This is the forum archive of Homey. For more information about Homey, visit the Official Homey website.
The Homey Community has been moved to https://community.athom.com.
This forum is now read-only for archive purposes.
The Homey Community has been moved to https://community.athom.com.
This forum is now read-only for archive purposes.
Comments
Our mission has always been about making home automation accessible for everyone, so it is a logical choice to focus on supporting devices where most users are.
Does not compute, if you want to make home automation accessible for everyone you expand the platforms you support, not shrink them.
And again, should speed be the main driver here, or user experience? Even if it took more time to select something through three clicks it sometimes is just way simpler than having everything on your screen at all time.
I use an iOS app to manage a 100.000+ user Google apps domain. Just imagine how this would look like if you have them all on your screen
But that is not the case with everyone. For me personally, on average I spend 8-10 hours a day behind the computer, and I spend about 10 minutes per day using my own smartphone (mostly for actual phone calls, not for apps... and I don't own a tablet at all). I am way, way faster (and more comfortable!) with mouse and keyboard on the computer, than I am with scrolling and typing on my smartphone. For me, both in terms of speed AND user experience, the PC wins.
So why should I be forced to switch from the Homey app on my computer, to a Homey app on the smartphone?
And there still might (probably) come a windows 10 port.
And the (extra) free memory (and thus speed) you get for not having a webserver constantly running on your homey.
And the extra man power (hours) left on athom's side, so they can work on more (important/new) stuff, plus the less support questions.
And the more customizabity they can add then because they have a clean slate (multiple triggers per flows anyone?)
And extra OR columns as that is now need to be limited to 3 because of not enough space on the screen to keep it user friendly.
and/or extra ELSE also with the same reason.
The more ease of adding devices as you can be physically at them while it is including. (which is now cumbersome on the smartphone)
Want more examples what is all possible with a clean slate?
Like the topic already should be... Give examples/ideas on what you want in the new mobile app, as there is so much possibility.
It is going to happen, just how, can be up to us thanks to ideas
Extra investments to buy a device for this purpose only, and proberly not only one time.
again its our choice if we like this development or not and to which degree we like it or not, but please let us ventilate our opinion and until a clear decision made by Athom is there we can decide how we would like to respond and give our preference.
an awesome (unbeatable) GUI could be created, with many great minds, and if there is something this community has, then it is a big amount of awesomely great and creative minds.
Hench this topic..
I'll tell my dad to just install a VM to use his Homey. Think he will be happy to do this because it should be as hard as using "word" and browse the internet.
then i challenge you to find an idea that was whipped away by athom, and/or never has been implemented with time
(something they have more then enough of before releasing to fw v2.0, time)
that is, if that idea is doable in the GUI they are using now that is, for example multiple triggers (an idea) is not possible at the moment.
and i think your father can start an windows 10 app right?
Since "And there still might (probably) come a windows 10 port". Winning the lottery is still a possibility . its still NO untill its done/promised.
Only thing I need to hear form Atom is. "Yes we will port this for windows 10" .
Thats all. Untill than, the message is, Nope, not gonna happen! have fun with your LED ball since you didnt expect us to cut off all acces from one of the biggest computer platforms in the world,, HAHA jokes on you....
Just like you say that is a IF and just like all your assumptions that are also IF because nobody knows if your IF is gonna happen. So just wait what Athom will show when they have something to show and for now you can do everything from your PC so i don't see the problem because 2.0 is not released tomorrow, next week, next month or next quarter
And for your information, the API SDK has already been launched for developers that would come with 2.0 so developers already can start making a frontend on Homey. Athom is now busy with bringing 1.4/1.5 as 1.5 to experimental as soon as possible so everybody can use the new OR, image tags, app sdk 2 and offcourse the activated zigbee chip. 2.0 is far away at the horizon and they are now looking into how to do it, when they have something they will come back to the users with more information just like they did last week with the blog
If emulation is so easy to set up, then maybe Athom can provide an installer for Windows that sets up/updates the entire environment, so that every single PC user does not have to figure it out for himself.
I *have* tried a variety of Android emulators in the past, such as Bluestacks and Andy, but I uninstalled them again because of all the spam, ads and (daily) unwanted apps that they install alongside the main program... without the ability to avoid that. I am definitely not looking forward to being forced into that again for Homey.
Webserver - that's a valid argument, but I'm sure there are (or could easily be added) other ways for the Homey app on PC to communicate with Homey. After all, Homey should be the master of communication protocols...
As for the user interface... I don't see that as a valid argument at all. The screen of a smartphone is considerably smaller than that of a PC, so any user interface redesign that fits on a smartphone, will easily fit on a PC screen as well.
As for giving examples/ideas on how I want the new mobile app to work... that's easy, and has been stated several times in this thread already... I want it to run (preferably native) on my PC!
The Windows 10 app would be a good idea, but "might, someday" isn't really reassuring, and besides, not every PC owner has Windows 10 yet (according to recent figures, about 27% of PC users use Windows 10, while more than 49% still uses Windows 7).
On a sidenote... also keep in mind that Homey is slowly expanding internationally. As I said on page 1 of this thread, in the Netherlands the percentage of smartphone users may be very high (~86%), in neighboring countries it's considerably lower (~70%), and the worldwide average is only 33%. That's a considerable group of potential (future) customers that is eliminated...
well said, couldn't agree more.
@emile clearly stated that "the Homey Desktop App (and all web-interfaces) will eventually be removed as of Homey v2.0." There's no IF or MAYBE in there, it's stated as fact. You're right, 2.0 will not be released tomorrow, but anyone having a problem with these plans should speak up now, so that Athom can still change their plans a bit. If we all keep quite until 2.0 is released, then it will definitely be too late.
So, it all starts with creation. And yes, I have used a tablet to include z-wave gear that needs to be next to my stationary Homey. However; the fun stuff - coming up with flows - is all done behind my desk and this:
The platform they use is capable of making a Windows version of it so i don't see the problem yet. Speaking up is something else then discussing about assumptions how things will go and just like i earlier said Athom will move forward just like with the blog they wrote when there is more information. You can all write all your assumptions and discuss about that but there is not a fact in it about how it will look. Better write ideas, how could Athom do this and how does it need to look, what is needed in a new UI. Just my 2 cents that when helping forming the vision is more productive then just standing at the sideline only repeating a No to something you don't know your no saying to
And a sidenote, you only repeat smartphone but the standard UI will be usable at smartphone and tablet as also on other platforms from the groundwork they use
I feel that I need to keep repeating myself... so please, please also read my previous posts before replying, as it's all in there already.
I'm not shouting NO to the new app, to whatever the user interface will look like, etc... I'm shouting "I want Athom to include PC support!, not just limited to Windows 10". So all I need from them is a confirmation that their new app will continue to run on PC when (not IF) they drop support for the Homey Desktop App and the web interface.
Emile's statement "The new app will initially support smartphones, and later on tablet devices and iPads." makes it very clear that support for PC/Mac is not currently planned for this app. That is the one feature I am requesting!
And as I have stated repeatedly in this thread, I don't own a tablet, don't care about tablets, and am not going to buy one just for Homey. And the number of people worldwide who own a tablet is neglectably small in comparison to the number of people owning a smartphone. Besides, Athom themselves call it the "smartphone app"!
And as always, feature requests, bugs etc need to be filled at the Github of Athom, Athom doesn't use this forum for bug tracking or feature requests.
And again, I'm not asking for more details on how the app will look. This isn't about the user interface, or even about what features will be available in the app. This is about the part that they HAVE been very clear about... ie. the fact that they're going to stop supporting PC/Mac, and are moving to smartphones and tablets. Until the next blog post in which they clearly state that they WILL keep supporting PC/Mac, I (and I'm sure several others with me) am going to continue expressing my discontent with that particular decision. So once more, just in case this still isn't clear to you: I'm not asking for details on HOW they will do that, or what it will LOOK like... in other words, I absolutely do not ask for details... all I want is a confirmation THAT they will do it.
Also, you're quite inconsistent... you DO want us to use this forum to discuss/request what the user interface of the new smartphone app should look like and what functionality would be useful there (as you have requested several times in this thread), but you do NOT want us to use this forum to discuss/request what other operating systems that same smartphone app should support (in reply to their Software Status updates that were posted on this very same forum)!?!
With this, I feel I've been repeating myself often enough. If this isn't enough to make it clear to you, then I don't think anything I could say will change that.
That means that this forum should only be used by third parties app makers and their users regarding apps and everything else regarding Homey core and Homey apps should not be discussed on this forum, because it is useless.
Well, regarding the latter, I can confirm that it is indeed useless. They do what they want to do, they sometimes respond, but not engage into a discussion. Once a while a status report on what will or can happen in the future.
You really must have balls to just post a statement that the PC platform will not be supported in the future (with a BS reason that phones are more popular. Can you imaging Microsoft will say they quit supporting PC for Visual Studio, because Phones are more popular?) and not engage in the discussion. Just dropping a bomb and run away.
Repeating you want a PC will not give you anything, as told multiple times on this forum requests or bugs are handled by github so if you really want to bring it to Athom's attention that is the place to be. As always there are multiple camps, one wants mobile (see github and this forum for requests) and other want pc. One wants media manager in Homey they other want to disable it. Good thing that priorities are handled by Athom instead of all of us, then there would be no progress.
They didn't just drop a bomb because they responded here and wrote a blog about the issue as could be read in the update. And again, said multiple times now in this post this is indeed more a community forum where Athom is not always responding, they mostly respond when we ask them to respond as we did in this topic when it started. Now we just wait because after the update and blog, and all the information they have discussed at the developers meetup there is no new information.
If they're not even reading the popular threads on their own forum, then they should start doing so really fast, to stay a bit more in touch with what their user community is unhappy about. That is vital to the survival of the company (as is, I would not recommend a Homey purchase to anyone, and this kind of announcements only make that worse).
Imho, this forum is the perfect place for this kind of discussions, I definitely would not recommend trying to do this on Github (or even Slack).
On a sidenote:
> As always there are multiple camps, one wants mobile (see github and this forum for requests) and other want pc. One wants media manager in Homey they other want to disable it.
That is why giving people multiple options (let them choose, instead of making the choice for them) is such a good thing... you make more people happy. And Athom desperately needs more happy users. The way they are going now, I predict bankruptcy before the end of 2018.
Microsoft claims 1.5 billion active Windows users worldwide (total for all versions of the OS)
Google claims around 1.4 billion active Android users worldwide (smartphones, tablets, and other devices).
So those numbers are very similar numbers (give or take 0.1 billion). Mac market share is estimated at around 10%, iOS market share around 15%, so there's no really big difference there either.
So where is Athom's notion that smartphone support is more relevant than PC support, and that many users don't even own a PC anymore, actually coming from?
but for Europe:
http://gs.statcounter.com/platform-market-share/desktop-mobile-tablet/europe
and the Netherlands:
http://gs.statcounter.com/platform-market-share/desktop-mobile-tablet/netherlands
What if more people have a smartwatch with sim card. Are they then stopping support for smartphone and only provide apps for smartwatches? (again, smartwatch that does not need a smartphone due the fact it can have a sim card)
PCs, Tablets, Smartphones, smartwatches...all have its own strengths and weakeness. All have their own specific usage. At Athom they probably through out the laptops from the office. Because Smartphone is more popular than laptops.
I hope now that people see that saying the PC does not be supported anymore, because phones are more popular is a BS statement. Its a meaningless statement.
Very mature.
(like we are currently doing at work)