I've been a convert from Wink to HE for 6months or so now and am loving it, including being as active as possible in this community.
Having said that, given Wink's even more recent troubles and an influx of users, it made me realize I have not articulated the few things I still miss from Wink. My goal here is to engage in good conversation on the Gaps v.s. possible solutions.
Wink Gap Features
Easily Accessible Global Activity
Wink had an awesome page where you could go glance and get a sense of what actions have happened, and how they were triggered. E.g. you could see your Lights turned on and who (person name) or what (trigger, alexa, robot, etc.) caused the action. It was also an awesome way to understand why something happened (e.g. Siren went off).
I have yet to find a similar tool in HE for this as the logs are way more verbose and there isn't any good attributions that I can find.
The Wink solution felt like a good sweet spot between being generally useful for anyone (e.g. my wife would frequent it) while also being a fantastic tool to trouble-shoot and understand your system (e.g. Me).
Home Sitter
Wink had a specific app/scenario for your lights where it would simulate being home when you were away on on vacation. In particular two specific features;
- Randomize Lights on/off in a pattern that mimics human behavior
- Play music on your device (Sonos) to also mimic being away
Moonlight
Wink has a mode similar to "Home sitter" that makes it incredibly easy to setup, turn off and add/remove devices to follow sunset/sunrise and any deltas.
Sonos Integration
The Wink native Sonos integration is superior as it allows you to control playback, playlists, favorites, etc a lot more seamlessly.
Solutions
Easily Accessible Global Activity Solutions
None.
I have not found any at all here, besides Dashboard per tile history hunting on a
Sonos Solutions
- RM lets you achieve some of this, but with complications. In particular playlist support is incredibly painful.
- Running a NodeJS server with Sonos HTTP is a great solution but introduces yet another system and fail-point.
HomeSitter Solutions
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I personally use Alexa Guard as my solution for lights here, which I trigger thanks to the great Alexa integration with HE. I have not found a good solution for the Sonos piece outside of complex RMs I'm trying out (Community App opportunity!
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@bptworld has the Fantastic "At Home Simulator" app
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Vacation Light Director Port - Note I have not tried this.
Moonlight Solutions
- I have found success with the built in Simple Automation Rule app which has much improved lately.
That's all I have, I'm happy to keep this first post up-to-date as people suggestion solutions and or any other constructive gaps we should consider as a community.
Edit: It's worth pointing out, HE is 1,000 times better than Wink. I'm focusing on the 2% items here that I miss from Wink, and not speaking to the 98% of why HE is so much better.