Testing Fibaro - First impression review

[Nepher 0]

Hi everybody!

I bought a basic setup a couple of weeks ago, and I'm still wondering if to stick to Fibaro and expand the system, or return it. I have issues that concerns me and could make me opt for the return, but I would appreciate some feedback from experienced users before I take a decision, as I'm new to the system and I might be overlooking something.

 

I have a HC2 (4.056), 3 Fibaro motion sensors, 1 wall plug, 3 door sensors, 1 Everspring outdoor motion sensor, 1 indoor Aeon Labs siren... and a Fibaro switch is arriving. I already had two Nest thermostat and a Nest protect near the fireplace.

 

1) Hardware design.  Here Fibar shines. The HC2 is very sleek, with the hidden port design which is very clever and clean. The motion sensor are the best looking among similar devices. Wall plug is very compact, the led ring is impressive (but quite useless for me, my plan is to put plugs to the main home appliances, so 99% the plug itself will not be visible at all).

 

2) System first setup. I have to say I had no issues: firing up the HC, designing zones, including all the sensors, integrating the Nest... no flaws. My only concern is that I have just a few sensors, and the device page is already quite cluttered and space-consuming... my plan would be to move from these 4 sensors to over 40, so this concerns me a bit... but anyway, icons are great even if taking too much space (but this is just personal taste), and the web UI is clear enough to manage. Took me a bit to understand the master/slave concept for multisensors: to me the master device makes no real sense and the approach could be greatly simplified as the same parameter configs appear basically in every "sensor" and also in the master, but it's not a big problem once you get used to.

 

3) Web interface. Overall, I find it quite usable, to me it only lacks a proper "startup" home with the summary status of the system. And the device parameter input system is just stupid: to set values, most of the times you have just a slider and a default button: no way to input a specific value, and the slider is "programming" oriented bu not meaningful for the user. I mean, let's take the parameter from the fibaro temp sensor: I wanted to adjust the value of change needed to fire a report to 0.5, but there's not way to do it... the slider goes from 0 to 25 (meaning that 90% of the values are useless) and the relevant part (between 0 and 2) is so small that the value just skips from 0.4 to 0.6 with no way to fix or enter 0.5. For the Lux, or the time sliders is seconds, it's just even more stupid. You really need a proper way to input values directly, and reduce the sliders range to the meaningful values.

 

4) iPad app. Very good, the home screen is what you would expect to see when firing up the interface: a beautifully designed overview of the system. The only weird thing is this strange idea that the "back" button is on the right of the screen, unlike every other app on earth where the back is on the left... that's very unnatural. And I don't even like the big "cross" icon on the main page modules that are not present... would be cleaner just to hide them if there's no sensor of that kind.

 

5) iPhone app. Here is my first concern. To me, the iPhone app is horrible. No system overview, just a bunch of modules; again this weird idea of the back button in the wrong place that makes is difficult to navigate; very big icons, but then the relevant information is quite small (temperatures, alarm on/off indicators, ...). Even in the home screen top bar, the relevant information is tiny (temperature, humidity, consumption), while the time/date is very big (and completely useless, I'm not firing up the Fibaro app to know the time or date). Things that are conceptually different things with different use cases are all equally placed: sensors groups like doors, motion or climate or actuators like lighting and blinds are mixed up with notifications, plugins, Lili, scenes... everything is just the same, to me it's just an old, poorly designed UI... this would need a complete redesign, more like the iPad version. The worst thing of all is how you activate the alarm overall: sliding up or down on the alarm icon... no way to understand it other than finding the information on the forums, no feedback, no indication whatsoever... that's simply stupid, for a function that's a key and probably the most used.

 

6) Scenes creation. Here comes the first concerns. My first impression is that the magic scenes are quite useless; the block building system is working, but the interface is a bit too simple (as a comparison, the Zipato rule creator is by far more interesting and usable). The real advantage of the Fibaro here is the LUA, which is very powerful indeed, even if not accessible to everybody. Anyway I think that there's a lot of potential, but the poor/non existing documentation makes it quite difficult to fast start. The only usable information is on the UK support page, but it's by far too small to be really usable. The API documentation here is the key, and Fibaro fails providing the necessary support - and no, a normal user should not need to look for help on the forum to barely start, a complete API documentation, introduction and examples should be directly available in the LUA interface. Unlimited potential, quite poor implementation.

 

7) Alarm system. I think this is one of the most key aspects. I started to think about Fibaro because I needed an alarm system, and instead of spending money on it, I think it could be wiser to spend it on a much more powerful system, that at the end of the day is not very different from an economic perspective. I believe that many have the same approach: nobody but the amateurs will spend 1000+€ to control some light scenes, while everybody will need to put 1500/2000€ for a simple alarm system... so capturing that "compelling reason to buy" is key for a system like Fibaro.

Having said that, I think the Alarm system is the most disappointing of all, which is a real shame. You can only arm/disarm it, with no home/away/off option, which is a very basic of every alarm system. If you take a room and assign all room sensor to it, there's no way to arm, for example, the door/window sensors and not the internal motion, expect if you arm the sensors one by one. My current workaround is to abandon the room<->sensors approach, and I created a nonexistent zone/room where I put all the window sensors together in a room, and all the external sensors in another, so that you can easily arm only the doors and/or the external by arming the fake rooms. I saw a lot of workarounds in the forum by LUA scripts, but both mine approach and every LUA script is just a workaround for something that should be there, and it's not. Anything but the simple logic arm -> breach -> fire alarm is just missing. No check/action for wireless jamming, no plausible disarm function if you're forced by the criminal to disarm, no battery to survive to electricity cuts (need to buy a UPS), no Fibaro hard keypads or rfid to arm/disarm, no autonomous GPS connection to notify (need to secure the survival of the network connection to be usable, again it's not trivial). Net net, the Alarm is there, but it's just a mere shadow of (basic) alarm system.

 

8) Sensors. Door/Window, Plug, Nest, and non fibaro motion detectors are behaving fine. The Fibaro motion sensors are driving me crazy. The motion is correctly detected, no issue there. But temperatures take a lot to get to a correct level, which is difficult to understand (even if waking up devices and forcing reports to be send, yesterday a motion sensor took 4 hours to understand that my daughter's room was not an oven set to 28 celsius). The luminance sensor, on the other side, are not working at all. Just one out of three is reacting to light changes, even if the lux value is completely wrong (It cannot be 12 lux in front of a window in full day, even if cloudy); the other two, upon reconfigure (soft and hard), register a lux level, and then never change (even waking them up and forcing reports). I spent a lot of time in the last two days to find a way to make them work reasonably, but until now, no way. And, come on... temperature and light... it's not a nuclear reactor, it should just work. I'm buying now an Aeon multisensor to check it. I think most of the issue is again the sliders: you can just set 0 lux, 374 lux, 749 and so on, or accept the default which is 200: this granularity is just stupid, but this might be because of my issue that the lux never changes, and the highest level I've ever seen is 101 even in full light.

 

9) Openness. No integration with IFTTT, no integration with Apple HomeKit, many IoT plugins like the Nest, but with designs that feels very "patchy"... which is ok for a virtual device or a template for a non existing piece, but it's a pity for widely used stuff like Nest or others, expecially for a system that focus a lot on the graphic design. No ability to integrate devices other than zWave. Overall, I think that the IoT story is just starting, standards are still evolving, so openness is key.

 

I have time till end of January to decide on keeping or returning the system (thanks Amazon, you're wonderful!), and I will spend time on it during the christmas holidays... but for now, I'm by far less convinced than I hoped to be be in the first place. The too basic alarm system, the troubles with the motion sensors, the ugly iphone app design, the lack of documentation, and the lack of open integration, are all factors that concerns me a lot. If I can't sort them out, I'm probably going to evaluate a Zipato gateway (in my view, they correctly start from a serious alarm system both from an hw and sw perspective, and everything else is ontop) and a mix of Aeon and Fibaro sensors.

 

[pathduck 18]

wow, what a great review. I feel you on all of the above.

 

I once moved from Vera to HC2 because of the beautiful design but once the system expands it is in fact as you say not a great design and it becomes very overwhelming. For an advanced user the system is good and the possibilities many but a normal user would struggle on any of their platforms. There is no consistency in the diffrent platforms either.

 

I have had several problems with the motion sensor as well. Luminance and temperature on the motion sensor is not usable. 

 

There are many plugins and "2015" services missing, android wear, ios homekit and watch,etc. ideally the app should not need to be opened for most functions but with Fibaro you have to open the app even to confirm ona notification or execute an action to one. I was actually hoping with the new pop up service that you could execute commands straight from the notification but this is no where near possible. The notifications do not even appear unless you open the app and enter the notification pane.

 

Another pain i have is that all plugins available are just remotes or additional controllers for existing systems. Things like Samsung, Sonos, Harmony, Kodi and all plugins really are just new remotes. It feels like my home before i got a universal remote. I do not need a software remote in my system i need to be able to automate them or run them from scenes etc. while you can do it from Lua or virtual devices it is not good enough, this functionality should be at the heart of a central automation system and it should be easy for the user to implement it in scenes etc. I i also understand why they have evolved in to three different types of scenes but each and one of them should be equally advanced so that the user could choose himself whic one he would like to use or switch to any of them back and forth, not be locked to LUA when you switch to it for example.

 

I will be moving over to another controller as-well, i can not say i will be happy and there is bound to be some function i will miss. But the way Fibaro's software has fragmented and evolved the last two years i will rather force my system on to another controller while i can enjoy Fibaro hardware.

[pjvik 3]

Comment to your point 3): On all slider in the web interface it is possible to write numbers on the blue value field on the right side of the default button.

 

Comment to your point 6): When you get used the Block system you will find that it is indeed really powerful. When you use the timers you have have different days or hours and with using the OR selector th system will do the right commands at the right time. And if you need to program nor normal you can change the Block system to LUA code.

[Nepher 0]

Comment to your point 3): On all slider in the web interface it is possible to write numbers on the blue value field on the right side of the default button.

 

Comment to your point 6): When you get used the Block system you will find that it is indeed really powerful. When you use the timers you have have different days or hours and with using the OR selector th system will do the right commands at the right time. And if you need to program nor normal you can change the Block system to LUA code.

 

I did a deeper tentative on the sliders, following your suggestion. The behaviour is anyway the weirdest one I've ever seen on such a simple thing like a text box. I'm not sure it's working as intended and may be a (incredible) bug, but:

• on parameter 40, it starts with the default 200. I write 10 in the blue box (even if it's not obvious you can edit that, there is no visual feedback like any other textbox since the born of the internet). After the save, everything is back to previous 200 lux, nothing seems to happen. I do it again, and after saving the blue button is still stuck to 200, but a grey line appears under the slider saying "Last set value 10 lux"... dunno what that means. If i change view and come back, everything is like nothing happened at all: 200 lux in the blue box, no grey line. But it seems to work: now the sensor reacts firing reports to changes from 10 to 50 lux, so the parameter must have been set corretly, even if the gateway does not show it.
• on parameter 60, the blue box with the temperature cannot be edited in any way, no matter what i do.
• on parameter 64, the strange edit behavior like 40 happens again, but the grey sentence never happens, so I don't see any change after saving, it's always reset to 0.

After all, this means that the sensor itself is working correctly... it's the gateway that's crazy. I can't believe this is normal, must be a serious issue with the UI programming.

[boerremk 84]

I did a deeper tentative on the sliders, following your suggestion. The behaviour is anyway the weirdest one I've ever seen on such a simple thing like a text box. I'm not sure it's working as intended and may be a (incredible) bug, but:

• on parameter 40, it starts with the default 200. I write 10 in the blue box (even if it's not obvious you can edit that, there is no visual feedback like any other textbox since the born of the internet). After the save, everything is back to previous 200 lux, nothing seems to happen. I do it again, and after saving the blue button is still stuck to 200, but a grey line appears under the slider saying "Last set value 10 lux"... dunno what that means. If i change view and come back, everything is like nothing happened at all: 200 lux in the blue box, no grey line. But it seems to work: now the sensor reacts firing reports to changes from 10 to 50 lux, so the parameter must have been set corretly, even if the gateway does not show it.
• on parameter 60, the blue box with the temperature cannot be edited in any way, no matter what i do.
• on parameter 64, the strange edit behavior like 40 happens again, but the grey sentence never happens, so I don't see any change after saving, it's always reset to 0.

After all, this means that the sensor itself is working correctly... it's the gateway that's crazy. I can't believe this is normal, must be a serious issue with the UI programming.

If you change a value, you have to wake up the device and after that, when you refresh the screen the new settings will be in place. 60 can be changed with slider.

In my opinion 42 en 62 are more reliable, just set a time in seconds for the sensor to update.

 

But always wake up the device for battery operated devices.

[Nepher 0]

If you change a value, you have to wake up the device and after that, when you refresh the screen the new settings will be in place. 60 can be changed with slider.

In my opinion 42 en 62 are more reliable, just set a time in seconds for the sensor to update.

 

But always wake up the device for battery operated devices.

Thank you! I set the wakeup time for the devices to a shorter timeframe while setting up.

[Nepher 0]

Still playing with the HC2. Meanwhile, I ordered a also Zipato box to make a direct comparison.

 

I solved one of my concerns about the iPad application: you can edit the widgets on the home screen as well as the alarm screen. I found the info on some web page I don't remeber, and the trick it's to push the back button and fibaro button together. Even if it's entering edit mode somehow erratically, I can customize the interface with the widgets I like. Again, I can't understand why Fibaro developers like to hide basic features as if they were easter eggs!

 

Once you know it, the iPad application becomes really elegant indeed.

[Joonas 2]

Comment to your point 3): On all slider in the web interface it is possible to write numbers on the blue value field on the right side of the default button.

 

Yes you can, but it doesn't do anything. For example, I try to put 0.7 'C compensation to FGMS001 Motion Sensor. Slider jumps from 0.61 to 1.82. If I hit save button on 0.61, compensation goes to 0.0'C. If I hit save button on 1.82, compensation goes to 1.0'C. If I manually change numbers to 2 or 2.00, nothing happens.

 

I start to be really frustrated with Fibaro. Too many fixable bugs are still hanging on every version.

[Alex 32]

Have

 

Yes you can, but it doesn't do anything. For example, I try to put 0.7 'C compensation to FGMS001 Motion Sensor. Slider jumps from 0.61 to 1.82. If I hit save button on 0.61, compensation goes to 0.0'C. If I hit save button on 1.82, compensation goes to 1.0'C. If I manually change numbers to 2 or 2.00, nothing happens.

 

I start to be really frustrated with Fibaro. Too many fixable bugs are still hanging on every version.

Did you triple-click the B-button inside of your motion sensor after you have changed this value first time?

[Joonas 2]

Have

 

Did you triple-click the B-button inside of your motion sensor after you have changed this value first time?

Yes, but I think that it doesn't really need it, because slider changes the temperature shown, but value is rounded down (1.82 -> 1 or 3.03 -> 3 etc).

[Joonas 2]

Okay... partially my mistake. Problem was that I tried to put offset on devices temperature settings, not in main device settings (parameter 66). Now it seems to work.