with an iPad pro to sketch ideas while researching. I can also keep handwritten todo's for bigger projects organized with OneNote. I use klipper from my Desktop and Laptop to capture websites into OneNote books all organized by topic. I can get these on my iPhone and iPad. My garage houses my CNC and 3D printers running on Raspberry Pi's. I can look up settings and configurations for my machines inside the notebooks and modify them as needed or just copy and paste from notebook to commandline... all sync'ed to EVERY.DEVICE.I.OWN with a browser or native support in most cases.
These walled gardens are sooooo tired. My paper notebook is the backup and used when I want to sketch or think without distraction from the internet's ubiquitous pull. I take pictures and post those notes into OneNote every now and then to develop the idea further. OneNote on the iPhone makes that super simple and the friction is literally two clicks.
Sometimes, my handwriting will be legible enough to strait OCR into a notebook! I find the OCR to be remarkable for most things, but its not perfect and fails too. However, the whole ecosystem is very much worth the price!
marifjeren|4 years ago
jmacd|4 years ago
I received the email a few days ago telling my that those cloud based services, which were advertised as part of the product when we purchased it, would be switching to a subscription service.
Thew new service appears to be offered for FREE to us because we already purchased the devices. Phew!
That said, I think this is going to tank their sales going forward. The TCO on the device has now increased dramatically.
cge|4 years ago
When the change does happen, the new terms of service require you agree that, by them sending you an email with 30 days notice, you'll be deemed to automatically consent to any new charges and fees if you continue to use the service, so you'll probably want to keep a close eye on your inbox:
>reMarkable reserves the right to change the subscription fees or applicable charges and to institute new charges and fees, upon thirty (30) days prior notice (which may be sent by email). Your continued use of reMarkable Connect after the end of the notice period of the aforementioned changes to fees or charges constitute your consent to such fees or charges.
None of this affects me too much, as I've never used their cloud services, use syncthing for synchronization, and bought the device for its (partial) openness, even if that openness appears to have been forced on them by GPLv3 requirements.
AstroDogCatcher|4 years ago
hoppla|4 years ago
vtail|4 years ago
Yet I think the linked page is an example of a terrible marketing: instead of highlighting the benefits of the premium service, they are emphasizing how horrible your user experience will be if you don’t buy one.
Regardless of your stance on their pricing action, that’s a grave marketing mistake. I hope they will fix that.
rchaud|4 years ago
No need to put lipstick on a pig. It's a monthly fee to connect to Dropbox and Google Drive.
Tsiklon|4 years ago
Personally I’m on the fence about it, I got my remarkable 2 last year and I’ve been very pleased with all the updates and features they’ve added to it, I’m also pleased that existing purchasers and users are grandfathered in to the new plan.
What I’m less enthusiastic about is for the potential of new features being exclusive to a higher tier plan than the grandfathered connect plan.
I’m less enthusiastic about recommending the system to new users as well because of the initial expense of the tablet and the ongoing increased costs to ownership that new users will face.
I know many creative types who would love to use this solution, but the expense of the subscription on top of the cost of the device means that it’s prohibitively expensive for them.
I wish remarkable well with this venture because it was probably a difficult choice to make, the risks of potentially closing the door on some new users must have potentially outweighed the revenue gains on new customers. It can’t have sat well with everyone at the organisation, given how they’ve been so good with new features and updates to both versions of the hardware.
panda88888|4 years ago
IMO remarkable already have extremely stiff competition from the iPads, and the only advantage is it’s eink display. The iPad is pretty much better in every other dimension except for the eink display, but then it’s different rather than worse, since it allows for much more applications (graphics, movies, etc). I truly wish the best for remarkable and for them to start the flood of more high quality eink reader/writer devices.
tenpoundhammer|4 years ago
I dug in deep to find the prices so others don't have to. Personally, I'm fine with this model a lot of the great features are probably supported by doing compute in the cloud and there are also huge advantages to having storage in the cloud.
null_object|4 years ago
1. the device without subscription is crippled in unnecessary ways (access to third-party cloud-services like Dropbox, for instance)
2. the already high cost of the hardware relative to other options.
I've been looking at ReMarkable since I saw a prototype that a friend was using. But in the end I just knew it would join the pile of unused gadgets (with good intentions) that litter my home.
A subscription service really is the nail in the coffin for me.
syshum|4 years ago
The storage integration should be on the device, they choose to make it via the cloud service. There is no technical reason they could not have made it work directly on the device.
Further their 2 largest competitors in the Space, SuperNote, and Boox all seem to be able to offers these features and more for free.
AstroDogCatcher|4 years ago
Not everything needs to be a subscription. I don't care about your cloud storage (in fact, I would prefer to just use my own), and the other "features" should be table stakes for something which costs so much to buy in the first place.
branon|4 years ago
zzless|4 years ago
threefour|4 years ago
slightwinder|4 years ago
For similar reasons the device is expensive and still has a rather poor situation because it's quite special, with a relative small market. Which means it's trapped in a situation where it needs more supporting customers to deliver a good device, but to gain more customers it needs to deliver a good experience.
xboxnolifes|4 years ago
outworlder|4 years ago
Everything needs to be a subscription, according to Wall Street.
macjohnmcc|4 years ago
krzkaczor|4 years ago
You simply can't beat open ecosystem like android with some proprietary crap (unless you're FAANG). Having chrome browser fully in-sync with desktop one is a killer feature for me.
rta5|4 years ago
With supernote currently giving a roadmap that improves handwriting recognition and boox allegedly having the ability to convert and search handwritten notes already, the remarkable connect plan is very unattractive.
echelon|4 years ago
kweks|4 years ago
Worth mentioning that they have given lifetime access to existing customers, but I had been planning on giving devices to staff at the end of the year, this announcement has significantly cooled my enthusiasm.
If Remarkable staff are reading and are willing to extend the lifetime offer to existing clients for new purchases, feel free to speak up..
cge|4 years ago
Notice that they avoid saying ‘lifetime’ anywhere, or saying anything about how long that access will last in their announcements and communications. They do discuss the length of the access in their FAQ, where they say that they plan to offer the free access for ´as long as we're able to’, but that ‘there are things we can't control that might affect this’, along with a number of other vague statements. The terms of service, even for the free subscription, has you agree that they can start charging you at any time after 30 days notice, with no other consent or acknowledgment from you. Everything seems to be written with the expectation of removing the free access after disappointment with the new subscription service subsides.
wingmanjd|4 years ago
rchaud|4 years ago
I can use Dropbox and Google drive on a 2011 laptop running Win7, already EOL'd for 2 years. Even when desktop sync is no longer supported, the web client will still work.
What will happen when these guys get bored and move on to something else?
exyi|4 years ago
dabedee|4 years ago
Dear reMarkable customer,
We’re excited to be launching Connect, our brand new subscription service.
Connect replaces our existing cloud service and its associated features moving forward.
We want to offer all our existing customers full free access to Connect. Our way to thank all of you for believing in us right from the start.
All you need to do is log in to My reMarkable to view and accept our new terms and conditions.
Accept new terms and conditions
To ensure you can continue storing all your notes in the cloud, using our desktop and mobile apps, and enjoying features such as Handwriting conversion and Send by email, please accept our new terms and conditions.
Your free access to Connect includes all new launch features, such as integration with Google Drive and Screen Share, and applies regardless of if you own a reMarkable 1 or 2.
dredmorbius|4 years ago
The notion of a Linux-based tablet was appealing. I hugely dislike Android. However I purchased an Onyx BOOX with 64 GB onboard storage. It is a fairly customised Android build (and largely de-Googled). This provides access to several useful apps (Firefox, Pocket, and Termux most notably), as well as built-in Bluetooth support meaning external keyboards can be used. (reMarkable supports this only through a hardware connection.)
I'd really like a viable Linux tablet. I'm keeping an eye on Pine's offerings. But reMarkable appear to be headed in an unfortunate direction.
My interpretation is that reMarkable are crippling onboard storage (much as Google have on Android devices) to drive adoption of cloud-based services, whether for surviellance (in Google's case) or subscription revenues (in reMarkable's).
rchaud|4 years ago
I can use Syncthing Fork on it to handle P2P file sync because I cam install Fdroid as well.
The SaaS-ification of everything in the US is just such a tragedy. Buy once, pay forever.
NullInvictus|4 years ago
What this also means long term is that any openness of the device is under a Damocles sword and will be actively expanded except where GPL demands it. The benefit of openness does not appear directly in a spreadsheet like a subscription service does, and if people start trying to supercede the subscription service, they will attack it.
Or just not continue it into the next iteration.
gnicholas|4 years ago
Could this be one of the reasons Remarkable is launching this service? Or are they just trying to get more revenue (and higher profit margins) out of their existing business?
clairity|4 years ago
it’s almost never because of a revenue decline. it’s almost certainly revenue plateauing that’s seen as a problem, in a political economy that simplistically only values ‘more’. i’m sure remarkable could be a good niche business (where niche is many, many millions of dollars), but that’s clearly not enough. diverting limited resources from developing better on-device software to cloud-based software is the telling move here. many companies are capable delivering enough incremental value over time to create a (more slowly) growing, sustainable business without instituting a subscription model (logitech or even pre-itunes apple, for instance).
rPlayer6554|4 years ago
bborud|4 years ago
I'm hesitant to say I want an app-store, because it implies a lot of stuff I don't want, but something like an app-store would make it a very different proposition. It would turn a single use device into a platform. It feels a bit silly to point this out in 2021. I can't say I understand the reMarkable product strategy. There is something extremely Norwegian about it: let's limit our scope to what we're comfortable with and keep ambitions in check. We Norwegians like to play it safe - so we rarely make a difference when it comes to innovation.
I've been on the fence with reMarkable since it was launched. Waiting to see which direction it would head in. I think this announcement probably means it isn't going to be a device for me.
I'm simply not looking for yet another device that requires some form of ongoing engagement (monthly payment) to merely work. I try hard to reduce the number of things sucking money out of my account whether I use them or not.
In order to justify that it would have to be on par with my mobile in terms of "importance" - and right now the reMarkable kind of struggles to beat pen and paper for me. This makes me a bit sad, because I think there is a lot of untapped potential in eInk form factors. Especially form factors that lend themselves to interactivity.
I think reMarkable needs to multiply all their ambitions by an order of magnitude or two, find funding and get to work. This announcement feels a bit like they're giving up on having ambitions.
idorosen|4 years ago
(The SSH root password is in the help/about section where the open source licenses are listed.)
ThrowawayR2|4 years ago
The reMarkable is very intentionally an e-ink notebook and very little else. If you want a device that can be tailored to solve more use cases, one of the e-ink Android tablets would probably be a better choice.
yuliyp|4 years ago
It is quite disappointing that they are trying to extract value via subscriptions for what is the functionality of a piece of hardware that they advertised.
Jhsto|4 years ago
Toutouxc|4 years ago
So this made it much easier.
madsbuch|4 years ago
The product is sold with a feature that makes it possible to convert notes to text. This feature _only_ work when having a subscription. Ie. without a subscription the product is broken, as the advertised feature does not work.
seanhunter|4 years ago
rcarmo|4 years ago
jtbayly|4 years ago
xupybd|4 years ago
dmitrygr|4 years ago
I've recommended rM2 widely, and know of > 30 sales reMarkable made due to my recommendations. I will not be recommending it any longer.
nottorp|4 years ago
And now... they want you to pay a subscription to access your Dropbox ? I'm guessing they spent too much money on marketing so now they need to recoup it somehow.
sterlinm|4 years ago
I've considered splurging on one of these and resisted at $400. Nearly $800 seems like a huge stretch.
kayodelycaon|4 years ago
Even if I was okay with this, it makes me worry about the long term survival of the company.
For myself, I have my own backups from installing rsync with toltec. It'll be a few years (hopefully more if the hardware lasts) before I need to find an alternative.
ThouYS|4 years ago
KingOfCoders|4 years ago
selykg|4 years ago
Remarkable seem like the type of company that are pouring money into marketing and not much else. To their detriment.
I bought a Remarkable 2 in September. Realized I did not want it, because it was missing a core feature I needed (the ability to search hand written notes, which Goodnotes does, Remarkable does not). Remarkable sends their products via DHL. Who, separately, are an awful shipment carrier.
I called DHL, to have them return to sender (requested by Remarkable). DHL, after 2 days failed to do this... they kept trying to contact whomever had the shipment... why they can't just mark it as return to sender in their system? No one knows.
The product arrived at my doorstep, no signature, just dropped on the porch. Okay.. great. I start the return process. It took Remarkable 4 days to get this process done. First day they email with a return portal, it couldn't find my purchase. Second day they finally respond to my plea for help and send a second portal. That one worked, but the Remarkable support team are terrible and sent incorrect instructions. 3rd day I finally got it squared away and they approved my return the 4th day, which I got shipped out on the 5th day (again via DHL). Oh, and one other mark against Remarkable, they kept referring to my return as "return for replacement" instead of "return for refund" so I had to correct them about 8 times to make sure they were actually going to refund instead of send me a replacement.
It arrives at a local hub. Where it is stuck for 30 days.
During this time, I call DHL to start an investigation as to why it's stalled. They spend 4 days unable to come up with an answer. Reach out to Remarkable again, they start their own investigation and say repeatedly that it is "on it's way." Meanwhile it doesn't move.
Now DHL is only Remarkable's problem in so far as they choose who their carrier is. I didn't get to choose to send it differently. So they can't control what DHL does, but they do need to take ownership of their terrible choice. IMO anyway, it's what I'd do as customer support.
While all this is happening, I'm asking for a refund because the product seems lost in shipment. Around day 20 I ask for a supervisor.
Supervisor responds twice, first time "we're issuing your refund and you should see it in 24 hours." then an hour later "We'll immediately issue you a refund when we receive the product which you'll see in 24-48 hours after."
After day 30 the product finally arrives in Hong Kong, they said 24-48 hours for a refund. 5 days later still no refund.
I thankfully, filed a dispute and it's being taken care of now. But my advice is avoid these clowns.
The product is kind of cool, but their support is awful. Their team is inept. They can't take responsibility for their shortcomings.
This was for a return, imagine dealing with this for an in warranty repair/replacement? Ugh. Awful.
To be clear, we're nearing 45 days from original cancellation and still no direct refund from Remarkable.
abyssin|4 years ago
selykg|4 years ago
I get the feeling this company is going out of business.
mdekkers|4 years ago
marifjeren|4 years ago
rkagerer|4 years ago
nicolaslem|4 years ago
wtf77|4 years ago
mushufasa|4 years ago
1. How long is the term of the 'free' offer for existing users? No term is specified. Does that mean they will attempt billing (or cutoff service) after a year?
2. What exactly will happen to the existing online services, and when? They mention this is a transition but there's no timeline. Is this a new platform from scratch or just a paywall on what already exists?
leff_f|4 years ago
dmitrygr|4 years ago
read the terms carefully. They make no promises how long you'll get this for free...
kfprt|4 years ago
pedalpete|4 years ago