With all the hub on hub action, I was wondering if you'd considering selling a VM image that I could run on a PC or server that links to one of your hubs? I could run automations on a Core i5 or Xeon machine that links to your hub and all the devices. I'd buy that outright and pay yearly maintenance on something like that.
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What an excellent idea!
Hub images could be registered in the same way as a physical hub, so it couldn’t be used more than once.
I’d be happy to pay 75% of the current hub cost for the image and save on the hub hardware cost (and import duty)
Obviously I would need the usb sticks though.
I don’t think support would be any more involved as the software platform would be the same.
It could be sold with a cavaet that HE staff won’t support the virtual host platform.
This could be a useful additional revenue stream for HE
Even though I have two physical hubs already, I would buy one immediately!
Andy
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+1
snapshots & vm backups would be sweet.
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I would buy that too. ideally in a Docker container.
Would this also relieve pressure on resources when using webcore? (not that I would ever use it personally)
Additional resources could be allocated to the VM above the current hub hardware spec
Andy
That's what I was thinking. A full x86/AMD64 processor would run rings around a low power ARM/rPie appliance. The current HE hub would connect to the ZWave and ZigBee devices, while IP based and other hub based devices like Hue, Lutron, and Harmony would talk direct to the VM based hub.
+1 On this idea! I would love to have my own hardware.
Bummer, with the right license enforcement this could be a good reoccurring revenue stream for HE without adding an extra service. As a consumer I LOVE this buy once and get support and upgrades forever. But its not the best model for you. A yearly maintenance renewal would give you a steady cash flow. Selling your appliance as a VM would decouple your product from the hardware. Eventually the network hardware will become ubiquitous, the platform will be where the value lays.
The differences in the platform between some "randomly built" VM and a specific piece of hardware seems quite daunting to me. We already know Hubitat staff is spending a big chunk of time supporting "random writers" of code.
Beyond just the cross compile issue, there's all the variations AND the reading skills of the purchasers. "It's not working!!" "umm, did you read the spec? 2 gig of mem, you've got 1 allocated."
Please, let's get a remarkably stable, fast and extensible platform.
Although, you can put me on the list of one who'd buy one. 
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I would definitely be IN on a virtual hub image too, this would have a ton of benefits including reliability, high availability, backups and snapshots, higher resource allocation, etc.
That said, I can see the logistics of this being quite challenging specially around support. If they ever decide to do this I would be willing to take the stick from my hub and use it on the host probably with an USB extension and then pay a yearly software license for it...
I suspect they know more about their business plan than you do.
I'm not saying it's not a cool idea, just that they're clearly not interested in crowdsourcing ideas for fundamental aspects of their business model.
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