Hi to all,
Please don't understand me wrong, I love my Hubitat for it's reliability (mostly) and for it's flexibility in programming. On the other hand I can't really understand why the interface is worth than windows 3.1.
Take a look at Homey Pro 2023. I had a Homey 2019 before and it is so amazing to work with this nice, user friendly and inviting graphical interface. But it was not reliable and limited in programmability.
Come on Hubitat engage an interface designer. For a simple flow in Homey you drag cards to a canvas. Behind the scenes it is the same than going through popup menus and selecting items but in a funny way.
It's the same for the advanced flow designer in Homey, where you drag any type of card to a canvas and connect them by a line. All the magic behind would be to get the data from the designer and to set the programming to the interface. OK, you will have to install checks in the interface so that you can not connect anything to anything and so on, but it's just an interface to an engine behind.
They charge € 399 for Homey Pro, and I would gratefully pay the same price for an Hubitat Pro with such a cool interface.
In a world with Macs and iPhones, all with visually appealing interfaces, I'm sure most customers fear Hubitat and choose Homey just for it's interface, even if that may not be the best technical solution. Hubitat needs to move from 1980 to 2024, just my opinion.
So the pretty interface means nothing if the programmability isn't there.
I'd rather have a device like Hubitat that simply works. There's no need, in my opinion, for fancy, visually appealing interfaces. Let me setup what I need in a concise manner, and all is good to go.
I just want to add, that again in my opinion, useability is highly dependent upon the user. My wife, for example, would have no idea how to navigate Hubitat. But she's not expected to. She needs to deal with the end result, which I create using Hubitat. I, on the other hand, am highly technical and hands on, so navigating and doing what I need in Hubitat is not an issue for me.
Any product can be defined by the problems that it solves for a target persona or demographic. Hubitat was born out of frustration with weak performance/reliability. Clearly (as @jkudave and the very few Amazon reviews for Homey Pro 2023 point out), Homey is seeking a different demographic.
It is good to have different approaches. Different people prefer different devices, different protocols, different dashboards, and different automation/rule engines. So, it is reasonable that someone might want a different hub or at least certain attributes of that platform.
I was very briefly turned off by the UI. I was very motivated to have a reliable, local hub. The latter won. It is ok if someone comes to a different conclusion. I am confident that the HE staff are aware of their adoption rates and process customer feedback appropriately.
I'm not sure how many times this subject has been discussed before but it seems to keep rearing it's head.
I'm not saying the OP's opinion is not relevant, it is, but there are only so many times the same ground can be covered. Just sayin'
