I guess I must be in the minority but I find navigating the community here extremely difficult and time consuming to get the information that is helpful. Especially because there is so much of it. I’ve searched by tags, categories, keywords etc but the main challenge is that often unless you know exactly what you’re looking for it takes tons of time to navigate through multiple threads that may be similar, but often go in different direction, until you find the actual nugget that is helpful. Or if not then you have to ask a question. And that create new threads that are often unresolved. At least for someone like me- not an expert-expert but not a newbie either. I don’t want to recreate the wheel— I just want to know what works and I’m happy to do research but I’m often left frustrated.
Would it be possible to create a community driven success case studies wiki — focusing on what does work— that could be curated by the experts but initiated by the community? Each case study could include the success (i.e. what and why was this done) precise setup details, devices used and purposes, highlighting successes and challenges that were identified and resolved, application to other configurations (e.g.C-5 vs C-7, vs C-8, etc., zigbee vs Zwave, etc) It would/could be indexed or tagged (curated) to make it easy to find the information.
Perhaps a question section could be underneath each case study that expands on the application?
I’ve reviewed the “Documentation” many times but it’s very general.
Like @JasonJoel described, the problem is the time involved, particularly with the pace some things move at. If you are struggling to find what you need, you can always post a question and someone will usually point you in the right direction.
IMO an implementation ("case study") is only really valid for the hub hardware platform (e.g., C-4, C-5, C-7, C-8), the hub firmware release (e.g., 2.3.7.140), the application release (e.g., Rule Machine 4.1, 5.0, 5.1), the device hardware revision (e.g., SmartSense Multi v1, v4), device firmware revision and or software build . . .
So often I read a post where someone asks "how can I do this" and I think "I have a solution" and then I go look at my hub and realize my solution is two years old and, for example, uses a legacy version of Rule Machine. My experience, while proven, is of little use once it is even a few months old.
I like the idea but I can't wrap my head around how to do it and make it really useful. Perhaps at a concept level (rather than specific configuration details) it would be more durable . . . not sure.
I certainly understand the concerns raised in the replys but therein lies the challenge. One, relative to answering a question is that with every question posted, maybe/kinda resolved, or worse, not answered or not definitively resolved leaves one more digital thread to locate, read, rationalize with the other threads, and assess (when you're probably new / inexperienced and trying to figure out what to do). Second, if answers here are only good for the specific hardware version, firmware version, Hub firmware version, etc. etc. then it makes it even harder to find the needle in the haystack. I don't think that's the case though since many responses work across hub firmware versions and with multiple devices. However, perhaps more metadata options for each post (instead of just tags) would help to make more of a database-type search. Such as:
Applies only to (or "Applies to"):
[ ]c-8 [x] c-7 [ ]c-5 [ ]c-4
Hub firmware: 2.3.1
Etc.
I'm not negative on Hubitat or the community -- quite the contrary -- but I do think the volume of information in the community is somewhat overwhelming at this point and without curation it will continue to become more unwieldly. I also think that's why a lot of people just post in Reddit or on Facebook. Unfortunately I'm also not sure what the options are and I recognize the challenges presented by the responses here. Thanks.
Maybe I’m reading this wrong but when I hear the words “Case Study” I immediately think of academia and the burden that their structure places upon rapid sharing of information. Don’t think the community survives if forced to generate peer reviewed documents prepared to APA guidelines.
I don't know if you would find it as valuable but I wonder if, for newcomers, if things such as: "What's a good way to operate the bathroom exhaust fan?"
My response would be:
"My solution is as follows:
Fan wall switch (Lutron) is controllable by Hubitat,
Ceiling mounted Motion/Humidity/Temperature sensor (Nyce) is positioned to sense motion in the shower/tub area as well as vanity/toilet area,
A temperature/humidity sensor (SmartThings/Centralite) is located in the hall (this provides the baseline humidity when not affected by bathroom water usage),
Rule only operates when the mode is not Sleepy Time (a mode for the times we would normally be asleep - 9PM to 7AM weekdays or 8AM weekends) as defined in Mode Manager Legacy,
The trigger is motion active,
That turns on the fan,
and waits for 5 minutes (so there will be at least 5 minutes with the fan on - In practice it is a little more because the sensor has to time out and report inactive),
Then the rule waits (wait for event) for the humidity in the bathroom to be less than or equal to the humidity in the hall (and I add an offset to the hall humidity value because it takes a very long time for the humidity to get back to the baseline and I am OK with it being close),
Then the rule turns the fan off.
What this achieves for our home:
Bathroom fan switches on for at least 5 minutes when anyone uses the bathroom.
Bathroom fan does not come on at times when we would normally be asleep (I use this rule in all three bathrooms - the master is en-suite the other two are immediately adjacent to a bedroom so we don't want to wake people with the fan noise).
If someone is taking a bath or shower that raises the humidity in the room, the fan will run until the humidity gets back to (close to) normal.
The logic is implemented using Rule Machine 5.1 and does not appear to be sensitive to platform release. It is currently running on 2.3.7.143 on a C-8 hub."
This is certainly what I would envision -- what is successful and how is it implemented. For example, right now I'm trying to figure out a way to capture motion sensor "motion active" history. This is to enable remote monitoring of a home status, and would help me to 1) ID whether motion sensor is set too sensitive or not sensitive enough -- since I would cross check the motions against a camera with a motion trigger, and 2) to see where motion has occurred so I could check my camera's history. Also, if the place I'm monitoring is getting lots of motion, I could find out why. Not needed for everyone, but for my use case, yes.
So, yes -- this sort of thing would be helpful, but the more that can be done using metadata / filtering, the easier the searches would be -- once data is curated.
In addition to issues raised by others, another major factor that influences success v/s failure for z-wave and zigbee device-based automation is the strength of individual mesh networks.
Which in turn is dependent on architectural layouts of individual homes and, off course, the number and nature of repeaters, their positioning, the wireless environment, etc.
Many of these factors also matter for Matter/WiFi devices.
For this reason, perhaps the best way to use this community for assistance with device-dependent automation is to start a new thread describing the issue at hand (with logs), and let the community help you debug it.
I'll just throw one comment on this as it relates to closing threads.
This week I found myself looking up two topics. The best threads I found had been closed; a couple in particular were totally pertinent and had they not been closed I would have thrown up a post asking some questions for elaboration or update on how the particular course-of-action or devices were fairing. It made no sense to create yet another thread on the specific topic because the existing was smack on topic with what I was interested in furthering the conversation on. Neither of these were solved threads, just discussions.
So...while I get the curation angle is labor intensive...I'm wondering if we can be less apt to close threads just on their age. It's not always the case that age reflects pertinence. (Although I'm told that sometimes .)
Bots for one. They like to dig up ages old threads, post to get karma points, and then spam the forums. Or they just post in old threads hoping they are unnoticed.
The other is a few users were consistently digging up old threads and adding worthless information like "I am also seeing this" and it pertained to something that was updated/changed/fixed in the dozens upon dozens of firmware releases since. There are/were also a few users who post quite odd and out of place ramblings about something when it wasn't helpful nor relevant to the topic.
There are probably other considerations here, but that is what I have observed over the past few years. I doubt they will reverse this decision, and I understand their rationale.
If there is truly a topic that got closed prematurely, and it is still relevant, support staff have been nice enough in most cases to reopen a thread. I have asked a couple times, gave them a succinct reasoning why (not a diatribe nor a berating of their efforts), and they were happy enough to reopen that topic.
I couldn’t agree with this more. I’ve had the same experience. Some threads get stale because they’re only two or three people with that individual issue based on device type hub version house issues, etc., so why not leave them open at least the knowledge stays in one spot as opposed to having seven different threads on the same topic that you’ve got to read, analyze, compare which is really more applicable, etc and hopefully at the end take away some insight.
I could see a "cookbook" for specific situations, that would have, in each "chapter", different contributed solutions to the same topic. For example:
Bathroom fan
Coffee maker
Front door lock
Vacations
Bedtime
In that way, people could get inspiration by how different people addressed those items.
However, I do see this as being close to unmanageable, as someone would have to be the curator.
On the other hand, simply tagging topics with good tags could accomplish this. Have a few people with special tagging privileges who could tag good threads with the appropriate topic tag. That would make searching more fruitful.
This has been a long debated topic. The reason a stale topic is closed, is that historically the platform evolved significantly over time, and a problem highlighted a year ago has a different way of resolving it today.
We found that starting a new topic, fresh, is better. You can always link back to a similar thread to continue the discussion on the same topic.
This was the idea behind the "Here's a cool thing I did!" category. We wanted to encourage users to share their success stories and automation ideas. The reality is that documenting a project is time consuming, and not everyone has the time available to do it.
Yup. That's why I read "case study" as a marketing term. Device manufacturers would be the ideal source.
Presumably, they design a product that solves a problem and makes business sense. Why would you not make it easy for your target customers to quickly realize value? People quickly see distinct value and have a template to emulate.
Who wouldn't want to be at the top of every search for the very problem that you get paid to solve? Who wouldn't want a community pointing to their content to guide people that are just starting a long term commitment to automation?
If you are a manufacturer and you're not sure how to start, don't fret. Just start. Seek feedback. We are neither shy nor unopinionated. Be willing to listen to everything but react to your target demographic.
If you think this is bad you should take a look at the Home Assistant Community. I need to steal some of my wife's ADHD meds before I go in there.
But seriously , I can see how someone could become overwhelmed, especially shortly after there are major platform updates and posts fly fast and furious about stuff that wasn't caught in the beta. Maybe I have just been around long enough, but I have kind of sense, i just sorta Know where to head for a particular problem. Sometime If can't find the right place to post it I put it in the lounge, one of the Moderators will inevitably move it where it needs to go.
I do like that idea, the only issue I see is that as the platform evolves, it would quickly become outdated.
Truth is those are generally the same people. Maybe a new category of read-only post of the common issues (my immediate thought Jumps to Zwave ghosts and how to get rid of them), but also issues like Unresponsive hubs, accessing and using the diagnostic tool, etc. You could be on to something
"keeping things updated" is the issue, as echoed above.
You're effectively suggesting a Wikipedia-esque solution. This community doesn't have the same functions available (I. E. Multi use user editing privileges) nor a comparable level of contributions unfortunately.
I do feel however that even though I'd consider myself to be a fairly active user/reader of thre forums I do find it difficult to know where exactly to look or post. The reasoning for this (IMO) is there are some extremely similar forum sections which (again IMO) have a lot of crossover and blurry lines.
I'd personally merge a stack of them together to simplify. To me there's a hell of a lot of similarity between the 'get help' / 'here's a cool thing I did' and 'lighting'. A lot of redundancy and similarity.
No offence intended. I read through this place sometimes multiple times a day, yet I still struggle to decide where to post a question sometimes.
.)
