Why does Athom B.V not pay those who voluntarily develop the apps?

Apps
,
41

As a developer, I think Homey should take a different approach to app development.

I do not think Homey needs to pay developers directly. However, I do think there should be a safe and official system, similar to Apple’s App Store, where developers can choose to sell their apps if they want to. Homey could take a fair percentage of the price, and developers who invest a lot of time and effort would at least have the option to be compensated.

Personally, this is not really about money for me. I have PayPal donations enabled, and almost nobody donates even a few euros — and that is fine. I mainly develop because I enjoy it and because I want to create useful tools for the community.

What is much more restrictive for me is the certification process.

I fully agree that Homey should check apps for malware, security risks, stability problems, memory leaks, bad coding practices, and anything that could harm the user experience. That makes sense and is important.

But at the moment, the process seems to go further than that. Apps are also compared against existing apps, and if your app has two or three Flow cards that are somewhat similar to another app, you may be asked to collaborate with the other developer.

But what if that developer does not want to cooperate? What if you do not want to collaborate? What if the apps only share a few similar cards but are otherwise completely different in purpose, structure, quality, or philosophy?

In my opinion, this actively blocks developers, and that should not happen. Even if two developers create apps with partially overlapping functionality, users should be allowed to choose which app they prefer.

This becomes even more frustrating when users of your test version — which is not even easy to find in the store — encourage you to continue development and ask for more features, but the certification process still blocks or delays the app.

I am currently experiencing this for the second time. I have to argue and explain again and again, without even knowing whether the app will finally be certified.

For active developers, this is extremely frustrating. After investing days or weeks into development, preparing icons, images, descriptions, translations, documentation, and everything else required to submit an app, you still end up hoping that certification will accept it.

That kind of uncertainty can really make you step back and question whether it is worth developing future apps for Homey at all.

Maybe my time would be better invested in Home Assistant development instead.

42

I doubt that any of those things are actually checked.

And yet, the number of separate Yale or Tuya apps in the app store is just comical. The guideline that there should be only one community app per brand is clearly not relevant anymore, so I have no idea why they’re splitting hairs on flow cards.

43

I offer all my apps for free (without donation option) because I only build the apps because I like developing the Homey apps and reverse engineering the mobile apps, etc. Since I can’t guarantee that the apps will keep working (almost all of my apps use a reverse engineered API from the mobile app, which can break anytime without prior notice of course).

I have published many apps which already had a similar app in the App Store, I’ve never had issues with it. However, I do have to mention that they were using completely different backends (f.e. Duux Gen2, HomeWizard Link, HomeWizard Cleaner, ThirdReality Hub).

I do think that community developers should be allowed to publish to Homey Cloud without collaboration with the brand. I think the Homey Cloud guidelines for ease of use are great (most of my apps follow these already), but the rule that requires the brand to allow the publishing is a bit too strict IMO.

44

That is exactly the point.

I can fully understand that Homey does not want three different Shelly apps if Shelly already has an official app. For brand-specific integrations, that makes sense.

But here we are talking about apps that provide general functionality, not apps for a specific brand or device.

My app, for example, has a card called “Calculate and compare”. At first glance, it may look similar to a simple comparison card, because it can compare one value with another using operators such as equal, greater than, lower than, and so on.

But the main feature is different: both sides of the comparison can contain mathematical formulas and Homey tags. So it is not just comparing two fixed values. It allows users to calculate, transform, and then compare values in one card.

For Homey, however, this card seems to be considered identical to other cards that simply compare two values.

The app contains around 30 helper cards. About 25 of them are unique, while maybe 5 provide common basic functions such as “Invert value”. I am fully aware that some of these basic cards already exist in other apps.

But I do not want users to install my app and then also install another app just to get such a basic helper function. The purpose of the app is to provide an all-in-one toolbox for Flow and Advanced Flow users.

In my opinion, some overlap in generic helper functionality should be acceptable, especially when the app as a whole has a different scope, a different structure, and provides many unique features.

45

The biggest problem I see is that developers move on in live and (understandable) abandon there project(s). A well earning company (Athom) should not depend on this (they probably think they don’t).

And the majority of the Homey buyers don’t know this before buying one.

Maybe each app should have a donation button and Athom should donate a certain amount of money per installed instance. I guess donating is legally different from paying salary?

Or make every app cost say 1 euro/dollar.

And maybe developers could donate there source to the community/Athom when they no longer derive satisfaction from it.

46

I am also an app developer with many apps published already, but I do not want a donation option for my apps. It is already possible but not required, and I want it to stay that way. I don’t want a donation option for my apps, so I don’t want Athom to force it either.

Often, paying developers for publishing apps does require ID verification, which I don’t want. I don’t want the Athom app store to be like a Play Store where all devs need to verify their identity.

If Athom would force me to do that, I’ll just leave and abandon all my apps.

That would be fine, but IMO devs should still be able to choose if they want to get paid or offer it for free. And when they do choose to have it published for free, it should not require any identity verification (for payments that’s usually required, that’s also why Google Play needs to verify identity to publish apps).

That’s actually a great idea, I always share the source code of all my apps. I believe that sharing source code is better for everyone, since any developer can contribute to it and make the app even better or continue the development if the original developer is no longer actively developing it.

47

Ok, clear.

Was thinking of ways to keep apps alive and updated, as that is my greatest concern/problem. And I think Athom should take that more seriously.

If all developers would stop today Athom has a big problem. And current users even more.

48

It’s fine if they would offer it, but it should not be required. If all apps have to be paid apps (even if they’re only €1), you still need some kind of payment method (like PayPal or something) and at least for me that would be impossible to set up. And the install count, which motivates me to build even more apps and keep maintaining them, would also drop a lot when my apps would require payment

49

Every developer can simply add a donation link to their app. That way, users who want to support the developer can easily contribute.

I also develop apps in my spare time, but I mainly do it for fun and because I use many of the devices myself. I think there are quite a few developers who feel the same way.

I don’t think receiving €1 per app would really change whether developers eventually stop maintaining their apps. This naturally happens over time, and you see the same thing on other platforms as well. Where I do think we could better support the community is in what happens when a developer decides to stop maintaining an app.

Ideally, the source code is open source so another developer can pick up where the previous developer left off. We can’t make that a requirement, but it is something we can discuss and encourage with developers.

In situations like this, you can always tag me and I’ll see what I can do to help.

50

Perhaps Athom can provide a good example by open sourcing their own apps, and those that they commission to external developers.

51

For the apps that aren’t bound by NDA’s or other agreements we are more actively publishing the source code as open source.

52

In my opinion it should be mandatory to open source an app when Homey API is used.

Also, for such apps I would like to see a method implemented where a hash is calculated from the source in the publicly available repository which is matched against the copy at your CDN. When the hash doesn’t match, prevent installs and sent an alert to users of the app.
There’s just a little discrepancy to fix for the time between the commit of a new version and publication in the app store, but hé, that’s a nice challenge for your next hacky friday! (I do assume you still have those?)

53

That’s a different topic, but we are working on improving that situation as well :wink:

54

Yes, I noticed a PR in an Athom repo recently that makes the permission more selective instead of being able to control the entire Homey

55

Maybe Athom can host a GitHub section where all the apps can be pushed by developers so al the source is at one place?

56

A developer can already set a source code link to Github in their app, it will then show up at the bottom of the app’s App Store page

57

I know, but if a developer abandoned his project the repository might also get lost.

58

For that, there’s already someone on Github who fork all the apps:

59

Thanks, that’s convenient, although unclear who is the owner of that repository.

If it is not by Athom, there’s still a chance it will be abandoned.

60

Hello

I also publish applications, which would already be very pure development not to pay the subscription every month at 4.99 on a development platform I publish applications on AppleStore and I pay a license of 99 euros, but in exchange I can develop my applications and take advantage of them it’s not the same thing.