HELP: Need alternative to HC2

[sve 1]

just ordered a Vision Z-Wave USB stick. will use it with Raspberry PI and domiticz.

The goal is to move the main devices to domoticz (about 8 light) and then test the upgrade to V4.300.

If all is ok I'll move the main devices again. In all cases I'll have at least the core of the house functional

[deanrparry 19]

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[wienog 107]

you can make complex scenes etc (and scripting)

for plugins:

www.homeseer.com you can use the software free for 30 days

www.domoticaforum.eu for info and plugins (frtitzbox, plugwise etc)

for touchscreens, iphone, ipads etc, you can make youre own screens

To be honest I would prefer to spend these money on used Mac Mini plus Indigo (which is a fully blown computer with best OS on the planet) then on a dedicated box.

Other then that I'm sure HS is a good and capable product.

Richo,

I'm using Homeseer again right now. It is NOT a dedicated box. It's a software program that runs on Linux, Windows and even Mac.

I have been using it for many years before switching to HC2 a year ago. Now I have put it back online as my HC2 became toatlly unresponsive and had to be sent back to Poland.

Not sure if I will go back to HC2 or not. depends of the evolution I see here on the forum..

Frank

[fergalmccarthy 5]

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I think your four weeks are up now Dean, whats the prognosis ? Have they won you over with the shoddy V4 release and slapped on hot fixes ?

[deanrparry 19]

Will another smiley face do? The yank on here might blow his top again!

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[robmac 173]

You winding people up again?

[deanrparry 19]

You winding people up again?

Nope not winding anyone up... he is just American!

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[U5tabil 2]

Well iv sold my HC2 after a 2 week test with HS3. Iv managed so much more with HS3 than i managed in HC2.

I can manage to make really complex scenes/events without any coding, everything is dropdown menues. And they really work. If they don't work its your own damn fault, cause there can become many x factors when making complex events. So your debugging will be logical and most of the time easy to find, you just look at the log and see what event did run or not, then look at the setup of that event and you find easily out that you missed an x factor "and if" by example. Where as in HC2 it could be me but also the HC2 software. I used so much time debugging and needing to code everything in LUA to get it to really work in HC2. Just in my living room/kitchen area i have 64 scenes/events that may run depending on many x factors inside each event. Maybe that gives you an idea on how complex you can make it and still have it working.

And i also got XBMC, Netatmo and GPS working quite easily with HS3. Where in HC2 i got none working. Its so good to use light events when im playing, pausing and stopping a movie. Also being able to use Netatmo to controll my indoor enviroment like turning a fan slow/fast/off when co2 goes up, heater on/off etc. And also having a GPS that really works. There is even an update now where i will actually be able to do like Fibaro have in there movies, where it can see that im actually on my way home. Before it was only working like a geofence but even that was really good too.

But what is the problem is z-wave in general. I have had some similar issues with HS3 as with HC2 when adding modules and getting it to work. But once its working its working. Battery devices can be a bit tricky sometimes. I do have 2 Fibaro motion sensor, and i intend to keep them, they look good and most of the time they work ok. The battery measurement from them are really bad though, but this is something one can say for many other z-wave battery powered devices.

Hopefully Z-wave will become much better with the new gen5 Z-wave+. I already have 2 Aeotec wall plugs that are z-wave+ and they are really good. Not as good looking as the Fibaros. But they seem to be more accurate. And with volt/ampere measurement if that is something you need.

But Fibaro is not all that bad, for me its just not the time. One thing that i noticed with Fibaro is that its "faster", but this may also have to do with the fact that fibaro + fibaro modules are optimized to work together. By example i set a Fibaro sensor to turn light on when motion. With the HC2 it feels faster, with HS3 it feels like it happens 0,5-1sec later. But from research this has also something to do with the current z-wave plugin being used in HS3. And something iv testet. But anyway Fibaro on this point feels faster. I can't say if this is the case if i had a HC2 and a aeotec sensor since i only have fibaro motion sensor.

Also i might change the Fibaro dimmers for some other since they dont have power measurments in them.

Also Fibaro have better design, much better in fact. It still looks like its in 90's with the HS3. So i hope something will happen on that fron soon. But then again everything is more or less automatic here now, so i dont need any fancy display. I have a button for sleepover guest active/inactive to overide certain stuff, projector on/off and moviemode/tvmode.

Also im missing the alarm system fibaro had. a nice way to set your alarm system with a code etc. This is missing in the HS3. But is something i would have to make myself.

RTSP camera feed isn't supported in HS3 either, so that isn't better over there either.

For me function comes before design in most cases, so thats why i ended up changing over.

But i will buy Fibaro modules for future where i want something good looking. Like the sensors and wall plugs.

[MrMxyzptlk 10]

I hope you have lotssssssssssssss of patience with the HS3 GUI development they've been working on that for over 10 years. I have the majority of the 'Non-High End" automation hubs and nobody is completely ready for prime time.

Whomever can get their entire act together first will rule the world...

[U5tabil 2]

I hope you have lotssssssssssssss of patience with the HS3 GUI development they've been working on that for over 10 years. I have the majority of the 'Non-High End" automation hubs and nobody is completely ready for prime time.

Whomever can get their entire act together first will rule the world...

I'm not sure if i follow you here? Im not using their hardware only software. As you can see in my signature i have a dedicated server in this house.

I know they have been working with it for 10 years. So it should be working, and probably why its working better than Fibaro at this moment, for now.

I feel that the GUI when making events is ok. not good looking, but practical. Its not something one want to look at anyway, just a one timer when making it.

But if you are thinking of the HSTouch GUI for android/apple im with you. But i wrote that aswell that this looks like crap, and look like it's still in the 90's.

[MrMxyzptlk 10]

I understand you completely.

I also use HS3 and understand it's power.

I was just stating the current state (as it has been for years and years) of the GUI.

You will find most of the plugins only work in HS2 and have not been converted and if they have they are very overpriced. HS3 is still a work in process and if you search their forums you will see alot of their regulars have either stuck with or gone back to HS2.

...just my experience and thoughts.

[U5tabil 2]

I'v been reading the forum a bit. But can't say im missing much. XBMC and Netatmo both work really well. and 40$ for a plugin isn't that bad as long as its working as it should.

What are you missing of plugins that are not converted yet?

[MrMxyzptlk 10]

I'm not...I'm just making sure any beginners know that HS3 is not the home automation panacea that they are looking for...it doesn't exist...yet.

I'm glad you like HS3 so well.

[Guest David R]

To me all the HC2 is missing the ability to make complex scenes without the need for LUA. It works great for my needs apart from that

[ Added: 2015-02-03, 20:20 ]

eg. There are many threads on here about how to do a scheduler and people still debating the correct way? It should made simple by the use of block scenes and pull down menus etc.. then Joe public will say hey I can do that. Without having to be master at LUA programing.

[U5tabil 2]

David R. Thats my point. It should not be needed to code in lua to get something complex working. Especialy when Fibaro make comercials to show how "simple" it is.

By example here you can se 1 of 64 events i use in the living room / kitchen area alone. As you can see it is quite complex, with virtual devices, GPS, XBMC etc etc as x factors. (Sorry i could not fit the whole event in one screen)

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[akatar 208]

I hope you have lotssssssssssssss of patience with the HS3 GUI development they've been working on that for over 10 years. I have the majority of the 'Non-High End" automation hubs and nobody is completely ready for prime time.

Whomever can get their entire act together first will rule the world...

I'm not sure if i follow you here? Im not using their hardware only software. As you can see in my signature i have a dedicated server in this house.

I know they have been working with it for 10 years. So it should be working, and probably why its working better than Fibaro at this moment, for now.

I feel that the GUI when making events is ok. not good looking, but practical. Its not something one want to look at anyway, just a one timer when making it.

But if you are thinking of the HSTouch GUI for android/apple im with you. But i wrote that aswell that this looks like crap, and look like it's still in the 90's.

try the mainlobby plugin, mainlobby looks great

that is also the reason i hope cinemar is creating a hc2 plugin

[ Added: 2015-02-03, 21:55 ]

this is on a 15 inch touchscreen, needs a bit work but almost done

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[Guest reiniertc]

I first used homeseer 2+3, on a virtual windows machine on my mac.

After a year of frustration (running a VM for 24/7 made it slow responding), I moved to Indigodomo.

At that time indigo had much better zwave support. But terrible lag in the zwave network. 

And indigodomo has a real problem with resource-usage. I ended up restarting the machine every night just to keep my scripts running (30 zwave devices, 10 scripts).

 

The best option indigo had me to offer, was the easy ability to steer everthing with php and javascripts. 

But after months of frustration, I ended up buying the HC2. 

 

So quite the oposite experience

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[wienog 107]

I first used homeseer 2+3, on a virtual windows machine on my mac.

After a year of frustration (running a VM for 24/7 made it slow responding), I moved to Indigodomo.

At that time indigo had much better zwave support. But terrible lag in the zwave network. 

And indigodomo has a real problem with resource-usage. I ended up restarting the machine every night just to keep my scripts running (30 zwave devices, 10 scripts).

 

The best option indigo had me to offer, was the easy ability to steer everthing with php and javascripts. 

But after months of frustration, I ended up buying the HC2. 

 

So quite the oposite experience

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In an earlier post in this thread I mentioned that I had returned to HS3 for a few weeks because my HC2 was in repair.

I love HS3, really I do, and yes you can do complex scenes with it but none that you can not do with the HC2 on the one side and , on the other side, making a scene is not the problem, just keeping all the devices in that scene working steadily and without interruption is almost impossible in HS3.

Deleting, adding and re-including devices in HS3 was almost a full dayjob.

Finally I was sooo glad when my repaired HC2 came back.

One reply from homeseer-support shows the way they are looking at their development:

My question: "Hi guys, are you going to support device XYZ any time soon ?"

Answer drom Homeseer-support: "We know that the device exists but nobody sent us one yet so we can't test and support it yet".

Really if you wait until someone (who ? a customer ?, the company that builds the device ? Allah ?) drops a new device in your lap without  you making any requests then you will not get very far, I fear...

[MrMxyzptlk 10]

In an earlier post in this thread I mentioned that I had returned to HS3 for a few weeks because my HC2 was in repair.

I love HS3, really I do, and yes you can do complex scenes with it but none that you can not do with the HC2 on the one side and , on the other side, making a scene is not the problem, just keeping all the devices in that scene working steadily and without interruption is almost impossible in HS3.

Deleting, adding and re-including devices in HS3 was almost a full dayjob.

Finally I was sooo glad when my repaired HC2 came back.

One reply from homeseer-support shows the way they are looking at their development:

My question: "Hi guys, are you going to support device XYZ any time soon ?"

Answer drom Homeseer-support: "We know that the device exists but nobody sent us one yet so we can't test and support it yet".

Really if you wait until someone (who ? a customer ?, the company that builds the device ? Allah ?) drops a new device in your lap without  you making any requests then you will not get very far, I fear...

 

Glad you finally got it back. I will tell anyone that asks that there is NO hub or software for automation that is currently batting 100. I'm confident that Fibaro will get these bugs worked out even though they haven't affected me yet.

[alandee 79]

Glad you finally got it back. I will tell anyone that asks that there is NO hub or software for automation that is currently batting 100. I'm confident that Fibaro will get these bugs worked out even though they haven't affected me yet.

 

Agreed. I've been looking, and trying, and each time I've had a major headache it inspires me to look again, but there is still nothing with the same overall package as the hc2.

Don't get me wrong there's plenty wrong with the fibaro, but the others all have one or more comparative major game stoppers in my opinion.

Fibaro will eventually get it sorted, I just hope it is this box they sort and not a HC3 or whatever they choose to call it !

 

Cheers,

al.