Of course with Hubitat making no promises to developers that they won't just add the features to their in-box offering once they see how popular the developer's offering is, would RBoy take the time to port it (even when there is a store)? I guess only time will tell!
I mean, if it isn't a lot of work then sure. If it is a lot of work, I think it is a risky. But I guess I'm conservative with my time.
I imagine a (fictional) scenario where RBoy ports his app - it is wildly popular - so based on the customer demand Hubitat sees they decide to add some/most of the features to their in-box Lock Manager. RBoy is SOL at that point - both development time and new sales lost.
I imagine a second (fictional) scenario where Hubitat is already working on an enhanced Lock Manager due to requirements from their commercial customers, but RBoy has no idea that is happening (as discussed there are no roadmaps, and none will be provided per Bruce). So RBoy ports his app, then next month Hubitat comes out with their "enhanced Lock Manager" that has many/most of RBoy's features for free. RBoy is SOL at that point - both development time and new sales lost.
I have been accused of being paranoid before, but I will point out that similar things have happened multiple times on apps/drivers over the past few years. As Bruce said, that is their prerogative - I'm not disputing that. But I am postulating that is a negative incentive for developers if their intent is monetizing their work.
When you are competing with the platform itself, it is hard impossible to win in the long term.
But whatever. Here's hoping for more quality 3rd party apps and drivers anyway!
As @bravenel indicated a few posts ago, Subscription services are currently in beta. So, presumably, you'll have the opportunity to pay a periodic fee soon enough.
When RBoy made his apps there were no SmartThings equivalents. There was no in-box "Lock Manager" in SmartThings...
But to your point, could Samsung have squashed his apps if they wanted to - yup. There is no zero risk scenario, of course. The platform owner is always going to reserve the right to improve their offerings. It is how they (privately) communicate with those existing app/driver authors that is key to happiness.
I do think it is "more likely" that a user app/driver will be supplanted, though, if there is already an existing in-box app (even if it is currently less feature filled).
But I'm arguing theoreticals. I could be completely wrong.
I wanted to respond to this a little more fully - opensource isn't only beneficial to individual end-users, indeed even companies like Hubitat Inc benefit greatly from the use of such technologies right?
As a small business owner I admit that I am not quite sure how you could create a popular salable product and then build a sustainable model around it without helping your competitors.. especially the bigger ones. If all your code is available another company won't have to buy you out - just replicate in house and go from there.
Yes, that is great. But sooner or later it will be a problem. No support for new devices, etc. I know the topic of pay services keep coming up and I'm glad they are looking into it. I just want them to be around for the long term. Not really up to totally changing platforms again.
There are a few user-generated drivers that expose the other settings for the BE468 and BE469 from a while back. I used them when I first got my HE but am now using the built in drivers so I can't speak to if these still work. Maybe they will be worth a try for you.
Driver One:
Driver Two:
I can't remember which of the two worked better for me. If you run into any issues I believe you can run the 'clean device' driver to clear everything out before switching back to the built in, or generic, lock drivers.
EDIT: These are for the non-plus versions of the lock. I may have missed it if you were talking about either the plus, or zigbee, variants of Schlage BE468/9 or other locks.
I've talked to many HE users and they all are still wanting this for Hubitiat. Really need the rental lock Automator. I've switched over everything to Habitat except that. I hate having two hubs. I like the lock manager for HE but for my rental properties, I need the full functionality of the Rboy rental lock autometer to sync calendars and automate thermostats on conditions. I reached out to them to ask about offering as a purchase for Habitat and this is what they responded : "Thank you for your email. We have reached out to Hubitat several times and they arenāt interested in allowing RBoy Apps on their platform. Unfortunately their policy prevents us from selling apps on their platform without an invitation.
You can reach out to their CEO Bruce on the Hubitat community forum and ask him to invite us to join their platform."
This is untrue. Rboy has not once contacted us about doing this. Don't know why. Our policy does prevent him from selling apps on our platform without first coming to an agreement with us about same, and we have done this with others... One is left with the impression that he doesn't want to do that.
I feel ya. I went down this road some time ago. Near as I could figure, regardless of what has or not happened in the past neither side wants to reach out to the other.
Stand still.
I would love to see some movement on this as well.
This topic has been beaten to death over the past 2 years. RBoy isn't interested in sharing money, which I was actually told by him seeing there isn't much to share in the first place, So there is that.
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