Tokens and Spins
So I had accrued enough tokens to take a "Spin" so I thought to myself‚ sure why not I'm kind of curious as to what this is all about.
So I went ahead and redeemed 30 tokens for my spin. I proceed to take the spin and it "lands" on something about Aviator sunglasses. What does this mean? I have absolutely no idea. Have I won a pair of sunglasses? Apparently not as there us no way to redeem them. Do I need to get multiple of these "rewards" to be able to redeem them?
I am completely lost as to what it is I actually "won" and what if anything I would need to do to redeem my "prize". If I did indeed not win anything‚ exactly how far in to the process of winning that prize am I? There also seems to be absolutely nowhere I can see what it is that my spin history actually is‚ nor a list of what the prizes actually are and what you need to do to win them. The only way I can figure out how to see the prizes is to actually redeem tokens for a spin.
If I am missing something here I would love to know what it is and where to go to find this information.
Hey @Kate from OhmConnect can you help out on this?
Best Answer
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WaterGuy Member, Moderator Posts: 414
Hi @KarenE and others. I spent quite a long time with Bronze status, waiting for my utility to be connected, so I earned a lot of spins during that time and can hopefully offer some help. As @clavain said, there are a number of different prizes you can win, and each requires spinning a combination of 3 "collectibles." The setup is similar to the Vons or McDonalds Monopoly games, if you're familiar with those--you're essentially collecting game pieces until you have a full set of three filled out, and then you win that prize. The odds of spinning the Tesla collectibles, while not stated, are obviously much lower than spinning the sunglasses collectibles, and it's possible to get the same collectible many times.
Regarding the interface, Silver+ users can see what they've got here: login.ohmconnect.com/redeem. @[email protected], "Dirty Power" is just the name of the collectible--that particular one counts towards a 15% discount code (the prize). You can see the prize associated with each set of collectibles to the upper left of the set, as shown below.
@[email protected], I'm not sure what you mean about the possible benefit of waiting to spin, but I'm guessing the answer is no. I have no idea how OhmConnect's algorithm for assigning collectibles to spins works, but if they give out 1 Tesla collectible per day, say, and some days see far more spins than others, perhaps it would be advantageous to wait until a quieter day to increase your odds. I don't know of anyone who's actually won any prizes though, let alone enough of them to start figuring out detailed strategies, so I think it's probably best to think about spins and collectibles as a slot machine--it's cheap to play, and you might get lucky, but you probably won't.
I hope that's helpful!
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Answers
It seems you have to win multiple cards for each prize in order to win the prize, so it will take a while. Annoyingly I can't seem to find a way to browse the cards I've already won without rolling again for a new card.
Yeah... it seems to be somewhat ambiguous as to what you need to do and where you stand in the process of actually winning anything. And to be honest the description of the prizes are a little on the light side as well. In respect to what I landed on‚ "Aviator Sunglasses". I have no idea of that is a brand name pair or a pair you could buy for $1.99 at a flea market. I'm also not sure who if anyone is responsible for the shipping if you were to win something
Aviators are required when driving around in a Tesla!
Ah... So you have to win the Tesla to actually get the Aviators OR do you get the Tesla WHEN you win the Aviators?
To be honest I have no idea how it all works and my comment was tongue in cheek. Perhaps @curtistongue knows the answer???
Not to worry... so was mine.
How does spinning and landing on "no dirty power" earn me anything to redeem (set aside the Tesla and aviator glasses.) ;-) Plus is there any benefit to "waiting" to spin?
Hi @UkiwiS @[email protected] @KarenE - there's no reason to 'wait' to spin, unless you want to spend your tokens on the other items, such as 'Referral Madness' or 'Baseline Boost.' You can see those here.
We're working to make the spin page a little more clear, but you need to collect all three icons in a set to win the prize. The prizes are the aviators, device discount, WiFi thermostat, etc.
Regarding the other things you can buy with tokens, we're considering including a 'Streak Shield,' which would give you protection on missing one #OhmHour and not having it affect your streak. What's the interest level in that?
I just did 11 consecutive spins in the space of 5 minutes and got 5 X Aviators, 2 X "Put on a Sweater", 3 X Solar and 1 X Wind.
I think the streak protection would be a great thing
@UkiwiS, good to know. Here are my totals so far, out of 13 spins:
@curtistongue, another vote here for the streak protection option. I think it'd be especially nice if you could buy/use it retroactively within 24 hours of breaking your streak, to restore it.
And why not have 2 types / levels of streak shields? One that costs less that you redeem before an OH , which allows you to preserve your streak in anticipation of an OH you can't participate in and need to opt-out of; and then one that costs more (maybe 2 times the cost of the lower level shield) tokens that you can use after the OH, retroactively.
Seems like a good compromise to me! Now OC just needs to figure out how much they'll cost and let 'em loose!
if I get 5 of the "put on a sweater" do the extra 2 points rollover to the next time? or were those a waste of 60 points???
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by 2 extra "points," but you need to get all three collectibles in a given row to win the associated prize. So, if you've rolled 5 "Put on a sweater" collectibles, then 4 of them aren't doing anything for you. The odds of rolling some collectibles are apparently much higher than others, so it's likely you'll get multiples if you keep playing for a while.
has anyone won?
at all? i mean the sunglasses are only 8 bucks in the store. why should they be so hard to win?
I almost took that as a challenge to use all my tokens to try and win something... almost
I have 4,951 tokens, should I roll the dice? Lmao!
I have my own thoughts, but I’d like to see what you think.
What do others think?
Can't speak for everyone, but the only thing I'd be interested in spending tokens on is the baseline boost. Unfortunately, it would take me around 3 years to accumulate enough tokens to get one (assuming 75 ohmhours per year and logging in every day).
I think as the program becomes less and less generous with points, there's an opportunity to keep people participating by rewarding tokens for more things so people can realistically obtain cards to boost their baseline, protect their streak, etc.
My normal forecast is a bit under 1kWh, and as we head into "winter" (SoCal doesn't really have a winter), it will likely dip below 0.5kWh during my peak usage hours, so I'm not getting much back in terms of points, but I'm trying to maximize what I can get and build that streak. It's pretty easy for me to simply unplug / shut everything off, so my savings is currently at 93% through 13 events. Like some people, I was stoked to hear there was a 2-hour and a 3-hour event this week because it would give me a chance to earn more points. However, I was a bit disappointed to see that my efforts to reduce as much as possible were rewarded about half as much as they were when I first joined with little to no streak (based on points per kWh).
Why not throw in some bonus tokens for saving over certain levels each event? For example:
50% = 50 tokens
60% = 100 tokens
70% = 150 tokens
80% = 200 tokens
90% = 250 tokens
40 events of 90% savings seems like a pretty good trade-off for a shot at a good chunk of points. You're also staying within the spirit of the program by encouraging users to save as much as possible. Currently the streak is all that matters. Once lost, it seems like users don't see the point in participating, which hurts the program overall. And newcomers to the program have very little incentive to stick with it if they feel it's not worth the effort (points per kWh being scaled back), which hurts the program as well.
I understand there's a business side to this, and from what I can tell from other posts on here, it's the reason the referral bonuses have been reduced (think I read somewhere that it used to be $75 early on), it's the reason the status level bonus has been cut dramatically (multipliers going from 2x and 4x down to 1.5x and 2x), and it's the reason you're probably going to see points per kWh continue to go down. So while all these rewards that result in direct compensation are being curtailed in order to keep things going, you're going to need a way to keep your users interested in participating and I think making indirect compensation (tokens) relevant you can do that. I get why the token values of some cards (like baseline boost) were dramatically increased, but from my perspective, it seems like it went from being too obtainable to unobtainable for the majority of users.
I could go on about the token economy, but I don't want to make a long post even longer.
@DarrenT - Good points.
I wonder if there are additional items that could be added to the "Token Marketplace" that could be both attainable and users would see as being desirable and useful?
@Steve E Some ideas:
Also, this is not specific to tokens, but rethink the referral program. The point of referrals is to get more people to participate and save, but currently only the person referring is rewarded (at least that was the case as of about a month or so ago). The person signing up is the one directly improving overall results, so I think it's fair to give them some upfront incentive to try things out. I know I would feel much more inclined to sign up if there was actually some immediate benefit in it for me. Especially if I'm being asked to blindly trust OhmConnect with my utility credentials and other information like name, email, phone number and address. I didn't sign up through a referral myself, but I've noticed some of the people I've spoken to about the program were hesitant to do so because they thought it wouldn't be worth it to them or they weren't comfortable giving their utility credentials and other information out to a third party. I think an even split of the current $20 award ($10 each) is fair and may even be enough of a push to get those that are hesitant to at least give it a try. Also maybe change the requirements on the referrer side so they only get the bonus if the person reaches Gold / Platinum (or some other milestone like simply participating in x number of events and saving any amount), that way you're paying out for quality referrals, not just the ones that try it, call it stupid and cancel their account.
Side note, i'm not a fan of "Referral Madness". It promotes the wrong message when comparing the referral payouts to how long it would take to make that amount in points (I'm assuming the majority aren't saving several kWh's per event). Plus, the requirements to get that referral money are pretty lenient. I could probably get all of my coworkers that live in the area and have SCE (vast majority of them) to sign up, link their accounts, and participate in one OhmHour, then not care at all what they do after that because I already made $20 off them ($40 if I use the ridiculously cheap "Referral Madness" card). Heck, I could even offer to give them a piece of the referral or offer to buy them lunch and still probably make several times more in referral money than I ever would actually participating and saving. How does that help the overall mission OhmConnect is trying to accomplish?
Just my two cents.
Great ideas! Thanks for sharing.