Moving to indigo
Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2015 2:53 pm
I thought I'd spend a little time telling potential users my experiences moving to Indigo. I'd used Fibaro HCL for about 6 months and I was impressed by the advertising and the design of what they could do. The graphics were great and it looked the business. It wasn't cheap but you get what you pay for I guessed. But I had trouble with the software, dead nodes and non-existent or at best really limited support. I was also quickly unimpressed with the device coverage and the limitations of the HCL (no language support) so I became frustrated. Clearly from the forums I wasn't the only one.
I decided to look around and was overwhelmed with the choices (I'm easily confused). Indigo was mentioned on the Fibaro forum by a user called Shapa (he's also on Indigo now) and I decided it was worth testing along with a couple of others. Given my experiences I had support, coverage and reliability high on my list and to be frank I didn't expect Indigo to score well. How could two guys based somewhere "over the pond" build, support, market and deliver great customer service to me in the UK? But hey, I decided I give all of the solutions a fair crack of the whip and started with Indigo.
Well that's where my trial started and finished. I migrated all of my units (about 50) from Fibaro to my second hand Mac Mini (£128 on ebay) with z-stick in about an hour. Most of that time was spent pairing the fibaro door/window sensors which are impossible even on Fibaro's system and the Fibaro Smoke Alarms. I was a bit confused by the LED controller but I kind of got an idea of how it might work. I then started to "programme" all of the scenes I'd created over the last 6 months. Wow, that took me about 30 mins. The triggers, scheduler and conditional action groups meant that I didn't need to programme anything. Just a little logic but that's all.
As it had been all too easy, there must be a catch I thought, I decided to enter the world of programming and started with Applescript. The Indigo IOM is simple to understand, there are lots of examples and plenty of support. How Matt and Jay build the system and provide such rapid responses I've no idea but I'm very grateful for their efforts. Within a day I'd written my first scripts - LED Controller (using a mouse and sliders) and Extracting data from the Southwest Trains site as alarm triggers. I decided to learn python, a great choice by the way as it only took a couple of weeks, and I've now developed some programmes using 2.5 now.
Between the dedication of the authors, the really helpful & fun forum and the coverage where Fibaro devices are better controller in Indigo with many more devices Indigo met all of my criteria and I just didn't need to look anywhere else.
Cons:
- Fibaro Smoke Sensors were even harder to include after 6.0.20 - in fact they were really c**p - what was changed? I've got them working now tho
- I had to build my own control pages (but as you'll see that's a Pro as well because it's so flexible)
- I wish I could include more folders for variables. They're the heart of indigo but only one layer of folders means I'm constantly searching for that variable I need
- Triggers would be simpler if they could have multiple trigger conditions (I know we have conditional operation but that doesn't work for me). I can programme more complex workflows tho
- Apple only (I'm really a Windows guy)
- Indigoplot and SQL server go crazy once in a while and I have to delete and restore them from scratch
- No app for Windows Phones (but I prefer my web/indigo control pages anyway). I guess if I want one I should write a plugin
- Nest plugin can be well … flaky at times but does the job
- Wish I'd started on Indigo
Pros:
- Great development team (no idea how they do it)
- Reliable and consistent experience (nothing is broken from release to release)
- Helpful forums
- Easy migration (and I really mean that - two days and it's all complete and completely reliable except for one glitch in 8 months)
- Great plugins
- Supports all devices - and if it doesn't the team will include as soon as they can
- I was able to build my control pages in a way that made sense to me and my family (my greatest critics). I wish I could make them even more dynamic (e.g. display this text if this scenario or that text if this other scenario) without java or html programming (as I'm not learning that!)
- Has been a great example of how to develop solutions. As a job I'm a trouble shooting project manager for IS disasters. Everything I've seen shows me how professional they are
Am I being paid for this review? I wish. But actually I'll say that I'm being paid through the reduction in time I'm spending "sorting things out" and getting great value from my devices. I'm looking forward to the next 12 months.
Thanks Matt & Jay you rock
I decided to look around and was overwhelmed with the choices (I'm easily confused). Indigo was mentioned on the Fibaro forum by a user called Shapa (he's also on Indigo now) and I decided it was worth testing along with a couple of others. Given my experiences I had support, coverage and reliability high on my list and to be frank I didn't expect Indigo to score well. How could two guys based somewhere "over the pond" build, support, market and deliver great customer service to me in the UK? But hey, I decided I give all of the solutions a fair crack of the whip and started with Indigo.
Well that's where my trial started and finished. I migrated all of my units (about 50) from Fibaro to my second hand Mac Mini (£128 on ebay) with z-stick in about an hour. Most of that time was spent pairing the fibaro door/window sensors which are impossible even on Fibaro's system and the Fibaro Smoke Alarms. I was a bit confused by the LED controller but I kind of got an idea of how it might work. I then started to "programme" all of the scenes I'd created over the last 6 months. Wow, that took me about 30 mins. The triggers, scheduler and conditional action groups meant that I didn't need to programme anything. Just a little logic but that's all.
As it had been all too easy, there must be a catch I thought, I decided to enter the world of programming and started with Applescript. The Indigo IOM is simple to understand, there are lots of examples and plenty of support. How Matt and Jay build the system and provide such rapid responses I've no idea but I'm very grateful for their efforts. Within a day I'd written my first scripts - LED Controller (using a mouse and sliders) and Extracting data from the Southwest Trains site as alarm triggers. I decided to learn python, a great choice by the way as it only took a couple of weeks, and I've now developed some programmes using 2.5 now.
Between the dedication of the authors, the really helpful & fun forum and the coverage where Fibaro devices are better controller in Indigo with many more devices Indigo met all of my criteria and I just didn't need to look anywhere else.
Cons:
- Fibaro Smoke Sensors were even harder to include after 6.0.20 - in fact they were really c**p - what was changed? I've got them working now tho
- I had to build my own control pages (but as you'll see that's a Pro as well because it's so flexible)
- I wish I could include more folders for variables. They're the heart of indigo but only one layer of folders means I'm constantly searching for that variable I need
- Triggers would be simpler if they could have multiple trigger conditions (I know we have conditional operation but that doesn't work for me). I can programme more complex workflows tho
- Apple only (I'm really a Windows guy)
- Indigoplot and SQL server go crazy once in a while and I have to delete and restore them from scratch
- No app for Windows Phones (but I prefer my web/indigo control pages anyway). I guess if I want one I should write a plugin
- Nest plugin can be well … flaky at times but does the job
- Wish I'd started on Indigo
Pros:
- Great development team (no idea how they do it)
- Reliable and consistent experience (nothing is broken from release to release)
- Helpful forums
- Easy migration (and I really mean that - two days and it's all complete and completely reliable except for one glitch in 8 months)
- Great plugins
- Supports all devices - and if it doesn't the team will include as soon as they can
- I was able to build my control pages in a way that made sense to me and my family (my greatest critics). I wish I could make them even more dynamic (e.g. display this text if this scenario or that text if this other scenario) without java or html programming (as I'm not learning that!)
- Has been a great example of how to develop solutions. As a job I'm a trouble shooting project manager for IS disasters. Everything I've seen shows me how professional they are
Am I being paid for this review? I wish. But actually I'll say that I'm being paid through the reduction in time I'm spending "sorting things out" and getting great value from my devices. I'm looking forward to the next 12 months.
Thanks Matt & Jay you rock