I’ve been using Homey for about 6 months, having transferred from Homeseer. I love the product and it works very well for me. As a new user, I have looked on the forum for various things and usually I have found an answer to my problem.
But while reading other forum users’ questions and answers I have noticed a great deal of hostility between users. This ranges from a smug attitude on the part of people who think they know all the answers, to outright rudeness - such as calling a user in difficulty “stupid”.
I think this is such a shame because people come to the forum looking for help and the atmosphere does not seem always supportive. This is very different from the Homeseer community which I always felt was supportive of less experienced users.
In general I think most people on this forum are genuinly willing to help others out. But sometimes new users come barging in making all kinds of wrong assumptions or trolling and then indeed some forum members tend to react a little strong. Speaking for myself I have always have received lots of help when I had an issue.
This question belongs rather to Off topic category but let me ask you - do you have this perception just by reading some questions/answers, or you do have your own positive/negative experience ?
I mean it because there are basically more types of users :
those asking without even reading or searching - usually they got link to forum rules, but quite often, regardless of it, they don’t read it anyway. If you don’t respect rules, it’s hard to get respected back
those trolling - very often, first question and immediately negative one (eg. it’s shitty product etc.) - they usually get what the got for
those people asking questions without considering that you must provide some details first for others to really be able to give advice, 1st attempt is usually very nice explaining, you must provide some details
thinking Community forum means “Athom official support forum” , when you explain it ,it usually turns to some of those types of users I mentioned above anyway
last one - users that did search, tried to do research, tests etc. - I believe those get usually full support they can get in a most positive way
If you will have a look, there are some users coming here even several times per day - to give advice, to check news etc. - but when you sometimes see those negative / lazy (NOT unexperienced!) types of users, you might get quite strict on answers.
Let us know what you are struggling with, happy to help
I am on this forum now for about 6 years.
For the whole I learned a lot here and was helped and the majority of the members are very patient.
But lately some new members seem to think an agressieve approach is helpful. I then think too must testosterone. I sometimes report this to the moderator. I think this should be a save place.
I hope you stick around and get answers on all your questions.
As a user of just a couple of months, I’ll admit to some uncharitable thoughts when people post a question that was answered just a few posts ago.I don’t express those thoughts, but maybe some others are not so restrained.
FWIW, I don’t think there’s anything special about the Homey community apart from it possibly being more attractive to people who prefer not to engage in the technology compared to other platforms. My experience so far has been positive.
Sometimes people ask questions in such away that it looks they didn’t bought a Homey but an automated Home, and are requesting some one else to do their job to think about, design and implement their wishes. And this request is hidden as “help me” question. Then it is not always easy to make that clear to the requester. Usually it helps to ask the requester to show his flow, so the problem gets more clear.
Athom promotes it’s product as it being an easy can do everything box. Reality is just that the vaster majority of apps on the Pro version are community apps. I think the loud/rude minority you’re referring too are the ones that forked out $399 and find out its not as easy as they thought and yeah community apps have sometimes flaws. Volunteer devs have a their personal lives which many don’t realize.
If you stick to the official apps it just works but thruth is if you automate lights theres no stopping until you have even your toilet automated. And that requires community apps.
I don’t see that verry often, but It could be me Do you have examples of have you said it to the members? (in the community, in PM or flagged it for moderation ?)
Don’t forget, there is al lot op cultural difference between the people from the different countries.
I even think most support comes from Community Devs or volunteers, even faster / more than from Athom if it comes to questions about Devices / Apps / Flows / Automation and help with that.
Only Typical Warranty / Support questions are here directed pretty soon to Athom Support as that isn’t possible to provide solutions from the community. and even then the community is often helpful! (See the Troubleshooting advices around USB Adapters, USB Cables and Backup/Restore and full downloads etc.)
Yes, I do agree. There are a few users I have identified that are very rude. I can’t understand why, if you don’t want to help don’t post anything then.
I’ve been using Homey for a short while now and my first impressions of the forum were actually really good. Helpful replies and good suggestions, no hostility at all really. I’ve seen some hostile topics lately and some people might be rather direct in their replies but I don’t think the forum is very hostile in general. Don’t let a couple topics or users discourage you from asking questions.
This topic for example seems nice and helpful so far or do you disagree?
As a user of multiple forums both as someone that’s asking for help and as someone that’s trying to give advice I kind of think that the observed hostility doesn’t come from actual hostility, but rather from frustration (both at the asking for help as the giving advice side).
I think the frustrations originate from the increasing difference in expectation from both the Homey product and the forum. To be honest, the Homey isn’t the user-friendly product to make home automation possible for the masses it wants to be. It’s still for tech savvy enthousiasts that understand how the underlying mechanics work and are willing to program their own apps or help develop the apps of others. In my opinion it’s not so different from something like home assistant besides that the hardware part is taken care of.
The Homey isn’t “fool-proof” at all, you still need at least some basic insight into networking, wireless signals, interference etc to have a stable system. Together with the somewhat buggy state of the product during release (released as a beta) there is a high chance that the not so tech savvy customer is disappointed.
There is a lot of knowledge available through the homey users “from the first hour” (probably lost in translation) but those users are tech savvy enthousiasts that bought a device that’s work in progress. Therefore, they expect (new) users to put in a little bit of effort to identify their issues, just like they did when they started with homey. New users are not always capable or willingly to do so. Frustration
The not so tech savvy customer on the other hand buys the Homey as an upgrade/addition to something like a Hue bridge so they can use cheaper lightbulbs and motion sensors or make automations that are a little more complex (just examples). Due to interference with (multiple) zigbee channels and wifi 2.4ghz (also just an example) the homey looks very unreliable. Which also leads to frustration… And to make the recipe for disaster complete, guess what happens when frustrated persons that communicate on different wavelengths start a discussion…
I second this! Homey is like a Swiss knife, but you need some understanding how to use the tools, moreover how the tools work. And for some this leads to a boiling point. Homey is, if more then out of the box apps are required, not for everyone…
I agree with the OP’s feelings. There are users on this forum that have an elitist approach and can write posts that can make the asking user feel stupid. Especially in the “suggestion” category. A new user has a suggestion for a new feature or a tweak for an existing one and gets bashed by the “elite” with statements such as “That’s not possible”, “There is no use for such a function” or something to that effect.
To me that’s just toxic. There is very little that is “impossible” in the digital world (it’s just a question of money, time and will) and if a user have found a need for a function there is use for it.
Also, I have read threads that got hostile and have identified the cause to be the language barrier. Not everyone can be Oxford scholars in English and since Homey is a global device there need to be a big acceptance for users that struggle to formulate their post in English.
I think that what a lot of people fail to understand is that this is a community forum that, officially, isn’t read by Athom (yes, that’s absolutely silly, I know). So when people say that something is impossible, they may mean that it’s impossible for an app (the only way in which the community can extend Homey’s functionality) to implement a particular feature.
Sure, not officially…but I’m certain that Athom officials monitor the forum. It’s a fact that they answer sometimes, you know that too Robert, and I have seen suggestions made in the forum that has been implemented. Heck, I even asked for Insight for the mobile app and that has been implemented! (Albeit a bit crude for now.) I’m not taking credit for it…but the suggestion category is a gold mine for the devs, so it would be extremely stupid of them not to have someone checking in from time to time so see what the users are requesting.
EDIT: I just checked the stats for Stefan, Doekse and Emile…they are absolutely active on the forum. Just click on their names and you’ll see.
Sure:
They are active, have you seen the numbers? try to find yourself.
STATS
fe:
robertklep 2.1k days visited * 39d read time * 1d recent read time * 20.1k topics viewed 195k posts read
Emile 460 days visited 1d read time 1h recent read time 744 topics viewed 8.3k posts read
Maybe check, where Athom employees are vs yourself or the active community. They probably had time to read only 4 % (both topics as posts) of what the top 10 active members had read (in the past ~ 6 years)
(But that on it’s own is not a competition )
And I do understand they are working hard to make Homey better every day, but probably reading everything and reacting on the community just isn’t the most effective way to do that.
Guess what Athom meant, and is now rephrased as " officially, isn’t read by Athom "
should be:
This is a community forum, and like many social media, not an official communication channel to contact the company Athom.
So If you ask here, you ask it the community. It could be that Athom employees read it,
Please don’t expect Athom to react. (if they do, you probably are just lucky…)
If you want an answer from Athom use their official communication channel.
Yes, they are active on the Community, if They post it is most of the time a very important announcement (where they want to contact the active community, fe for AMA’s, or reach active Developers.) or a reaction on something happening (like the recent Hot-topic’s when they joined the LG company)
They have probably ~ 10 times more Customer / users than here active in this community (and there are also a couple of big Facebook Groups, and a little bit on Reddit Reddit - Dive into anything ) so often the real announcements are on their Website/Blog and/or send in email updates.
I’m not saying they’re not active, but the forum isn’t the place to request features that only Athom can implement (my impression is that Athom only posts here if they have something good to announce, but when things stop working or in case of issues they’re suddenly very quiet )
)
