First I’m writing this because of a feeling that a lot of effort done on development gets lost on how annoying is to get anything to work with Home Assistant.
I know that there is probably a million of reasons why is done the way it is.
However, it is the way to close the door to new users.
Anyone can operate the current web UI, once it correctly set it up, but just a few will ever be able to actually make it to. Can your parents do it?
I’m tech savvy, but no programmer. I never felt the desire to even try scripts or automation. The strong adoption of node red shows the wonders of being more user-friendly and is not that friendly.
I appreciate so much the work done by all the developers. But, there is a clear dissociation with how easy hassio is to install and how hard and confusing is to set up especially for a new user. It makes writing documentation even harder.
Sorry for the rant. But this is my way to tell the developers that I want home assistant to be accessible to everyone.
Maybe I’m wrong and the idea actually is to make this advance crazy customizable software for a few.
What do you guys think? Who is home assistant for?
I don’t think of myself as particularly tech savvy. I have no formal computer training only what I have picked up from other very tech savvy people via osmosis. I have a science background and my dad is an engineer so maybe I have a right mindset.
Anyway my thought is: This software is great and ITS FREE! I made a conscious decision to pay nothing except my time and the challenge to learn something new. Option B was pay a lot of money for a hub that someone else has programmed and tested and may still not do everything I want.
Maybe because I had no expectation that I would be even able to get the thing installed let alone anything else so I always knew it was going to be hard work.
Yes there are times when I have been incredibly frustrated but also absolute joy when I finally get that thing to work.
Anyway maybe you could make it “easier” but that would probably take away a lot of the flexibility. Plus my experience of hassio is I don’t think it’s that bad. Some components are trickier than others but you just need to make sure you don’t try too much too soon.
Maybe an idea might be to rate how easy some components are like recipes easy, moderate, technical. Just a thought
They are working towards that goal too. You are just here too early if that’s what you expected at this moment in time.
This project has come leaps and bounds over what it was a few years ago when I first tried it out. There is currently a lot of momentum behind the project and the goals will be realized when the stars align.
Until then, you will have to realize that the product is made by developers that want to make something. Even though the target audience to get everything correct is going to be geeks and technophiles for the interim, one day it will be a product that your grandma can enjoy.
I agree with all of you. And is always hard to write something like this without sounding harsh against the people how devoted their time to create this awesome software that is Home Assistant.
Maybe they could share a roadmap of what is in their plans.
A lot of the problems are UI related. You have this engine that is getting better and better but is lacking in how we can interact with and get the best out of it.
In my opinion HASS is currently not at a state where average people should be using it. My brother is doing home automation way longer than me, but lacks the skills required to efficiently and securly handle Home Assistant. Hence I wouldn’t recommend Home Assistant to him. Instead he’s still using his consumer-targeted hub and ioBroker for some extended functionality. For him that’s perfectly fine.
I on the other hand am a developer with, I believe, a skillset to see myself capable enough to operate Home Assistant in a productive way. I don’t expect the stability or ease of use that existing solutions for a broader audience provide.
So I essentially agree if you are stating, that Home Assistant is not actively targeting regular users. And to me that is perfectly fine. I actually even think it’s a positive thing that Home Assistant currently is less accessible than other solutions. With the power Home Assistant provides and the broad variety of things you can combine it with, it’s very easy to do something that compromises the security of your Home. And being an open source project there’s no one you could blame for that.
That being said my personly conclusion is, that Home Assistant should stay a bit more complicated to setup and use until it reaches a state where it is safe for everybody to use.
Lately I’m thinking to give up on HA partially from these reasons, it is taking so much time from me and the result not satisfying
In last 3-4 months I’ve spent maybe 1000 hours on HA, learned it pretty good but still I can’t make it good enough, as program in development it’s understood that will be complications but only if I knew it from beginning
In beginning of my “Smart Home” journey I wanted to buy everything HomeKit cause it works flawlessly, when seeing prices like 200$ camera and 50$ sensor I though I can build entire home instead of one camera but I never took time as factor, today with 200$ not perfect gadgets and 1000 hours invested I think maybe it was cheaper to get the 200$ camera…
My main issue is GPS tracking which all my automations based on, and its not working reliably. 3 sensors cant be sure if I’m there or not, it’s so frustrating. Most of my gadgets are Xiaomi and their app is terrible, and half in Chinese so I don’t even know what is said, but it simply works. For half year Xiaomi GPS automation never failed.
I use HA mostly for the “History” part, cause it can track all data in one place, but for home automation purpose I can’t trust it yet.
I’d say Home Assistant is for those who love coding, DIY project, it’s great self educational tool, made me understand code much more than I knew it before, also learned Linux, and how great GitHub is, but the question is, do I need those skills or I need home automation?
@danielperna84 thanks for the input. Maybe because I’ve been using for just a few months, I already got a project that does so well in some regards and lack in some others. Probably is my ignorance of not knowing what goes on in development.
I don’t think is making things hard helps. It’s inevitable, we are already at a point that Home Assistant is relatively accessible. Leaving the user figure out things by himself leads to the “I’ve been hacked” posts on the hassio community.
The more accessible the project becomes more people can contribute. You just make it harder for someone with a different set of abilities be exposed to the project and than maybe help with development.
Look my complaints are 99% related to the lack of UI for basic things. And a good UI avoids a lot of time in documentation.
I guess that most developers are more into python than HTML. Wouldn’t it be great to attract more people to help?
I’ve seen many many discussions over the last year talking about the state of the GUI, and how to make it better for everyone.
I say this because you appear to have a viewpoint that nobody recognizes this issue, when in fact, it’s a very large topic that has been very involved over the years.
I understand. I even regret posting.
I try openHAB2 this afternoon and was shock how much hass is behind.
From what I understand the best is to have some patience and hope that they show up soon.
Well let me just say I got my first raspberry pi about 4 years ago.
I didn’t know anything about how to use it or Linux system.
I slowly started learning bits and pieces about python still have a lot to learn.
I set up a few Raspberry Pi’s to read temperature and humidity around the house. I ran that for a while the bought my first Phillips Hue kit ( hub and 2 lights ) I had been using X10 system since the late 80’s I didn’t know at that time my way of life was about to change in home automation.
About 1 1/2 years ago I was getting some advice on MQTT on this forum and someone told me about esp8266 and here we go again, Learning something new, Arduino sketch , I now have about 20 different things around the house including automated binds, doors/window sensors, bed occupancy sensors, temp/ humidity sensors. And device tracking, keeping track of family members, with automations for about everything.
All I have done myself with help from here.
Because buying all that would have been very expensive.
Keep in mind I’ve only been at this for about 4 years.
I love home assistant and would not have all that I have, had I not come across the website about 2 years ago, and all the support there is here.
So as for me Home Assistant is the best thing. I learned home assistant because I love home automation, I tried other open source ones and didn’t like them at all.
And just so you know I am 60 years old. And learning every day
I find it odd that users can write extended rants about how hard it is to set up HA, but cannot type pretty simple text (in fact mostly copy and paste) into a config file.
I got my first really helpful overviews from the BRUH videos.
As you say it’s a community and I’m trying to have a conversation.
Is just rude of you to assume that everybody that disagrees should go use something else.
I was trying to show the dichotomy that we have right now where the project is getting more and more streamlined but it’s core functionalities are stuck with text-based.
I’m also not saying that learning is wrong. But I don’t believe that writing a stupid long yaml file to organize my sensors is the best thing that people can learn.
