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My precious! [updated 2016-03-08]

PhuturistPhuturist Member
edited March 2016 in Archive
Just wanted to share the first 24 hours with my Homey. I'm a pre-order but got too impatient and bought a secondhand Homey for the price of a pre-order. I thought about keeping my pre-order as well but decided to cancel it for now and stick with 1 Homey. So all pre-orders after the 23rd of april will move one spot up the list if my request is accepted ...

In general, I love Homey! It's a really great device with huge potential BUT it's not there yet. As mentioned by others already, a lot of it's functionality needs further development. Some functionality is more in alpha state then in beta state at this moment and might not even work. Luckly this all seems software related and just needs (a lot of) time, effort and some love. The flow editor is magnificent and sets it apart if you ask me. Having said that, Athom has a lot to learn as a company, specifically concerning communication. As most of us, I'm also wondering what the timeline looks like and just cant understand why Athom is not open and transparant about it. They need these first batch of enthousiast to make the product better.

Some of my findings up until now [updated 2016-03-08]:

HARDWARE

Homey looks awesome, the LED ring is a work of art. The holes below the LED ring are hardly visible in every day use. There is nothing wrong with the USB cable, yes it needs a one time bending to avoid tipping it over but I cant believe the fuss some people made over this. The cable is long which is a big pro.

VOICE

The voice control is not there yet but seems to be getting better. Only about 6 out of 10 times it recognises my "OK Homey". About 5 out of 10 times it understands  the (built in) voice commands. Using voice in the flows does not work that good yet. But when it works it's really awesome, I can image it becomes quite natural to give Homey voice commands!

FLOW

The flow editor is a piece of art, it's very intuitive and with great capabilities. I do have some wishes for improvement and I have also seen some great suggestions on the forum that will hopefully make it even better but this can set Homey apart as in usability.

  • The sunrise/sunset flow isnt working yet

ZWAVE

  • Adding Greenwave sockets (1 and 6 socket nodes) was very easy and worked perfect.
  • I can manage the Zwave network from version 0.8.22. It's not perfect yet but I was able to remove ghost devices.
  • Sometimes z-wave devices time out and cant be switched on/off from the zone view and a refresh node is needed for it to wake up. It works fine in flows however, even when the device can not be managed from the zone view.
  • COMMAND_CLASS_METER_V2 is not yet implemented in the z-wave API which is why I can not see current power usage per socket on a Greenwave Powernode 6. 

KAKU

  • I'm not able to pair the KAKU ACDB-7000B doorbell even though it works to switch a KAKU socket. Some other have reported that they where able to pair this doorbell so it might be related to my installation (using a relay in the default doorbell closed circuit). 
  • I was unable to pair remotes in 0.8.20 but havent tried since as I dont need them since the bitflip device was introduced in the BetterLogic app.

ATHOM APPS

  • For the Buienradar app I have a flow that should inform me 15 minutes before it starts raining but this never gets triggered, asking Homey if it's going to rain works fine though.
  • I have been unable to voice trigger Homey for a Chuck Norris joke, the voice control is not accurate enough.
  • I have been unable to do a voice controlled Wikipedia search, , the voice control is not accurate enough.
  • It was a breeze adding my LIFX light bulb and I can control my light with it. Understanding the settings of the card took me a minute as it differs from the LIFX app it works well.

ANDROID APP

Contains only the basics right now but works reasonably well.

  • I noticed sometimes it takes long to load the device cards.
  • I also miss access to flows. I'd like to trigger flows with shortcuts/widgets. It's in the pipeline but without it the app has less value in daily use.
  • The presence based on the GPS location through the app is unreliable, not sure if this is even fixable, I will probably look into a solution involving connected devices on the network

IMPROVEMENTS

Stuff that I would really like to see improved or added are (most if not all are already on the backlog of Athom):
  • Better management of flows, the grow like mushrooms and become unmanagable in the current GUI;
  • Bluetooth radio
  • Spotify integration
  • Widgets in the Android app
  • Being able to manage built in voice commands (either Athom or apps) to avoid conflicts with
  • A better scheduler functionality
  • Samsung Smart TV app

I'll continue to replace my current hacky solutions consisting of programmable remotes and time clocks with flows within Homey. So unlike others, for me my Homey is not just a nice looking sphere with a LED ring that just sits there but an actual domotica controller and I hope it will get better of time (as well as Athom as a company).

Comments

  • Phuturist said:

    CHUCK NORRIS APP 

    Homey hasnt made any jokes after 24 hours now, not sure how this app works and if it should make random jokes 

    WIKIPEDIA APP 

    I have been unable to do a Wikipedia search, Homey doesnt seem to trigger on the word Wiki or Wikipedia 

    Thanks for sharing. Always nice to see what is and what isn't working for other users.

    Concerning the apps:
    - you have to ask Homey to 'tell a chuck norris joke'.  I wouldn't really want it to start telling jokes at random times!  :p

    - you should be able to say 'wiki <subject>', but I couldn't get it to work either like that.  However, throught the /speech-input page, it does work!

  • Wikipedia does work sometimes, when Homey understands me :) The Wikipedia keyword works better spoken as something like wikke-pedia not weekeypedia
  • +1 for this :heart: story!
  • Wikipedia does work sometimes, when Homey understands me :) The Wikipedia keyword works better spoken as something like wikke-pedia not weekeypedia
    I've been wondering about this.  Would this be caused by the selected voice? Because 'wikke-pedia' is more UK English while 'weekeypedia' is US English...
  • Nice to read you are enjoying your Homey. I'm having a lot of fun myself.
    Apps will improve over time. Some documentation on some of the apps might be nice. 

    My Buienradar app was quiet for days. Then all of a sudden, it told me it stopped raining. 20 times in a row. I had to pull the power to make it stop. My Girlfriend is still teasing me with it  :D . Adding a variable to the flow fixed the issue. 
    The triggers are dependent on an external service. I think the app currently exists as an example. I'm sure more and better weather apps will get developed in the near future. 

    Try "Tell me a Chuck Norris Joke"  ;)
  • PhuturistPhuturist Member
    edited March 2016
    I finally took some time to whip up a video of some stuff I got working. The video is recorded with my phone in a dark room so dont expect too much quality. What you see is a flow with the following stuff:

    • The trigger contains the "when something is said" card
    • The AND conditions are "text contains watch" and "text contains videos"
    • First action after voice confirmation is switch on the power of all devices (TV, Reciever, Media Center, Harmony Hub) using z-wave. There is a Greenwave Powernode 6 in the closed cabinet below the TV. Switching this on is done using a bitflip device from the BetterLogic app so I can also use a device button in the app to start this flow (which increases the WAF by a million)
    • Then switch of the light in the corner which is connected trough a KAKU socket. Is is on a delay as I need to wait for all devices to power on any way.
    • Then start a Harmony Hub activity using the Harmiony Hub app. Also on a delay as I need the hub to connect to my network.
    • Then turn the LIFX light off in the center of the room using the LIFX app. Also on a delay so I have time to settle in.
    • By then Kodi is started and I use a voice command to start a movie through the Kodi app
    • And then I pause the movie with the Kodi app

    Brilliant stuff if you ask me, I :heart: my Homey.


  • Cool! Thx Foto the Video @Phuturist ;
  • Fire69Fire69 Member
    edited March 2016
    Yes, thank you for the video! Especially because mimicking your 'ok homey' made my homey react to me for the first time in weeks!  :o 
    So now I at least know it is actually listening... 

    [edit] 
    And... It's gone. No reaction anymore, not even when I use your video to try and trigger it...  Very frustrating  :|
  • Awesome, thnx for sharing that :)
  • DenWDenW Member
    edited March 2016
    Excellent story! Good to see what works and what needs improvement. And cool video.. 
    Thanks for sharing!
  • Awesome flow!
  • Fire69 said:
    Yes, thank you for the video! Especially because mimicking your 'ok homey' made my homey react to me for the first time in weeks!  :o 
    So now I at least know it is actually listening... 

    [edit] 
    And... It's gone. No reaction anymore, not even when I use your video to try and trigger it...  Very frustrating  :|
    There's a bug in .20 that breaks Homey listening to you if  you have set the brightness of your LED < 100%.. Setting it back to 100% and a reboot fixed that for me.

    I am at work now @Phuturist so I can't watch your video. Will watch it at home. So cool to see people are already using my Kodi app before it has even hit the app store! :smiley: 
  • EvertorN said:
    Fire69 said:
    Yes, thank you for the video! Especially because mimicking your 'ok homey' made my homey react to me for the first time in weeks!  :o 
    So now I at least know it is actually listening... 

    [edit] 
    And... It's gone. No reaction anymore, not even when I use your video to try and trigger it...  Very frustrating  :|
    There's a bug in .20 that breaks Homey listening to you if  you have set the brightness of your LED < 100%.. Setting it back to 100% and a reboot fixed that for me.

    Yeah, somebody over at Tweakers also told me that this morning...
    If that's really what has been keeping me from using voice, I'm going to cry  :p
  • :o  I didn't notice this, gonna try out tonight whether voice gets better with the ring at 100%... The real mystery is "why would these two be connected???"
This discussion has been closed.