Wikis are worse.
If you want to fix the docs, fix them. There is an “edit this page on github” link on every page.
Version 1 while just a number has some specific requirements before it will be released. If you watch the ‘State of the Union’ videos by Balloob it outlines those requirements.
We have been told we can expect breaking changes until 1.0 is released.
After that I would expect many people will just stay on the ‘stable’ track but there will still be beta/dev releases that will eventually be rolled up into a new stable release people will be able to migrate to with little grief.
A lot of the current ‘grief’ is because decisions that were made ‘back-in-the-day’ were not the best ones so they refactor and rework stuff to bring the software into alignment.
Yes we are all beta testers but the software is INCREDIBLY functional and stable. However each release does bring some challenges you need to deal with. If you can’t cope with that then HA isn’t for you.
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Yeah, I know I know. I’m a developer too. And this is why I don’t buy this.
I know that what has been said doesn’t translate into “breaking changes/bugs are specific domain of beta versions” or “there will be no breaking changes since v1.0”. As I already said, today, version numbers means nothing. It just incremental signature allowing to identify an order of feature/fixes compilations.
Saying that I have to repeat I’m familiar with the process. Just please don’t believe in this “beta” vs “final version” BS. And mainly please do not use it as arguments in discussions
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I agree. There have been breaking changes in, for example, microsoft word, well after 1.0. There are breaking changes in all software, well past 1.0 or whatever number is supposed to be “magic”. Things change. Needs change. Fashions change. There will be new sensors and new ways to automate your house. There will be code refactoring as these things happen. There are never no bugs.
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The difference is that a MS Word 1 Document will still be able to be opened in the latest versions.
I agree. As much frustrating as it is when an entity isn’t available, or my ESPHOME nodes loose API connection every so often (even if not a problem, just annoying and curious why). Or my public IP refuses to update automatically and don’t have access to HA, it is still 70% a hobby to work on it.
Sure I get frustrated and annoyed but I get equally excited when something as simple as a temperature sensors connects to my zigbee. If anything the most annoying is the non-HA integrated humans in my house that do things like – turn off wifi lights from switches 
And sure as others said, this is not a plug and play platform (even though with all the UI changes it might as well be considered one - remember the days when everything was yaml?) and it is free, so I guess you need to enjoy working on it at some degree. If you need a 100% working solution 24/7 with no hiccups, until we hit 1.0, then maybe this isn’t it.
And of course, it does sound pretty strange you had that many negative experiences with it. I get we all had our issues with platforms etc, but seems like you got all the bad luck. I do hope, we could work out all the issues with HA and get you back on track 
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But will a macro written for word 1.0 work on the latest version?
But drivers written for Windows XP don’t always work on Windows 10. So there are breaking changes there too.
I just started with HA again, after e year of abandoning it. One of the first things I noticed was the renaming of the whole. Hassio > HA and former HA > HA core. And while I progress with setting it all up I realised it will never change. Because people (even the ones initiating this change) still use the old naming in new posts etc. My point being, that if they really want to change, they should do it and do it right. Not like this, its just more confusing for everybody. The same thing for a lot of configuration options. I was watching a YouTube video from frenck and drZzs and there was this mind blowing important piece of information about how it’s possible to do this:
Automations: !include automations.yaml
Automations split: !include automations_also.yaml
But the fact that frenck just ignorantly tells about it and admits that this is not in any documentation (and it probably won’t be for a while) annoyed me. Because this information will help so many people who try to migrate their old configuration to new. But why not document this with big capital letters. It will make up for a lot less posts on the forum. And there are probably more of these examples inside the brain of frenck that could benefit a lot of us.
Don’t get me wrong, I admire the work frenck does, but there are more people who know things besides him that also don’t publish these important things.
And if there is a place where this information is, it shows how well all information is fragmented. Because I often end up all over different websites or videos to find the right information. Which would be nice to have a little bit more centralized.
Just my two cents of frustration. I will go on with my life now. O and btw for what it’s worth, I have used a more ‘user friendly’ solution the last year and it is also crappy. The whole HA scene is still in it’s early days I keep telling myself (and my wife) 
I didn’t know about this undocumented feature, but now YOU know about it, please please document it instead of blaming others.
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I think the “why” is the same old song. Its called featureitis.
The Product Office / or a tool called Word was already mentioned - did you know that excel is capable to replace Ableton?
kis or keepItsimple could be a solution.
But its the same old song like “Mac OS is safe” there are no viruses for it. (MAC OS < 9 NOT OSX) sonce its pupular to use Mac/IOS there are viruses aviable. Sonce HA is getting more and more pupular the featurities gets involved.
Did someone count the number of external Gui’s in the community repository?
- AppDaemon
- Home Panel
Its a complex system - so things can happen.
@ Andrei_Pop
Please remember even when your Network is good - that nabu casa thing runs external and you dont know the reason behind everything.
eg. The RZ where parts of DE-CIX and parts for M$ Office 365 do run (just what i do know for sure) throttled everything to solve the issues caused by “everyone on Homeoffice right now”
My decision was “i dont want external servers” even when my provider cut me off - i am able to do things for my home in my home.
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Ok, I will. But where would be the right place? Can I create a post about how to migrate your configuration somewhere? And if so I need help, because I don’t know everything i’m not even using HA yet because I’m still learning.
What about this part of Automation editor docs? It shows how you can use old and new automations exactly with the method you described.
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Ok, apperantly I have to go back to my mencave and read some more before I come back again 
Thank you @oncleben31 for writing this down.
Been using HA for about two years and am a huge fan. Sure things aren’t always perfect but overall they are amazing. I run on a NUC using ProxMox with Debian and docker. It is flawless. I have ZWave, Zigbee, TPLink, Insteon devices including switches, sensors, outlets, door locks, etc. Over 200 entities and nearly everything is 100% reliable. I almost always upgrade the same day a new release comes out. Worst case scenario I can revert to a HA snapshot or to a ProxMox snapshot. I have only had to do so one time. Occasionally a release will break something but it is usually a quick research to figure out why and fix it. Yes, documentation is often lacking but it is the nature of the beast. It is a fluid, fast paced development. That advantage far outweighs the lack of documentation. It’s not for everyone but to us that enjoy having the most awesome home automation in the neighborhood it is the only way to go. I have some very complex automations both in yaml and node-red. My friends bring their friends over to see the possibilities.
If it is only for you, then hide it behind closed doors, not advertising as competition to other similar systems.
IMO problem is not in complexity of initial setup (incl weak documentation). Main problem is low reliability plus missing support. It might be ok for people like you who want to spend hours daily checking for new features and fixing issues.
But there are users, who expect - after initial investment - their automated houses to work without unexpected outages amplified by lack of any help from devs if shit happens.
And this is the point where HA fails. hundreds of integrations means nothing if the whole is unreliable while I’m sure home automation isn’t an area which can afford unreliability
As with other OSS, the community is the main support and can usually solve almost all problems relatively quickly. It’s free so you can’t expect people to drop everything and immediately resolve your issue.
Look at Linux, huge community who provides support, if people want faster support they pay an organisation that provides it.
How much are you willing to pay for support? I’ll gladly help you out for a decent hourly rate.
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You putting things upside down.
If you are part of community which “is the main support and can usually solve almost all problems relatively quickly” then how you can ask for money?
I think it should be good attitude to help users who suffered from bugs and other development mistakes. I’m sure community is not able to help every time because sometimes it requires more experience and internals knowledge which only developers have.
And yes, I expect a help in case the bug is causing 4-day outage of the system
Anyway I’m glad you agree what I’ve wrote about reliability and support.
In the case you pay me money, you can expect a certain ‘quality of service’ and speed of resolution. That’s the difference.
Sure we’re here to help you, but you cannot expect any deadline for an answer whatsoever. We help you because we want to be a supportive community, if that means there’s an answer 7 days later and not within an hour, that’s just how it is.
It’s fair. Next time I will be asked for home automation system I can advice, I will say that in case of HA it’s nothing unexpected to wait days being left without any support with crashed home automation caused by automatic system update.