Richard, on the latest The Smart Home Show, talked about Hubitat and brought up some good points. Starts at 41 minutes in.
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I think he is talking about this podcast the website is way behind on episodes they are up to 197:
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I mean it's primarily the interface they critiqued which has been an issue for a long time. Nothing really new. Personally I think it's fine. The issue to wrap peoples head around is RM but even that doesn't take long to understand. People that truly don't understand HA think in terms of an APP on their phone to push a button, more as a remote control or be able to speak a command. Once they realize there is more that can be done, they realize it can be a little daunting for them...
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The only thing that bugs me about their assessment is that although it's true that the experience on HE is certainly more suited for the technical minded, the barrier to entry is not as high as they make it out to be. They make it sound like you need to be a backyard tinkerer developer, but I'd say many of the wink folks that have come over have picked it up without needing that level of expertise.
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Nonetheless, for the "simple" user, it is important to have an interface on the phone where they can make "simple" changes. I am in favour of a interface for the first level apps (simple automations, motion lighting, notifications, ) on the phone so that "simple" changes can be made.
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Think about it. That was Wink’s strength. A clean interface to do simple things. No custom apps. Users never knew that more was possible. As long as the system stayed up, they were happy. A simple appliance.
Perhaps now (or soon) that Hubitat has gotten the sophisticated stuff working, and working well (e.g. RM, Zwave topology, etc.) they can concentrate on make changes to their UI which would enhance their suitability to "simpler" clients.
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I think that's one of the weakness with the team at the moment. I'm not sure, since Patrick left, if they've got anyone that is really UX/UI focused. Most of the team seem to be engineer focused with little to no front-end expertise. I may be wrong there, but the fact that dashboards/mobile have mostly languished without much improvement (community additions aside) demonstrates the lack of attention in that space.
With limited resources, decisions have to be made between a stronger and more stable core and a better looking, more usable UI...
Though great progress has been made, I suspect there is still some work to be done to solidify the core and that once they feel it is in a good place, they will put more focus on the UI/UX.
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Understood. You need the expertise though, and that's what I'm not sure they have in the team atm. I'm sure Bruce has some idea of it, but good UX/UI design is a discipline in and of itself. That's what I'm guessing is missing from the team's skillsets at the moment.
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Yea, that’s a good point!
That is so true - it's easy to downplay the front end of things. I know I did as a young programmer and it was a tough lesson to learn when I started working on customer facing apps. In today's interconnected, high visibility world this is even more true I think.
The difficulty is that Home Automation is a very complicated subject. For the real stuff, serious automation that is customized to fit your lifestyle/household and devices it's problematic. RM is a very good attempt at simplifying/abstracting the complexities of Home Automation logic for the average user. Sure it could be wrapped in a prettier / "dumber" interface but if things are too simple then you would never be able to get anything done beyond controlling a few light bulbs on a schedule. Selfishly I sure don't want HE to go that route! I like the power and flexibility that is available. Of course I do recognize that ease of use is very important to most consumers so things could always be improved and I am sure everyone at HE is aware of this as well.
Always a trade off, always a balance.....
To be honest, I see a world where the simple automations aren't done in something like HE anyway, but instead are done in Alexa/Google home using their Routines. (Google is behind here compared to Alexa of course). Alexa and Google home interfaces are the simple consumer side, and the complex side can be handled elsewhere. Once google sorts their routines I really wouldn't need that simple interface in a HE app anyway, as other family could create a simple routine that uses HE presented devices anyway.
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Oh I certainly agree with you there! The trouble is now you are committed to using "cloud" services and apps and all the issues (privacy/outages/control/changes etc) that potentially come with that... Remember Wink initially threatened to stop automations if the bills weren't paid... IFTTT changed their services etc. Google initially stopped their developer accounts without a good replacement killing HE nest integration....
I prefer to keep all things cloud and network on the "edge" of my systems. Useful but not mission critical.
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Yep, but think of the kind of simple automations where an app would make sense to manage them, and they'll likely not be the mission critical things anyway. Hence why I see the consumer apps for Alexa/Google/Homekit being the predominate way most 'normies' will interact anyway. We can then drive some complex things on the backend locally, and use dashboard interfaces locally as well.
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HE could close shop right now and I would be satisfied with what I got out of the product now that zwave has been pretty much worked out. I think I have around $250.00 invested in HE pretty cheap and simple for what it can actually do. Switching over to iphones/apple watch and using homebridge has satisfied my needs in every way its just that good.
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Yep I think that makes sense - it's why I also use HomeBridge - it allows my clients to fiddle around with their iDevices while I can maintain the backend in HE.. I also use Node-RED as well but that's probably another discussion.
But doing these things require someone with knowledge/tech skill to implement.. which is kind of Richard Gunther's point I guess.
It also plays into my point that Home Automation may be a lot more complex than a simplified UI can provide without outside technical assistance.
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I wonder if the lack of flashy mobile app and improved web ui isn't so much a lack of talent but more because of how strictly the platform dictates how the UI should look. When trying to built an app, you find out pretty quickly that the UI tools that are provided are limited. You can hack a bit with some html and Javascript but you're still limited to the controls that the platform provides.
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Very good conversations here. I just want to state that I want a simple app/dashboard for devices that cannot change configuration of the home automation platform. That is why I hated the SmartThings app. I had to install it on phones to get events and run automations and it also enabled the device to have the ability to change things.
Right now with Hubitat the configuration is walled off if your use their dashboards and mobile apps. It may not be the most elegant in user experience but we do have separation of functionality. I can put a custom dashboard on each one of my family members phones without worrying that they may delete a action or change the configuration of a device.
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