February 2021 Update: The Future of CloudFree

June 9th Update: Production has completed and the plugs are on their way to the warehouse! DHL estimates delivery on June 15th, though many times packages arrive earlier than expected.

May 18th Update: the CloudFree Smart Plug 2 is in production, and should be available early next month, at the latest

This week we surpassed a major milestone: 500 orders fulfilled!

Back in April of last year when I began to explore the manufacturing process, I could not have dreamed where things were headed. When I bought one thousand CloudFree Smart Plugs in June I hadn’t the slightest clue when I would sell out, if ever.

But by the time the holiday shopping season came around (during which my family was taking a Thanksgiving trip to the Red River Gorge in Kentucky), orders were coming in faster than I had expected.

By December 3rd, I was completely out of CloudFree Smart Plugs. This was not great timing, as I was still taking classes online and had finals approaching. Between school, a testing process disagreement with the factory, and now the Chinese New Year holiday, getting more plugs in stock has taken much longer than I had hoped, and I’m sorry for that.

Many Thanks

I’d like to thank everyone for being so supportive during these last six months. Local home automation and CloudFree as a company would cease to exist if it weren’t for the vibrant community that exists around it.

A special thanks to the Tasmota development team for their hard work and help in our unique needs for manufacturing.

I also need to thank Alex Kretzschmar of the Self-Hosted podcast. I’ve listened to Jupiter Broadcasting podcasts for over seven years, and without our partnership, CloudFree would not have grown nearly as fast as it did.

Looking Forward

CloudFree Smart Plug 2

The next generation of the CloudFree Smart Plug will be more advanced, featuring a compact design, 15 Amp current support, and power monitoring support. Unlike the above photo, it will have a matte finish, which will look nicer and won’t attract fingerprints and scratches.

We have our factory testing process issue worked out and production is slated to start as soon as the Chinese New Year holiday is over. We hope to have them in stock by the end of March.

10W RGB Light Bulb

We have test units of a 10 W light bulb in hand that we are currently working with. Once we have our next batch of CloudFree plugs in, this will be our next focus.

And more?

Now that we have a solid factory testing process, it will be very easy to expand! This will allow us to venture into other products and other markets, like smart plugs for Europe and the UK.

If you want to stay up-to-date, be sure and follow us on Twitter and subscribe to our email list. I don’t have the time to annoy you with too many emails, and I promise to never sell or share your information.

Here’s to the future of CloudFree home automation!