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[547.46 --> 549.48] But these integrations are just that.
[549.54 --> 550.18] They are integrated.
[550.62 --> 553.00] They don't run as separately isolated containers.
[553.00 --> 556.28] But it's a shame because right now I really wish they could.
[557.02 --> 558.34] This is really going to screw me.
[558.44 --> 560.20] And there is people already online, of course.
[560.26 --> 564.64] And, of course, the Internet doesn't recommend you do what the developers suggest you do.
[564.64 --> 572.44] The Internet wants everyone to go install Z-Wave.js to MQTT and go set up an MQTT broker and go learn all of that.
[573.54 --> 578.18] Which perhaps is a great idea, but it's like not what the developers are recommending.
[578.18 --> 585.14] And when something like a breaking change like this comes along and the community needs to know what to do, having all this mixed messaging just makes things worse.
[585.28 --> 586.90] So that stuff drives me crazy.
[587.26 --> 590.14] And what you start seeing people say they're going to do is just not upgrade.
[590.14 --> 597.58] They're basically going to upgrade to 22.3 and then they're going to hold until something else comes along.
[597.68 --> 600.98] Which, you know, it sucks because that's probably what I'm going to have to do.
[601.48 --> 607.08] I'm grateful that I have a separate Home Assistant instance here in the studio that I'll be able to keep up to date so I can follow along on development.
[607.26 --> 615.00] But in my RV where I consider it mission critical, I and I think a lot of people are just going to stop upgrading now.
[615.00 --> 616.76] Yeah, I think a lot of people get burnt out.
[616.84 --> 623.66] There was a thread on Reddit, I think it was about a week ago, complaining about the state of the Home Assistant documentation.
[624.36 --> 628.76] The complaint itself is neither here nor there for purposes of this discussion.
[629.44 --> 641.04] What I wanted to talk about was the general consensus in the comments of that thread that Home Assistant, despite its best efforts, for now at least, is geekware.
[641.04 --> 652.04] You know, my dad's a smart guy, but I can't imagine giving him a vanilla Raspberry Pi with nothing except Home Assistant even flashed onto it and say, here, go automate your house.
[652.56 --> 655.08] I can't imagine that going very well.
[655.08 --> 660.62] And I look at things like the HomeKit integration that Apple are doing.
[660.84 --> 662.48] I look at the Alexa stuff.
[662.72 --> 664.28] I look at the Google Home app.
[664.94 --> 666.12] That's what you need to do.
[666.20 --> 671.88] That's the level of integration that you need to get to in order to make it more approachable and more accessible for people.
[672.74 --> 681.36] Home Assistant's biggest strength is how modular it is and how customizable it is and how geeky it is.
[681.36 --> 690.52] That's the thing I love about it the most is the fact that if I want to go and tweak a specific knob three degrees to the left, I can go and do that one specific change.
[691.40 --> 694.10] Probably similar to the reasons why I like Linux as well, you know?
[694.44 --> 695.64] Yeah, I do know what you mean.
[695.92 --> 703.36] And, you know, we're trying to compare, I think, Apple's, you know, kind of, you will like this approach that they do on macOS to Linux.
[703.36 --> 719.44] You know, I'm comparing Alexa to Home Assistant here and I don't know, like, I just think about where does the Home Assistant project go to address complaints like yours, like the ones in this Reddit thread, and complaints of my own as well.
[719.44 --> 724.68] Where, you know, I get fatigue, and I get fatigue maintaining my own Home Assistant instance.
[725.24 --> 728.90] Stuff just breaks for no apparent reason.
[729.18 --> 733.72] And, you know, I stay on top of updates, and I do try and figure stuff out.
[733.96 --> 737.26] And, I don't know, like, it's just difficult.
[737.80 --> 744.24] I don't know that Home Assistant is quite grasping the problem that faces them quite yet.
[744.30 --> 746.70] They're solving the technical problems really, really well.
[746.70 --> 760.32] But, I do think, on the whole, there's still a lot of work to be done on the kind of people side of the problem that they're solving, like the education, the documentation, making things more bite-sized and more accessible to folks.
[761.02 --> 769.86] I feel like there is a period of time where it's reasonable for Home Assistant to introduce breaking changes, to get things built right for the long term.
[770.36 --> 773.76] And, when a project's new, you decide to do a few things, and you've got to make a few changes.
[773.76 --> 779.02] I think, to their credit, it's not like Z-Wave.js came out yesterday, right?
[779.66 --> 781.52] And, part of the reason is because I saw where this was going.
[781.60 --> 783.30] There was multiple options, and I just wanted to hold off.
[783.42 --> 790.86] But, anybody who's adopted Home Assistant in the last year just started off with Z-Wave.js, right?
[790.92 --> 792.32] They don't have to deal with this.
[792.32 --> 805.74] And, so, I think something we have to keep in mind is, even though you and I have been using it for a few years, I think the vast, vast, vast majority of users that Home Assistant will ever have are still yet to come, right?
[805.76 --> 807.62] They start arriving when there's hardware devices.
[808.20 --> 813.10] So, we're still the early adopters that are actually helping kind of bang out some of the rough edges on this thing.
[813.10 --> 820.46] And, so, we are more likely to get exposed to those issues that cause fatigue that both you and I are feeling right now.
[821.06 --> 831.72] But, what gives me hope is, if you zoom out a couple of years and look at the Home Assistant project's trends, the break-in changes are slowing down.
[832.10 --> 833.84] I think you'd agree there's less.
[834.02 --> 834.98] There absolutely are, yeah.
[834.98 --> 841.60] Also, they're making things more and more automatic as time goes on.
[841.80 --> 855.38] Like, when you throw Home Assistant on a network for the first time, you know, just like say you're a new user and you take a look at it, it'll often suggest four or five or six integrations automatically just by noticing what's on your network.
[855.50 --> 857.94] They've gotten really good at like saying, hey, you got an Apple TV.
[858.08 --> 859.12] Hey, you got an HP printer.
[859.26 --> 861.34] You know, like, would you like to set that up?
[861.34 --> 872.50] But the fundamental appeal that Home Assistant has that will always be a unique value proposition for at least these open source type systems is it's multi-vendor.
[872.94 --> 881.34] It works with all the different third-party products and cloud devices that you got on a whim and two-you things that somebody bought you for Christmas.
[881.58 --> 883.20] And it works with all of it, right?
[883.46 --> 885.60] Whereas Apple stuff, it only works with the HomeKit stuff.
[885.60 --> 891.46] The Echo stuff only works with the devices that, you know, work with the Echo and same with the Googs and all of that.
[891.62 --> 893.10] It's different in that way.
[893.18 --> 896.10] It's finally a way to just bring it all home, bring it all on the land.
[896.20 --> 903.28] And once that starts connecting with people and there's a piece of hardware and some of these transitional things are worked out, I think it's going to be fine.
[903.36 --> 909.46] But the reality is when you're living in the now and this stuff's still getting hashed out, it kind of sucks.
[909.74 --> 913.96] And I'm not a big fan of doing the I'm not updating thing.
[913.96 --> 916.40] That's sort of my last worst case scenario.
[916.74 --> 919.10] I'm much more of a keep my systems up to date.
[919.16 --> 924.02] Like if I'm going to run a box, when I decide to deploy something, I'm committing to keep it maintained.
[924.26 --> 925.96] I don't just deploy something and not maintain it.
[926.02 --> 927.26] So that bothers me a lot.
[927.86 --> 935.18] Additionally, this is why I'm really glad I'm not running their OS because I will keep the Ubuntu base up to date, right?
[935.22 --> 941.84] Where I don't know if that's safe when I'm running their OS, if I kept the OS upgrading all the time, but didn't upgrade Home Assistant Core.
[941.84 --> 943.50] I don't know if something breaks.
[944.00 --> 944.36] Possibly.
[944.58 --> 950.26] I could see that being an issue, especially if it's like a year before any matter devices ship or maybe even longer.
[951.26 --> 957.30] But because I've installed it myself on an Ubuntu system, I know I can keep that 2004 system up to date.
[957.66 --> 959.10] So at least that'll be secure.
[959.74 --> 962.30] Can you believe I got an opportunity to work the OS rant in there?
[962.42 --> 963.20] It's been a few episodes.
[963.72 --> 966.62] And I was almost worried that you weren't going to come up for air then.
[966.66 --> 969.00] And then I realized you were going on an OS rant somehow.
[969.00 --> 970.14] You managed to work that angle.
[970.48 --> 970.96] Good job.
[971.70 --> 972.44] It's been a while.
[974.66 --> 976.86] Linode.com slash SSH.
[976.96 --> 980.62] Go there to get $100 in 60-day credit on a new account.
[980.82 --> 982.12] And you go there to support the show.
[982.30 --> 982.96] Yeah, I mean, $100.
[983.34 --> 985.74] You can really go kick the tires at Linode.
[985.84 --> 986.76] It's the Geeks Cloud.
[987.30 --> 994.06] They're not going to try to lock you into some crazy, esoteric, hyperscaler, proprietary platform where your skill set only applies to that.
[994.06 --> 997.10] Oh, I don't like that business model at all.
[997.46 --> 998.20] No, that's not Linode.
[998.28 --> 999.92] They got 11 data centers worldwide.
[1000.34 --> 1004.46] They've been working at this for 19 years to create a great experience to run applications on the cloud.
[1004.70 --> 1006.40] You can build it from the ground up yourself.