@Sammyj ammyj
Hi Sammy,
could you please provide me with a list of your apps? I would like to publish them in the German forum. I want people to know what they will have to do without in the future.
Good reminder, I just forked/cloned every community app which I use.
Itās totally within the rights of a developer to remove their app from the store, but I would still kindly request anyone doing so that you at least make them open source so you donāt screw over someone from the community who just wants to turn on their lightā¦
Perhaps I am very naiveā¦ But I had the feeling for a while that Athom was not doing very well financially. This takeover could give a significant boost to the āhomeyā project. There is a good chance that in a few years the product will have āLGā on it, but there is now much more money available for further development. Unless proven otherwise, I try to look at it positively. If the āhomeyā project dies a silent death, I can always look for an alternative.
Until now, the community has trusted Athom, but this trust was completely destroyed yesterday, because LG is generally not a company that thinks much of data protection see Press Release.
However, everyone is free to decide how he/she should or can deal with the situation. For me, I have made a decision with a heavy heart, I will migrate my HP2023 to HA and then sell it.
To ensure the support of my existing apps, I will get my HP2016 out of the museum, because the app users are innocent of the current situation and my decision. But what I certainly wonāt do is implement any of the planned 3 to 4 apps, because itās too much time and effort for me just so that LG-Homey can spy on us and make money with our data.
PS: My motto is: āMy home is my castleā and it stays that wayā¦
THX Chris (Former happy developer & user since 2017)
Why are developers now removing their apps from the store? Isnāt that just harming users?
i will stay to check further how this works, may be it will be good, may be it will be bad, time will eventually tell,
one of the issues i am facing with LG in general is that the Middle East editions of their TVs doesnāt support either Alexa nor Google assistant so i always rely on changing the country just to keep Alexa working if i can
i hope for two couple of things, one is that LG have concerns to our data privacy and local solutions, that way it will benefit us all and may increase their products sell plan as it will be integrated directly to our eco system as i hear that they also want to be a google hub as well,
The other thing is if they integrate with Homey, to be internationally accessible not exclusive for country editions only
if that happens, then a whole lot of a world wide push on homey will be released to be in every home, if not, then back to HA again with no issues at all
best of luck and letās keep monitoring the situation
yeah i really fear it will harm us all
That really is by far not the first time that they have responded on this forum!
@ All Developers (and Users)
All my apps are allready open-sourced on BitBucket.
But i most certainly will not request the apps to be removed from the App Store.
I mean, what is the point? It would only hurt the end users.
LG has already bought Homey/Athom. Removing apps from the Store will not turn this around, the deal is done people!
So why remove apps? To speedup the uselessness of Homey faster than 3 years?
Serieusly, do not hurt the users by removing apps from the Store.
Unless you believe it would make LG drop out of the (already done) deal, which is just not gonna happen, for sure.
I fully agree with @ChrisG and am sadden by this move by Athom.
Personally i am convinced that, if LG just wanted the OS for there own environment, Athom could have made much better financiel deals, like licensing the OS or whatever.
With my experience as Business consultant, i am convinced that, since LG took over full control of Homey/Athom, what the wanted, is full control over Homey/Athom. Thatās how it works and thatās whats happend.
So the thought of Homey staying Homey (privacy first f.i.) is just a curtain being pulled over your eyes.
(Lets hope there will come solutions for more privacy. F.i. i pay for YouTube (certainly not out of love for Google) just to not get any commercials).
That being saidā¦:
Again, please Developers, do not remove apps from the store. There is absolutly no point:
- It will not role back the deal of LG buying Athom.
- It will not hurt LG (and what would be the point of that?).
- It will not hurt the Founders (and what would be the point of that?).
- It will hurt the users!
It depends on where things are going. If apps are going to be used to collect user data, either with or without explicit help of the appsā developers, I will seriously consider having my apps removed from the store because I will not be a part of that.
Also, if app developers are going to be confronted with additional requirements, like having to sign NDAās, license transfers or whatnot, I will do the same.
Thank you robertklep. I found this to help myself. But thought that others can also benefit from it.
Have a good day.
First of all - congrats for the deal with LG- for you
Am I right if every app developer gradually deletes their apps from the Homey App Store, we can only use the homey as a paperweight, right?
What will you do to prevent this?
How can the Homey end users be protected?
For me, thatās perhaps partly true. But i will decide for myself as a user.
While i do share the feeling, i still feel like removing apps in that case would hurt end-users that appreantly do not care about that.
Because if they start to collecting data like that, most users that do not want this, will stop using Homey. It would be the only way to get away from data-collection.
So, (if/)when it goes that way, users staying would be users that cannot switch or do not mind.
Why would i need to hurt them? Just because i do not want to be part of the data-collection world?
Well, i already use Google and Android. Said to say, i am partially already part of this (shitty) world and business.
And me trying to kick LG in the balls (while hurting mostly users which can make ther own choise) is not going to change anything.
But yeah, i do fully share the feeling!
But my primary feeling is that users are getting screwed by this, and my number 1 priority and wish is to not screw the users even more.
So, for now, that will be my main focus: How to reduce the negative effect for the end-users and how-to not make it worst for them.
Is there any way we could install Home Assistant on Homey Pro?
Or is the hardware outside the Raspberry Pi too locked down?
https://www.raspberrypi.com/success-stories/homey-pro-smart-home-hub/
Because depending on how things are structured, there might be GDPR implications and liabilities for me personally as an app developer. And Iām not going to a) trust Athom/LG when they say there will be none and b) will not be paying a lawyer to assess if I can be held liable or not.
Totally agree.
More over, we must wait what will really change (if anything) and THEN act (if needed)
What about all the official supported apps for competing brands to LG, like the one for Miele?
Would those still be fully supported now that LG is in charge?
If the support for other brands than LG disappears, then I will change my smart home system for sure.
Thanks for the positive feedback! Iām here since the beginning of Homey, received one of the first pre-order batches and will stay until itās overā¦ Letās just hope this never happenā¦
So letās stay positive! When can we expect to get more news insights in the Athom Dashboard version? Or when can we start opting into a beta of it? This is really the first thing Iām missing since I had my homey back in 2016ā¦
They will continue to be supported! From both our perspective and LGās, Homey aims to be a platform that welcomes every brand. We have no intention of removing them from the platform simply because they might create competing products.
If LG desired a platform exclusively supporting LG products, they should have stuck with ThinQ instead of acquiring Homey
I had also similar thoughts about using the HP2023 as something to run HA on.
But I had another similar idea: make a Z-Wave and Thread/Matter hub out of the HP2023. (It would be a very expensive one, but if you have a HP2023 you donāt use otherwise, it is still better to use it like that.)
Unfortunately my capabilities are far from such a task.