New Ideas To Excel Domoticz on SmartHome Market...

[febalci]

Hi All,

There are many open source Smart Home Controller Software on the market, be it Domoticz, openhab, Jeedom, Home Assistant etc. The more user a software has, the more it is open to develop further. I really don't know the number of active Domoticz users out there, or any of the other software at all. All these software has their own pros and cons; I believe we, as users, should participate more on Domoticz, and not leave it all to the developers, so that Domoticz might get more users and become single handedly the leader...

Comparatively, i used openhab before domoticz, it was very nice, however the move from openhab 1 to 2 made everything more complex instead of making it more user friendly. And the bugs were increasing everyday, when my ZWave network was unusable with openhab, that's when i decided to go for domoticz and i am happier now. With the possibility of Python Plugins (The best language ever imo), i feel there are no boundaries to develop further.

Again, to make Domoticz better that its competitors, and have what they don't have, i have my humble ideas:

1. Native support for Homekit, Alexa, Google Home etc.: Looking at this, i feel like everyone has their own choice or patch solutions. Needless to say HomeKit is the most important one imo, because it seems like it is the only one which supports multinational languages. Instead of using homebridge, nodejs, docker or any other alternatives, Homekit should be natively supported either on Domoticz or a Python plugin. Since Python Plugins for me are so succesful, i keep this solution as native also.

2. ZWave Support: As tough i believe OZW is stable enough, this side of Domoticz might be better; like adding unsupported zWave solutions to Domoticz (like Seismic Intensity and Seismic Magnitude Sensors, OZW supports it but not Domoticz) and also a more stable OZW Control Panel. Using OZW is still good enough i think but this two weak sides could be better.

3. More Python Plugins: I am really surprised to see that once we had a Python Plugin Framework, we should have much more Plugins that are already here. Python is really limitless and we still have too few Plugins. I believe solving everything with lua or dzvents scripting is one way of handling it but having a plugin is so easy to deal with for the end users (once the plugin framework is stable of course). I still can't believe why we don't have Plex or Google Traffic Plugins? Right now i am using the scripts, but Plugin is something else...

4. Native Imperihome support: @epierre have this fantastic job of MyDomoAtHome gateway for us, to be used for Imperihome. The only thing i miss from my openhab experience is the IOS application. It was so good and customizable, i was easily doing everything with it. When i first started using Domoticz i was disappointed with IOS applications comparatively, then i started using Imperihome; which helped me do a better job for overall control. With Pilot and Domoticz IOS it took me a while to get used to, but now it is all better. However i still goo for Imperihome unconciously since the UI and overall structure is easier to use. So, there are 2 alternatives, have a customizable app like openhab; or have native Imperihome support either on Imperihome or Domoticz side.

5. Domoticz Users Count: Is there a way to have a counter on Domoticz which can tell the number of active Domoticz users out there?

Please note that these are all my humble personal opinions; you are most welcome to support or not any of these and share your own opinions. In the meantime, personally i am trying to get most from the Plugin Framework and prepare plugins for community use; and have a plan to work on Homekit as a plugin, since i am using Synology and only able to run homebridge with a docker. If anyone of you Plugin writers are interested, we might work together...

[epierre]

I would add, tracking the upgrade of MDAH that thanks to @Jumbotroll who packaged domoticz to synology, there have been a lot more versions out there, currently I see several people across Russia !

[ash77]

... however the move from openhab 1 to 2 made everything more complex instead of making it more user friendly.

I'm curious about this. Can you give a few examples?

[febalci]

I'm curious about this. Can you give a few examples?

In openhab1 everything was on config files. Easy to backup, easy to intervene. However in openhab2 you can handle half of the devices with config file, half of them with paper ui. They don't support each other. You also have to handle some parts in habmin. You cannot enter zwave parameters in config files, so you have to enter them in paper ui and should control them with habmin. It was not a matter of choice anymore, all 2 UI and config files support different things. At least that was my experience.

[emme]

when I frist approached the domotic world (2 years ago) I was just looking for a solution to handle my shutters....
there I found zWave as protocol and learned that you need a server also....

Then I found several product, but domoticz looked to me as the best choice for different reasons that cometitors doesn't have (imho)

- ease of installation
- ease of use
- scripting capabilities

the possibility in a linux environment, to open to almost every hardware is quite unlimited
NodeJs, Homebridge, MQTT are already IoT protocols and I think there is no shame in using it in a non-natively way

zWave is an alliance of developers and brands... being a part of it means you have to pay for....
OpenzWave is a reverse-engeneering project so almost everythink is supported, the rest will come...

To get native supports, zWave certified and other protocols as an out-of-the-box product, I strongly doubt it would be still a community project rather than a commercial software that probably will be sold as an appliance like Homecenter

I strongly believe in Domoticz Team... I wish to see it growing (and it is!), but I'm not a programmer... I'm a 44yo nerd that write code in 3 different languages (LUA, Python, Bash) without knowing none!
I personally achieve 3 main targets for my personal knowledge and experience (Telegram for multi-id, Volumio control via websocket and emojy in the log) that I share with the community.... if domoticz were a different product, I doubt I could be willing to contribute

Yes, there are several open software, but for my experience Domoticz is the always mentioned in the first 3 raw when listing freeware domotic servers (Aeotec suggest it as first)

I believe we're on the right path.... ours!