Where did everyone go?
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Ah, nice, now you can turn on and off wifi sockets and other wifi based iot without even knowing password to the wifi! Great!
https://www.fragattacks.com/ -
The availability of inexpensive commercial products surely is a factor for less interest in DIY solutions like MySensors. Chinese companies are flooding another market once again. Just look at Xiaomi's Aqara and Mijia range of products and their compatible clones. They offer at least a dozen of different sensors and actors in neat little enclosures with either ZigBee or BLE connectivity, many of which are commonly available for much less than 10 USD a piece in sales.
In this view I get frequently asked by friends and relatives why I keep "wasting" so much time building my own devices when I could just buy some like they do and integrate them into Home Assistant or HomeKit with the flick of a switch.
I always respond to them that - apart from privacy and reliability concerns against devices with a forced internet connection, as has already been mentioned by some of you - I actually enjoy the whole process from prototyping electronics to managing a home server. It's a hobby and I learn new things through it. Three years ago, I could barely read basic circuit diagrams - here I am, comfortably soldering self-designed all-SMD PCBs, enjoying programming so much that I branched out into other areas and started developing web apps. I can at least attempt to repair faulty electronics - and have been successful at times - instead of throwing them away and wasting resources.
The whole DIY process forces me to think about my requirements and constraints. To think about what I actually need instead of what I want or could buy to fill a hole.
MySensors is fantastic for someone like me. It is fairly accessible with commonly available components, with the option for much more powerful hardware, if needed. Wireless communication can be remarkably reliable. Other than ESP-based devices, MySensors nodes can be incredibly energy efficient for battery use. It's not polluting my WiFi, nor invading my privacy through cloud services. And although you might say it has gotten quieter in the forum, there's still always someone around to help if you're stuck. It's just that MySensors is strictly DIY, as @monte pointed out. You can't just buy a commercial device, upload a MySensors sketch to it and be done.
That's probably not the answer to the question where everyone went, but rather why not many new come in. Maybe it's a hindrance for new users these days? Because the "DIY aspect", that's now often obsolete, was just a necessary evil for many? Or, as my friends ask, why waste your time with that?
I guess you either have to have a specific mindset and interest to pick this up as a hobby with some dedication, or your requirements are so specific that no commercial product suits them, so that the pressure to DIY is high enough to bring yourself to do so. If not, the big home automation youtubers may show you the convenient way to quick satisfaction.
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I used MySensors to create a privacy friendly smart home demonstrator called Candle. Quite a few people are building it, but they may not even realise they are using MySensors.
In this project my own attention certainly has shifted a bit. Cheap Zigbee dongles and devices aid my goal of moving Candle in a more consumer friendly direction, so that people could just buy most of the parts ready-to-go, and still keep everything local. Some devices will still be MySensors devices, simply because there aren't any privacy friendly alternatives that I know of. But a temperature and humidity sensor, those use Zigbee for me now. And I'm moving the privacy features from the arduino code into the central controller instead.
Speculation about other factors:
- Practical Arduino hardware education isn't happening right now because of covid. And even there, there are so many hardware options now. Microbits, ESP32, etc.
- I've also noticed people asking about standardisation, and caring about interoperability.
- There are many more products available now. Edge cases are being catered to, e.g. gardening.
Things that might help for me:
- I really wish there was a cheap, widely available Arduino akin to the RF-Nano, but with RFM69 433Mhz. MySensors has always had range issues for me on 2.4ghz.
- The MySensors implementation doesn't make it easy for devices to describe the UI they would like. E.g. if a device is read-only or toggle-able is currently dependent on the type, instead of being a factor that can be set for each sensor type independently.
A new website with a strong focus on new users, USP's (cheap privacy & friendly, or just fun, educational and artisanal) and up-to-date examples might help.
This all may sound critical, but that's not the intention. I really dig MySensors. It's definitely in my toolbelt.
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I used MySensors to create a privacy friendly smart home demonstrator called Candle. Quite a few people are building it, but they may not even realise they are using MySensors.
In this project my own attention certainly has shifted a bit. Cheap Zigbee dongles and devices aid my goal of moving Candle in a more consumer friendly direction, so that people could just buy most of the parts ready-to-go, and still keep everything local. Some devices will still be MySensors devices, simply because there aren't any privacy friendly alternatives that I know of. But a temperature and humidity sensor, those use Zigbee for me now. And I'm moving the privacy features from the arduino code into the central controller instead.
Speculation about other factors:
- Practical Arduino hardware education isn't happening right now because of covid. And even there, there are so many hardware options now. Microbits, ESP32, etc.
- I've also noticed people asking about standardisation, and caring about interoperability.
- There are many more products available now. Edge cases are being catered to, e.g. gardening.
Things that might help for me:
- I really wish there was a cheap, widely available Arduino akin to the RF-Nano, but with RFM69 433Mhz. MySensors has always had range issues for me on 2.4ghz.
- The MySensors implementation doesn't make it easy for devices to describe the UI they would like. E.g. if a device is read-only or toggle-able is currently dependent on the type, instead of being a factor that can be set for each sensor type independently.
A new website with a strong focus on new users, USP's (cheap privacy & friendly, or just fun, educational and artisanal) and up-to-date examples might help.
This all may sound critical, but that's not the intention. I really dig MySensors. It's definitely in my toolbelt.
@alowhum said in Where did everyone go?:
I really wish there was a cheap, widely available Arduino akin to the RF-Nano, but with RFM69 433Mhz. MySensors has always had range issues for me on 2.4ghz.
Even with the high powered (20-30db) versions of the nRF24l01's?
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I guess the main reason is that mysensors is very stand-alone framework. And it locked itself in purely hobbyist territory. So when there are vast amount of iot devices from various manufacturers that you can combine with your own diy solutions in zigbee-ikea-hue or esp-tasmota-mqtt ecosystem in mysesnsors you have to make all devices yourself if you want some kind of ecosystem, or rely on HA/openhab/nodered/domoticz with its script system to make something connected. Also strict requirement of arduino framework and outdated hardware as the core of the framework alienates the big chunk of iot developers out there. It feels like people come to mysensors, make relay node, temperature sensor and then go forward for more complex solutions to never come back.
@NeverDie said in Where did everyone go?:
not all that long ago Google bought a thermostat company (Nest)
And pretty much broke it for opensource or third-party integrations.
@monte said in Where did everyone go?:
I guess the main reason is that mysensors is very stand-alone framework. And it locked itself in purely hobbyist territory. So when there are vast amount of iot devices from various manufacturers that you can combine with your own diy solutions in zigbee-ikea-hue or esp-tasmota-mqtt ecosystem in mysesnsors you have to make all devices yourself if you want some kind of ecosystem, or rely on HA/openhab/nodered/domoticz with its script system to make something connected. Also strict requirement of arduino framework and outdated hardware as the core of the framework alienates the big chunk of iot developers out there. It feels like people come to mysensors, make relay node, temperature sensor and then go forward for more complex solutions to never come back.
well, yes, I agree, plus: in my experience some of the coders of mysensors are very (!!!) snobbish and autocratic. The idea behand mysensors is not that bad, but it got stuck - also ideologically - technically some years ago and there is no movement to be seen
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I'm not sure how to address your statement. But beeing one of the core group members myself, I feel that it's a bit harsh. We all have a life, and fulltime job, besides mysensors! This means that we can't spend every minute of our (spare) time on mysensors all the time. Some of us have scaled down on activities for a period, due to children, work, house renovations etc.
Maybe we (the core group) say no to some new features in the project, but that is because we are uncertain about the following support / bugfixing of that particular feature. Specially in the light of the above, with limited spare time for the projects.
For my part, I've had a couple of rough years, that took the steam out of my envolvement in a lot of projects, including MySensors. But I'm slowly re-emerging from the deep dark now. So I hope that I get more time to do new fun sensors / hardware again. But things take time, and do not want to rush things, that could send me back into the dark again.
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A few areas come to mind where many contributed mysensors projects excel beyond many/most commercially available products: ultra low power consumption, security (integrating TPM chips was particularly prescient), over-the-air firmware updates, cost, and integration of pretty much whatever-you-can-imagine into a unified non-cloud system (if so desired), and very definitely access to whatever data you want. Also, I've found the mysensor's forum to be a good place to exchange ideas and information.
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There are many examples where of the shelf equipment downstairs make the cut. Of course if you only want temperature, or door switches, then zigbee devices are easier to implement. But if you want specialized Sensors, for measuring depth of water in a well, automate an existing garage door, automated the chicken coop, etc. Then mysensors is there to the rescue. Because you can't find any of the shelf non cloud solutions for that.
Perhaps we are behaving like old farts in the core ;) , but it's not intentionally. As mentioned a lot of times, we are using our spare time for the project, but the spare time is limited..
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Another outside influence may just be Covid and Work From Home.
I have been very fortunate to be able to work from home over the past year, but I find at the end of the day I abandon my computer and my office and don't return. My hobbies are heavily computer based and have suffered. I often think about new cool sensors and what project to tackle next, but my hobby environment feels too much like my work environment. I'm going to have to rethink that going forward because at least some work from home seems like it will be the new normal. -
Personally I don't think about MySensors as often as I used to. In so many ways that's a sign of success; I have quite a few battery operated temperature nodes and an MQTT ethernet gateway running very stable - haven't needed to adjust anything for 2/3 years. Others may be in a similar position.
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There are many examples where of the shelf equipment downstairs make the cut. Of course if you only want temperature, or door switches, then zigbee devices are easier to implement. But if you want specialized Sensors, for measuring depth of water in a well, automate an existing garage door, automated the chicken coop, etc. Then mysensors is there to the rescue. Because you can't find any of the shelf non cloud solutions for that.
Perhaps we are behaving like old farts in the core ;) , but it's not intentionally. As mentioned a lot of times, we are using our spare time for the project, but the spare time is limited..
@tbowmo
take my statemant as it is: my opinion, mixed with my experiences here in the forum. its a rather cheap argument, that btw. is always the second one that comes arround in discussions, to remind at the brave coders, doing all that in their freetime.
I did not say anything harsh in that direction. never.
nevertheless I agree with @NeverDie pointing out the big pro's of mysensors. but there has to be some limitation: all that only applies, when you want to rebuild some of the non-cloud systems with ONE (maybe in ver 3.0 two) physical layer. and the next limitation is the number of gateways that come into account when you want to scale things up (in a distance AND number of gateways point of view).
and if we get into alternatives, like homie, the advantages of mysensors decrease to a single point: radio.referring to @NeverDie 's comment on the forum: its very hard to agree, because if you get your feature-request answered with "..pay somebody and you get what you want..." is not my definition of super-helpful, super-friendly
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@tbowmo
take my statemant as it is: my opinion, mixed with my experiences here in the forum. its a rather cheap argument, that btw. is always the second one that comes arround in discussions, to remind at the brave coders, doing all that in their freetime.
I did not say anything harsh in that direction. never.
nevertheless I agree with @NeverDie pointing out the big pro's of mysensors. but there has to be some limitation: all that only applies, when you want to rebuild some of the non-cloud systems with ONE (maybe in ver 3.0 two) physical layer. and the next limitation is the number of gateways that come into account when you want to scale things up (in a distance AND number of gateways point of view).
and if we get into alternatives, like homie, the advantages of mysensors decrease to a single point: radio.referring to @NeverDie 's comment on the forum: its very hard to agree, because if you get your feature-request answered with "..pay somebody and you get what you want..." is not my definition of super-helpful, super-friendly
My reaction was mainly towards the part of your statement "very snobbish and autocratic".
I haven't seen a response about paying someone to do a feature request (I've been away from the forum, so maybe I have missed something?).
You are absolutely free to create a PR for any feature requests. We might fight back a bit ;) but we need to have a good use case for the features that make it into the core of the project, otherwise we get the project filled with features that is only used by 1 or 2 persons..
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Hi,
as an "advanced hobbiest" i can tell why i am not getting really warm with mysensors.. I have a gateway and two nodes. One node (RFID garage opener) is working now but has range issues that i can not reach the gateway in the place i need it. And the other is a temperature sensor to play. So it works, but in real it does not, and to be honest the functionality is just nice to have for the moment :-D
In my case i got stuck in details with my configuration. The one night a month i have to code is not enough to solve it. (and of course i am not a professional)In the first view does mysensors look very cool. It wants to be an easy to use arduino library. A lot of examples for different gateways and nodes. Seems to be easy, "build = fun", no?
No, it is not that easy.
Mysensors is a framework. It hijacks already base functions of arduino.
As soon as you leave the application which is given in the example something does not work. And than you have to dick deep in the functionality of the mysensor framework and it is not easy to collect all necessary information in the documentation - at least for me. ;-)examples:
- Standard EEPROM functions are hijacked and can not be used as you are used to.
- pin configuration is done in the framework. If your other things connected to the MCU need also a special treatment (RST-pin) you need to find out how
- took me a while to release that there is a completely new version 2.0 of the radio-driver which worked for me instantly and i still no not know why the same code does not work with the standard version.. And you should use the newest development branch, not the released one ;-)
- the examples are not consistent to each other and are not even compatible in all cases...
So i think it is difficult to catch the user or it is not clear which kind of user is addressed.
The normal arduino dummy user can use it for the very simple examples. As soon he wants to combine function and the issues come, he will get stucked. And of course you get the same function in the meanwhile out of the box from a lot of cheap commercial products. Maybe you have different systems running but for that money you can buy every two years new things. And most people use a Controller which can handle directly the different systems and the configration there is easier. The Controllers made big improvements in user friendly configuration!
The advanced user is getting rare. And honestly the mysensor framework is so big with all that #define-cases for the different platforms and configurations that it takes a while to go through and find your adaption. This users have already made their own private libraries which will not work directly on the mysesnors framework. They switch to a different system or maybe start extract the things they need from mysensors.
And than i also have the impression that the help in the forum is "superficial". Not because the forum does not want to help.
The problems occur in the system and it is not easily clear why something does not work without taking the time and go thorugh everything.
It is open source and the documentation is suffering. The contributors have limited time and nobody can expect to get a 24/7 full support.
Everything okay, please do not misunderstand me, i really appreciate the work behind mysensors and i can only imagine complicated it is to keep such a system administrated.But to come back to the beginning it is the question which user should be addressed.
For the dummy user the documentation should be reduced but therefor everything should be consistent and straight. As the Controller software does, the work should focus on not technical functionality for easy configuration and usage.For the advanced user the documentation should go more in detail in general in one place and the code should focus on a layer structure to make it easier to operate on different systems or exchange modules/versions (maybe without the arduino framework as base or an approach as FreeRTOS).
And i am not sure if it is just me, but i could imagine it would help to make it easier to get part of the active community and bring improved code or new functions back in the mysensors-core.greeting from Germany
JensP.S.: i am sorry that i did not gender everything and always wrote "he" as "the user". Should of course also be a woman or girl or ...
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I have said this before (I do not know where) but here it is again.
One of the reasons that MySensors didn't become as popular as other frameworks is because it somewhat matured before YouTubers were popular. Today, fewer people like to read, and most like to watch a YouTube video sitting on the toilet. The YouTubers not only provide step by step instructions, they do live streams and then there are Discord servers.I myself manage a small discord server on Home Automation and I see everyday newbies coming in and they are looking for a magical cheap solution which somehow works.
The barrier for entry into MySensors is big (involves a lot more wires, it does not seem sexy, no one talks about it on YouTube). On the other hand, everyone has an ISP given All-In-One router+AP+DHCP server and ESPs simply connect to them. Everyday Amazon, AliExpress etc are flooding the market with Wifi based products, so the time for feeling of gratification is very small. You buy, plug in, use the app and it worksThat said, we do have a dedicated MySensors channel on our discord server and I have been pushing (literally) people to try MySensors. Serious DIYers are still interested and I have successfully introduced 4 people to it, 2 have started using it.
I won't call the Mysensors a stagnant or dying breed but the concept of forums in my opinion is. Forums are still the most structured support system (I am not saying otherwise) but many people want instant answers, - they do not want to make the effort asking a good question. And across many forums which have been there for a few years, a common answer is "search before you ask".
This is my two cents on this topic
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I am new here at MySensors. But I have my own ideas and do not want to adapt to a given middleware or networking. My reason to be here is the know-how presented by the many contributors of the forum.
I like the idea of Arduino very much. Having your basic routines running on nearly any hardware is really a nice thing. And after a first look into MySensors software, I also like it. Though I will not use it, because I have other ideas on microcontroller communication.
Do we really need to go with the "mainstream"? I think, the mainstream of software development has become a kind of "gaming" in the last years. It seems not to be necessary to know anything about programming, just be able to move your mouse and make some drags and drops her and there. Being an expert based on the knowledge of other people (companies).
As long as here are real experts talking about details of microcontrollers and their application, I will stay here.
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I can only speak from my own experience, MySensors filled the gap at a time when commercial offerings still hadn't taken off, and as has been mentioned already, proprietary protocols and internet reliance put me off then and still does.
The combination of Domoticz and Mysensors suited my own needs of data acquisition rather than control, and although I've considered modifying and incorporating commercial devices since, they ultimately hit the brick wall of what CAN be done rather than what I need.
Hobbyist interest will come and go, but the forum inactivity is probably more testament to MySensors reliability for the vast majority who once flooded the place, and any new users find most of the answers they need here, so never pose a question
If it ain't broke don't fix it sort of idea - eg I had put off updating the IDE and MySensors until around a month back, a bit of a headache when I did, but it was soon sorted and back to silently doing what I need.Is there competition with the huge variety of plug and go devices in elegant cases now available ? I suggest not.
For those wanting off the shelf solutions with limits there is a product, but why would I want 5 individual devices in a single space rather than the one currently, or the mobile apps for each, or the app to save me walking 3m to switch the light on/off ?
Domoticz and MySensors are not flawless, neither the Pi3 nor the Arduino are the latest MCUs, but the combo is plenty capable of doing what I require, and for an old fart like me, plenty. ;) -
yes, that's the point: who is the user? And than focus on how to satisfy the user ;-)
I do not think that it is wrong or less valueable to set up an easy to use software that every dummy-youtuber can describe in a 5minutes clip.
Let me compare again with the development on the controller side.
When i started to search for home automation FHEM was very famous as one example. Such a strong system. It has been the first possibility to handle the different devices. If you have been able to get something work after hours of searching through the forum and editing various config files, it felt so cool, you are a hacker. Not every newbie could do...
Now you find approaches which are so easy to use via a webinterface. You get ready to use packages for different linux distributions and find most devices in auto configuration. That is contamporary and sexy.In the end even the experts take it. Why not, they can spend the time in hacking on other cool stuff.
And of course in the background are still the cool hacker working on the code or developing extensions ;-) but the user just uses it and does not be able to program.
Because so many user use it also more pro's work on it and because the youtuber can get 10 minutes fame even more user use it and so on and so.. -
I suppose the abundance of similar but non-identical mysensor solutions might cause people to wonder which one to build. I say that, having recently moved from Windows over to Linux, where there is a similar hyper-abundance of distros to sort through before picking one.
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To me it is a lack of time. Still have tons of projects not finished. Right now really focused more on making the whole eco system Usable. As far as I can tell not one single HA system is usable for a mere mortal. It's either centered around a mobile phone, which is a no-no for me. It's not reliable in terms of battery can be low while you want to turn something on or off and the screen is too small for eco systems that cover an entire house. And when they're not centered around a mobile phone everything is glued together with scripts. It's all too complicated. I think I can make it more simple xd
