Well, somehow off-topic, but I think we are missing a bit a point of WTH Month initiative…
I understand that people are trying to help on the spot suggesting some solutions to issues that other are raising here, but is this really the purpose of WHT Month?
My understanding is that we are missing some functionalities in HA, that we would like to see being part of core. For some of these ‘misses’ 3rd party solutions exists, but… while searching for many of issues I’m facing with HA configuration I found in forum tenths of advices, some good, some even better… but some pointing to solutions that are no longer applicable. Internal HA architecture changes makes older custom componets useless. Authors of original components are no longer maintaining them. Syntax changed. Or finally configuration of some goes beyond skills of less skilled users… and so on.
Over past few days I started several WTH topics, just because I’d like to see functionality I was referring to as part of core system, so it is easily available to everyone and is properly maintained by developers. And first of all brings something that I personally miss in the HA (judging from voting I’m not alone). So from this perspective, tons of advises that we (it does not relates to my request) are receiving are sort of useless, in context of WHT Month. I personally fall into this trap too… These might be great advices and we should be grateful for receiving them, but this is not the point! If I need a help on specific topic I do not hesitate to start new topic asking this great community for help and I get it! Here we are all specifically asking for enhancing HA core functionality, not hacks.
BTW, sorry if someone finds this somehow offensive, not the point of this post by any mean! I really want us to focus on what I believe is its purpose, not to weaken the request validity… I hope I got it right…
Totally agree. When i started HA at <0.100 it seemed at some points like a scripting mess. Maybe the community divides into two types of members: 1) I have fun scripting in free time 2)i want comfortable end-user experience
both is right… but WTH seems to be designed for type 2 users and that says a lot about the strategy of HA-staff. I appreciate that.
Sure but the team is finite and these changes take time. If there’s a way to do something now that I know of I’ll help people out. It also serves to demonstrate to the developers the lengths we have to go to to accomplish something that may easily be solved in the core.
I’ll refrain from doing it in your posts as you have indicated you want.
There is nothing we can do in changing Home Assistant to implement or fix “this” topic and IMHO does not fit here in any way.
This belongs in the specific topic you have this complain/suggestion about.
I get your point but I see it differently. The fact that people have hacks and workarounds or even entire custom components to solve a problem you identified is actually really good feedback for the HA team. The HA ecosystem is deep and complex, there’s no way for anyone to stay on top of all of it. People sharing these known workarounds on the topics let’s them know people really need these capabilities. They can also potentially use that info to help with their own design and implementation as they work through how to add it to core.
Additionally this whole initiative has generated fantastic response. People sharing problems, discussing their need for them and others sharing how they solved it. As was said the ha team does have finite time so these stopgap solutions may prove very useful to people for some time. Not everyone will be able or want to follow all of them but others will find this resource very useful.
Finally I’d like to add that those sharing workarounds may not even realize they are workarounds. Its very very easy to get tunnel vision with these things and just think your way is the only way, especially when you are a user of a product like this and not a designer/developer. It often takes the perspective and discussion of others for people to realize that there might be a better way then what they did.
I would just advise you to enjoy the fact that people care enough about your topic to have solutions and share. And enjoy the attention bump since it can’t hurt your chances of getting it prioritized.
Yes, there are a whole lot of conversations like
WTH ha can’t do X
hell yes it can, do it like this
Surely this helps?
Well, my point was not to neglect that there is tons of things that can be done with HA outside the core functionality and this is great. I also very much appreciate lots of help and great discussions that I have had with many of you on other topics I raised, regarding problems that I faced with my system. Really appreciated! My idea was rather to focus on identification of functionalities, that should become part of core that using these topics as vehicle for getting help… said that, I think @Mike raised one very valid point that I did not really considered:
So perhaps time for me to take the critique and step back!
So what has the Home Assistant team to fix here? Telling users not to post workarounds or other suggestions?
I’m confused about your goal with this WTH.
Some “workarounds” are just ways of using ha that people hadn’t realised they didn’t know about.
Nothing for Home Assistant Team, @Frenck! That was rather suggestion for users, posting under WTH umbrella… My bad, that I classified this as such. You guys are doing excellent job already reviewing these topics… and perhaps implementing some of these ideas into HA 
!