robw

@Sankotronic I'm happy to see that all the hard work you have put into this project now is officially released! I can't thank you enough for the work you've done and released to the community over the years, making the HC2 a wonderful system. Thank you! Also, many, many thank's to the friends here that have helped testing UHAS!

Hi, A. Socha! Thank's for writing! It is now 11 months since I wrote my good bye post and still no ZigBee, and no significant features that make it a game changer. Was it not about a year ago ZigBee would "soon" come? And I have to mention again, it was supposed to have it at sell start - it was announced to have it. So it was a blatant lie to customers, and illegal from a commercial standpoint as you sold it without announced specifications. Nice and Elero products? I don't know if even it sells in Sweden, so it is not so interesting for me. And as you lock in customers, only supporting devices from specific brands nowadays due to different reasons, it is even less interesting, I'm sorry to say. I'm waiting for the innovation, the "True game changer of smart home market" as Fibaro wrote. I'm sure I can speak for most people here when I say that the HC3 is far, far from being a true game changer. In fact, it is still not where it was supposed to be at launch! Again, I do hope the HC3 will someday be where it was supposed to be at launch. And then after that, getting more welcomed features bringing it forward. But it looks to be a long, long wait. The best to you all!

I went from HC2 to HC3. After a year waiting for promised features I gave up and went to HomeAssistant. Really stable and working great. There are tons of integrations, scripts and configurable options. I first ran it on a RPI but then bought the HomeAssistant Blue. More features for a better price. While I kind of like the Fibaro products, I still feel very disappointed that the HC3 was sold in an alpha stage - not ready for use. Now a year and a half (I think) after release promised feature like ZigBee is still not working. Fibaro sells features that you don't get. I feel cheated, and I will remember that if there ever will be a HC4.

I have used the HC2 for a long time, and when the HC3 was released I jumped to it immediately. I thought the UI looked better, the new features was interesting, it was promised to be much faster and have support for more hardware. Yet the firmware released felt more like alphas. The promised hardware it was announced to have was not functioning (I don't know if it still is, I haven't been visiting here for awhile). It was released way too early, perhaps a year or two when looking at how the firmwares have worked. The hardware in the HC3 is good, but what does that matter when it is not supported nor utilized? Bad firmware released makes the experience a pain. It started to feel like I was back using Zipato again... The HC3 is priced in the upper end of the middle/home class of smart gateways. With that in mind it should perform better, have better support and more features. I have moved on to HomeAssistant and I'm constantly amazed over it's features and stability, and it is free of charge! Yes, you do need hardware, but even with that you can get away much, much cheaper than with a HC3 and get a better and more stable experience.

Yes, I feel the same, the HC3 has a different UI than HC2 but otherwise for the daily use it does the same thing. If ones hobby is to sit and code, it is a different matter. But If you just want to run your normal automations like lights, alarm etc., the HC2 can do it as good as the HC3. So, you're right, money in the drain for me, too! f you got a secondhand HS2 it could be worth it. It all depends what you like and need. In my case, HA provides we with all I need and want, and I don't have to pay for any integrations or plugins . But I would not have any issue paying for it, if it was really good and did things nothing else did. So far I haven't found myself missing any feature, integration or plugin in HA, quite the opposite - I am overwhelmed! Good luck with the HS4, I'm sure you will be happy with it, it does seem good, too!

Personally I was put off by HomeSeer. I looked at it a bit and even installed it. I'm not saying it is bad or anything, but I found that the cost was high (HS4 Pro costs 359 USD, and then some plugins on top of that). Instead I went with Home Assistant that is free and got tons of integrations and plugins that is updated weekly. The only cost was the hardware. Easy to setup, yet offers advanced scripting or easy to make automations. There's a lot of free templates also done by contributing people. You can setup your UI however you want it, with your own backgrounds, images, icons or whatever. All free of charge. The HC3 have been out for quite awhile now, and Fibaro does not seem so interested in making additions themselves, but are relying on others to make QA:s. Sure, I guess there could be some bucks made by programmers making plugins, but I don't think you would make gold on that. And, from what I can see, the interests seems not so high for the HC3. I think many have have left the forums here and Fibaro, or are still keeping their HC2 running whatever it have done for years.

Technology will always evolve. And our hardware needs to be able to adapt to that. Matter might be the future, ZigBee have been popular a long time - but the HC3 still does not run it. My major gripe with Fibaro is that the HC3 was sold to have some specific functions (like ZigBee, 433), then upon release it did not have it. I had it preordered and was one of the first in Sweden to get it. It was so newly released I did not know at that time that it did not come with ZigBee. Then, after release and after I got the HC3, Fibaro says it is not implemented and they did not say any more than that. Some months after released the promised functions was removed from the press material on the web site. In other words - false advertisement. Fooling the customers to buy something that is not working. Fibaro is not alone in this area of solutions to do so, but that does not mean it is ok. EU has laws against this. But that is how they do, advertise functions that are not there in order to make people buy the hardware. With that money in, they start developing as it cost money to have developers working. Depending on the sales and money earned, the promised features might come or not. I won't support any more companies doing business like that. It is not ok to treat customers like that. So, in my case, I won't preorder or buy a HC4, HC5 or whatever from Fibaro. While the Fibaro people I've written to are nice and supportive, the way Fibaro do business is not ok.

@JcBorgs I would take a look at Hubitat, too, as @wienog. Or, IMHO a really good solution - Home Assistant. You can set up the UI pretty much how you like, with your own tabs, pictures, order etc. As you have a lot of devices you certainly need to look deeper into that, but I think you can connect two Home Assistants together using MQTT Eventstream if needed.

I wish you the best, too, with your move to a new HA system! The market is constantly changing, and those who adapt to the end users will benefit. Sure, there will be a market for "Professional installations", like if you build a new home, you hire someone for a full home HA installation. But as the bridges become cheaper, and the software sometimes even free, and easy to use, perhaps the "Pro install" market will be quite small and difficult to earn any money in. So I'm not so sure Fibaro is on the right path now. We'll see if that'll change. All the best!

Thank you, A.Socha! Yes, I hope that I will change my mind about the HC3 someday. I hope there will be huge changes (quicker development, openess regarding integrations, ZigBeee of course, and a focus toward the users). I will keep my eyes and mind open. I hope Fibaro will, too. Thank you A.Socha for your support here!

It definately is! I have started to move the Hue lamps to HA. HA autofinds a lot of things, like my two Synology NAS, phones, media players, TV's, BluRay players... I got my robot vacuum cleaner to show up, and I got my climate devices setup without hassle. I was not able to do all that with the Fibaro controllers. The Fibaro controllers ain't bad, but I always felt the limitations, both hardware/support wise (mostly missing ZigBee), and also my lacking skills as a coder. I've run HA side by side for a while, letting it fetch the devices from the HC3. The HA I used for exploring the settings, how to do things and run a nice GUI. It really have a lot of options GUI wise. Now I feel that there is no point to run them both - I'll just take the jump

Hi, I just want to say Goodbye (at least for now) to all the wonderful people I've met here, and helped me over the years I've been using my HC2 and later the HC3. It have been wonderful to be on board beta testing UHAS for the HC2 and meeting all the nice people and @Sankotronic there. I wish you, all the best with UHAS, @Sankotronic! I hope we will see UHAS on the HC3 someday, it really was UHAS that made the HC2 shine! @Krikroff, thank's for your support on the HC3 with you Sonos QA! It made me wake up every morning in time to work! @jgab, You've educated the masses here with your code for the HC3 - amazing work! And a big thank you to everyone else here who have contributed to the Fibaro users, kept the forum alive, and thus helped me! @Fibaro. Thank you to support, who've always helped me when I had issues. I'm moving to another HA solution now because of the lack of features with your products and that the promised features for the HC3 are still missing (for instance ZigBee support). I have to tell you that I feel cheated regarding the HC3. It was (and still is), marketed as the "A true game changer of smart home market". That fell flat. I bought it for the better hardware, 433MHz support (that turned out be very limited), and ZigBee support (still missing over a year after the release). The HC3 still feels like a HC2 with a new UI, missing promised features. I've not done much to help, I'm not a coder. I can read code and do a little bit of coding, but I'm not good enough to get going and make up a nice QA from scratch. I did help Fibaro on my spare time though, for free, doing Swedish translations for the HC3 UI. It felt good to help out a bit. I wish though that Fibaro took more time helping out their customers. The HC3 can be a powerhorse, the QA system is powerful, but you have to be a coder or hire someone who does the job. That makes it more difficult to use for the average user, and thus more limited. Yes, of course, using home automation you need some knowledge about it all, what the protocols are, how to plan a setup etc., but it should all be about making it easy to setup for the user. I've got a Raspberry Pi 4B, a ConBee II ZigBee stick, and a Aeotec Z-Wave 5 stick (waiting for the gen 7 stick that I have ordered). I have installed a HA solution on it that is actively developed and has a huge user base that is also providing smart solutions, looks and support for the system. And, it is free. Now I have a ton of views, graphs and integrations that I did not have on the HC2 and the HC3. I now have a feeling that I can make my home truly smart, as I have devices that are not supported by Fibaro. It seems this HA solution and Fibaro goes totally opposite ways - Fibaro goes to a closed area, where only Nice products are supported and the user will be a reseller of their products with coding skills. The HA solution I will move to is open, geared toward the end user, striving to make it easy yet powerful to the user and also bringing a lot of creative solutions in a near Plug & Play fashion. A lot have changed over this last year, where it it now moving from the user having to write text files to get things going, to being more user friendly where you can do most of the jobs through ready templates in the UI. I can now consolidate the hardware, using only a RPi for everything, while with the HC2/HC3 I also had to have an AutomationBridge and a Hue Bridge. I think I will keep my HC3 though. Perhaps Fibaro will change their ways, making it a game changer. But as it is now, they are still standing still behind the start line while the others are running their second lap. Hope this will change, competition is well needed in this market. I will still be around checking the forums from time to time, see if anything new happens and is released. I will probably from time to time, start up the HC3 and update it. Again, thank's to everyone here! I wish you all the best!

Yes, my guess, too. If they ever will add the promised ZigBee, my guess it will only be a few chosen devices from the Nice group. While the HC3 works, it have been a disappointment as the 433Mhz did only support the few devices from Nice. The promised ZigBee support is not there yet. So, all in all, not good support, and only support for a chosen few devices. I need a gateway that can support a variety of devices - I don't want to have 2 different gateways handling different devices. If not Fibaro changes to the better, the HC3 was the last gateway I bought from Fibaro.

Yes, it is pretty amazing. HA have a lot of automatic integrations. Synology, Apple, Sonos and a ton more. You can also integrate with Fibaro and see the devices on your HC2/HC3. New builds coming out every or nearly every week if you join the beta channel. I got a ZWave USB stick as well as a ZigBee USB stick that works with HA. I'm dividing with myself if I shall take the plunge to HA - moving all devices to it. Right now I just have HA as a UI for Fibaro, Hue and cameras, just for testing it out.

It could be a change to the better, too. But honestly I don't know. Progression seems to go very slow. For me the biggest issues is that it was announced to have 433 Mhz support and ZigBee. Well, I thought 433 Mhz would support a lot of devices, like other 433 Mhz gateways do, but with Fibaro it is only Nice products... ZigBee? Nowhere in sight. It is in the firmware but as far as I know Fibaro haven't gone through a ZigBee certification yet. And they have had years to do that. The HC3 have been out for around a year, and before that, it was in development for probably a long while. They could have started to make certification right from the idea stage, at least plan the route for certification so they where prepared and got the certification at the HC3 release date. And if it ever is released, will it support all ZigBee devices, or a chosen few just like with 433 Mhz? Sadly, many tech companies release unfinished products. I've got a Zipatile that have been in the cupboard for years. Still things are not working as promised with that one. I'm just unsure what to do, and If to switch brand - to what? I've got a RPi running Home Assistant, and that is very actively supported and updated. HomeSeer seems powerful and stable, but before one has everything up and running with all bells and whistles - it will cost a bit. Homey? Interesting, but no Ethernet... Hubitat? Will read up more on it.