Everything In webCoRE - Good Idea?

#1

Hi,

I’m only a few months into ST and WC right now, and am still trying to figure out the best course of action for organizing 2 houses.

Many many posters have suggested doing everything in WC for full flexibility. This brings up 2 issues that are concerning, one of which is actually nail-biting:

  1. Is it worth surrendering local processing? In addition to the people who said to do everything in WC, some have suggested doing a limited version of whatever is possible locally in Smart Lighting, and the rest in WC.

The problem I keep running into with this (besides clutter) is that there seems no good way to avoid redundancies / overlap. If there was a way to check the ST hub for an internet connection, then Smart Lighting can be used only during downtime, and WC the rest of the time that internet is available.

  • Can that conditional be set up in some way?
  • What’s the best way to avoid clutter, especially in Smart Lighting? I’ve only done 2-3 rooms in each house and Smart Lighting is already a long-scrolling, confusing mess. Naming convention seems like it should be standardized for both this and WC by now, but I haven’t come across anything yet.
  1. With the future of WC in question, is it even a good idea to fully invest in using it for everything? This is the most concerning and nail-biting of the two. Nobody wants to have to scrap all of their work.

Thanks.

#2

The biggest issue with that is, if you want a complex, very advanced system. It’ll be a nightmare down the road to fix, trouble shoot, figure things out. Plus, a single light bulb is automated (controlled) by several different sources feels like another problem down the road.

I don’t know how big of an investment do you have in mind or how deep you are going to go but,
I’m 100% webcore. No other automations what so ever.
And my system is :
Over 300 devices (65 RGB bulbs:))))
5 Bedroom house and every corner is automated:)
Over 100 active pistons over 200 paused ones.
And with my pistons (Thank you Webcore) I almost don’t even touch any button on my phone etc.

When I first started I saw some youtube videos about smart homes and it felt weird, having a smart home and keep pushing stuff on your phone LOL

Having said all this
Webcore is changing soon. I don’t understant yet what’s coming. All i know for sure is, no integration will be possible. Us Webcore users will start from scratch. but anybody please correct me if I’m wrong.

#3

:scream: what are you speaking of?

#4

Hi Kevin,

Read this post. Adrian (Creator of Webcore) also had some input here

#5

Honestly, I have no idea either. I’m just playing around right now, with maybe 40 or 50 devices in each house + Google Home speakers that are in ST using cast-web-api.

I’m on disability and out of work right now, but have been in business my whole life (with some programming/webmaster/dev & design background for 20 years) and have been giving some thought to getting some kind of IoT installation and support business going in the near future. I have an engineer, programmer, math-type buddy who’s studying machine learning willing to do something as well.

In the meantime however, this is just a hobby. I need a little guidance before doing anything more advanced than just having sensors, buttons, and voice commands control lights and plugs.

Right now, I’m finding that local processing is more important in one house than the other because of internet stability. I guess if a lot of homes were in the mix it would vary for each. That’s where I am now, with like 15 to 20 Smart Lighting automations and maybe 7 active WC pistons and 15 paused for each house.

Anybody knowledgeable is welcome to PM me if they want to network or feel they can help organize what I’m working on. I may be able to help contribute/reciprocate as well.

#6

Thinking about this also, because of another phrase I’ve read a few times: “Automations should run in the background. You control them - they don’t control you.”

So I guess as the homeowner (I’m assuming you are), you have full authority to allow the house to be a giant automaton. In my case it’s pretty different. The residents are taking it slowly on purpose, hence me looking to restructure everything “properly” and efficiently.

It’s a dream of mine from the past that this tech was established & available during the 15 year period when I had my own house. Every corner would have been automated. I fantasize about this constantly.

Being the homeowner is another factor in deciding what to do with ST vs WC. Do you leave the more simple automations where people can use the ST app, or do you bury them in WC out of a layperson’s reach? I tried giving the residents a virtual switch for each automation, but that also gets messy when some of them are willing to use software and others aren’t.

#7

I’ve also noticed a huge difference in whether a room has 1 occupant or 1+ occupants. I’m really trying to avoid hard-coding anything in such a way that situations are too specifically addressed, or being too general that situations go unaddressed and confuse the people or the guests.

#8

Yes I’m a hoomeowner AND in your case, pls forget everything I said:))
If I were to rent this house I would never never rent it as a smart home.

In my opinion St home technology and companies are still very primitive and still at the stage figuring things out. Once I called Amazon tech support for Alexa App and ask them a question about Simulated Switches and the girl on the phone didn’t even undestand “how come I can have a switch but it’s not real” she was trying to get me reset the switch LMAO

Don’t get me wrong, I know some people - even here in this platform - they rent their properties with smart homes installed (on Webcore or other ways).
But in my case, I’m not a coder (just some amateur coding experience from 90s:))))) and my house works perfectly only 90%-95% of the time. That 5-10% would drive a tenant crazy.

My wife and I were out of town for about 3 months and we had a house sitter. Poor girl didn’t even let me know but apperantly when she was trying to eat dinner, living room lights would go OFF every two minutes and she had to get up walk around constantly to get the lights come ON:))) Since we always eat downstairs it never occurred to me to do something about it:)

If I were to rent this house, I guess I would only keep the smarthome part for monitoring purposes not for real life living stuff. I would check water leaks, fire alarms, smoke detectors etc.
But with a pro coder and a good background of automation knowledge I think you can manage it.

#9

Yeah, same here. My programming is ½ assed. I started screwing around with VBA in the 90s, mostly with Microsoft Access DBs. Then I picked up on AHK in Windows and moved over to web devel with PHP, JS, SQL, and HTML (markup text, and not really a language). It was all self-taught and shows my age.

As far as the houses go, I’m fortunately not dealing with tenants. It’s family… immediate & extended. They’re mostly older and technophobic, which is the reason for slow progression. The 3 rooms in my apartment (bachelor/divorcee pad), however, are loaded up with automations and devices.

#10

would I find a commodore 64 somewhere in your basement:)

#11

This would be the idea behind a smart home installation & ongoing tech support business. If I do get a team together and decide to create a small to medium sized business, we’ll definitely need programmers who are way better than I am.

#12

Nope, I was too young then. The 90s and 00s were my era. More like NES and Xbox.

#13

So, after reading through the material on WC’s future, it seems that doing everything in WC is ok without getting too in-depth with variables or expressions. That is a pretty decent sized deal.

Which means…? What exactly?

Again, the main issue with using half local Smart Lighting and half WC is the fact that the automations tend to step on each other when they’re not distinctly organized in a single location, and troubleshooting becomes nightmarish.

If the new non-Groovy WC is to run locally, that too becomes a game changer in this kind of decision, no?

#14

I am so glad you said this. I tend to think I am alone when I do not think of how an automation would affect others and have to backtrack and re-do the piston. I would say my % is 15-20% doesn’t work.

#15

Mine was the same actually but with good coding, fixing signal issues (if you have one) etc. That went up to 90-95%. (Thanks to @WCmore)

#16

Ditto. Adding even a 2nd person to the mix in a single room makes a huge difference. The two of you need to work it out, and only one of you has the correct knowledge and terminology to do so. In today’s world, sometimes plain English doesn’t even get you 1% of the way there, and it takes days to explain a 2 minute task.

#17

One other concern of WC vs Smart Lighting (local) is speed. It’s tough to find anything specific without starting a whole new thread displaying pistons, but how do you control multiple lights in a room with WC?

It seems to take 15-20 seconds to set the color and level of 5 or 6 lights, but it’s only 1-2 seconds with SL. Is there a way around this? Virtual switches/dimmers work better, but they don’t seem to change the status of the individual lights all the time. Perhaps I’m not mirroring them correctly (in both directions?).

#18

This is wrong IIRC. I believe I tried it once and created a lighting loop.

#19

Color changes are really slow and I really don’t understand why.

When I first started I made a big mistake and instead of going room by room, spend some time learning the benefits and/or challanges, I went all in and ordered for the whole house. With almost every single bulb is RGB Damn.:)))

I love technology. I get even excited when my tv turns ON automatically just because I walked into the room LOL. My wife seemed like wanting a smart home as well but she is one of those who prefers efficeny rather then discovery (in tech world)
That was challenging.

We are thinking about a new house this year and my plan is very clear.

  • Almost no RGB (maybe just in the gaming room)
  • All bulbs are dumb but dimmable
  • All wall switches are smart dimm.
  • If something needs to turn on and off, if possible go with smart outlet (Sylvenia)
  • no more wall ipads but instead a touch screens with Rbpi running.

wait 5 more years and try RBG bulbs again:)))

#20

All colored smart bulbs are RGB?

We have a ton of Sylvania Smart+ Zigbee, maybe a dozen Lifx, and like 10 Cree fixed daylight.

Other Wi-Fi bulbs from Smart Life and Magic Home / MagicHue I haven’t been able to connect to ST, even with the device handlers posted a year ago or longer.

What’s the secret to grouping the Sylvania & Cree bulbs in WC? If I make a device variable for multiple bulbs, they seem to come on individually and slowly. In the ST app however, scenes are practically instantaneous & simultaneous. Using a virtual switch to trigger a scene in WC seems clumsy. I haven’t tried it yet. Is there a better way?