The Truth Behind the $99 SenseCAP M2 Light Hotspot – A Risk Sharing Approach to Empower the Helium Community
At Seeed, we believe that providing innovative and affordable products is an effective way to boost the diverse applications for a community. With that in mind, we recently launched the SenseCAP M2 Light Hotspot at $99 MSRP, including a $50 onboarding fee charged by Helium, which means that we are selling the device at $49 only.
We are excited to introduce a new subscription-based pricing model for the SenseCAP Service Package which is used to enable effective POC and remote access. Previously on SenseCAP M1, this package is charged as a one-time lifetime perpetual license fee and included in the MSRP, which is hefty. On M2, it is offloaded for you.
Seeed designed this pricing model with a risk-sharing mindset, selling the hotspot at a price that is lower than its actual cost. Although we lose money for selling every single piece, we insist on applying this pricing model and are willing to sacrifice profits in the short term to create a sustainable and affordable solution for the Helium community.
A Sacrifice for the Greater Good
1. $49 is the price that lowers the barrier and shortens the periods of return on investment (ROI) for community players who intend to contribute continuously to the Helium community. We understand that many hotspots are now becoming offline, but this is how we see it – according to an economic phenomenon, new things often have a moment of popularity, creating a bubble that eventually fades away. But the meaningful applications that emerge from these trends will continue to make an impact and serve as the foundation for future innovation. We are receiving more and more inquiries about the commercial use of the Helium network, such as tracking solutions and weather monitoring from afar, which is really exciting. We really want to help these people and be a part of their innovation, this is something Seeed has been passionate about for the past 14 years: enabling innovation with affordable and cutting-edge IoT technology. Deploying the solution requires extensive network coverage thus we offer this pricing model to make it affordable and accessible for large-scale deployment, etc.
2. We added pay-as-you-go options to the pricing model of the SenseCAP Service Package in addition to the lifetime permanent license fee. The SenseCAP Service Package’s aim is to implement stable POC, efficient firmware upgrades, device health monitoring, and remote boot for the device. To provide an excellent service, in fact, there is significant cost involved in providing quality software services—from developing new features and maintaining existing ones, all the way down to customer support. For the SenseCAP M1 hotspot, we charge $519, which includes a upfront license fee for the SenseCAP Service Package. But, we understand the uncertainty of the market and that a more flexible way to adapt usage and scale depending on need, not on forecasts, is necessary. If we sold the products at a higher price, it would be like passing on the risk to the buyers, who would bear the burden of uncertain reward and ROI. We don’t think this is a sustainable way to help all the players in the community. This pay-as-you-go billing model reduces the risk of large upfront costs and over-provisioning significantly.
An Evolution for Potential Commercial Innovation
Since we are seeing more and more potential commercial applications on Helium, we realize that a stable, reliable, and robust service package should be prepared for such applications. The upgraded Sensecap Service Package gives more commercial possibilities to M2, we summarize its features in 4:
1. Keep up with the latest software release for efficient performance – POC and Update
We understand how important it is to keep the device up to date to maintain security and stability. Seeed had developed a pipeline to hook the latest releases from Helium Foundation and enable auto-updates across M2 light hotspots, such a mechanism ensures the updates are deployed in place on time. The update includes bug fixes for security, new add-on features, and other system enhancements to improve the M2 performance on Beacon, Witness, and Data Transmission.
2. Extend its functionality with Seeed Advanced Perception System
Seeed has developed more than 1000+ products in the past 14 years. If we wrap them into one product, it is the Advanced Perception System built from smart sensors to intelligent edge to the powerful gateway. SenseCAP M2 falls into the powerful gateway category, which can be relied on to provide stable coverage. Our upgraded SenseCAP Service Package enables it to be natively and seamless use with ALL Seeed Devices. Thus, the M2 gateway is well prepared to be used commercially and plays an important role in reliable data transfer in the Seeed Advanced Perception System.
3. Proactive 7×24 remote monitoring and remote diagnostics
Our service continuously gives you a closer look at the health of the devices – not just online or offline, but also detailed information like network conditions, uptime, CPU & memory utilization, and other parameters that affect devices’ performance. All these real-time data are gathered and shown on SenseCAP Hotspot Dashboard to enable you to spot anomalies easily. What’s more, remote diagnostic and reboot will be activated to help to reduce downtime and increase uptime, this is critical to highly improve management efficiency.
4. Flexible Subscription Billing with No Cancellation Fees
Three license plans are provided to activate the SenseCAP Service Package: 90 days, 365 days, and unlimited. Without a valid license, the device can not work as a Helium Light Hotspot, including functions like POC (Beacon, Witness) and data transfer.
You are free to scale or stop using it at any time with no cancellation fees. It will be terminated automatically when expired, once you renew the license, the SenseCAP Service Package will be activated again. This allows you to adjust usage accordingly.
A Sincere Response to the Helium Community
With its risk-sharing approach that creates value through shared responsibility between users and Seeed, both parties can benefit from this deal without compromising quality or customer service experience.
Instead of just selling a product and making a profit upon this in a traditional way, we choose the other way to make a profit in a longer term. With more devices online for longer, we align interests and invest in the whole journey with our users. This way, we break even together or further make some profits in the M2 project someday.
Our goal is not only to offer these products at an affordable price but also to share risk with customers associated with investing in new technologies or services. This type of strategy encourages innovation while also helps ensure sustainable growth over time – something we can all benefit from!
We want to thank the Helium community for choosing Seeed as a partner in this journey. We’re committed to helping grow the Helium Network and trying our best to create a positive impact on communities. If you’re looking to get into Helium or expand your existing operations, we believe the SenseCAP M2 Light Hotspot and SenseCAP Service Package could be the perfect solution for you.
Feel free to contact us at [email protected]
Learn more about the license plan：Introduction of SenseCAP M2 Light Hotspot Service Package and How to Activate It
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