The $400 price point really seems like a big hill to climb for Homey...Most users starting into HA don't have a very clear idea about how much they are going to end up automating, and how much it's going to cost. I know I didn't forsee where I would end up w/this hobby, and if the entry price had been the equivalent of $400 when I started several years ago that would have been a much more difficult decision than the ~$100 ST hub I started with. Homey has the cheaper subscription option as well, but we all know how tired we are of being asked to create one more subscription...
I do think Homey could peel off some of the upper end of the market, including those who believe the most expensive option always be the best, and those who just want the hub w/the longest list of features, regardless of what they actually will need or will do.
And there are the "braggers" too - "That thing sitting on the marble pedestal in the middle of my living room? Oh that's my new Homey, it's the most expensive home automation hub on the market. I have a couple lights I turn on and off with it."
They are not aiming for power fit users like power users here. They don't need variable connector and those complicated rules. As long as they are reliable and easy to use then there will be a market for it. I think this is to fill the market between Control4/Savant and HA/HE. I like there rule engine by just watching the keynote. Very similar to Stringify.
Agreed but what gets me is that people who claim to be in IT or programmers turn around and crap all over everything because somehow straightforward concepts all of a sudden become foreign to them or they have some preconcieved notion of how it "should" work according to them and when it doesn't (in most cases it works better than they think" they get frustrated and terse when being helped.
There is some truth to this. The more you think you know, the more likely you are to think your ideas are right and other ideas are wrong in your area of knowledge. 'Power users' are the most opinionated about how the hub 'should be'. I love it when someone says "I've been doing this for [pick some number of decades] so I know best how it should be done". That really means the person has stopped learning.
I've been a network engineer for 30 plus years and I still love to learn. I thought when I had wink that was cool, oh how little did I know. Once I came to hubitat I realized there was so much more and so much more to learn. I'm still learning and making mistakes and appreciate when I get corrected.
Watching the promo video, Homey appears to be nothing more than an add-on board with a Raspberry Pi inside a flashy case. It is only the Homey software which is unique. I also do not understand why an adapter is required for a wired ethernet connection since most Raspberry Pi boards have an ethernet connector on-board. I purchased Hubitat because I am not a fan of a Raspberry Pi to be running my home automations with HA. As an engineer and software developer, I will always choose functionality over a slick GUI. Hubitat wins in my book!
Hubitat and Control4 user here. Control4 offers better reliability, support, AV, and UI/control as compared to Hubitat. C4's rule engine is pretty similar to Rule Machine including lots of clicks. Hubitat has more (& better IMO) built in apps, more Z-Wave and Zigbee support. C4's UI is from a long time ago (think Novell Netware). C4 is similar to HomeSeer in its treatment of 3rd party developers - lots of paid drivers/apps, with all the plusses and minuses. I wish Hubitat would charge more so they could do more.
Lots of trees. Both companies are/were from Utah, I wouldn't be surprised to see Novell rub off on to C4, though I don't know if that's what actually happened.
More substantively on the UI: like Hubitat, there's not always a good line between drivers and apps. C4 has a much poorer delineation. So most things are end up being called a device, including things that are really apps. And like all systems, including both Hubitat and C4, expert users end up adapting. (The state of C4 is mostly due to age. All systems get to legacy status. Is Hubitat there? Maybe?)
I think the data model between Hubitat and C4 devices is fairly similar. C4 calls their device templates "proxies". Easier to understand than all the Home Assistant model of entities.
They are using the Pi4 Compute Module which does not have ethernet onboard. They would have to add it to their carrier board, which they likely determined that most people will be using WiFi anyway and the cost (and physical space required) wasn't worth it vs just offering an external USB ethernet dongle.
The Advanced Flow does sure look a lot better than RM.
No one I have recommended Hubitat too has liked Hubitats‘ interface and usability. Arguing that the people who are complaining about the UI just don’t understand logic is a horrible argument.
While I wasn't looking to make that case, by me placing my suggestion alongside my reference to the UI side to this discussion, it can make it (and later comments) appear that way. There can be different reasons people find a system difficult to use, which can include the on-screen presentation and background knowledge that can help make the ride a little smoother, amongst others. I was only looking to help one piece of that puzzle.
So you are right, there is no single bucket we can put those in who offer feedback on the UI, we have to take each case as it comes.
It looks a lot like Node Red which can be used with Hubitat
I think most people would take something integrated over yet another bolt on piece of software. I'm already running a dozen containers and looking to stream line operations.
