Can we revisit the move to qt-openzwave?

[flyingelk]

Another 0.2c from a longtime HA user, Nabu Casa subscriber since day one, frenck patreon subscriber for years… I understand a few bucks a month, doesn’t get me all the plugins in the world or 24/7 support. I’m happy to support the project and people because it is one of the most well run open source projects I have seen. . But also I think z-wave is special in this context since its at the core of what many, many users use (or try to use) HA for.

What I took away from the above and my own experience could maybe be summarized as

• Hopefully z-wave isn’t considered a random integration like a keurig coffeemaker… Its a core absolutely essentail home automation protocol. Some of the above seems to delegate it to another random integration status. It sounds like the HA team is addressing this and I’m excited to see what the plan is.

• A lot of this is probably coming from a place of frustration. Some (myself included) have tried to get this working well and reliably for years now and it just feels very far from the usual Home Assistant excellent experience. When I read baloob’s post in November 2019 (…) that z-wave was getting official attention I was so happy that there was some focus on this from NC/HA.

• Communication trumps all. Even if its bad news, lay it out there. All of us have supported / followed / used projects where it just slowed down and eventually went away and you get nervous, especially when its something you use every single day and is a passionate hobby for most of us I’m sure. z-wave has not been good in a very long time. I have tried the beta, reverted and been waiting to hear good feedback for better part of a year now. I see the moderator here just says shut up and wait, but thats not exactly great communication. Now Paulus said its being reviewed, so great - will wait for that and it’s appreciated!

Honestly the some of the ‘official team’ replies come off elitist and condescending. I’m sure they’re not meant that way but thats how it reads. These are users looking for a way to get this working, reliably and asking how and where to discuss it getting shut down pretty hard. Yes HA is amazing free open source software and yes maybe some users come off entitled probably, but again … its from a place of passion FOR the project…

The core protocols without which HA usability would be very limited (zwave/zigbee in particular but im sure others quailfy) should in this users humble opinion have special status with HA/NC. I don’t mind of one of the random integrations I use is weird or fails, but core home automation protocols should be held to a much higher standard and focus along with the amazing output that is the HA core project in general. This is nothing agains the current maintainer, your work is so so so much appreciated, but more of a plea to HA/NC to help provide the help needed - if not monetary then awareness that help is needed. I could unfortunately not provide useful code towards this but I will absolutely contribute financially if there is a way to do it beyond what I already to. Make a nabucasa+ tier or something, I’ll sign up day one.

Thanks for all you all do!

[llevering (Leonard Levering)]

My concern was simply with the seeming focus by the HA project on one single project to the rejection of others.

You state this time and time again… I see others getting tired of opposing this. So I will do it now… There was at that time only one viable option. There is no rejection of any other option. You infer that from a post that was out of place where it was posted and even way over demanding if it was posted in a more correct place. Please stop doing this, it won’t help any ZWave integration for HA any further.

If you want to contribute start writing code for ZWaveJS MQTT integration. If you cannot code, make a plan what should be done, set guidelines and rally people behind your plan. If it is attractive help will show up and people will get united and that will help ZWave in HA forward. Balloob has been pretty clear it will get all the support it deserves if it has promise. That will bring us a community forward.

[DudeShemesh]

First of all @Fishwaldo, I want to join everyone thanking you for all that you’ve done. I think OZW is a fantastic piece of software, that I personally have been using for over 2 years, and it’s amazing that you’ve built it as a side project.
Also, congrats on your promotion!

@balloob

For the future of Z-Wave: we’ll have to see how to go from here. The Z-Wave integration devs are making an overview of the possible options. This will be published to the architecture repository when ready.

Given the news, I believe that’s the right approach. However, since z-wave is not just another integration, I think it will be great if the discussion in the architecture forum starts before a final decision is made. I understand that massive online brainstorms aren’t necessarily productive, but the community can be involved in two stages:

1. Understanding the requirements (e.g. maybe a form where people can input the devices they use, and request other features, such as the ability to poll devices, or to not rely on MQTT)
2. Discussing 2-3 final options presented by the core team.

This structure can keep most of the process running efficiently with a small group of core contributors, yet be transparent and open to community feedback.

[phaeton (Harry)]

I believe the decision making process is quite transparant. In the github repo there are architecture tickets which contain discussions about the big impact decisions. I think this is what balloob means.
Link: https://github.com/home-assistant/architecture

I dont know how long this exists. I’m quit new. But it seems a good way: transparant en close to the repository where home assistant lives. It even helped me understand decisions made. And we can add there to the discussion when the github issue appears.

[FreelancerJ]

First of all congratulations on the promotion, I hope it’s work you greatly enjoy!

Secondly I’m really sorry to hear that such a labour of love for you has been so ruined, and become a drain and a burden on you. Thank you so much for all the time and effort you out into qt-openzwave, and openzwave in general, it has been so important as the go-to open source a-wave stack and has definitely had an enormous impact on the home automation world, not just in direct users of the software but also other developers building on top of it, and manufacturers designing their products and software stacks being able to see a standardised implementation in evolution.

I really hope that as a community we can learn from what impact has occurred here and become better for it, to treat the volunteers who contribute with the respect they deserve and to support them for their time and efforts in projects like this. And most importantly, to spread that standard when we see ourselves and others falling short, keeping each other and ourselves accountable for the environment and impacts we nurture.

Hopefully one day we (open source in general, not necessarily just Home Assistant) can become a community that you wish to return to and can rekindle your passion for open source.

In all your future endeavours, however, I wish you the best! Thank you again!

[HomeTheatersRock (Derek)]

Hi. I wish it was a better environment for you, but I can see with just this thread there are always a couple impossible to please individuals out there. Plus forums are so hard to really judge emotions, just like emails, and it’s always easier to express frustration from behind a keyboard. I love that this project exists and embraces all of its flaws since the cost pretty reasonable. I hope you can filter out all the negativity and see that there are people who appreciate the effort you put in.

Thank you to all developers that work on HA Core, OS, and add-ons. Also thank you for the help in these forums. I hope this thread turns out something positive. I will just blame Covid as this is why most people are not so nice anymore.

[DudeShemesh]

The question is when the discussion starts. If the decision was already my by then (e.g. ADR-10), I wouldn’t call it transparent.

[blhoward2]

@Fishwaldo, in the event you’re still reading this thread could you please respond to the following when you are able? Zwavejs2mqtt would like to use the configuration files from ozw too, and they’d like to know if you want any identified errors or changes submitted back to your project.

https://github.com/OpenZWave/open-zwave/issues/2461

[CO_4X4 (Colorado Four Wheeler)]

@flyingelk

But also I think z-wave is special in this context since its at the core of what many, many users use (or try to use) HA for

I agree 100%. I wouldn’t have switched from Indigo if there was no Z-Wave and Insteon integration since those are the protocols I use. I think HA probably started out as more of an IoT platform to control the oddball devices (like Wireless Tags, for example) that use REST or some special API call, but it seems to have appealed to far more users, like me, interested in seeing it be their entire home automation brain - in which case supporting the core protocols such as Insteon, Z-Wave and Zigbee seems to be a core requirement.

There are only a few “industry standard” automation protocols, so relying on the community to provide the “oddball” experiences is spot-on, but I would think that the core stuff would be baked in.

[lucian.s]

Newer HA user here.
I am using the old integration and it works fine for older devices. Had to struggle with a Figaro RGB Controller to get it working.

Should I continue with the old integration or should I move to the new beta one?
For a new user I just want things working and not invest time in anything that will be deprecated.

[deccos]

At the moment, it is a state of flux. I think you would be better off waiting until there is more concrete future for HA / ZWave as outlined by @balloob here :

@balloob

For the future of Z-Wave: we’ll have to see how to go from here. The Z-Wave integration devs are making an overview of the possible options. This will be published to the architecture repository when ready.

[majorsl (Steve Major)]

Dang it. OZW isn’t perfect, but that’s what I started with when I wanted to add Z-wave to my setup and get it off the old Vera. It’s a little quirky with my Kwikset door locks and their status, but everything else I have has been rock solid. I can’t even remember the last time I restarted its Docker container.

I’d switch if I had to, but hopefully it can be salvaged with some more help. It was on the road to being pretty good.

[vilord (Jesse Campbell)]

As a brand new user to HomeAssistant, having been on ST hub v2 for the last few years, the way that this has been in flux / in beta for a year definitely left me wondering if I should even attempt switching off of smart things, but I’m sure it’ll work out in the end.

The whole idea behind an open project like this is it allows lots of contributions from lots of different people and places. Maybe one project (OZW) will lose momentum, but there’s a big enough and diverse enough community here that other projects will develop to fill in the gaps.

I’ll be using zwave-js, and if someone else hasn’t gotten to it first I can work on an addon-zwavejs2mqtt to make deploying that library easier.

[balloob (Paulus Schoutsen)]

Architecture issue to talk about next steps regarding to Z-Wave is open https://github.com/home-assistant/architecture/issues/483

[blhoward2]

Interesting proposed approach. Thank you for sharing this information with us. I appreciate the transparency.

[Vasco]

This thread… wow… the rudeness from some members here is jaw-dropping… i’ve been following this thread a while now, didn’t want to participate at first, but I want to back @petro on this whole escalated situation.

Can we revisit the move to qt-openzwave?

Sadly, this is the inevitable result of the issues I outlined above. Nabu Casa has setup a system whereby they get paid off the backs of volunteer work, the volunteers are left holding the bag to support the code, and eventually the bullshit that comes with that overrides any benefits they may have gotten from contributing to the project. @Fishwaldo I’d like to personally thank you for all the effort you’ve put forward to this point, it has benefited us all and you’ve asked nothing in return. …

@luma i find the way you describe nabu casa somewhat insulting, even though I’m not an employee there but, has it ever crossed your mind that HA does NOT require an active nabu casa subscription in order to work? HA is entirely FREE and Open Source. The monthly payment you refer to are a few things summed up:

- Secure Remote Access over the servers from nabu casa to your own instance.
Hosting a solution like this and maintaining costs them money too. (hardware/or hardware rental) and time spent to maintain this

- In addition to the above you get easy remote google assistant and alexa integration with your HA instance

- A TTS service provided through nabu casa

- And whats left of that 5 bucks a month is to support those who became employee at nabu casa to have a somewhat stable team that won’t (have to) leave so easily.
This ensures that the CORE is maintained properly.

If you pay for a nabu casa subscription is because you choose to pay for the service described above.

I mean, look at what @Fishwaldo said here: Can we revisit the move to qt-openzwave? - #140 by Fishwaldo

Aside from the fact that he got demotivated due to a rude community, he also got a job promotion. This promotion took away even more of his valueble time which makes it another reason why he’s not able to dedicate (more) time to HA. This can happen to anyone here when they have to contribute in their free/spare time. Eventually less time, or maybe a loss in interest due to various reasons and, shocked by what Fishwaldo says, how rude people can be if it’s not perfect. what the F!

So what I see that @balloob / nabu casa tries to do with the small fee, is make things somewhat easier and more secure for the users (no port forwarding required, DNS and SSL certificate payment/headache, updating systems and ensure compatibility, deprecations of systems etc etc) and most important is a small donation towards a small team where they try to pay someones salary to ensure they have time during the day to work on HA, instead of having to rely peoples free/spare time. These dev’s have bills to pay too. So that other influences (switching jobs, promotions etc etc) don’t get in the way where people eventually have to quit working on HA (integrations) because of lack of time/health/other job etc. This way they ensure that HA always has a small core team that work on continuous growth on the core systems. Also fund projects like the podcasts. People want info… occasional donations to contributors through github when they can. and so forth.

This current team is by far not big enough to cover ALL aspects that HA has grown into providing. Their focus is working on a platform called HA, that the fundamental parts are working good, secure and easy to use. Also by making it user friendlier, they get more people to enjoy the world of automating, like GUI editing instead of writing difficult yaml configs. This platform has grown into such a huge thing thanks to the hundreds of contributors that help improve, add new functionality/features and what not. But not by solely core dev users!

What I’m trying to say is, many people here have (in my opinion) a flawed way of thinking about (this) open source project(s). The user base and thus the expectations/requests have by far outgrow the group of people that can actually maintain it. Like @Fishwaldo said, he build to have his environment work. He can’t be held responsible for the thousands of other zwave products out there. Meaning, other people have to help contribute code to make things even better for everyone, more/bettee compatibility out there for people using zwave.

Instead of only complaining, think in solutions. Try to get people on board that have the knowledge and time that can help contribute with the things you need and get better over time. Post help requests outside HA forums, (reddit, google etc) and lure them in. Maybe try to learn code yourselves? Can’t find what you need in HA, try some other platform (OpenHUB, demoticz etc). You’ll find yourself coming back because HA is in so many ways better than other platforms out there.

People that say their house depends on automation? STOP using open source, pay a company that does automating and use their software. When somethings not right, you have the right to file a complaint and nag. Yet, people that do pay a company for their platform, still switch over to HA because it’s still a lot more than what paid companies out there can/want/will offer.

By all means, @luma, stop your subscription by I encourage you or anyone else with a subscription to not cancel it because it’s what helps (a bit) to keep this huge train moving forwards.

[HeyImAlex (Alex)]

Very interesting proposal. Thanks a lot for this. I think the quick and transparent way this situation is being handled by you guys is highly appreciated by everybody. I certainly do.

I very much like the fact that the new proposed integration will not run over MQTT. That’s a great step in the right direction.

[HeyImAlex (Alex)]

I don’t see anything particularly rude in this thread. It was a good and important discussion about a problematic situation that was only going to get worse if nothing was done. A new proposal was created to address this situation in a very interesting way, while still possible, that may very well pave a clear path forward for ZWave support in HA.

As such, this discussion (and similar ones preceeding it) have been quite productive.

[MikeA (Mike Allen)]

Thanks for being a good leader.

[Jared_Heath]

I am fairly new to HA and have had good success with the beta, but must admit I have not tried my doorbell yet.

But to be clear, HA was only in consideration from the get go because it integrated all the core industry techs (wifi, zigbee, zwave etc). If it had not had one of those three I would not be here typing this right now. Your product MUST fully support industry standards for you to be a serious product in the automation scene and I have to admit the fact that something as critical as Zwave has been entrusted to a single person (regardless how good a dev that person might be) is a disaster waiting to happen. It doesn’t matter if it is open source or not…something that important need to have a team of people fully versed on it to make sure what has happened here does not happen.

Real Life is a thing. Burnout is a thing. You should be guarding against these two enemies as hard as you can. They WILL win if you do not

Bravo to the dev who has single handedly produced this fairly stable, complex integration…you deserve all the cheers provided here.