I have be “using” HA for a few years and but for a few brief moments have never been truly happy.
I have a small house, single occupant with simple needs. I have an Ikea hub, with 10-12 bulbs and a few power sockets. I also have TP-Link sockets and a few zigbee sensors scattered around the place.
I know most of you will scorn the Ikea hub; in this part of the world we have few options, but it is simple and apart from HA works fine, NR finds everything after every update and reboot. HA on the other hand will either fail to reconnect to the hub, or if it does it will find only the bulbs, or only the sockets never everything.
I then have to go through a series of reboots of all the different parts in several different orders and change the period between reboots until eventually HA agrees that everything is there. Even then it may refuse to control them.
I did an up date to 2021.7.4 core today. I have spent several hours faffing around with reboots and off/on the various components until at last HA sees everything, but it will not control the damn lights.
NR on the other hand sees the lot after every reboot, controls everything just fine, but the interface looks like someone threw a box of lego on the floor…
Maybe its the heat, but Im basically at a point where Im giving up on HA and spend the time building a better IF for the NR control.
Unfortunately you won’t get much traction here with that sentiment. You either like HA or you don’t. It either works for you or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t you find something that does and move on. You’ve probably answered your own question if that is what it was.
Please don’t create another rant thread without first asking for help, providing details of what has been tried / failed and… logs!
Likely solution: ditch the IKEA hub for a Conbee 2.
That said, you haven’t said what your hardware / software setup is. Many people struggle because they go down the Windows VM path not wanting to splash out a few bucks for a new piece of hardware to run HA by itself, then complain about the hours lost trying to get it to work.
I have asked several times - dont get me wrong I am not disparaging HA - it is a wonderful piece of software, but it fails for me. I know the Ikea&HA user base is tiny, so I dont expect any huge amount of effort to be made to fix an issue.
Also Im not “building something better” - far from it, Im using existing systems to do a job.
Why oh why does everyone get so defensive when a user expresses dissatisfaction ?
What sentiment ?
Im expressing a frustration at my own situation! I know Im in a tiny minority using Ikea with HA and I dont expect anyone to jump to my aid - Im not annoyed, Im not dissing HA, Im not expressing and ill feelings towards anything or anybody - just my own frustration !
Rant ?
I really hope it did not come across as a rant… It was not meant to be.
I am really impressed with HA - just in a small minority (ikea hub users) it fails.
There are probably a few other cases where it is less than impressive as well… but overall - brilliant!
I didnt want “another one of these threads” … Im not ranting or whining or dissing anyone or anything, just expressing a frustration. This will be my last post on the subject as I am clearly poking a bear here…
As much as you may like to revel in your positive feedback bubble, threads like this - and users who express their frustration with the rough corners of HA - are an integral and important part of any open or closed source project. Being able to take criticism and turn the rant of a frustrated user into a productive discussion about things that can be improved is what makes a good and welcoming community.
HA clearly has a lot of usability issues still and these probably turn off many new users who try HA for the first time and stumble over something like the OP did. Most of these users will not post here and just move on. We need feedback from users like this in order to improve HA’s user experience. If we only concentrate on positive feedback from people who ‘already know’, dismissing any type of negative feedback as ‘oh God, not another one of these threads’, then all we will create is an elitist and unwelcoming community for people for whom the HA experience just isn’t as smooth as it should.
Where in my reply was I defensive? I summarized your commentary and wished you well with your decision to do something different.
I believe all of that was made clear in your first post.
The fact is that you felt free to express your frustration publicly and now the public is free to respond to your frustration. There are over 100 thousand members so there will be a variety of replies ranging from agreement and sympathy to indifference and derision (and more).
Once again I sincerely wish you the best of luck with whatever other path you choose.
I think it would be more profitable to ask a question: why HA Ikea integration is not reliable while integration available in NR is, at the same time in the same env.
Euh…as in RPI?? I ran it for a week and ditched it for a VM on w10 with hyper-v.
Depending on the underlaying hardware, a vm is many times more powerful than a RPI, and i had the w10 running already anyway for other services. But i guess that is a personal preference…and shouldn’t make that much difference.
and for the ikea hub…ditched that one for a cc2531…was around €15,- and well worth it😉
Even managed to sell the ikea hub for €15,- so no loss there
That’s a valid point but doesn’t seem to be the OP’s goal in this topic. In fact, the original post doesn’t contain any questions only disappointment with their experiences with Home Assistant.
If you check the OP’s posting history, they requested assistance for the Ikea integration in another topic back in April of this year. Everyone is free to investigate and reply to it but, unfortunately, no one did.
So Gazzah may have a valid point that the integration’s user-base is “tiny” and so it’s understandable that the inability to get support can become a source of frustration. Perhaps the best recourse, for Gazzah, is to try something different.
I am a semi-retired developer. I have been writing code since before PDP8s where considered state of the art.
I have been in and led teams that have worked on things as diverse as writing the Bluetooth stack for a micro controller, guidance systems for LEO satellites, ATC and even a stock control system for a soft drinks factory. I have also spent several years in hardware, designing, building and repairing circuit boards for all sorts of applications.
A part of my time has been spent in tech support for both Joe Public and technical teams.
Several years back a number of my team became interested in home automation and had a look around. There were only 2 options that were not system/manufacturer locked; HA and OpenHab.
First thing we did was to go onto the forum for each and ask a few stupid questions to gauge the response. OpenHab immediately blew up with “Dont be so stupid, another damn idiot” type replies. HA was much friendlier pointing us to the relevant bits of the docs and giving advice on how to proceed.
So we all installed HA, and have been basically happy apart from a few issues which we would either work around or find fixes for. All was well until sometime around the 1.0 release and a new software update from Ikea happening about the same time. Then HA started dropping the light control and we all had and continue to have this issue.
Now most of the team have dispersed to different parts of the world and some are using hardware not available here so have got round the issue in a drastic way.
I do NOT want to uninstall the hub as it is a decent fall back. If HA fails I can use NR, if that fails I can use the Ikea app.
Now to my main point - this forum, and by extension every one of you on it are the public face of HA, like it or not you signed up for it. If a user comes on expressing frustration with HA and your first reaction is to reply along the lines of “Oh feck here we go again, another whinger …” you probably dont have the skill set or temperament to be front line support, and should possibly hold back until the talk moves into an area you can help with. Treat the issue as if you are having a face to face conversation with the person, ask questions, suggest things to try.
In my case I really do want to like and use HA, it is a wonderful project, just fails in my use case. So I will keep it installed and up to date to monitor any changes, but it will not be my main control system.
Thanks you all who have tried to help me in any of my guises on this forum, and HA team continue the great work.
To be clear, this community forum isn’t ‘front line support’ so can’t be held to the standards of true front line support. From the FAQ:
This forum is not a helpdesk
The people here don’t work for Home Assistant, that’s an open source project. We are volunteering our free time to help others. Not all topics may get an answer, never mind one that helps you solve your problem.
As a consequence, responses are likely to be a mixed bag of opinions, some more helpful than others. Or no response at all.
In this topic, you expressed your frustration and others expressed their frustration with the nature of these “I am frustrated” posts. Equal time for everyone.
As for who does or doesn’t have the temperament to provide front line support, all I can say is that those skills aren’t even universally present in the software developers who respond on GitHub. Some have it, some don’t. For better or worse, it’s the status quo. We can all try to improve but changing one’s ways is a slow process.
…until it escalates to the extent that some mod (usually one of involved into discussion) decides to step in to shoot the OP down.
You are right that the forum is not a helpdesk. But otherwise there is no other place a user can get help or inform about general problems with the project.
On the other hand it’s almost guaranteed that the same user (especially after mentioned escalation) will get bashed. Which renders the situation quite not equalized.
Personally understand the quotation as an attempt to secure the fact the forum is not obliged to provide help; but otherwise it is the support forum, isn’t it?
The problem is that when it’s reached the point of so long and thanks for all the fish it’s too late.
It’s too late because the poster has apparently reached the point of having thrown in the towel.
It’s too late because the post is either written as a I hate you all, I’m done post, or a there’s no point in trying this any more. In neither case is it a request for help.
It’s too late because by the time somebody has read the title they’ve pre-judged the poster’s attitude.
Now, personally, if the question had been how can I make this work, given the desire not to make HA the heart of everything, I’d have said _have you considered Zigbee2MQTT? It’s not part of HA, Node Red can communicate with it, as can HA. It has a larger user base than the Tradfri integration, and supports far more than just the Tradfri devices.
But, no question was asked, so I wouldn’t be saying that.
