Interesting, but doesn’t have the iOS app (although I guess that is beta).
Could awareness of this could be increased? Seems super useful.
Depends if the desire is to drive this into people’s troubleshooting, triage process.
I LOVE the idea of proactive alerting that looks like it’s planned (knowing what I’m using in my HA instance and send me a notification is something is known to be not working. Whilst I check the breaking changes, this could really help)
A large part of this, and 100’s of issues relating to HA updates is that people don’t read the release notes, or, check the forums before they update. They just see an update, and smash the GIVE IT TO ME NOW!!! button.
99% of the posts around “My HA/app/3rd part plugin, in broken since I updated…” wouldn’t exist if people took the time to read release notes and check in on the forums.
I know this particular situation is slightly different, but only slightly. It has been well documented in this thread that the app has issues and fixes are being worked on, and that there would be compatibility issues with 0.100.x. I don’t even use the iOS app, and I was still aware of this issue, because I, wait for it, read posts.
If you don’t need to update, then don’t - especially if you haven’t understood what doing so will do to your services.
Don’t disagree with you at all, but the trouble is if HA wants to scale they need to consider that mentality.
People are now used to just getting automatic updates… you think this is bad, imagine pulling an update for your car and NOT reading the release notes!? Lol. Equally I wonder how many people read the iOS 13.0 release notes?
I wonder if the HA team have polled the users to see a change overtime of those heavily involved all doing their bit to support the community vs those who just consume. I’m willing to bet, with the direction of UI driven approach making it easier for automations, cloud, integrations, areas etc the volume of the consumer group is rapidly increasing (a great thing).
Can we expect these users though, that follow the easy install process, and that do just mash the “update me now” button as it’s been made so easy (and kudos to the team for their ongoing efforts on this too) to read the release notes and even know what they really mean or how it effects their instance?
Should we simplify the breaking changes/alerts to match the simple installation and usage… it seems this is happening with the new alert system development.
In the meantime maybe a behavior drive to direct this user group there before raising an issue?
Just my 0.2c
Then again I don’t think HA is suitable for the ‘average’ user. Yes it has gotten much easier over time. But average people will most likely go for something much easier like Homekit or Smartthings or maybe Google Home. My dad would get lost with HA even if it was 50x easier to setup (exaggeration*).
Honestly would you recommend the average user to use HA or OpenHAB for that matter?
I do agree with you though, but in my eyes HA will never really be for the average user. Like freenas vs synology DSM where the latter is made for the average user. Or Garageband vs Logic Pro X.
Perhaps with the move to a “Simple Mode” and “Advanced Mode” as is planned for 1.x and on-wards, there may be less of these breaking changes posts being made as many of users will/should be using simple mode and therefore have less likelihood of experiencing a breaking change.
Anyways, we are getting off topic.
Agree with you all. And as much as I also feel frustrated by users not doing the reading bit first, we all need to realise that HA is targeting average users, not techy / geeky folks like us, and as such it’s inevitable that this user behaviour will continue and increase as we go towards 1.0.
Maybe something that could help would be to somehow provide better error messages (when possible) with codes that can be looked up? Even better provide a url and include the alert url in the error messages for our average users?
I know I’m talking utopia here, but the fact is users won’t change, so we have to
My 2 cents
iphone w/ ios 13 as well as ipad with iso 12. The app now wont load, comes up for a split second then exits.
Running Docker homeassistant/home-assistant:latest on unraid with nabo.casa.
Downgraded back to Running Docker homeassistant/home-assistant:99.3 and it works!
Same for me
This question has been answered so many times in this thread:
The APP needs an update!
Same thing here.
Bump! Same here! In case you guys do roll back be ready for one hells of a reconfiguration too. After rolling back my smartthing integration broke. After restarting a few times and going into smartthings and saving the config a few more times it works again. But my home config was destroyed. Had to redo that all in all this roll back took 6 hours…
STOP POSTING IN THIS THREAD
This is already discussed in the original thread about the iOS app HERE.
The iOS app needs updating.
EDIT This comment has been merged from another thread, it does not refer to this thread.
It’s one thing to point out something like this, but putting the blame on the users?
(not specific to someone btw)
There is was no official statement in the changelogs about this. So how could one simply find out its not working? Reading, searching the forum, right?
I’ve probably should’ve read the topic a little better in the future. I have reverted back easily to 0.99.3 after discovering the app didn’t work.
it might be a good step forward if we could persuade the Ha dev team to incorporate the issues the App’s have in to the release notes.
Most ‘average’ users dont know/realize the app isnt developed by the HA team, and is in fact something completely different.
Still, since it is such a dominant way of using HA, in its many forms, on a mobile device, hence with the available apps, it would be a huge step forward to make notes in the release notes, and add (breaking) changes for the Apps.
We would at least have a central refererence point for all issues. The alerts.home-assistant.io would be nice too. Also, that page could use some extra publicity, maybe even in the header of this community, next to the latest release notes, and the Lovelace release notes…so many pages to check…
Not sure who to tag here to ask, so won’t…
kanga_who
I am sorry but this forum system don’t make sense to me. You combine all your issues into this 1 giant thread and then expect users to find and read this? Do you have a lot of time or something? Also for a software that has worked well for so long it is really hard to people to remember this is still in development. So when an update comes along you press it after backing up. Like what jaburges said it is the mentality. This is a compliment to HA actually. It has been working so well I forgot its still in development. This is less about the “simple mode” or “advanced mode” this is more about easily accessible alerts of what broke after update.
jimz011
Some of us post here to share our experience of the update and issues that came up and how, if possible, it was solved. Not saying everyone is contributing but not everyone is just plainly asking why it is not working. Again back to the point that this thread system makes no sense. Some of us don’t want to or have the time to read the whole thread… As for HA not being suitable for the average user. I would have to disagree. It can get complicated don’t get me wrong. But current if you just want to control a few things, my wife can set it up even and she don’t understand YAML or JSON at all. Again this is a compliment to HA. The documentation of HA is comprehensive enough for the average joe to understand.
DavidFW1960
Really don’t blame you for getting annoyed, but the few comments that are posted with answers gets drowned out by the hundreds with questions. Again this thread system needs work. Also to be honest I think i can say for a lot of people it’s not a matter of when the fix is coming, it is the communication and alert system. Again I did google before I upgraded. But for many HA has been so smooth sailing that we forgot it is still in development. Its stability has been great for the past few dozen updates.
jaburges
I think you hit jackpot. I have the same concerns right now. I completely forgot that Home Assistant was an experiment of mine that worked so well that I decided to keep and use it as the core of my home automation systems. I mean I can fix whatever I break but I am no seasoned coder it would take time and support from the community but isn’t that the point of a FORUM? A better organized forum where you don’t have to read comments from last 3 days to figure out that it is a problem with the app? Why can’t we have a thread of this that would pop up on google once you search “home assistant 0.100.1 ios beta 2.0 app” Again this is directed at how this forum is organized. Maybe I am new to this forum thing but how hard is it to have a big spanking title that says “V 0.100.1 is not working with Companion app 2.0”
aidbish
Thank You!, however i don’t see “ios beta 2.0 app incompatible with v0.100.1” there.
Mariusthvdb
Sorry but are you saying this iOS app development has no communication with the HA team?
Sorry I really didn’t know that. That being said it does not dilute my point at all when I said there needs to be a better system than to post in this GIANT thread.
Not sure, cant imagine tbh. But, they are 2 independently developed platforms. The apps and HA itself. Hence my suggestion to interweave at least the breaking changes of the App in to the release notes of HA.
And yes, have a better signpost for these pages with news and changes, as I have listed at least 3 to read before pushing update (on any of the mentioned platforms)
Ive learned long time ago, pushing update on the IOS itself is not always safe, so for my self I always add the breaking changes of that to my routine, or better, dont auto-update and wait a few days …
I do not disagree with you, however saying that you had the go through a whole thread to find the answer is a bit exaggerated. The answers to most recent problems can always be found at the bottom of the thread. And in this case I think around 15 messages were already at the bottom stating this exact problem and current answer.
I get what you mean though, but on the other hand. If people are posting here, it means they have read at least something no?
As for the ease of use: Yes you could most definitely set up HA for some easy stuff. But again ask yourself: would your wife be able to install HA, open ports for external use (or use a proxy), add an ssl certificate? Add trusted networks (for ease of use). Because honestly, if she does know how, then she is not the average person. The average person will not know how and that is why I said that average people will most definitely choose smartthings, homekit of google home over HA in a heartbeat.
Though I agree that you could add simple stuff etc, but if you only add simple stuff, HA would be the wrong platform to do that with. It is like installing Adobe Photoshop whilst only needing the fill or pencil tool.
Edit: but we should also not forget that this app is in BETA. A BETA usually implies that it is not meant for the average user. I would never recommend people to install the preview version of Windows for example.
I read the release notes before installing every release. The app issues weren’t mentioned in the release notes. I know this is a beta app, but it is widely used by the community.
tbh Jim, the Answer you so frequently quote, isnt really an answer is it? The App needs an update isnt really an answer, it might be a conclusion, or a fact of sorts, by doesnt explain what and why. Which is what people are looking for. Even the most savvy people around on this forum dont answer this question, and having to wait for the next update of which no-one knows when this will happen isnt really a satisfactory situation.