Search the Community

So I have been working on integrating my ceiling fan & light into my HC3 hub. I want to treat the fan control as a device and the light control as a device. But the problem is that I need buttons and sliders for user interaction. I get that the focus is primarily on z-wave integration but it is very shortsighted to imagine that everything the user installs in his/her Smart Home will be z-wave enabled. Furthermore, it seems that Fibaro does not have much market share in the United States. Consequently we are left in the dust having to integrate our devices ourselves. The Fibaro tech support seems very non-responsive to its community of owners and simply patches bugs without sharing new and updated features. For example, I noticed there is a new thermostat UI that appeared recently. Or at least I did not see it before a certain recent FW update. I presume it was made available because Fibaro needed it to sell their own thermostat device. Truly, I love my hub. The use of a web interface is far superior to using a smart phone app, IMHO. And, if I cannot easily find a z-wave enabled device, I can create or help someone else create a device handler for this device. I use and enjoy my Alexa but home automation is far more than telling Alexa to turn on my lights. And why should I rely on an internet device for more sophisticated control strategies? Right now my z-wave continues to operate even when my ISP goes offline. My ceiling fan will rely on my WiFi operating but it does not have to go to the cloud to be controlled. Only my Nest Thermostat will lose connection to my hub when my internet goes offline. When the time (and money) comes, I will replace it with something z-wave or maybe WiFi but not cloud controlled. I think the biggest takeaway from this rant is that there needs to be a means to create custom UIs for child devices. An added bonus would be a few different control objects. Things like a select box, a multi-select box, a check box (or something that looks like a pushbutton?), ways to group things (a container) or a means to draw a line between sections. Granted that images may be memory hogs so adding a bunch of icons or other small pictures would be memory intensive but small icons that could be added to a global list in the device might mitigate some of that. It seems that many of these structures are integral to the HTML world and a part of the web client. We just need a way to safely use them in the UI. Also, a comprehensive list of Lua methods that we can use along with simple descriptions of their use. Fibaro relies too heavily on its community so leverage that community to learn and share their knowledge on use. Fibaro need not shy away from providing this list because they don't want to write extensive descriptions of each and every method. Reward your faithful users with better tools to take advantage of your systems and you may be rewarded with an increase in sales. You could think of it as hiring a huge team of unpaid integrators who develop creative ways to solve problems. I was impressed with one user who described his sophisticated solution to control his home energy use based on the hourly electric rates that his utility company makes available each day. We don't have that need in North America (yet) but I am aware of a niche market that could be tapped for remote locations who exist off-grid and use solar energy exclusively. Thank you for your time in reading this. I feel better having expressed myself even though I figure this will be ignored or looked at as impractical. Have a great day (or night). Peter