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The Homey Community has been moved to https://community.athom.com.
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The Homey Community has been moved to https://community.athom.com.
This forum is now read-only for archive purposes.
Cloud independent if possible...
Mecallie
Member
Hi folks,
I am just throwing this out there to see what the opinions are.
Before I purchased a Homey I did some investigating to see if I could find a solution that works as independently as possible. So: no cloud dependency to turn on my lights. Preferebly no internet dependency either.
I had some options: Domotics. Tried that: all I was doing was keeping it running and adding new scripts to support all devices, which broke about once a week because of the new versions. OpenHAB: to much work, to little wife acceptation factor. Vera Plus: pretty good, but fewer supported devices and not Dutch
So I decided on a Homey. However: not even a month after buying it the controls for all of my LIFX lights where changed from the LAN api to the cloud API. So now I cannot switch on my lights if I have no internet or LIFX decides to go belly up...
There are more examples of where the cloud is used to do things that could be done locally (maybe with some more effort involved). Same goes for controllers: I like the fact that I can turn on my Tradfri lights without the IKEA hub, the Xiaomi devices without theirs, etc....
For me the purchase of the Homey over the Vera Plus was mostly based on independence: of cloud and other controllers. I want one hub, not twenty...
So my question is:
Do you think it is a good idea to have Athom prefer direct (lan) apps and controllerless connections over cloud and third party based options? I think this is a huge advantage over other offerings and as such should be incorporated in the long term company policy.
(Sorry: no polls that I can find :P )
I am just throwing this out there to see what the opinions are.
Before I purchased a Homey I did some investigating to see if I could find a solution that works as independently as possible. So: no cloud dependency to turn on my lights. Preferebly no internet dependency either.
I had some options: Domotics. Tried that: all I was doing was keeping it running and adding new scripts to support all devices, which broke about once a week because of the new versions. OpenHAB: to much work, to little wife acceptation factor. Vera Plus: pretty good, but fewer supported devices and not Dutch
So I decided on a Homey. However: not even a month after buying it the controls for all of my LIFX lights where changed from the LAN api to the cloud API. So now I cannot switch on my lights if I have no internet or LIFX decides to go belly up...
There are more examples of where the cloud is used to do things that could be done locally (maybe with some more effort involved). Same goes for controllers: I like the fact that I can turn on my Tradfri lights without the IKEA hub, the Xiaomi devices without theirs, etc....
For me the purchase of the Homey over the Vera Plus was mostly based on independence: of cloud and other controllers. I want one hub, not twenty...
So my question is:
Do you think it is a good idea to have Athom prefer direct (lan) apps and controllerless connections over cloud and third party based options? I think this is a huge advantage over other offerings and as such should be incorporated in the long term company policy.
(Sorry: no polls that I can find :P )
Comments
Direct connections might even need a harder, more difficult way to connect to it (reverse engineering for example), making it way less stable, as they are secured for that (a lot of companies do that).
Or just a lot more work to keep it stable if the manufacturer updates their devices/bridge.
A (cloud) api useally takes this trouble away.
As a lot of apps are community driven, you don't want to force a developer that spends his own free time on it, into a direction, people (especially developers) will then walk away.
Without developers there will be hardly any new apps/updates etc etc.
If you find a manufacturer/community developer made a poor choice of only offering an official cloud api, and not a local api (which useally was created by a developer (not necessarily the one who created the app) that reversed engineered it, and hopefully maintains this plugin/library).
Then choose a different device, as there are lots of options
but functionality is more limited indeed.... Athom wants to do as much without cloud as possible but some things can't be done without the cloud....
But at least Athom could make the "cloudless bridgless" mantra a part of their strategy. They do have own developers and "official" apps.
I am not saying you should not allow cloud stuff, not at all. All I am saying that if a cloudless/3d party less option involves slightly more effort it should not be dismissed. I think in the long term people will come to value privacy, stability (supplier gone bankrupt? No more lights...) and less devices in general.
And to say: then choose a different device is not viable. You do not really expect users to throw away a 1000$ worth of lights because the developer decided to follow a different strategy? If you know it before you buy it, ok, but not afterwards.
Just an example: Sitecom software supplier goed bankrupt. Camera's go in the bin....
But for the love of me I would not know how to get it on my Homey. Is there some kind of manual for that? (Anyone: you may PM me if you don't want to go off topic.