Is HG dying?

[raptorjr]

Being totally new to HG maybe this is a hard question to ask, but I need to know.

I'm new to this whole automation thing. It takes a lot of time to automate your house or other things. The heart of all this is the controller. And jumping from one controller to another isn't a good investment in time. So I have for several months looking for the right one. When found, put down the time it takes to learn all the features and being able to customize it to my needs.

HG really seems to be a very powerful and flexible controller. And it looks good too. Although it is hard to find the information on what it can do and how to do it. But I'm beginning to scratch the surface.

But doing so, and reading the forums, I feel it is a little bit sad that there isn't much activity here. And there doesn't seem to have been much progress since the last beta version.

Software is never done. There is always bugs to fix and features to add. Done software is dead software. I don't want to offend anyone and I fully understand that this is open source and anyone can fix bugs and add features. But that doesn't help much if no one does.
I also understand that Gene made this for himself for his own purpose, but made it such a way that others could use it too. And as I said, it is a well done job. And I understand if Gene is satisfied with what he has done. But if Gene don't have the time or interest anymore HG will slowly die.

So is there a future for HG? Is there anyone besides Gene that think this is fun and knows the code good enough to fix bugs and add features? I really hope so, and if I was even close to the skills of Gene and others that have contributed to HG I would help too.

Is it worth to spend time learning everything HG can do? Will HG have evolved in 3,6,12 months?

[mvdarend]

Is HG dying? I hope not... I still think HG is one of the best Home Automation solutions around.

I've tried others, even bought a HomeSeer Pro license last year, but I keep coming back to HG because it really is well thought ou (and made)

Every now and again Gene will go quiet in the forums for a while and then suddenly he'll come back with something new (Like the HomeGenie Plus app last year, the new Scheduling engine earlier this year)

It's a shame he isn't getting more help, I've tried helping a little, but it's a bit beyond my skillset. There are a few others that help out. And there's still activity going on in GitHub (last updte 4 days ago https://github.com/genielabs/HomeGenie)

[petediscrete]

In case you hadn't noticed Gene the Homegenie author had created this wonderful application in his own time and probably for very little return. I'm sure he has a day job that pays the bills so I'm sure you'll understand why he goes quiet from time to time. Unlike Homseer Pro which costs $599 per licence, Homegenie relies on voluntary donations.

If activity on the forum is gone quiet one has to assume that the user base are happy with what they have. If not they have plenty of scope to express this.

I suggest that you search the forum as there are plenty of real life examples of what you can achieve with HG. There's a solution to most problems there. And while you're at it you may want to make a donation to Gene's hard work.

[raptorjr]

I know this is a sensitive question, and may upset people. I don't have a problem in donating money for things I like and use. But then I also need to know that there is someone listening. Not maybe to implement all features that people would like to see, but to fix bugs. And I also understand that it is hard for one person to do everything alone, hence my question if there are others that know the code and have the skills to fix bugs.

I did some developing 15 years ago. The technologies used today, and in HG, with REST and web services and what not, is waay over my head. I don't even know where to start to learn how HG works behind the scenes. Trying to read all the documentation I could find but I understand very little of it.

HG seems to be very well organized and solid work. And even though I haven't been doing automation that long I have been looking around at some controllers. And HG is the first one where I really see the possibilities. But still, bugs needs to be fixed, and hopefully new features needs to be added.

And it is easier to get donations to a project that seems to be active. I hope that I can help mvdarend to make the MySensors gateway really good. And maybe we can get the HG website in the list of supported controllers on the MySensors website. More people gets more activity, and more donations to Gene. And maybe even more developers that understands everything under the hood.

[pim555]

@raptorjr, good challenging. I have the same experience since Gene has stepped down in terms of support.

I really, really like Homegenie and am impressed by what Gene has built over the last couple of years. I am also still using HG at home and, despite some of the issues, still like it a lot. It is just sad to see that without him being active, real issues do not seem to get resolved (eg some of the flaky Z-wave support). Unfortunately I dont have the time or knowledge to do it myself so am relying on others.

I do believe that Homegenie is suffering a bit from feature overload. There are so many features in the product and being added while basic functionality is not 100% right. That limits general adoption and if not fixed, will turn new people down pretty quickly.

Unfortunately my coding skills are not sufficient to fix some of the more complicated issues myself and therefore are in a similar position as quite a lot of HG users.

I hope we can find a solution alltogether because the product is too good to let go. I am even convinced that it should be possible to create a commercial variant of this software (if that would help setting up a proper support organization)...

Pim

[bkenobi]

You might consider that Gene has implemented many features that he doesn't own hardware for.  Unless he's updated his setup, I don't think Gene owns Zwave equipment (he didn't originally but perhaps he does now).  Building bulletproof software for hardware you don't use relies on the documentation being correct and getting reports back from the user base.

[pim555]

Fully agree, you cannot test properly if you dont have the target hardware. If that is the real issue, there is ways to solve for that. For example asking for a small contribution from all active users to cover for some basic hardware needs that Gene might have. I think that was suggested in the past already but never materialized.

[mvdarend]

For example asking for a small contribution from all active users to cover for some basic hardware needs that Gene might have. I think that was suggested in the past already but never materialized.

It's not on the main page anymore, but there's still a donate button here:
http://www.homegenie.it/docs/index.php

Edit: Maybe a 'Supporters' page like this one on the MySensors website to stimulate others to help out. Apparently people are more likely to participate if they also see others doing so.

[petediscrete]

There are many commercial home automation applications out in the marketplace already. One that comes straight to mind is Homeseer Pro. This application is similar in nature to Homegenie and comes with it's technical difficulties too. Of course, as I mentioned previously the major difference being is the asking price of $599 against a voluntary contribution in the case of Homegenie.

Would HG users be happier paying a licence fee of this magnitude.

The other major difference between the two applications is HG is a Linux based application while Homeseer Pro is a Windows based application that can be run under Linux via an emulation gateway. I know I prefer the pure Linux option.

The user community are the heart and soul of any software application and it's only by providing feedback to the author can the software be developed further. While problems need to be reported and solutions provided it would be nice to hear of more success stories. A typical problem is reported, suggested solutions are provided and the poster rarely updates a successful resolution on their original posting.

It may well be the case that Gene is working on a commercial product with a long term marketing goal but for the moment most of his work has been distributed in the spirit of the Linux ethos. For those looking for a commercially supported solution I could suggest Homeseer or Vera.

[[email protected]]

I don't think its dying, its just lacking multiple developers, I have made code changes, but it takes time to understand why certain things are done the way they are.

Gene takes pull requests so just crack on and do what you can..

For me it does what I need, I personally don't like the interface layout and hate having to write C# within the gui rather than using something like VS Code.. but I make do, until  I work out how to fix it for myself..

I think it would work better if we could move new feature requests of the forum and onto github and then people could potentially vote and show what they are working on to avoid duplication..

the other thing lacking from the project are a set of unit tests  but I like it

[raptorjr]

At this point we are even lacking one developer. It doesn't matter how much other do, how many pull requests, since no one other than Gene can commit them to the code, so others not so skilled can use the new features. You need to build from source and add the pull requests to your own code to use them.

And I fully understand that one person can have other more important things to do than to maintain a project, even if he started it. But then again we need someone else, or better yet a few, that makes a fork of the code, and also have the possibility to add new features. Not a optimal way, but I really want to see HG evolve and get even better.

I'm trying my best to understand the code. My biggest problem is that i need to learn JS and web development, something I never even looked at. So I hope that I will be able to contribute sometimes in the future. Also, need to learn github and how that works.

[mvdarend]

I have the same experience since Gene has stepped down in terms of support.

Has he really stepped down? or is he just having a quiet period? I haven't been very active myself in the last few months so I'm not really up to date.

The other major difference between the two applications is HG is a Linux based application while Homeseer Pro is a Windows based application that can be run under Linux via an emulation gateway. I know I prefer the pure Linux option.

A bit off topic, but you do realise that HomeGenie is also a Windows based (Microsoft .NET) web-application that needs Mono to run on Linux? (just like HomeSeer needs Mono)

Anyway, I do see raptorjrs point, nobody wants to invest time and resources into a project that may be bleeding dry, I see some compalints in the forums here and there that posts are not being answered. Unfortunately the community here on the forum is too small, and many questions only Gene has the answer for.

It could be that Gene has just lost interest in developing HG further, maybe he's just taking a break. I have no idea.

I see that Gene merged the Master branch on GitHub 2 days ago, so there's still some life in him! 

[petediscrete]

Of course Marcel, I stand corrected on Homeseer. HG is indeed running under Mono.

I suppose the best person to comment on the state of HG is Gene and no doubt when the time is right he will do so. Maybe he is working on a large upgrade and will unleash it onto the community when the time is right.

In the meantime I'm still working away on rc525 on a RPI2 and still discovering new and very useful features. It covers most of my x10, camera and security needs.

[bkenobi]

The other thing to consider is that HA is something that CAN be stable.  If  you have some set of modules that you want to perform a given task and the HA software is currently doing that...you may not need to touch anything.  I personally haven't updated my setup in several months because HG as of version 1.1r515 is doing everything I need and has not had any known errors in a very long time.  That said, summer in Seattle is dry and light before I wake up and dark around bed time.  As such, my HA setup (exclusively used for lighting) doesn't see much activity.  I have very few instances where I need to do much with automated lighting and thus I don't see any tweaks that need to be made.  As of today, it's dark when I leave for work and within a few weeks will be dark when I get home.  I'll be using my HA and noticing if things need adjusting.

TL;DR - If HG does what a person needs, they may not visit the forum.  That doesn't mean HG isn't used anymore, just that it may not need any attention.

[raptorjr]

If HG does what a person needs, they may not visit the forum.  That doesn't mean HG isn't used anymore, just that it may not need any attention.

But that is kind of the problem. Just because it works perfect for someone doesn't men that it don't need attention. Since HG is very flexible and can do many things, and not every person is a computer expert, there is always questions that need to be answered. And even though some persons do what they can, only Gene at this point have enough knowledge of the code to answer some of the more complicated questions.

And maybe Gene, as you, are perfectly happy with what HG does, and therefore isn't very active. But my opinion is still that software is never done and there can always be improvements and bug fixes. Because in some way, even if Gene is happy with the current features, I believe that when you start a project like this and make it public, you want it to grow and get a life on it's own. HG is great, but the community is not big enough for the one and only lead developer to disappear. Sure, we don't know why, but to get over some critical point in the number of users of HG Gene is still needed.

And even if Gene appears in a month or two with some new version with new features it is only for the few users that already love HG. To many new users will have been lost already.

Software is, no matter how amazing and perfect it is, nothing without support.