A dashboard made by Homey (Athom) might be (not far, far away, but:) on it’s way!

We are discussing dashboard functionality here.
If buyers don’t find out Homey has none before the return period has expired, I don’t think that is Athoms fault.

Sure they do. But as Homey’s developers do this for a living, most community developers do not.
That said; I do think they should be rewarded for their hard work. So I regularly support community developers, as I urge other users to do too. Developers can show a Paypal account on the app page (or elsewhere), so Athom certainly does allow developers to get paid for their app.
But I get what you mean. Such a Apple/Android app store model would be supported by me too. Still, developers do know what they agree on. And then decide whether there is enough reward for you as a developer.

Surprise: this is how the world works. The price for a product is almost never the total sum of it’s cost.
Ask yourself what is is doing for you; what it will bring you. And then decide whether or not you think it is money well spent. Those criteria can be different for everyone. If not; simply don’t buy it.

Exactly. There is an important difference between updates and upgrades.
Updates (and support) are free, upgrades are not. I fully agree with that.

And since the introduction of Homey even a LOT of upgrades were free as well. Great!

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That’s not what I’m saying, what I’m saying is that users will be disappointed to find out that €400 on an automation platform didn’t get them a dashboard. It’s one of the most requested features for Homey, for years now, so imagine spending that amount of €€€ on a device only to find out you have to pay an additional €25 to get a dashboard. And yes, a lot of people will put up with that (re “sunk cost fallacy”).

Donations are not the same. My largest app in terms of installs (9K) has yielded me about €5 on donations the last couple of years.

It’s not in Athom’s interest to offer developers a proper way of getting paid for their apps, because it will eat into their business model: that a lot of functionality for Homey is provided, for free, by third-party developers.

I remember the times when I started Homey app development, when Athom forced every app to be Open Source so you could easily help out other developers, or learn from them. Athom killed that, and along with a lot of other bad decisions it made me (and others) stop actively develop Homey apps.

If you know how the world works, how can you say (and I quote) “Almost everything for free”? That’s not how the world works, and that’s what I’m referring to.

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Because they have to (too many active ones in use), and it’s easy because it’s basically the same hardware as the current version. And the things that would make it harder, like supporting unique features that the first HW version had, have been killed over the years.

Let it be noted that I just thought the light would be a nice addition to my man cave :smiley:

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I do not oppose the payment of additional functions in principle.
However, I distinguish between basic functions and extensions for professionals.

I find it outrageous to charge money for a basic backup. I don’t know of any Smart Home system that charges money for such a basic function.

It’s not about the amount, but about the fact that it’s a basic function.
The Advanced Flows are something special and if you want it, you can buy it.
A dashboard is also a basic function for me and I have a problem that I might have to buy it.
Then Athom should provide a normal dashboard for free and offer an Advanced Dashboard, for a fee. I can live with that.

I am happy to pay a price to the developer for exceptional apps. I would mention Flow Checker, DWD weather warnings or Heimdall as examples.
Paying the developers would be fair and would motivate them to keep developing their apps.

That’s just my opinion. But maybe now you can better understand why I often resist paid options. I am concerned that Athom will demand money for every innovation in the future.

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Better don’t compare Athom/Homey with HomeAssistant.
HA has its advantage as community project. But in future they will need a fee, to. Perhaps for the cloud service you have to pay already now. And I think they are sposored in background.

I would compare Athom more with other brands like Bosch, Hue, Ikea, perhaps Samsung Smartthings, Alexa…
That are all BIG brands with their own hardware/hubs and software.
There you get a hub for purchase like it is. And updates? Upgrades? Dashboards? Logic like flows? …
Comparing this way, Athom as small startup is providing much more than all the other big companies.

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In their previous keynote athom laid the focus on smart home for everyone, where the cost of the homey pro made it too steep to be a smart home solution for everyone. This is why they launched homey cloud and bridge.

Homey pro owners bought a product with its current limitations at 400€ or 200€ for the lite version. In essense we now got an upgrade to what our devices can do. This upgrade is beyond what the 400€ covered, like athom said, we increased the value of our devices by unlocking homey advanced flows.

Same logic to be extended when we ever get to dashboards. We knew when purchasing that there was no real dashboard functionality, and if that option gets added I’m glad I’ll be able to purchase an upgrade instead of being forced to buy a new homey. Which is a route that other developers are taking.

From my perspective though I would find it weird if I had to buy a new product and then pay more to unlock stuff that should be basic functionality(or functionality competitors offers as a standard package), this way of selling creates confusion about what new buyers actually get when they buy a product. I feel that new homeys should be sold with advanced flows out of the box at a higher price point or at least an option should be available so that people can choose between a 400€ homey without advanced flows but the option to upgrade later or a 425€ version with advanced flows already installed (or in the future 4XX€ when dashboards get added)

I understand the view athom has and their reasoning but I believe that it may be harmful for them in the future.

Ending our discussion here; our viewpoints are clear.
Let’s agree we disagree.

Lidl started with a small ‘lookalike’ :sweat_smile: :grimacing:
Screenshot from 2022-07-08 16-25-56

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Patent infringement :smiley:

I’d almost forgotten those. The endless beta. I don’t get the impression Athom finds it very interesting anymore.

Why not? Even Athom does: Homey Pro vs. Home Assistant

Because?

If you want to use the cloud service, you can pay for it. If you don’t, you don’t. There’s no loss of functionality if you don’t pay for it.

I don’t see the relevance.

its been 10 months since launch? :smiley:

Actually if the led ring could rotate and triggered like the homey ring I would buy it at once :wink:

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Well, just to join the discussion…I started with HA positive…a lot of devices supported. Negative it´s too complicated and I don´t want to spend time on programming. Even devices which were working fine e.g. Pluggit…after an update stopped working…and I really didn´t understand what they cahnged in the code to make it work again. A bit to Nerdy everything.

For the dashboard dicussion. When I started with HA I was looking at the dashboard nearly every day. But what for? Now I check the HA dasboard maybe every two month (to sse which devices are not working after updates :slight_smile: ). Important is that the smart home works and dashboards… who really needs them?? To see how the temperature has changed over the past 24 hours? Smart home should be smart…dashboard is more for playing and checking and to show off in fornt off other people… but sincerly insights is good enough.

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I use my (HA) dashboard quite a lot for information:

  • will it be raining in the next couple of hours?
  • when will the bins be collected?
  • will it be good enough weather tomorrow morning to go mountain biking?
  • do I need to fill up the car if I need to take a 100km trip tomorrow, and if so, which petrol station nearby currently has the lowest prices? what’s the pressure of each tire? do I inflate any of them?
  • was the letter box opened since the last time I checked?
  • taking into account current road conditions, at what time will my wife be home?
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where is the dashboard located in your house or do you use it on a mobile device?

Mobile devices (iPad/iPhone) running the HA app, and in a browser on my Mac (where the Mac and iPad use the same dashboard and the iPhone one that’s a bit more suitable for the smaller screen).

Well Robert… here is how I solve this problems…maybe the difference of an apple fan and straight google and android generation

  • will it be raining in the next couple of hours?
    ask google or look out of the window

  • when will the bins be collected?
    I get a notfication on my phone…thanks to HA (Okay… your waste removal service must have at least a pdf with the collection time online for this)

  • will it be good enough weather tomorrow morning to go mountain biking?
    well…general weather information…even if you go to the beach…ask google

  • do I need to fill up the car if I need to take a 100km trip tomorrow, and if so, which petrol station nearby currently has the lowest prices? what’s the pressure of each tire? do I inflate any of them?
    Maybe I am old school and don´t have a fancy car… I look at the display how much is left in the tank. I don´t know how often you inflate your tires… but once a year is surely enough…my car tells me when they need air anyway…good old school…kick each tire than you will feel if it needs air. And believe me…if you are running on low fuel…most times it is more expensive to drive to the cheapest fuel station than take the next one (exception is Aral which is expensive as hell)

  • was the letter box opened since the last time I checked?
    I have a smart door bell…And I get notified with a pictures if somebody only is near that bell.

  • taking into account current road conditions, at what time will my wife be home?
    :-)… as I have nothing to hide…I don´t care when she comes home, where she is and what she is doing

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