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This forum is now read-only for archive purposes.
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New shipment date for Homey?
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+1
I was planning to install my Homey beneath my wall-mounted tv. I think I will need to find another location for it now, but then there's the risk of somebody passing the line-of-sight when it's transmitting.
That will be the same when using an ordinary remote then.
Or see that there is some kind of reflective surface opposite of the appliance you want to controlcontrol and Homey. Sometimes the paint on wood is enough to distribute a strong IR signal to other parts of the room.
You can try this by using your remote, placing it where you want to place Homey (firing 'backwards") and see if it will control your appliance. And from what I've seen\gather the Homey IR LEDs are more powerful than your average remote. If you happen to have a living room mirror in your room it'll probably do the trick..
I've been using IRTrans IR transmitters for years and never had any problems with the IR signal it is transmitting, even when line of sight appears to be blocked. Of course, we will have to see how Homey performs in the end and... your milage may vary..
True, but you would have more control over when exactly you use a normal remote.
When you say 'Homey, let's watch some tv' (tv/decoder/receiver on) and somebody decides to walk in front on the signal just then, Homey won't know which device didn't turn on.
[edit]
But I'm being too negative again. We'll see when it gets here :-)
@honey / @fire69: The acryllic ring is transparent and was originally designed to diffuse both the rgb and ir light. The new IR leds have a narrow long distance focus, and a broader low intensity angle. This still causes part of the IR light to reach the diffuser (just not all of it), which in turn emits IR light with lower intensity in the vertical direction. During the tests this showed to be enough light for smaller vertical distances. If you could send me a picture/drawing of the setup you want to create, i could try to have someone recreate a similar setup as one of the test cases.
Hi Jeroen,
Thank you for replying and for your hard work. My arrangement is like this (which I think is not uncommon in a modern home):
The walls are not always reflecting IR well and not all TV have sensitive IR receiver. Also it is not just about TVs placed like this but also controlling aircons and blinds which all need good vertical distribution.
double post
Easy fix for that...
1. "Hey homey... It did'nt work"
2. implement a conversation to make sure homey known what part of the signal(s) was dropped
3. let homey resend the signal.
Resending the signal is not always an option, as for some systems the command for power on/off is the same, i.e. it flips the current status.
[Another suggestion: Can we move the discusion about Homeys' (hômey as 'the other girl' writes it) capabilities to a different thread. This thread is about the shipment date. And basically, the only post we want here is the new/actual shipment date:).]
I dont see how that matters. If homey knows what signal was lost it can resend it. If homey did'nt turn on the TV it could resend a power toggle instruction again (followed by whatever should come next). If just a channel change signal was lost it could just send that signal.
Maybe i dont fully understand the way IR works (and if i am wrong please correct me) but my harmony remote seems to work exacly in the same way.
You want, not we. I am part of the we and i disagree.
I like these discussions about why homey is delayed and what the consequences may be.
You dont have to read the whole tread, ctrl+f can be your best friend here
@kriebelkous: How does homey know if on/off was successfull? IR communication is one way only, so if you want to know if the on/off toggle was successful, you need feedback. I think it is better to just repeat the command 'manually'. But that may cause an issue if your command TVON results in TV_ON, RECEIVER_ON, SAT_BOX_ON and (Let's assume) the satbox and the TV use the on/off toggle. If only the TV missed the command, the receiver and satbox will switch on. If you command homey to TV_ON, your TV will switch on and the satbox will switch off. The receiver will stay on, as we assume this one has saparate on and off commands. So you should still have separate commands, like 'Homey, SAT_BOX_ON'.
Your second you/we, I do not mean we do not want the discussion, but not in this thread. This discussion has nothing to do with the shipping date, but with functionality. I hope I cleared up the misunderstanding.
I think we should move the discussion too, although I don't mind it as much as the 15 posts we had before with just the +1's...
@honey, I have about the same setup, so I hope there is enough vertical diffusion to have it reach the television...
Infrared gives no feedback, so you stay in the dark ;-) Same matter concerning KAKU. As we have seen in the ranchetest, the range is more then ok for KAKU. But if in you're homesituation for some reason the device does not react to the command, you can not blame it on Homey. You have to troubleshoot you're environment or switch to a other protocol. Sure, it is very pleasant if in many cases the infrared remote works, but if it does not i do not blaim Homey if the signalstrenght is ok. I'm more then happy that it works in the other cases. So yes i'm happy that they have discoverd this issue and working on it, but do not expect it to be "perfect". @Emile: when do you +/- expect to know how long the delay is going to be? You mentioned 4 weeks, but are hoping shorter......
The harmony remote has a "help"button. In something does not turn on you press the help button. The remote asks "Is the tv is on?" YES "Is the SatBox on?" NO. Now it wil send the signal for the satbox again.
So when you yell hey homey Help, homey will ask "Is the tv on?"...... Or whatever the last command to homey was
@kastelman: KAKU is not a problem, the on and off are different, so if you send 'On' twice, no issue. On many IR audio/video equipment, the power button on the remote is the same as on the device. It will flip the status from on to off and VV, regartless of the current state.
@Jeroen: That woul dbe the preferable option. Or a command 'ONLY TV ON', 'ONLY RECEIVER ON' etc.
The delay is 4 weeks not the lead time. New injection mould, new boards, new testing and December is short a month, issues with sourcing components at the end of the year. Not to mention that mass production will have its own issues. I reckon even the kickstarter delivery is going to be next year. Which is fine, just telling not to have false expectations. The product quality has priority.
maybe emile is willing to make a statement about what the new to be expected shipment dates are?
This is unfortunately not true.
Kaku dimmers are an exception. After sending the ON command twice, They will go into a continuous cycle stepping through all dim levels until the ON command is send a third time.
Kaku repeaters are designed to prevent this problem by re-transmitting a different code. That's why only up to 6 devices can be paired with the repeater.
@ReneBoeije: with KAKU still no assurance that it will execute the command if the problem lies otherwise. You have no feedback. Same with infrared. Had my issues with logitech as well. You get some spoky behaviour if you have more then one command in one action. So indeed to be sure, you have to build in a question as mentioned before ( and here is where the power off Homey kicks in). Also not only the powerbutton is a problem with infrared. Selecting a source has the same issue with some tv's. You can select the source button but then you have to send twice the ir for "down". So all i am saying is that it can be a solution for many situations, however not always sure it will work in all circumstances and don't expect Homey to tackle this.
@ericjanvanputten: agree, but also understand that this can be tricky for Emile. It is still an expectation.
Infrared just is a terrible protocol, and it's old. We try so support TV's and Audio receivers over HTTP whenever possible.
About the delays, it seems we can at least get new proto's within 1.5 week, which means that if they're good, +3 weeks and then we ship every order while they're being produced. So a total of max. 2 weeks delay. But that's not 100% certain of course!
Reliability of receiving devices is not something we can expect Homey to solve for us (as it is often completely out of their control). We have some responsibilities as a user as well. Mainly selecting the right device for the job: If you want reliability, go Z-wave or zigbee. If you want cheap, go kaku.
For Smart TVs there's probably a web API which can be used instead of infrared. You can also use fail-saves. An additional kaku plug for your TV to kill all the power can be nice to have as it reduces the stand-by power consumption. I have a timer at 01:00 to turn off all my lights again in case one of my earlier timer accidently missed one. Originally, I had set this mid-night failsafe to 00:00 which was a bit of an awkward surprise when we had a late night D&D game going and a deamon from the 7th hell had just spawned to ruin our day
the bottom-line is that Homey should function well on a technical level and the rest is mainly up to us.
@JaapPelt: +1
That's why i switched to z-wave!!
@Emile: thx for the update, but 1.5 week + 3 weeks = 2 weeks?
I was wondering the same..
2 weeks delay since the last planning
So simply put: the last planning expected to be able to ship the first batch of Homeys 3 weeks from now, now the expectation is 5 weeks?
I'm glad another bump on the road is cleared. So if the first batch in best case will be deliverd in about 5 weeks, whats is the estimated delivery window for a Homey ordered 2 weeks ago?
As long as I get my two Homeys before Christmas I'm happy, keep up the good work!
@Wever: that will be christmas 2016. I ordered mine may 2014 which was planned to be delivered may 2015. The planning keeps getting extended to later dates. Emile's update on 1 september he said it would be only only 4 weeks to go...
Of those 40 PCB's, about 20 will be sent to the Super backers and Early Batch backers. Everyone else can then expect a Homey in the mail as well, as fast as we can produce them. So for Geek backers, this will be beginning October.
So now appearently now it is no longer 4 weeks to go counting from 1 september but 5 weeks to go from now! The estimated time to first delivery is actually INcreasing instead of DEcreasing. That's crap.
It would be much clearer if a date (range) was given instead of a duration. Estimated delivery half of december makes much more sense than saying 9 weeks.
Please keep in mind that this is their first product (of this size), and that they had no idea of the kinds of problems they could run into. I'm sure that, if they'd ever create a Homey v2, their estimates of how long that whole process is going to take would be a lot more accurate.
Personally I believe the 5 week estimate is still quite optimistic, so I would consider it a small miracle if no further problems arise and if the first batch is indeed delivered before Christmas.