Discussion about Other Solutions

I thought I saw where they were giving away a couple of prototypes..

Yeah I wasn’t seeing a way to purchase it.

It was potentially scheduled for release the end of 2021 based on what could find quickly.
Maybe they have more info on their forums.

Lack of Zwave make this a non-starter.

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Looks like in February 2023 they were blaming covid blah, blah blah for why their beta units hadn't shipped yet. Looks like their community has been dead since last fall. Something is out in the wild, but no idea wha, or when it might be commercially available.

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Homey Pro has Z-wave. But it is a Z-wave 700 series radio, not 800.

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I know they sold "beta" units, which were basically an Android TV box, with the ROM hacked so a generic Linux distribution could be run on it. From what I was told recently (like literally 2 weeks ago by one of their beta customers), the beta units essentially ran HA in a container. Node-RED was used as the automation engine. And those who purchased the beta units had to purchase their own USB z-wave and zigbee radios. The z-stacks used for the z-radios were ZWaveJS and zigbee2mqtt.

The beta units did not have the software interface that was supposedly ready at the time of their Indiegogo campaign. Apparently, a decision was made after their failed campaign failed to go back to the drawing board and redesign the software interface.

The beta unit customer who chatted with me felt quite embittered by a lack of transparency/honesty on the part of Oh-LaLabs regarding the status of their project at the time of their campaign, as well as by a lack software updates to expose the promised tile-based UI.

I have no opinion on this; I have also been bitten by crowdfunded campaigns in the past. So, I'd have to have a high degree of confidence in the principals involved for me to buy into a crowdfunded hub.

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I was referring to the iSG. Homey pro is too rich for my blood, and I'm not a fan of (fill in the blank) As a Service model. I have too many subscriptions as it is. I'm finding I use HomeKit dashboards enough even Sharptools value is becoming questionable at this point.

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Yeah, that's a bit of a puzzle; 700-series chips are no longer available. And the memory limitations on those chips make Z-Wave LR support less likely.

Maybe that's what I was thinking. I stumbled across their community and even joined it. but I had not looked at it in quite a while. In fact, I never looked at it again until today, and then I just quickly skimmed it. seemed pretty deadville.

That all sounds shady. That is the risk one takes being early beta, but still a little transparency can go a long way.

I've never bought into one of those crowd funding deals. I like new shiny things, and I'm even willing to be a bit of a Guinea pig, but not THAT willing.

If I can get it set up, I think I am going to start playing with HA a little, but HE will still be my primary system and do the heavy lifting.

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When my automation is back up and running again, HE will be at its center. I'll have an SBC running zigbee2mqtt for zigbee devices that don't work too well with HE, a Lutron bridge for my switches/dimmers, and an Apple Home hub to use the Home app as the interface on my phone, iPad, and Macs.

There is no single, perfect, automation system. But HE does work well as the central hub around which I have other spokes.

Just hope I get the time to install all my devices and automation soon!

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As I have mentioned in other discussions, there is no questions that Homey has "something" that appeals to many reviewers & influencers.
Personally, I think that it would be "relatively" easy to put together a "sexy" UI for Basic Rules. Basic Rules are a "beginner" subset of Rule Machine, and I think that it's a great way to bring people "up to snuff" on Hubitat. Of course, you can't do very sophisticated stuff with it - but, I find in dealing with many clients that it would certainly suffice for 80% of all of their Home Automations.
Another obvious shortcoming of Hubitat is their Dashboard. We all know this, and a fix is a "big" job. Management has to decide if putting resources into that area, will be worth it. I'm not sure if it is or not, but I am sure that this question has been asked many times.
In terms of general rules, and general device management, I feel that Hubitat is just as good (if not better) than all contemporary products. The functionality certainly is first rate.

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Yes, but that isn’t the point, one of the first things I learnt (back in the 80’s) was to create a logic tree to help design my programs. Node Red etc take this to the next level and let you design your program visually from end to end.

Basic rules is fine as is.

However, if Hubitat were to say fork Node Red and knock off the rough edges, it could replace basic rules at the same time as becoming the default rule engine.

Guess it's all a matter of how your brain works.

Personally, I CANNOT STAND flow charts, Node Red, etc. They clutter the actual logic, and things like simple loops are often just ridiculous to implement with them in a way that doesn't look like crap. They're also extremely information-sparse. Something like a simple switch statement that might take up 10% of my monitor in code would take up the whole screen in something like Node Red.

To each their own, I guess. I'd be happy if there were an alternative to RM for those who need it. But if Hubitat replaced RM with some visual thing... I'd definitely not be happy. I'd manage as long as I could just write Groovy apps, I guess. Half of what I have on my Hubitat that would be RM normally I already wrote custom apps for. I guess if I had to, I'd write the rest of what I have in RM up as custom apps. But I definitely would not want RM replaced with some visual thing if that was the only option.

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Dont need tasker or adb . Trigger works great on android without any non normal permissions.

I should have made myself clear.
I'm perfectly fine and happy with Basic Rules as it is.
But, a "show horse", it's not!

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Fair enough, I’m autistic so my leaning style is much more visual than most.

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I wouldn’t mind using a visual tool if there was one, say to prototype something. However can’t imagine providing such a system without an appropriate profiling tool, especially on a resource-constrained system like HE. Does Homey offer one ?

If it’s easy to use, it’s also easy to abuse.

Incidentally, I wish HE would invest more in providing good profiling tools for its users, developers and RM/RL users alike.

  • Easier than node-red? Arguable, but I think yes is a reasonable position.
  • More refined? Arguable. I see it as different, but not more refined.
  • Less capable than node-red? Definitely yes, in many many ways.

I don't want a node-red LITE solution like that, so I have no desire for Hubitat to take this approach.

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Going about controlling hvac in RM is quite the task. What is needed is a Room Climate app. Coming in 2.4.x? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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