Hi all,
while I fell in love with HomeAssistant fairly quickly, it is more recently that I sense similar frustration based on previous experiences with other automation systems.
Let me elaborate, from my understanding https://www.home-assistant.io/components/ as it states: “Support for these components is provided by the Home Assistant community.” indicates supported technologies - which in the long run pretty much should provide anyone interested some guidance around technologies to invest in as they are supported.
The issue I currently have with this is - that various components are listed, driving purchasing decisions which are not working, not working in full for months which I believe is misguiding.
Components in my case are Arlo sensors, Ecovacs component.
I bought the Arlo after the initial support seemed stable, however after the main maintainer more less abandoned the component some vital functionality is no longer available. There are plenty of github issues open/closed which are unaddressed and the components page doesnt give you any indication about you potentially betting on the wrong horse here with your next purchase.
You would think I had learned from it, recently I was offered a reasonable offer of a robot vacuum, quickly checked the supported components and hit the order button after a very quick search for issues. After I have received the item, preparing the component and restarting HASS I found out that this component is also not working at the moment.
Where do I go with this - I would think that the current supported components page is rather misleading - though the device support may be broader than for other platforms, I personally have fallen into the trap to make my purchasing decisions based on what is claimed to be supported.
Would it be possible to require in the documentation of the components to state the integration eg open API vs closed API, reverse engineered, hacked - to give some indication of the likelihood this being more permanent or only temporary support until the manufacturer changes the integration.
Also to give an active indication of working/not working at present - eg based on a lookup to the current issues on github - a simple button of “issues reported” can go a long mile here from my perspective.
I know it is rather difficult to manage all issues but as a consumer that isn’t able to contribute or remediate this is surely frustrating. I personally wouldnt mind to buy someones time to fix issues - eg like a donate to fix pot if necessary to refocus capable developers to address issues of a wider mass of technologies they potentially dont own themselves but I am more than happy to spend time on various remote management tools to provide a debugging platform if that is what is required.
Just a few thoughts that were going through my head and wanted to be heard as well as am interested in feedback.
Hands down the best community but looking for options to improve or to avoid that things fall through the cracks.
cheers
r4n