Continuing the discussion from Osram Lightify:
Wow. I’m getting super frustrated at the lack of support from Homey these days…
Guess I should start investigating Hubitat or Home Assistant
I mean come on. 8 months, no replies, presumably nobody from Homey even looking at the forums
Osram is RIGHT HERE ON YOUR ADVERTISING and yet 90% of the stuff doesnt work…
Jep, you got that right. They don’t. Welcome to the forum!
Edit: I have highlighted the most import rules for you:
8. If you want me to read along, mention me in your post (@bram), or one of the moderators (@Caseda, @Dijker, @johan_bendz, @Jamie, @PhilS )
I don’t see you doing this in the topic you’ve linked to, or in this topic.
I you have an issue, contact Athom. If you feel they have forgotten about you, contact Athom.
Yeah, and when you get a response from Athom via support it’s never useful
You spend £300 on a piece of kit you expect a bit more than a homebrew community - i’ve waited 3 years for support on devices that never shows, and frankly I think people should know.
This isn’t a new product in it’s infancy any more - we give Athom too much of a berth because “they’re a startup” but how long have we waited for that Zigbee re-write?! I mean gees. If you advertise yourself as a product that supports certain brands then you should support them…
Some genuine responses from Athom “Support”
“Like with all device requests, we will discuss your request, and act accordingly.” - i.e. don’t act at all
"We have based this decision on our own experience with our Homey users. " - i.e. not listening or even reading the forums
It’s not like this community is hidden untill you buy a Homey. You’re free to check the forum before you buy a Homey. Also, if support for a specific device is so import for you, you are also free to check whether it’s supported:
You don’t mean to say you spent 300 pounds on a product without checking whether it does what you want it to do?
They are well informed now. For the record: You are asking Athom to support a new product (one they didn’t claim they supported when you bought it), right? Just so everyone is informed.
And what did you expect? That Athom is waiting for a guy named Vaderag to post it’s requests, so they can add those devices? Ofcourse they are going to check if they feel they should support the product
Clearly you’re assuming I’m some new user here. I’ve been around these forums for 3 years or so
I’m well aware of the capabilities of the device both when I bought it and now. It’s hardly moved other than some graphical updates at v2 that weren’t needed
Device support really hasn’t changed in any useful way and frankly I want people who are coming along to know how little Athom give a …
It’s not like I’m talking about small brands nobody have heard of
Take Hive. Biggest smart thermostat system in the UK. It WAS supported when I bought the device. Since been removed
Why was it removed, because Athom couldn’t be bothered to continue supporting it for some reason
That is not good service.
And to say “check the forum” clearly doesn’t work as here today, gone tomorrow
No, you already mentioned that you bought Homey 3 years ago
Well, i’ve ‘only’ had Homey for approx. 1,5 year, but I have to disagree. I believe some of the updates contained:
So yeah, basically no movement
Never heard of it.
Sucks to hear. I don’t no why, and you could ask Athom. I don’t think they want to remove support, because more supported devices is more customers. It’s often a choice of the manufacturer to change something. But I don’t know about Take Hive specifically, you should ask Athom
Yeah, it sucks. But that smart home really. Upside > you could receive an update tomorrow which supports a new device. Downside > the support can disappear as well. I don’t like it either.
But it’s also not fair to say that ‘every sucks’. Please remain specific, polite and constructive. And you are more than welcome to complain/inform other users that you haven’t received the support you would have wanted. But please try to refrain from saying:
When that’s just not true. The issue here is that you have a specific light which currently does not work. And you want Athom to fix it. And approx. 10 people agree with you: Osram Lightify - #14 by vaderag
If less than 15 people even bother to react to the topic, the demand for support for this specific device isn’t that high. So if it were up to me, I would also opt to develop Zigbee rather than add that specific device. I’m sorry that you don’t see it that way
Progress…
Didn’t think twice about paying for this. So we agree it’s a new feature
A lot of solar panel owners are very happy with this, I believe. Also a new feature
I believe it’s been introduced later: https://homey.app/en-gb/blog/introducing-alexa-smart-home-skill/
Not just Chromecast, also Google Assistant, same use a Alexa, introduced later. New feature. Also, that you don’t see a use for it, doesn’t mean it’s useless for everyone.
Great addition for people that already have KNX, so we agree it’s a new feature
Yes, and now it’s supported by Athom, so you can set guest accounts etc.
Camera’s - okay
Zones - this is just taking something you could do before - about a day’s coding to group things together. Also doesnt work very well - I have 6 Fibaro in one Zone if i try and turn them all on it takes about a minute.
Great to hear you can code, I can’t. For me, this is a very usefull addition. Makes flows more reliable (if you add a new light bulb, it’s automatically included)
new languages (perhaps not usefull for you, but it is for other users)
And now they are working on the Zigbee rewrite. Have you noticed the beta firmware? - they’ve literally been talking about this since I bought the thing
And they are developing it as we speak, so progress!
I’m sorry, we can do this all day long mate, but Athom isn’t developing especially for you. Some new features might be useless to you, others are exactly what you have been waiting for. But saying there is no progress, is just not true.
Listen, I’m not going to debate with you all day long, my point still stands, they don’t care, or at least don’t seem to. If a brand wants to connect with the users the one place you look and get involved is your community forum
The sole value prop of Homey is to integrate multiple different systems and protocols, and they are failing even with the ones they claim to. Everything else is value add but not solving the core proposition.
I mean, they have listed Bluetooth and IR since day one and still little sign of those working
Ofcourse they do care. And in my opinion a lot because when they don’t sell new Homey’s Athom will not be able to last very long. Ofcourse there is a fee for the backup of € 0,99, but i cannot imagine that will be enough.
Is the customer service good? Absolutely not!! In my opinion this must become a lot better. Does this mean they will? I hope, but it will cost money to upgrade the customer service. At least someone has to be paid to improve the customer service. So will it improve? I don’t think so.
Must every update give more possibilities? No. I always hope it is like Apple. You buy a phone and after 4 years you have a better phone as you originally bought.
Is Athom Apple?
Must every upgrade make Homey a little bit more stable? Yes, but because the world goes around, every new day can give new bugs/problems. So it will stay very important to receive updates. No updates and Homey will be gone in a year.
Is Homey great? Not for everyone. You have to invest time to get it working. You must have devices that are at least supported, and hope they will stay supported. It is what it is. Examples enough in Domotica-land of how things evolve e.g ; Google Nest and Neeo are examples for me how the support for customers can evolve also. But that’s live.
Do I like my Homey, yep it works great for me and at this moment it works better a i could have imagined. Does everything work always smooth? Nope😉
I think Hive withdrew the API when it was taken over. Nothing Athom can do about that sort of thing.
That wasn’t what they told me. Told me they no longer wanted to support it any more, and they were never taken over, always been part of Centrica I believe
Sorry I’m probably getting confused with another product. Maybe it was Nest I’m thinking of.
Good luck with the plug, play and forget with those 2 options 
Sounds like you have extensive Home Assistant knowledge. What exactly were your problems with it?
Because my installation has been running along quickly and quietly without any issues for a while now. And it keeps getting better all the time, with very regular (publicised and planned) updates introducing features like creating automations based on natural language processing (“When motion is detected in the hallway, turn on the lights”), autodiscovery of new devices, easy DIY dashboard creation, etc. Oh, and no need to do daily reboots to keep it working.
Since I moved to Home Assistant. I have so many spare time, it’s unbelievable! 
How boring 
.
I use Homey, Home Assistant, Conbee and the Harmony Hub. It was only in combination with Homey as the brain that I created such an almost perfect system. Homey is not a plug and play system. Community support has always been better than Athom’s. The users are the real experts!
I like this topic! So bad I have found it after I bought Homey. Basically, home assistant on raspberry pi 4 (pi + z-wave and zigbee dongles + RF bridge) will cost 3 times cheaper and will be supported by bigger community and more responsive developers.
It is time to say @Bram, Athom should develop its consumer centricity, community activation and drive to achieve.
P.S.: I also feel that declaration of 50K+ supported devices is not true. Is there any app Athom develop by themselves
?
“creating automations based on natural language processing” how ? where ? is that new ?
