IF-THEN-ELSE Action

[mulu]

Conditional actions would be great but as 'fast' as HS is moving we probably won't see it anytime soon. And ewkearns even pointed out they removed it from the description. So I think we still need spud to provide a solution. That makes his plugin even more attractive (and doesn't look good on HS).

[Guest]

. And ewkearns even pointed out they removed it from the description.

wow... I am speechless ...

They currently removed the ''future changes''.

[Guest]

Seems like the whole 2020 roadmap disappeared...

https://web.archive.org/web/20191113...tion-software/

https://forums.homeseer.com/forum/ho...-by-hs-for-hs4

I haven't upgraded yet, can someone confirm which of these features were actually implemented ? Is there still a published roadmap?

[drhtmal]

I think that it was inevitable that some of the features on the roadmap had to be removed. The delays in getting HS4 released would certainly have caused deadlines to slip. When deadlines slip and are not met, future plans have to be changed.

It is a tricky thing to set roadmaps for software. Even the largest software companies with resources a thousand times that of HomeSeer miss deadlines and have to change timelines. Was it ambitious for HomeSeer to set dates and promise features? It sure was. Because of this priorities have probably changed. Clearly HomeSeer has there hands full so features like conditional actions have to be pushed.

All of the features that have been implemented are listed here https://homeseer.com/hs4-smart-home-...tion-software/ in the compare HS3 to HS4 section.

[Guest]

I think that it was inevitable that some of the features on the roadmap had to be removed. The delays in getting HS4 released would certainly have caused deadlines to slip. When deadlines slip and are not met, future plans have to be changed.

It is a tricky thing to set roadmaps for software. Even the largest software companies with resources a thousand times that of HomeSeer miss deadlines and have to change timelines. Was it ambitious for HomeSeer to set dates and promise features? It sure was. Because of this priorities have probably changed. Clearly HomeSeer has there hands full so features like conditional actions have to be pushed.

All of the features that have been implemented are listed here https://homeseer.com/hs4-smart-home-...tion-software/ in the compare HS3 to HS4 section.

An option would have been to write 2021 on the roadmap for the new features, instead of removing them..we paid and contributed to hs4 beta , and now can’t be sure all the promises will be kept..

[ewkearns]

I think that it was inevitable that some of the features on the roadmap had to be removed. The delays in getting HS4 released would certainly have caused deadlines to slip. When deadlines slip and are not met, future plans have to be changed.

Two thoughts:

1) When has Homeseer ever provided a firm deadline? I was simply amazed they even published the roadmap.

2) How would you feel if you purchased HS4 for one or more of the features in the roadmap, only to see it evaporate? That doesn't seem to be an admirable business practice and makes one wonder which if any of those "features" are off the table in some manner or another.

[Guest]

I am honestly starting to think that HomeSeer won’t go long when Rich will retired .

How many years do you guys think we have until HomeSeer stop any business?
I think this is a legitimate question...

[scorp508]

I am honestly starting to think that HomeSeer won’t go long when Rich will retired .

How many years do you guys think we have until HomeSeer stop any business?
I think this is a legitimate question...

This has been worrying me more and more. I don't want to go with another platform, but the longevity of a small company like HomeSeer and if anyone has the passion to take over is a bit concerning.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[dzee]

My first home automation system was a Stargate for more than 20 years, which not only did if-then-else programming, but multiple nests of it - excellent at creating elegant and effective events. So my brain is forever wired for if-then-else logic. The fact that HS can't do it has been frustrating for me. So I would probably love the feature.

I'm a former StarGate user, too. That is exactly what got my attention about this post. If you wanted to control something, you didn't have to write multiple events - your logic was all right there in one event. An not only did it have the ability to nest IF-THEN-ELSE but had NOT conditions and if I recall a way to group AND/OR logic. That's one thing I really miss about StarGate.

[George]

At the rate they are running sales, they just started another one today giving away the new SmartStick+ with Zigbee if you buy HS4, it's rather obvious to a business person, much less a layman, they are having cash flow issues. If everything is on sale all the time and the sale price is the same as you can buy with Amazon then nothing is for sale!

Doesn't anyone get it? NO I guess not....

[dzee]

I am honestly starting to think that HomeSeer won’t go long when Rich will retired .

How many years do you guys think we have until HomeSeer stop any business?
I think this is a legitimate question...

Matt, you've hit upon something that has been rattling around in my brain, and it concerns me, too. HS has one very significant thing going for it and that is the breadth of support for devices without having to depend on the cloud. IMHO, privacy should be one of the major value propositions for their product, but I admit it's not an exciting one. Most newcomers to HA think privacy is already a lost cause, and are just happy if they can make a light bulb turn on from their cell phone. HS3 model is great for users from a cost perspective, too, because we're not beholden to some subscription model, nor will we wake up one morning to find the cloud API gone after a merger and acquisition and our $500 device nothing more than a doorstop.

It's a strange market now, though. There used to be nobody else around except a handful of niche players. Now, on the one side of HS, there are a dozen open source projects that are free and some fairly well connected to IoT devices. They're improved frequently by HA enthusiasts who know how to program and use GitHub. On the other side are massive companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Samsung who are realizing HA is the next frontier to obtaining private data on consumers and their behaviors, and in addition to selling them as product, they get first crack at directing their expenditures.

The issue for HS is that they have don't have the capital to compete with the latter, nor can they have a business model where the product is free. These days, you need capital for development and staff to swing partnerships and channel deals, while finding a means of maintaining a revenue stream (i.e. subscription) that pays the bills without advertising to your users until they revolt.

Frankly, if someone handed me the keys to HS, I'm not sure what I'd do either other than see if it can last me until retirement. I'd certainly run away from hardware are quickly as possible though, because that has low margins, high cost of goods, and inventory risk and distribution are a pain.

If you look at the gaming industry for inspiration, there are some massively popular games that leverage a business model within arms reach of HS. For example, X-Planes 11 and Cities:Skylines have each managed to build a base application that is open enough for thousands of developers to create mods and add-ons. This creates a residual demand for the base product and while other games are popular for only a matter of months, these have gone on as best sellers for years. Similarly, Microsoft has learned that open sourcing .NET and embracing Linux has harnessed a legion of developers. Their cloud apps like Teams now enjoy hundreds of add-ons making O365 more useful and desirable. Another is Altlassian's Jira and SalesForce. In all these cases, it is not the company itself that built its success, but the enthusiasm and variety of developers able to build onto the base.

Honestly, if HS never built another version after HS3 and focused their time documenting how to make plug-ins, simplifying the plug-in interface, and making good example code in C# and Python a few years ago, by now they might have had 3-4 different mobile apps, each better than HSMobile and all built by their user base. Now, I worry that they may fade to irrelevance because HS4 STILL won't capture a broad range of developers to build plugins, and HS base product is barely useful without them. With all due appreciation and respect for all of the wonderful HS plugin developers to date, just count them versus the army building plugins for something like OpenHAB, as one example.

[paul]

Certainly if HS ever goes under, either due to cash flow, or due to retirement, I do hope that a way can be found to keep it alive - either through selling to someone who may be active and willing to put in the time to make a go of it, or to open-source it at that time and let us all work on making it better....

[simonmason]

Sorry for opening an old thread but I didn't see any conclusion to the conditional statements in the event Then expression. Was this ever implemented? It would be ideal for a lot of my events to be able to set devices only if they are not already at the state I am about to set them to? Thanks.

[mulu]

HS had something like that in their plans, i.e. conditional then's. Unfortunately, they completely dropped the ball on this and removed it from their official plans (@rjh). Very disappointing. Spud was entertaining if-then-else at some point but it never happened, either. This would make things so much easier (there are many others thinking the same)) so I don't know why HS doesn't put in the effort to address this. Actually, they should hire spud to put in all those basic functionalities he has in his EasyTrigger plugin.

[simonmason]

spud Hopefully you have the energy to revisit this. It would be a life saver. I am running mostly on HS3 - I have HS4 running on another machine but don't really have the 6 months needed to invest to move to it completely.