Jump to content

Welcome to Smart Home Forum by FIBARO

Dear Guest,

 

as you can notice parts of Smart Home Forum by FIBARO is not available for you. You have to register in order to view all content and post in our community. Don't worry! Registration is a simple free process that requires minimal information for you to sign up. Become a part of of Smart Home Forum by FIBARO by creating an account.

 

As a member you can:

  •     Start new topics and reply to others
  •     Follow topics and users to get email updates
  •     Get your own profile page and make new friends
  •     Send personal messages
  •     ... and learn a lot about our system!

 

Regards,

Smart Home Forum by FIBARO Team


Company direction/future


twisted

Recommended Posts

Although Fibaro are unique, in the sense they are the only z wave based company I am aware of, that that make both components I.e modules, sensors etc and their own hub/software solution to control it. Most companies either make components or hubs/software. 

I think that Fibaro need to reassess their future direction and increase their quality control on software updates and open up the integration of 3rd party products. A smart home is not smart if you need 20 different ui's/hubs/apps to control it. 

Fibaro need to realise their is a lot more competition than when they came to market. The way forward is to integrate 3rd party systems and make it a platform that covers all angles of home automation and an all in one solution.

In terms of products they also need to plan better, for instance in my upcoming project I will need smoke and heat detectors/alarms, however neither Fibaro or any other company sell smart/z wave versions of these that fit UK requirements. for new builds, major alterations and I believe rewires, the kitchen and garage require mains powered heat detectors that are linked to the rest of the houses mains powered smoke alarms. seeing as z wave is about true integration unlike Philips hue for example, it is such a shame they do not make mains powered heat and smoke detector's. nest and popp make mains powered smoke but not heat detector's, but it seems pointless installing either as they wont connect to a 3rd party heat detector. even the new line up of Fibaro Walli products seem lacking in terms of real world use. In the sense of they are all single gang from what I can tell, whereas in my project most locations that I need switches will be 2,3 or 4 gang and there are no signs of uk/usa sockets either.

 

In terms of software and quality control, it seems like there is no quality control. The new app "home center" is barely at Beta level, it does not even offer the same level of control/support that the old app does, yet they have already set a rough date to remove the old app from market. In terms of home center lite and home center 2, It is almost like they don't even test the updates before releasing them, as so many of the basic features do not even work. if this was an open source project then that would not be such an issue, but this is a retail level product (that is quite expensive for what it is) and it does not even do what it lists in the marketing.

 

I am planning extensive works to my house (UK) including a full rewire, which allows me to make it a smart home to the extent I want, which is essentially full lighting, heating and media. So at present everything I have purchased is a test to make sure it suits my needs and works the way I want. I initially pickup up some lightwaverf switches etc. Which work well and I like the wire free switches, scene controllers etc, as they look more in keeping than the z wave options. However there are multiple things I don't like about lightwaverf and also they have changed their line up/future direction, which means there is a very limited range for the UK for quite a while.

So I decided to go with z wave due to the mesh setup, more customisable, more options and not limited to switch design.

I initially purchased a raspberry pi with Aeotec usb stick and installed Hass.Io (Home Assistant) which works amazingly, is extremely powerful and inclusive of 3rd party tech pretty much anything can be connected to it unlike home center. However it is open source and not a "finished product" as such, it works very well and is stable, but requires a lot of setup and a big learning curve to fully utilise and customise, there is a lot of back end work to set most things up. As I am new to z wave, raspberry pi, Hass.Io and have little coding knowledge I decided that getting a z wave hub would help get a better understanding of the z wave setup itself, rather than learning/setting up 2 things at once. I was not even going to buy a fibaro HCL or HC2 due to the price and negative reviews. But one came up second hand at a price I was happy with. Rather than the setup being overwhelming like home assistant, it was just massively stressful due to things not working as they should and being new to it I assumed it was user error, when it's actually bugged software. If I had purchased it new at full price, I would have returned it. 

 

In fact at present I am using it more via Hass.io, as unlike home center, home assistant is 3rd party friendly, at present I have setup and can control via home assistant, z wave via the home center lite, harmony hub, lightwave switches via emulated hue, plex, Alexa and my cameras. All through one ui and can make scenes/automation than utilise all the different platforms.

 

When Home assistant becomes a simpler setup with a friendly GUI it will completely blow Fibaro's home centre's out of the market. This is running on a £35 raspberry pi, that fits in the palm of your hand yet out performs a £450 large retail level product.

 

I recently watched a youtube video, where you had paid to fly a youtuber out to see your CES 2019 stand and the new walli line of products. He said that he has Lifx, Philips hue, August lock and a Yale alarm. He has lots of apps to control all of these, he then says "Fibaro have set out on a mission to make this whole smart home thing easy and actually make it smart". Now although this is a sensible and clever marketing strategy for this day and age, lets assume the strategy works and you sell a bunch of 6ish year old hubs (home center 2's/lites's) and components (sensors/modules etc). What do you think will happen when they set them up and realise that basic features like weather, location, gps and even the apps do not work/work properly/smoothly? let alone the fact you do not even support Lifx, August locks or Yale! I realise some of these may be workable via virtual devices, but that is in no way actual support or "easy". But You will have more annoyed customers that have been lied to and multiple returns.

 

I think it is time to start listening to your customers suggestions and also make sure that the software etc works before releasing updates etc.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

@twisted , welcome to the Forum as I notice that you are a new member of our community.

You can find many similar threads discussing the same topic as you started so please user the Search Tool before posting. And check categories where you post as it is not a correct category for this topic.

 

You have to bear in mind that smart home market is still expanding and evolving and there is no "plug and play" system for home automation. There is no company that provides a system with integrations with all manufactures from around the world. You basically ask us to provide full support for 3rd party manufacturers' devices regardless of our own devices. I understand that faster integration with other services is demanded as well as support for devices that we do not have in our offer, but this takes time (just to remind that we integrated Alexa, Google Assistant, IFTTT, Samsung Smart Home Appliances, etc). When it comes to software and its features and bugs - every complex software happen to have bugs and downsides. I am not implying that we have the best software and we provide the best user experience - we are following our strategy and whether it will work out for us or not, time will show. However, we do not neglect the community voice and users' opinions. We value them and we appreciate constructive feedback and if we are able to implement users' ideas then we do so - believe me, many ideas from the community have been implemented in our system.

And, please, don't get me wrong! Your idea is great! But, it is great from the end-user's point of view. It shows only user's perspective - everything works with everything regardless of the manufacturer and no one bats an eye on costs and difficulties. But, as you know there are also things called business strategy, company's growth and interests of the company - things that are not necessarily only user-driven. Each company wants "its piece of cake" and I guarantee that no company wants to openly share its know-how for others.

We know that users want simple solutions and unfortunately smart home market does not provide only simple solutions.

As even you suggests:

On 1/24/2019 at 3:42 PM, twisted said:

When Home assistant becomes a simpler setup with a friendly GUI

They are on the market since early 2015 and you claim that they do not provide a simple setup and they do not have a friendly GUI. Are you sure that they are going to provide simpler setup and friendly GUI? If yes, then when? Did they state a date? I guess they didn't because they focus on their strategy.

 

On 1/24/2019 at 3:42 PM, twisted said:

In terms of software and quality control, it seems like there is no quality control.

We have several QA teams so this argument is not valid at all. Every releases for Home Centers and apps is thoroughly tested.

 

On 1/24/2019 at 3:42 PM, twisted said:

It is almost like they don't even test the updates before releasing them, as so many of the basic features do not even work

Which basic features exactly do you have in mind? Did you contact our Support regarding these basic features? If yes, then please, provide me with your Support case number. If not, then why did you not report the issues?

 

Nevertheless, we are doing our best to provide all necessary knowledge and help to facilitate the configuration and building of a smart home. Therefore, we provide online

Please login or register to see this link.

,

Please login or register to see this link.

,

Please login or register to see this link.

,

Please login or register to see this link.

(where you will find locks from August and Yale - some even with native support; Lifx works on Wifi so the integration has to utilize a virtual device),

Please login or register to see this link.

and this very Forum. Just check how much work we devote every day to bring the system closer to users. Claiming that we should "start listening to our customers suggestions" is simply unjust in our case as we are doing it every day almost from day 1.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The topic has been moved from "

Please login or register to see this link.

" to "

Please login or register to see this link.

".

 

Temat został przeniesiony z "

Please login or register to see this link.

" do "

Please login or register to see this link.

".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...