I am a very happy HA user for almost 2 years, the house is working fine, automated, with touch panels and my household can easily deal with HA. One happy customer
As much as I like modular open systems, there are just too many places to keep the different building blocks up to date. There is Integrations and HACS>Frontend and Integrations as well. Then there is Supervisor with its own add ons, in its own place, with a completely different UX per add on as well, sometimes lacking clear information about particular updates. I know this is freedom and as a tech user for decades, I can find my way. I donât know how hard this is to accomplish, but HA would hugely benefit from one place where everything is kept and maintained, including update notifications. I believe this would make it also a lot easier for non-tech newcomers.
These will never be unified as HACS is a custom integration.
Each addons UX is identical home assistant side. Each addon itself may have a WebView to addons software. The addons software will always be different because itâs a different software. I.E. Portainers web view will never look like ZwaveJS2Mqttâs web view because they are 2 completely different softwares made by completely different people.
EX: Home assistant maintains these pages for the mentioned addons. Notice how they look the same:
I understand. But if HA were to be adopted as mainstream solution (as long as it stays open that would be cool), all Iâm saying is, perhaps it could be more strict as to what is allowed, even if itâs not controlled by HA.
Certainly wouldnât want HA to become like Apple or MS.
But having a little UX-over-openness wouldnât hurt HA. In fact, I think itâs one of the things that throws people off at this point. If HA wants to remain a platform for tech savvy people, thatâs OK. I see great potential for HA if more people were to adopt this. Making HA for more people by sacrificing some openness is an interesting thing to think about.
Answering your question directly: Apple does force MS or Google or any other vendor into their UX constructs. Which I think, in and of itself is a good thing
Yes, they do, which is what I wanted you to say. You also brought up what I was going to bring up: Microsoft conforms. So, you expect portainer to conform to HAs ui? What about other commercial products that are addons?
This discussion is way too interesting and too long to be held here in text. Any (online) HA meet up somewhere soon?
Coming from a UX/design background I would make the case any system or platform would benefit from consistency and some guidelines. Itâs a fine balance, sometimes sacrificing freedom over structure or vice versa.
Itâs just curiousity I guess, trying to understand where HA is headed and where everyone, developers and maintainers specifically, want HA to go. If HA is aiming for mainstream adoption, I donât believe this can be done without UX alignment. Itâs just too tech oriented for that IMHO.
I donât know exactly what this means technically. Maybe, as you say, it canât be done. Maybe HA wants or needs to stay with more tech oriented audiences. Which is fine. I have not judgement, but would love to see HA getting a little more mainstream. Just no too much.
To put it into perspective, all home assistant does now is map a button that opens a browser to another software and shows the other softwares UI.
Youâre asking for home assistant to build a tool kit that allows anyone to build an interface for their software in home assistant. Then have home assistant force companies that donât even know that home assistant exists to use said toolkit.
You can garner all the votes from voters on this forum and I still donât think this would ever happen. And itâs not because HA wouldnât want to. Itâs because HA has no power over other companies. Making requirements and forcing them on other companies would be shooting themselves in their own foot. And this isnât even broaching the custom addon subject, which HA has no power over.
Mainstream vendors want to lock you into their proprietary systems so they can sell your marketing data, The closest we have are the Z-Wave & Zigbee standards but vendors still can mess up compatibility.
Canât it be a little more MVP? For example, would it be feasible to have HACS Integrations and Frontend merge into 1? ( I would gladly repost that request in the proper place if this is not the right place). I canât believe Iâm the only one always mixing those two up. Or maybe someone from the HA team could do this. Same with the Supervisor Add on store. I understand this is a separate part, not from or by HA, but if somehow these âessentialâ parts would make it onto 1 page, even though theyâd keep their own underlying segments, that might help.
Again I want to point that Iâm just expressing my thoughts into this request here, not trying to have HA developers do the impossible. Just voicing what others might experience too and apparently get some discussion going.
I am not one for rallying votes, if you say it canât be done. Feel free to close this topic, if itâs out of the realm of the feasible. Again, just expressing my thoughts on getting HA further. Hope thatâs safe
Thanks for the good discussion. Would love to continue this in person, online or IRL.
And Iâm one happy and grateful HA user. Totally integrated into my life and my householdsâ
No because HACS adds frontend utilities, themes, integrations, and appdeamon apps (automations). Also this has already been asked for⌠20+ times? Home assistant has ZERO interest in supporting custom anything.
The maintainer of HACS is on the main team. He said âNoâ to this question multiple times. HACS is his custom project and it has no affiliation to home assistant, therefore nothing will ever be done unless he wants to move it.
Addons are not the same as integrations. You add an addon to your system, then you add the integration that pairs with the addon afterward.
FYI, youâre not the first person to bring this up and you wont be the last. But the lack of understanding the difference between an integration and an addon is always what spawns these threads. From a technical standpoint they are very different things and require very different onboarding processes. This is why they will never be merged into 1.
So other useful software should not be allowed in Home Assistant if it fails to conform to Home Assistantâs UI? That would effectively eliminate a lot of Add-Ons. Thereâs no way a major software project, like Node-Red, is going to redesign its UI to meet some other projectâs idea of what it should look like.
However, if you have a proven track record of convincing other software projects to look like your software project, I suggest you contact Home Assistantâs founder and offer your services.
Yes, if HA would want to become adopted more, it should definitely be more strict. And if that means add ons stepping out, so be it. But, if HA remains popular, itâs not a given that add ons will step out, they may adapt as well. Like I said, itâs about possibilities and roadmap.
Thatâs an impractical position to adopt in an open-software world; to deprive oneself of added functionality simply because its appearance is different.
If your stance were adopted, the Node-Red Add-on would have to go and I donât believe that would be a very popular decision with the many Home Assistant users who employ it, especially if they learn the reason is because it âlooks differentâ.
Anyway, youâre certainly free to submit an FR, and share your opinions about what you feel is best for Home Assistantâs future. However, due to entirely practical considerations, I donât imagine this FR is likely to be fulfilled.
