Athom's Decision for Mobile First and removing of the Desktop Interface/WEB UI in Homey v2.0.0

Ah, but we do have influence for the following reasons;

  • There are lots of users on here that are also working on the apps that sell the hardware, if they go the apps go
  • People selling (and often using them themselves) stop selling and stop recommending
  • Users don’t upgrade to new models which would have been a large number of us

I think we are about the only influence Athom have, when someone is interesting in buying and all they have is some marketing info, where do they go? straight to the forums.

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Tablet app is on our roadmap, but I cannot given an exact date on when this will be released and how it will function exactly.

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If the risks only lies with Athom, I would agree with you. But the problem is that I bought the Homey with certain kind of features and a LOT of promisses. OK, we know now that the promisses will not be kept. Can I get my money back?

And now even worse, they drop an important feature that did exist when I bought my Homey. Can I get my money back?

Honestly, I was one of the first to buy a Homey. Yes, it was a startup and I took a gamble. But can I at least trust on the fact that existing features of the product I bought would still exist after updates?

Would I buy a Homey now knowing that I have to develop my automation on a smartphone? Absolutely not! But now here I am, stuck with a 300 Euro device that has been downgraded to mobile only.

I have said it before. I don’t know how they develop their software. But I really hope that soon the software on which they develop their software will also become mobile only! See how they like it!

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No, but you can stay on 1.5.x. No need to update…

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That depends on what’s going to happen with the apps you use. If they get updated for 2.0 only and are not backwards compatible, you can no longer install them on 1.5 if something might go wrong. So as long as it keeps running you will be fine. But if you experience a problem and have to do a reset you can’t install them anymore.
Please correct me if i’m wrong.

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3 posts were split to a new topic: Single Flow/Logics App for Homey/Domoticz and others

I stayed on 1.5 and disabled all updates.
My system is relatively stable. Has no problems if internet drops out.
Only downside maybe cannot add new apps in future.

My son dropped homey due to reliability, performance issues and the mobile only interface.
Moved to an open source solution running on a pi, that will be moved to a virtual machine.
At which time I will switch to the same solution as homey seems to have lost there way

robbshop.
End of life??
39

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Yup, homey v1.0 is end of life, only homey v2 now :wink:

Then we should really keep it. Going to be worth a lot of money in the future.

Yeah well - honestly:
The so-called “App” was already EOL when it’s been launched :grin:

Nevertheless - v2 has potential, though the UI and customer journey is ouchhhh 2012.

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So it may be 2024 then :grin::thinking:
Sorry - but someone has to tell.

This has to be promoted, i only saw this on accident… non the less, thanks !

Hello,
This is a bad decision, the great benefit was to have several windows open with different views, and on two 42 Inch monitors. How they came to the conclusion that you could write a flow on i tiny small mobile screen, I m not able to compute. The cheapest Pad I can find with say minimum screen size of 13" is 1200 Euro. Samsung only have 10.5".
What if people just buy another home central?and have plenty of cash left on 1200 Euro.
Homey is really cool, so I do not want to switch…
brg Simen

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What will happen?
Users are all ready started to abandon homey and i have noticed several old homey up to sale as the users don´t have the possibility to edit flows in a web browser and are forced in to use a small screen mobile phone i my self have no problem with this but i don´t use my mobile phone as a computer it is a phone to make and receive calls on in the first place.

Last contact with Athom i had ended up in this answer.
“I understand that for some people change is always unwanted but the fact is that we’re a small company without unlimited employees who can create both a desktop and mobile UI, so we have to pick one. Mobile obviously is the future and for those who want to keep the desktop interface, they simply don’t have to update.
They can develop their own interface based on our Web API, which is documented at https://developer.athom.com.”

Well i did not pay lots of money for my homey just to sit and develop a new interface that in the end i rely think will be full of bugs as i don´t have the skills and don´t know the source of Homey i got it as it had a interface that i wanted and i moved of an other system as i wanted a system that did it all out of the box where i did not have to develop things to get it to work.

Well this is my opinion and it had bean nice if Emile or some other in the Athom staff wanted to reflect and give us a fair explanation about the fact that they think that a mobile phone will be the future for developers and end users as i my self find the v2 buggy as h*ll and in my FB group and on other groups many users struggles to get simple things to work that worked just fine under v1.5.
Well only my reflections.

Tell Athom that you want the Web Ui back

We’ve been having this discussion for 1.5 years and the reason is clear… Small company…

@Bram stated a couple of days back:
Tablet app is on our roadmap, but I cannot given an exact date on when this will be released and how it will function exactly. We are aware of some issues with BLE and currently working on a fix. Google Home integration is still under review by Google, so no update about that unfortunately… I will give you an update about the WebAPI once I know more :slightly_smiling_face:
From a thread in #homey Feb 5th

And buggy as hell? Didn’t experience that…

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What a weak excuse. They could easily hire an intern like the one that created the Homeyduino app. If at least they would announce that there will be an alternative in the near future it would make many (potential) customers happy.

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See the rest of the message you reacted on…

I do not use the v2 my self but in my FB group and on other groups user telling they got issues and that it´s buggy and not at all what they expected where things don´t work and where you need to develop your self solutions to make things work.
Well i also know many users how don´t have any issues at all like you say “bvdbos” i my self if i want to upgrade i think i will have no issues as i don´t have any advanced flow´s just kicking my lights on and off the easy way.

But the plain fact is that i also see users that are moving from Homey to other solutions and if this will be a big movement over time than i think that Athom as a small company will struggle to survive.
I myself are running several other solutions and brands to see what fits me the best and still homey is the one i prefer but i rely miss the possibility to edit my flows on my computer as i am use to if i upgrade to v2
And again this is my reflections.

Now I don’t like to add to this discussion for just stirring up the dirt, the client situation is what it is. I also have no idea how large the very vocal ‘bring it back now’ party is, compared to the Jack and Jill’s that are perfectly happy with editing flows on their phone and never visit the fora.

What triggered me to write this blurb was the snippet about Athom stating they are too small a company and cannot allocate the needed resources for developing and maintaining both a phone client and a web client. I am not an agile programmer ticking scrum meetings every other day, but could we make an educated guess about exactly how much resources we are talking about? I see the community driven flow viewer working on the new API and I see a framework from the old editor. It feels to me we are almost 80% there. How much effort will it actually take? And if that is doable with a reasonable amount of programming hours, why not take the effort if you can accommodate enthusiasts that apparently very dearly and adamantly want it back? How big of a job are we actually talking about?

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