Question for the staff. Has there ever been any consideration to the business model to allow purchasing a Hubitat hub license and providing the hub available as a software download, proxmox container / virtual machine, docker container, etc for those of us who work in virtualized environments where we have a need or want for a hub without a need for ZWave / zigbee / wireless radios?
I know more my configuration it would allow me the ability to reduce two of my 4 hubs sitting on a shelf and reduce, albeit a rather small amount of power consumption and lessen the e waste in the environment plus reduce any shipping needs.
This has been raised a few times in the past, and staff have indicated a lack of interest in this model. Of course, anything might change in the future.
Even If folk didn’t want to add USB radios to their VM hosts, the support requirements would become exponentially more difficult for the HE team (see the Echo Speaks threads as an example).
I wouldn’t expect hubitat to provide support for the virtualized device or any network related support to make it work. However think of it as a means to purchase the software and license through the subscription portal. Another way to generate revenue / income for the business without any work of the hubitat team. Again, it’s been stated they’re not interested so it’s a moot point.
The only issue with that is it’s illegal to sell consumers something and not provide basic support in many countries.
I personally don’t mind the idea of a Hubitat VM / Docker container running on my beefy quad core / 8 thread NAS with the Radio’s provided by a Hubitat hub. So I’m not against the concept, I just know first hand how tricky providing customer support can be when you don’t control the platform.
