Mobile First
Most of our development power has been allocated to work on the new Homey Smartphone App. The new app will be mostly native, and a lot easier to use for both existing users and newcomers. It will make it much easier to add new features as well for us, because currently we’re working with a front-end codebase of over 3 years old.
Our focus shift to mobile means that the Homey Desktop App (and all web-interfaces) will eventually be removed as of Homey v2.0. The new Homey Smartphone App will also work on tablets (Android & iPad), whereas for developers a simulator will be available in the browser.
This is a big change, but we can’t stay behind. Homey should be even more easy to use than it already is, and moving to mobile is a great opportunity to do just that.
For who this is new:
It started with the Mobile first decision of Athom communicated here almost 18 months ago!
and the hard discussion on Slack, Forum and other places on the Internet.
It must be encouraging for Athom to see that so many Homey’s are committed to using Homey and want to have their best solution.
Despite that Athom has to make decisions and chooses to develop one Mobile App (for both iOS and Android) and stop developing the Desktop/Web interface.
As it is not good for the readability on the community that this discussion is taking place across all other topics your Reply’s and complains about this will be moved here. Feel free to discuss it here with others who have time and meaning to discuss it.
This is the bit I have an issue with, no mention of doing it later or after the mobile only release. I would be happy with a tablet app if flows could be seen on the screen all at once and not in sections. Obviously a webapp is an absolute minimum for any HA system but at this point I think most woul dbe ok to settle.
Hi,
the mobile-first might be ok for me if I was able to install the app on my chromebook.
But currently when I try to do so I get the following screen, so please update the app so it will also be compatible with chromebooks running android.
My experience with the android App is so far is pretty annoying. (using Samsung note8)
There is still NO TABLET Optimized app available which maybe… will make the user experience a bit better, but also the previous app they still did not added the tablet mode.
The app is somewhat okay you can quickly access your devices and turn them On or Off, but the biggest hurdle is creating Flows.
Iam 10 times longer busy with creating a flow than with the Desktop app or in the WEBIF. The sliding of the When AND Then Columns are frustrating, you loose overview how the flow is connected or what was wrongly configured.
Setting up the parameters in a card is going an level deeper, by tapping the card to go into settings, which loads 1 or 2 seconds feeling slugish.
It also takes longer to load, tested from my office aswell through 4G and company Wifi than directly from my local network at home.
The App often freezes up during loading of your flow. When you use the DESKAPP/WEBif connected through a
LAN cable things run faster and more stable.
So overall feeling is slugish slow and frustrating is setting up flows by loosing the Speed of configurating flows and overview. Specially complicated flows with multiple flows is
Athom should have kept the WEBif. I suggest that Athom should have a POLL on the Site WEBinterface or Mobile APP. You will have better insight what your customers will say and their USER Experience.
P.S. What happens if i loose my phone, i cant control anything anymore I need an phone first, a WEBif could save the day if it still existed !
Yes, I saw that. Really bad. Much easier to work on the computer than always use to the phone for e.g. adding devices etc. I know workaround would be to use homekit(home app on mac) for reading sensors and switching lamps etc. But for the normal tuning stuff as I said adding more devices and moving around devices to rooms etc. would be much easier on a computer.
Let’s hope that they will add support back for mac/win apps or/and web-interface.
Leaving the WEBIF/Desktop app in my humble opinion is a major mistake. In the early PC days bigger (screens that was) was always better. These days it seems the other way around: Smaller is better. I can’t see any good reason why it would be better to have a smaller screen and a more difficult to work with keyboard. I sincerely hope that the good old WEBIF (or a good alternative) will come back a.s.a.p… Until then I will stick to version 1.5.13.
No problem, download Nox https://www.bignox.com
start a Android phone emulator (v4 Android dit not work but the Latest 7 I guess it was 7.x) worked perfect… installed the app from the play store and could do everything I could from my mobile on my PC. ( Windows I’m my case)
BTW I didn’t read ppl about not able to use Homey and create flows from the mobile when the desktop PC crashed or was stolen…
re the missing web interface, I hope they do address this soon, it’s a backwards step to take away one of the main access interfaces, no matter how good the app is, there is just not enough screen space to effectively manage flows for a start.
I’m handicapped (sight very bad), which means I only use computer for everything. My phone is almost exclusively used for calls (has the biggest magnification on the Iphone). As I understand it, the ability to change the flow of the computer is removed, which makes me, and everyone else with disabilities, unable to use Homey any more, which is a great pity. It helps me with lots of things, turn on lights, take care of alarm, see temperatures, etc. Is Athom really sure that this feature should really be removed? shall the new app have features for us disabled for ex. poor eyesight? I like Homey, a good product that gives me a lot of fun on my free time
In the Behind the Magic November Blog entry they wrote:
“We’ll talk about this more at a later time, but I can already say that a desktop web app will be made available for viewing beautiful charts.”
I don’t think that they only will build a desktop web app for only viewing charts.
They say mobile first but I think computer will come second.
Who ever thought that it is a genius idea to manage a house with more than 150 devices and more than 400 flows (depending and connected ones) with the screen of a phone: may your battery always be empty…for me and my special situation this was the worst thing ever could happen. Missing the overview, the simple copy and paste, hate the small screen, typing with a (big) Keyboard, Multitasking on a PC…
Desktop app or web-app is a must! I dont want to upgrade just because of mobile-only approach. To make things more nonsense they don’t have tablet optimised app.
Well that’s a shame then! You might see it as complaining, but I sse it as feedback. I think every supplier/developers should listen to the needs/desires of their customers! You can’t just change the way a product works imho, I know my customers wouldn’t accept it.
I know I will eventualy have to upgrade and benefit from all advantages the new version has to offer, but for now (for me) it’s best to stick with what I’ve got; a home automation system I’m generaly very happy about. There is still no other product can even come close to doing what my Homey does.
Anyways, I would love to contribute if only I could. But I’m afraid I don’t have the skills nor the time. I will backup the project financialy however, if that’s what it takes to make it happen.
Everyone; thanks for your efforts. No matter how I disagree with Athom’s current view it’s still a great product
How do you know that athom won’t change their view on this, it’s in their best intrest to listen to a complaining community. When homey functions well they have all this ‘free’ vocal advertising, because most people who want to buy an “expensive” product, ask for their friends experience who allready owns one.
I.E: i used to be some kind of “homey ambassador” to colleagues who are interested on the “homey subject” and even got to of them to buy one. (so i’ve now got a little homey community at my work) .
Back to the subject, i’m verry interested on how you “know” athoms point of view to this subject.
How?
They announced it 1,5 years ago, with a lot of flack from the community back then, even more then currently cause nobody knew how it would look and work, and that of course continued until even now that 2.0 is on the horizon (it is already in experimental).
You are only seeing a community forum now, but this happend (still happens) on all communication ways (slack, support mail, Facebook, etc).
I know for sure (100%) they won’t change their stance this last minute.
Plus I know athom for a long time now, have homey from before it was released to the general public (have a preorder homey).
Allright, but this isn’t that very strange, they search to release something solid and then build from there. (I do this alot myself as well (software engineering).
But this does not mean that they can’t add things when their number one priority (stable base) is done (for example: web interface).
What i’m saying is, that i think they new the “old” homey core wasn’t stable enoug in the long run, and they needed to do some recoding (hence the 60% codebase change). I can imagine that one will set their “recoding” boundries first, before implementing “community whishes”.
But hey , i could be wrong. we will find out in the near future.
Edit: And stil, keep in mind that the 2.0 version is an open beta. This means that they may intended to add a webinterface, but wasn’t completed far enough…
