Remarkable has released two different E INK e-notes in the past couple of years. They primarily market it as a distraction free writing experience, providing some of the best tools and features in the market. They have built a reputation of a solid company that delivers, and both customers and business buy them for creative purposes. Remarkable is working on a secret subscription system that will migrate some free features and make them paid, in addition to powerful new systems.
There are two paid subscription systems currently being developed. One is called Connect Lite and has a limited number of features, such as being able to backup your documents to the cloud. Connect membership says it will provide a full Remarkable experience and will have an expanding universe of powerful tools for your paper tablet. No Plan, will just have basic features only and there is a small caveat. Your files will stop syncing across all devices and Remarkable apps if the tablet is not used for more than 50 consecutive days. Currently there is no word on the pricing structure or when this new system will go live. These features were found in a beta file of firmware 2.10.0.295.
Having different tiers might be off-putting to some users who paid full price for a Remarkable and should have access to all of the features. Selling E INK devices, especially e-notes with large screens is not a very high margin business. With transactional fees, marketing and the actually manufacturing, they are probibibly making 20% profit on each unit sold. Getting into software as a service (SAAS) would be a strategic move, where they can have their loyal audience pay for the features they want. The Connect Lite is basically all about sharing files to cloud storage. For customers this gives an option to put everything into Google Drive or Dropbox, providing easy access to their PDF files or notes, from a computer. It remains to be seen, if Remarkable will introduce more secure file management, where businesses can send files to company secured servers. Remarkable is making good money selling their tablets, in bulk, to businesses, so this is a growing market for them.
When it comes to their full Connect membership, it remains unclear what type of advanced features the company will provide users. Likely this tier will include all of the cloud storage solutions found on Connect Lite. Will they offer new and improved writing tools? With different colored pens? New pencils? A more refined layering system, or maybe some import feature for additional templates or images?
Remarkable issued the following statement to Good e-Reade. “At reMarkable, we constantly strive to improve our products and services. In addition to exploring new functionality, reMarkable is also considering new payment models that can support our vision. This includes a subscription-based model. We want our customers to know that we are grateful for their support and that we always work to make their experience better. If we introduce a subscription model, our existing customers will get this service for free and have access to the full reMarkable experience – even powerful new features we may introduce in the future.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
