No. No, it doesn't. There's no reason why a http interface could not be hosted on the Almond + and made available over the internet (with the proper security in place to prevent random internet-tough-guys from blinking your lights on and off). It would just mean entering your Home IP address (or your DNS name if you set up that service) into the app settings to make that work.
If a full up webpage was generated, then you only need to navigate to your home IP address, login, and mess with your home automation stuff to your hearts content from anywhere on the internet. No app needed.
Well, have you tried the local web UI? It actually looks ok on most mobile devices, although it's not perfect, but it does exactly what you're asking for.
In my opinion cloud hosting is where products like 'Wink' have gone wrong. It's another point of failure, of unknown state to the end-user, that they have no control or capability to fix. It adds lag to any sent command and can go offline at any moment, screwing up timed events. I have a Wink and I hate it for these reasons. Please Almond + team, don't put all your eggs into the 'cloud' basket. The 'cloud' doesn't make much sense for this application. There's no reason to route every command through the remote cloud server and back out to the home user when he's on the same network as the almond + 90% of the time he's trying to issue commands. Also, do you really want to be continuously upgrading your severs as the customer base grows, constantly requiring more bandwidth to keep everyone happy, for no recurring revenue return? How are you going to plug that to management? If you can't defend it to management, then the cloud service it doomed to atrophy until it's as unusable as the Wink.
Have you had an issues with lag on the app side on the Almond+? Having played with the Wink hub, our app is 5x faster in terms of response time and I have never seen the issue I've seen on the Wink hub where you switch something and it doesn't change state. We've had some issues where you get a message that the sensor didn't respond, but that's a different matter.
The cloud makes a lot of sense for this application, see me reply above. Then again, as pointed out, we still have a local web UI that doesn't require any kind of cloud connection and this is also where the automation will be located initially, so it'll work even if your internet connection is down, unlike most home automation solutions in the market today.
We don't have to plug anything to management, as management is involved in the daily operation of the company, please remember that we're a smaller company and we also have very flat company structure, so if I want to talk to management (which I guess I'm part of), I'd go to the back of the office where our CEO is sitting...
On the other hand, someone who's got it right is Honeywell and their Vista Automation Controller. I recently picked one up for interfacing with my existing home security system. It provides z-wave home automation, controlled from a locally hosted webpage, and sends security email notifications via STMP. No cloud servers needed (but you can buy Honeywell's cloud monitoring service if you really want). Perfectly independent. Fast response time to commands sent via the web interface. I can access the my home website from any where on the net. No app needed. This is the way I want Almond + to go.
We're looking at adding an SMTP option for email notifications, but it won't happen until next year. Apart from that, I think we're heading in that direction already, but with a free cloud service for those that wants to use it.
