if the athom /lg strategy for Homey still is to support various home automation vendors as many as possible , and not end up as a thread/matter/cloud only device (then whats the point in using Homey), then its important to keep growing the number of apps. Besides the vendor approach with the apps they (let) develop for the new product line,
its important to rely on the community. But to be able to develop apps, a headstart consisting of some training is helpful. Like shelly is doing, there for some low cost you can follow scripting webinars, (or on site). Today’s tooling including prompt coding makes developing available for a greater group, its no longer required to be a full blown java script tech.
Also, there should be a clear separation (search mode) in the app shop between official full support apps, community apps with ratings and guarantee ‘until the door’ apps, and even a local apps section (if that is even possible) for your own apps.
All community app developers have no obligation whatsoever to support or maintain apps…
So all community apps are “guarantee up to the door” apps, just like a number of “official” apps (sometimes it takes a year or longer to get things fixed).
I can’t find any info on “official” apps stating they should guarantee functionality and/or deliver support.
As you might have discovered, there’s also a number of non-functional apps available, because of API changes, without any maintenance.
I’m afraid these are still there for commercial reasons, to say “yes there’s an app for that” (regardless the functionality).
Ratings were there, but removed on purpose, and replaced with a “Suggest” link to a private message,
because a bunch of pathetic users apparently only know how to complian and write “One star, this app sucks”,
instead of following the links to the forum topic, repo or other ways of reaching out for help or instructions.
This made a number of developers move away from developing and or supporting Homey apps.
I just hate rating systems in general. Many positive entries are fake, people tend to only complain in a rude way.
Often, community apps have better support than the official apps. This is because community developers are available more often (in the weekends as well, official support isn’t)
I fully agree with this. My personal take, after using Homey for one and a half year, is that (in general) community developers take more visible ownership for/are more engaged with the users of their apps, compared to the Athom/agency developed apps. This applies to both community apps and official apps developed and maintained by community members.
I ran into issues with several of such community developed apps and asked for help or reported bugs on this forum. Most of the times the developers resolved the issue or provided guidance within days, sometimes hours. The level of personal commitment by those developers is really fantastic, knowing that they are maintaining their apps and helping users all in their spare time. That’s not something to take for granted.
