HS3 Plugin and Script....enthusiasm?

[simplextech]

Granted I'm relatively new to the whole HS community but I'm really enjoying it and digging in and bringing things from other systems I've used to HS3 and trying to bring NEW things to HS3.

I've seen a question come up a few times about innovation with HS3 and I'm looking through the older posts and doing google searches against the forums and finding all kinds of cool scripts and plugins for HS2.....HS2!!!!...

Leads me to the same question.... where did the progress and innovation go with HS3????

People tire and move on? To what?
People get tired of supporting things and never ported to HS3?

Is it the change in general atmosphere about paying for plugins leading to people just not caring to write plugins if there's little/no compensation for time/effort in development and support?

Is it the HS overhead (cut) of the cost of the plugins?

I'm really curious about this. I have a lot of ideas of things some free and bluntly most of the plugins to be paid because of the time/effort involved in creating a plugin for HS3.

[Michael McSharry]

I have been with HS for most of the ride. I think it was $39 when I started and X10 was the only lighting technology. It was mainly scripts in those days and then later a plugin API was developed. I think I released the first 3rd party plugin called WebAgent.

It was really a tinkerers community. It was about the only choice for a Windows software package that took the next step from the X10 ActiveHome.

HS2 came along and changed the paradigm from Forms to Browser and HST adopted Zwave as its lighting technology. Most of HS2 development from HST was related to maturing Zwave. I think this was the time that Mark came onboard to provide a marketing focus and when the company increased their product offerings to include hardware and cater to some degree to the installer market.

I ported some of my more popular plugins from HS to HS2, but the new paradigm meant a lot of work with no real added functionality. More software folks became interested in HA and the number of authors increased. Revenue-producing plugins greatly increased.

While it is nice to have an outlet to get some hobby revenue, the time it takes to write and support the plugins makes it unattractive if one needs to be compensated for the time that is being devoted.

Other software packages for HA provided reasonable alternatives. Usually they have a lower cost of entry and are adopted by novices because of the cost or hackers because of the community rather than company support model. Migration goes in both directions from/to HS depending upon the interest of users.

HS3 came along at the same time as IOT was starting. HST is a Zwave company so not much of IOT made it into HS and the legacy users tended to follow the path set by HST. The new blood is bringing in newer technologies, but with several other HA platforms available there is not that much to motivate a new user to work in HS rather than other actively supported packages.

HS3 was again a paradigm shift with remote plugins, .NET, jQuery for browser and break from the X10 orientation. This means again that much work involved in porting a plugin from HS2 to HS3 and in my case I did only two. mcsTemperature was a popular one in HS and HS2, but the API had moved so much that I did not want to take the time. My HS1 to HS2 porting experience moved me in the direction of xAP rather than HS API as the glue that held my pieces together.

UltraJones and Blade had plugins toward the end of HS. With HS2 they tended to move toward revenue for their plugins. Porting was work and does not have the same satisfaction of original development. If you are developing plugins for HS3 then I suggest you do it because of the satisfaction it gives you. If you do it to get some money for your effort then you become disillusioned and loose interest.

In my case it is the learning and challenges of hacking that keeps me interested.

[mrhappy]

Granted I'm relatively new to the whole HS community but I'm really enjoying it and digging in and bringing things from other systems I've used to HS3 and trying to bring NEW things to HS3.

I've seen a question come up a few times about innovation with HS3 and I'm looking through the older posts and doing google searches against the forums and finding all kinds of cool scripts and plugins for HS2.....HS2!!!!...

Leads me to the same question.... where did the progress and innovation go with HS3????

People tire and move on? To what?
People get tired of supporting things and never ported to HS3?

Is it the change in general atmosphere about paying for plugins leading to people just not caring to write plugins if there's little/no compensation for time/effort in development and support?

Is it the HS overhead (cut) of the cost of the plugins?

I'm really curious about this. I have a lot of ideas of things some free and bluntly most of the plugins to be paid because of the time/effort involved in creating a plugin for HS3.

A view that may contain some unpopular points, or points some may disagree with. It is just a few observations...

HS has moved away from being a tinkerers platform to that more more in turn with a commercial one BUT I don't think this is all the fault of HST. It is more an indication of society in general, people no longer wish to be pulling cables, spending hours getting something working, building a circuit and fine tuning it. They want a box they can plug in and it does everything with minimum effort. Life is much more busy for people than it even was a decade ago, I have considerably less free time and other interests that take me away from HS and then I get the desire to have something I can plug in and it works rather than having to build something or treat it like a project. Don't get me wrong I still have the odd thought of lets have a build and see how I go but it is much more that I now know what I want and how to do it.

HS has also distanced itself from its user base, again I don't think this is intentional and more the fact they are down to a handful of developers. Even in 2007 I could submit bugs (some relatively minor) and get a quick response and fix, now I am very lucky to get an acknowledgment. Perhaps not malicious just by virtue of less resource and the money is not in fixing bugs but bringing out new products. I know as an amateur developer that I am less inclined to spend hours/days developing something if I am going to get close to zero help from the people who may be able to answer queries ie the developers, the community is great but why should I expect help from another developer - why not HST?

HS3 also turned out more complex than HS2, HS2 the plugin triggers and actions were nothing more than strings with special formatting. Ideally suited to rapid development and easy to see where issues may be - great for someone like me who is not a developer by trade. Now we are navigating jQuery controls, cross platform, multi instances etc. The plugin samples released by HST are overly complex, poorly documented and then there is no assurance you will get answers to your help if you come up with an issue.

So in essence life is busy for people (less inclined to do something to help others, less inclined to do something for free), HS is busier due to lack of resources (and as such user/developer engagement is less) and then as software is more powerful there is a learning curve to climb that some may not wish to and cut their losses at a mutual point (see steva just as an example, developed for HS2 but then stopped when HS3 came along).

[tenholde]

My 2 cents: HS move to HS3 came with a different attitude towards who their preferred customer was. The new EVENTS model does make it possible and easier to do much of what was required by scripts and sometimes plugins.

That said, it is still a great platform for doing your own development and interfacing all kinds of gear. The plugin platform and support of .net scripting makes it very extensible, if you are part of the shrinking subset of customers who are experimenters and hobbyists.

I just wish HS was a little more supportive of this community. I have developed and make available for free (although a donation to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation is optional) a development tool (tenScripting) that simplifies the writing and testing of complex HS scripts. HS has shown no interest in helping or supporting this development option, and will not even prioritize a reported and acknowledged bug in HS3 that creates problems for a subset of my users.

And finally, the community in these forums are very good in helping you when you are stuck with an issue.

Let us know if we can help!

tenholde

[simplextech]

My 2 cents: HS move to HS3 came with a different attitude towards who their preferred customer was. The new EVENTS model does make it possible and easier to do much of what was required by scripts and sometimes plugins.

That said, it is still a great platform for doing your own development and interfacing all kinds of gear. The plugin platform and support of .net scripting makes it very extensible, if you are part of the shrinking subset of customers who are experimenters and hobbyists.

I just wish HS was a little more supportive of this community. I have developed and make available for free (although a donation to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation is optional) a development tool (tenScripting) that simplifies the writing and testing of complex HS scripts. HS has shown no interest in helping or supporting this development option, and will not even prioritize a reported and acknowledged bug in HS3 that creates problems for a subset of my users.

And finally, the community in these forums are very good in helping you when you are stuck with an issue.

Let us know if we can help!

tenholde

tenholde,

I like your work and tools. They are very good. Tools like you've developed and innovative thinking is what's needed for HS3.

I see a lot of old scripts/plugins and it would be great if they were available for HS3. I see some new things hitting the updater and some forum posts but I don't see the enthusiasm as I see on other communities.

Maybe it's the size difference. HS seems to be a smaller market than other systems, probably due to the cost and general complexity of deployment. But still a Zee2 is just a fraction more than a Vera Plus and still cheaper than an Fibaro HomeCenter2 so I don't think cost is the limiting factor in acceptance.

Is plugin cost and attitude towards paying for plugins the real issue here that is stifling HS3 growth and innovation?

If it is then why doesn't other high end systems exhibit the same lack of innovation when their plugins are all paid for and generally more expensive.

Or is HST stuck in an in-between world of trying to "play" in two worlds of the High-End and Consumer market and having a split personality not knowing where to pay attention?

[S-F]

tenholde,

I like your work and tools. They are very good. Tools like you've developed and innovative thinking is what's needed for HS3.

I see a lot of old scripts/plugins and it would be great if they were available for HS3. I see some new things hitting the updater and some forum posts but I don't see the enthusiasm as I see on other communities.

Maybe it's the size difference. HS seems to be a smaller market than other systems, probably due to the cost and general complexity of deployment. But still a Zee2 is just a fraction more than a Vera Plus and still cheaper than an Fibaro HomeCenter2 so I don't think cost is the limiting factor in acceptance.

Is plugin cost and attitude towards paying for plugins the real issue here that is stifling HS3 growth and innovation?

If it is then why doesn't other high end systems exhibit the same lack of innovation when their plugins are all paid for and generally more expensive.

Or is HST stuck in an in-between world of trying to "play" in two worlds of the High-End and Consumer market and having a split personality not knowing where to pay attention?

It has been a while since I've looked at other systems admittedly. I moved from Vera to HS3 once it seemed stable some years ago and I've never looked back. That said, I think that one of the reasons you may not see many new plugins for HS3 popping up is that it's already so capable. I am doing worlds more with HS that was ever possible with Vera and with much greater ease. Every now and then there's a promising new product that is rumored to hit the market and either they turn out to be junk, vaporware or entirely cloud dependent so integration with HS never happens. I do recall people on the Vera forum complaining about the high cost of HS and the high cost of plugins. You get what you pay for. Vera is much more of a toy, and that may be fine for many of the people who just want to control their lights with a phone. Is there something you're looking for that you're not getting from HS?

[jon00]

Because you are late to the game, I think you have missed all the enthusiasm which happened during the early years of HS3. Most interfaces have now been catered for and when someone has asked for a plugin, a large proportion have been taken up by a dev willing to take it on.

I see a lot of old scripts/plugins and it would be great if they were available for HS3.

Can you provide some examples of these HS2 scripts/plugins? If there has not been a demand for these since HS3 was released, then they are probably not worth converting.

[simplextech]

Because you are late to the game, I think you have missed all the enthusiasm which happened during the early years of HS3. Most interfaces have now been catered for and when someone has asked for a plugin, a large proportion have been taken up by a dev willing to take it on.



Can you provide some examples of these HS2 scripts/plugins? If there has not been a demand for these since HS3 was released, then they are probably not worth converting.

I agree that HS3 is very capable and does lots. There are those things that are still lacking and or somewhat broken.

I found "Script Connector" last night while searching. Sounds really cool and useful. It's for HS2 and never ported. I sent Stipus a PM to see if there's any plans on updating.

I see "Scripts" in general is still pretty manual, create and copy to a directory then forget what you have. I'm thinking of a plugin "Script Manager" that loads/lists provides details, description of scripts in the scripts directory. An organization tool per se and embedded ide.

If I send out a github repo for people will people use it an contribute?

https://github.com/SimplexTechnology/HS3-Scripts
https://github.com/SimplexTechnology/HS3-Plugins

open for anyone with interest. public repositories.

[mrhappy]

I agree that HS3 is very capable and does lots. There are those things that are still lacking and or somewhat broken.

I found "Script Connector" last night while searching. Sounds really cool and useful. It's for HS2 and never ported. I sent Stipus a PM to see if there's any plans on updating.

I see "Scripts" in general is still pretty manual, create and copy to a directory then forget what you have. I'm thinking of a plugin "Script Manager" that loads/lists provides details, description of scripts in the scripts directory. An organization tool per se and embedded ide.

If I send out a github repo for people will people use it an contribute?

https://github.com/SimplexTechnology/HS3-Scripts
https://github.com/SimplexTechnology/HS3-Plugins

open for anyone with interest. public repositories.

I don't want to come across as a debbie downer but if it saves you some time then HS put some of their plugins (old and part HS3 ported ones) into a repo and there was no real interest in taking ownership forward so I'm not sure yours will either I am afraid. There is much less of an inclination to open source, I imagine this is because people can just run off and make a product that earns money from it - I know you can have licences and whatever but I don't fancy trying to fight a cross atlantic legal battle.

The HS2 updater supported script distribution but not sure there was a great take up on that (I seem to remember a shopping list one! Albeit I think the SDK still suggests parts of it are still there but I doubt it works), scripts are less prevalent in HS3 than they were in HS2 and a chunk of functionality was removed from the HS3 methods that existed in scripts in HS2. They certainly have a place but the gap has widened in terms of what can now be done in the events page negating the need for some of them, there are exceptions in this of course, I run 30 scripts but probably could get that down to 10 if I re-wrote some of my plugins.

[simplextech]

I don't want to come across as a debbie downer but if it saves you some time then HS put some of their plugins (old and part HS3 ported ones) into a repo and there was no real interest in taking ownership forward so I'm not sure yours will either I am afraid. There is much less of an inclination to open source, I imagine this is because people can just run off and make a product that earns money from it - I know you can have licences and whatever but I don't fancy trying to fight a cross atlantic legal battle.

The HS2 updater supported script distribution but not sure there was a great take up on that (I seem to remember a shopping list one! Albeit I think the SDK still suggests parts of it are still there but I doubt it works), scripts are less prevalent in HS3 than they were in HS2 and a chunk of functionality was removed from the HS3 methods that existed in scripts in HS2. They certainly have a place but the gap has widened in terms of what can now be done in the events page negating the need for some of them, there are exceptions in this of course, I run 30 scripts but probably could get that down to 10 if I re-wrote some of my plugins.

Not a downer at all. This is all good info and explains some things and brings up other questions.

Nobody wants to contribute to "open source"...but people still smirk about a paid plugin?

So scripts made since with HS2 to add functionality that now has been provided in the events system (for the most part). Good. Some scripts are still useful and plugins seem to be a "feature enhancer" or "integration" point with external systems. Which in my thought pattern is what a "plugin" should be. It's interfacing something to HS3 or HS3 to something else.

Then we get into the "I want a script not a plugin because my zee2 is limited to only 5 plugins". That is true and for good reason. The zee2 has far less resources (memory mostly) than any other system. The plugin limit is a safety measure to prevent loading a zee2 up with plugins and then questioning why it performs badly. This I understand... so the workaround is now loading it up with scripts?

I feel I'm now just ranting but I'm just bringing in the questions and thoughts from other posts that are all over and trying to bridge an audience to get thoughts on the matter.

It seems the general thought is everything is fine the way it is....

So poll: How many of you replying are running HS3 as your primary system?

[mrhappy]

Nobody wants to contribute to "open source"...but people still smirk about a paid plugin?

I don't know if I really see that with posts here. The costs are there to pay and I doubt many developers really run at a huge profit - taking into account the effort needed and development time I'm not sure the cost is huge in comparison but because the market is small and HS take a cut then you have to charge more. I run a single paid plugin (Chromecast) because I can neither be bothered nor may it be in my capability to develop one. I tend to tailor my technologies to integration with HS rather than the other way around, if I buy something I will buy it with integration either in my capability or by a paid plugin. What does however leave a sour taste is when a developer takes money and does not support a plugin, this has happened to me once and there appears to be minimal if any safeguards in place with HST to deal with this. If there is no charge then to me that taste is less sour.

So scripts made since with HS2 to add functionality that now has been provided in the events system (for the most part). Good. Some scripts are still useful and plugins seem to be a "feature enhancer" or "integration" point with external systems. Which in my thought pattern is what a "plugin" should be. It's interfacing something to HS3 or HS3 to something else.

The following quote has been in the SDK since HS2 at least and forms part of the thought process as to plugin vs. script. There are some scripts I have written that should've been a plugin and there are some plugins that could be a script. Plugins are in the main neater than scripts and of course (without encrypting the scripts) offer some protection to the developer.

The plug-in SDK allows you to get notification of HomeSeer events and allows you to add custom triggers, actions, and conditions to events. If you do not need any of these things and only want to interface something to HomeSeer using HomeSeer devices, then stop right here. Scripts can be used instead of a plug-in to provide a simple, device based interface to an external device. Plug-ins should be used only when tight integration with HomeSeer is desired or necessary.

Then we get into the "I want a script not a plugin because my zee2 is limited to only 5 plugins". That is true and for good reason. The zee2 has far less resources (memory mostly) than any other system. The plugin limit is a safety measure to prevent loading a zee2 up with plugins and then questioning why it performs badly. This I understand... so the workaround is now loading it up with scripts?

Possibly but I imagine a good proportion of original Zee users (those using first generation Raspberry Pi's) have potentially upgraded and those that haven't might not need or desire the extra functionality. I can't think I have seen all that many recent posts about this being an issue.

It seems the general thought is everything is fine the way it is....

There is always scope for improvement and I doubt you would find one person who disagrees with me, those who can change it are HST themselves. IMHO should have a community engagement staff member who can support new users, give ideas/tips/tricks, bring matters/bugs to the attention of HST, offer some customer service on social media/the forums and really drive it as a supported product. I know they try but I get the feeling their resources are pretty slim.

[simplextech]

It would be nice if the developers of pre-HS3 tools/plugins would offer up their code for others to continue development of.

As example. (no offense I like your Pushover plugin, I just don't use pushover yet....)

I would like to have a good PushBullet plugin. The one from "SmarterControls" has some issues and I've sent numerous emails and no response. Signed up for their "helpdesk" and no response. So it's a dead plugin... probably the same for the rest of their plugins. As I understand the PushBullet plugin was a HS2 PI that was ported to HS3 and now it seems like it's abondoned. It would be nice to get the source and extend it and fix it.

[S-F]

If you're up for it you could make a media plugin. HST decided to abandon their media player plugin from HS2 and the opened the source. There is still no decent music player for HS3. I have no idea why as all the big names in home automation focus primarily on media. If you wrote the plugin from scratch and included things like Pandora and Spotify support I imagine you'd have a decent user base. I wish I had more time so I could learn to write plugins myself.

[simplextech]

If you're up for it you could make a media plugin. HST decided to abandon their media player plugin from HS2 and the opened the source. There is still no decent music player for HS3. I have no idea why as all the big names in home automation focus primarily on media. If you wrote the plugin from scratch and included things like Pandora and Spotify support I imagine you'd have a decent user base. I wish I had more time so I could learn to write plugins myself.

I noticed that. In years past I saw HS as being media centric and now they aren't and all of the other big names are media centric.

I think part of it is the direction media has taken and the large numbers of devices now and the different integration points of each of them. It's a product of it's own not just a plugin to be a media center these days.

It's hard to even think of where to begin... don't start with NEEO Eman!

Maybe that's why there's a slow down on plugins and integrations. There's just too much to support and too many devices to try and cover them all. So plugins are now essentially single device or vendor integration points.

With that thought perhaps a hybrid not a full plugin but more than a script. It would still need a interface but not all the 1000 bells and whistles that a full blown plugin has to offer. A simplified hybrid plugin? I think a simplified hybrid would actually attract more developers as well. The current API samples are HUGE and a good 90% of it is not needed for most common plugins.

[jon00]

I agree that HS3 is very capable and does lots. There are those things that are still lacking and or somewhat broken.

I found "Script Connector" last night while searching. Sounds really cool and useful. It's for HS2 and never ported. I sent Stipus a PM to see if there's any plans on updating.

I see "Scripts" in general is still pretty manual, create and copy to a directory then forget what you have. I'm thinking of a plugin "Script Manager" that loads/lists provides details, description of scripts in the scripts directory. An organization tool per se and embedded ide.

If I send out a github repo for people will people use it an contribute?

https://github.com/SimplexTechnology/HS3-Scripts
https://github.com/SimplexTechnology/HS3-Plugins

open for anyone with interest. public repositories.

Take a look here and look very carefully down the list! (Many were written before HS3 could run on Linux).