First Few days concerns

[wstocker]

Home Automation [HA]: (my primary reason for backing, was touted as targeting being better than Vera in the end)
-Can Add Sensors (I had to do an A+ Remove before they could be added)
-Sensors can be reviewed / controlled in all UI's
-Local updates are not reflected (If a switch is locally turned ON, A+ reports as off still)
-No support for Extra Parameters (switches in my media room are now default LED ON when switch is OFF, very annoying) (./almond/config/ge/dimmer.xml includes these settings already, but no way to activate them?)
-Reaction is quite slow 2-10 seconds (Currently 17 Z-Wave Devices)
-Control is not available until many minutes (10+) after boot of device??
-Need "ALL" or Group/Scenes ASAP! (I see an XSD for them, but no config)
-Sensor Display order is in network addition order on UI's (Need Sort or Custom Order)
--Can I edit ./DeviceList.xml by just changing the Device ID, or should I also/instead change the OZWNode? (I need a working system for my wife and don't want to break it playing with these for test)
-No Rules, Triggers, Events, etc (suggested for September?)
-Icons for Sensor type not applied consistently (Light Dimmer Switches showing as Binary Power, and opposite)
-0 and 100% Dinner Values almost never appear ("0%" is commonly shown as just "%", some sensors show 98% or 99% at full ON)

Web UI:
-Missing general information available on LCD UI (Number of sensors, etc)
-Does not render on Chrome on iOS (works on Safari, can't wait for APP)?
-Static [DHCP] Leases sometime shows up with correct number of entries, but some are blank?
-Well Designed

Features:
-No NTFS support included? (to mount my existing 3TB drive)
-OpenWRT "g2" architecture unable to be updated? (makes it impossible to add "opkg" new features manually)
-Unable to add/change SSH User(-s) (support for keys makes this OK for now)
-iOS 7.1.2 / 7.1.3 Clients sometimes unable to see/use 5GHz Network
-Unable to test at the moment, but would like to see configurations for DLNA server on indexing data (frequency, progress, etc) from history with previous products and my large library. (Perhaps may not be part of "minidlna" OpenWRT Package)
-Occasionally, my iOS devices can see the networks (one or both), but I get the error (Can't associate with this network) if I try to manually connect
-Stable so far, low load, good range, good network speeds!

I can't wait for the C/C++ SDK release so that I can hopefully extend the HA functionality to suit my needs

[LGNilsson]

With regards to adding sensors, Z-Wave always require that you reset the sensors from the controller/gateway, this is normal and if you don't do it from the controller/gateway they were associated to originally, then you have to do it on the Almond+ before you can add them.

We haven't added support for a lot of sensors yet, so if you let us know what you have, we can start adding support for them. The longer term goal is to deliver a solution where you guys can add support by yourselves.

Which UI are you using? I'm surprised you're finding it slow, what are you comparing it with? Admittedly I don't have as many devices connected as you do, but most of my Z-Wave devices take 2-3 seconds to switch, with ZigBee being a bit faster at ~1 second.

I have not noticed any delay after boot, mine works as soon as I'm online.

We had a means of sorting them, but it wasn't working that well, but we'll get that back.

Automation is schedule for next month.

The graphics wouldn't display properly on devices that we don't have full support for.

Again, it's possible that the dimmer issue is because we haven't tested some of the sensors you have to make sure they work properly.

Thanks for the heads up on Chrome for iOS, I don't think we've tested it.

The web UI is still being worked on, as well as all the other UI's.

As for static DHCP leases, not really using it, but it looks like a minor bug.

NTFS is indeed supported, we're using a 3rd party NTFS driver and I've used several different NTFS formatted drives during the testing.

We'll be releasing the Open Source source code shortly. Right now the link is pointing to some random repository that isn't there, but we haven't discussed the finer details of what/how we're going to release. All currently compiled/available OPKG's are already part of the firmware.

We're aware of the iOS Wi-Fi issues and we're working on it.

Not sure about DLNA, it's fairly basic as of right now.

We have a lot of work to do still, but we expect to have a lot more in place come next month. We're aware that there are a lot of issues, a lot of things missing and that a lot of things can be improved. It's not the product we hoped to release, but it is what it is and at the end of the day, it's software and it's something we can improve upon.

Thanks for your feedback though, every little bit helps.

[robh5791]

Wstocker,
What version of Chrome on iOS are you using? I just checked it out on my iPhone 5S and was able to see just about the entire Web UI including the openwrt. It appeasers exactly as it does in Safari on that same device. I also checked the connect.securifi.com site and that appears identically to the way it does in safari. It may be a setting in your app or device that is blocking it from rendering.

[wstocker]

@robh5791 - I just tried it again, I can open it if I'm on 2.4, but not on 5, weird.

[robh5791]

I'm on my 5 ghz band with it working. It could be the current issue of ios devices losing connections on the 5 ghz band. Try reconnecting to the 5 ghz band and try the web UI right after connecting to see if it still doesn't render. There is another thread about ios connection issues to better explain that particular issue but it could be related.

[mr23]

Lars, how many folks do you have working on the software/sdk/firmware?

[wstocker]

@Lars - Thanks for your feedback, I'm not trying to be mean or anything, I just wanted to give my feedback of where the unit was on the current firmware after a few days of testing.

The slow reaction time is using the LCDUI or WebUI over Safari on iOS and Chrome on PC while connecting to the (Local) WebUI.  I have tried using the Portal some last night, and it is a bit faster somehow?  This is compared to using the GE 45601 Controllers we have had previously.

Regarding the Sensors not being available until minutes after boot, I have verified this with all connection types available as the WebUI (NutsOS and OpenWRT) were hung last night while all other traffic was allowed.  I was in the middle of adding another Static DHCP Host when it "crashed."  I let it sit for a couple hours, and I was still unable to login, so I did a manual reboot (pulled power).  I tried pressing Reboot and Shutdown on the LCDUI, and neither seemed to do anything after at least 5 minutes each.

My Devices (All GE Z-Wave):

• Appliance / Lamp Modules [45603]
• Outdoor Modules (like the previous but in a sealed housing) [45604]
• In-Wall Receptacles [45605]
• In-Wall Dimmers [45612]
• In-Wall 3-Way Dimmers [45614]
• "Advanced" Remote (Controllers) [GE 45601]

I can confirm that my [NTFS Formatted] USB Drive does not show up in the Mounts Table, and it does not render on the Mount Points UI in NutsOS either.

[bwainscott]

wstocker - My NTFS USB3 drive shows up just fine.  But it is "only" 1TB, and I believe I read somewhere in here about there being a size limitation with the current driver.  I just don't remember if the size limit was 2TB or 3TB...

[LGNilsson]

We're ware of the OS X issue with Samba, it's not drive size support or anything like that, it's an issue with the Samba config and we'll hopefully have a fix in place in the next firmware release.

As for our software team, we have about 30 developers in total split between ZigBee, Z-Wave, Wi-Fi, OpenWRT/NutsOS, cloud, mobile apps and UI's. I might have missed something out in the list, but about five of those developers have only just joined the company over the past three months and aren't really contributing that much yet.
We're a small company, the hardware team is a handful of guys, including our CEO and I guess as some of you have noticed, I'm pretty much dealing with the forum on my own, although that is about to change from this week, as more of the software team will start to interact with you guys here. Please treat them gently 
We also have a couple of guys from the support team trying their best to help out here, but they're still learning. Our in-house support team is another 8 people if I'm not wrong and the remaining team members are either sales, QA or admin staff. Hopefully this will give you guys a more realistic picture of Securifi as a company and maybe you'll now understand why we've had a few delays and issues. Sure, we're not new at this, but the Almond+ is not a simple product to make.
That said, we're dedicated to making it a great product and we know that some of you are disappointed with what you received, whereas others are super happy.
This might not be the right thread, but I hope that all of you will have a little bit of patience with us now to let us try and fix things, as it's simply impossible for us to test and predict all the various configurations and usage scenarios that you guys have. We're more than will to work with you guys, but it's going to take time to get every single request looked at, considered and then potentially added or fixed.

[RGloverii]

We're ware of the OS X issue with Samba, it's not drive size support or anything like that, it's an issue with the Samba config and we'll hopefully have a fix in place in the next firmware release.

As for our software team, we have about 30 developers in total split between ZigBee, Z-Wave, Wi-Fi, OpenWRT/NutsOS, cloud, mobile apps and UI's. I might have missed something out in the list, but about five of those developers have only just joined the company over the past three months and aren't really contributing that much yet.
We're a small company, the hardware team is a handful of guys, including our CEO and I guess as some of you have noticed, I'm pretty much dealing with the forum on my own, although that is about to change from this week, as more of the software team will start to interact with you guys here. Please treat them gently 
We also have a couple of guys from the support team trying their best to help out here, but they're still learning. Our in-house support team is another 8 people if I'm not wrong and the remaining team members are either sales, QA or admin staff. Hopefully this will give you guys a more realistic picture of Securifi as a company and maybe you'll now understand why we've had a few delays and issues. Sure, we're not new at this, but the Almond+ is not a simple product to make.
That said, we're dedicated to making it a great product and we know that some of you are disappointed with what you received, whereas others are super happy.
This might not be the right thread, but I hope that all of you will have a little bit of patience with us now to let us try and fix things, as it's simply impossible for us to test and predict all the various configurations and usage scenarios that you guys have. We're more than will to work with you guys, but it's going to take time to get every single request looked at, considered and then potentially added or fixed.

Thank you for the candid response.

I'm sure the other members of this forum would agree that we all wish for the Almond+ to be a successful product.  We appreciate your involvement here on the forum, and look forward to the continued improvement of the product.

As we work through this initially bumpy road together, let's all maintain a positive and constructive dialog so that the open issues can be identified, addressed, and resolved.

[LGNilsson]

We've realised that we have a lot of very knowledgeable backers and we want to work with you guys and we want to give you to the tools to tinker with the Almond+.
The SDK will be publicly available from next month and although it's not an API, it's something that at least some of you will be able to work with.
We're going to release the source code of the parts that are open, but we have a lot of restrictions based on NDA's, license agreements and what not, so please don't expect access to uncompiled version of binary files when it comes to things like the SoC and Wi-Fi, as we simply can't provide those.

As for firmwares, updates etc. our goal is to offer monthly updates for the Almond+ for as long as new things can be added or improvements can be made, within reason. We're also planning to update the mobile apps on a bi-weekly schedule for now and this will go hand in hand with updates of the cloud service. This will most likely slow down over time though, as we're going to reach a point where we won't need to update these more than maybe once a month or so. We're also looking at the possibility of doing something similar to what Vera does when it comes to adding Z-Wave sensors, but we're not sure we can do this for ZigBee as well. It'll take some time to get this done, but it's something we hope to have in place before the end of the year.

I guess this thread ended up being shanghaied by me, but it's as good a place for this as anywhere else.

[wstocker]

Another week down, a few more things to report.  We are still happy with our Almond+, but I want to contribute to making it the best it can be.

I bought sensors with my order, since there is no updates or rules, I have only tried to pair the sockets, but they will not pair?  I read this thread: http://forum.securifi.com/index.php/topic,1673.0.html that there may be a bug adding Zigbee once there is over 10 sensors, so I am hoping that once this is resolved I will be OK?

We had to reboot the device a few times, mostly because programs that I wrote to try and interact with the sensors I already have would crash the router (after doing what it was supposed to do).  But since I stopped playing with that, I had to reboot it once because LAN->WAN traffic was not working.  I again had to pull the power plug from the back.  I once did a sync;reboot over SSH, but when it came up I still had to pull the plug for everything to work right, so there must be a process that needs to be stopped manually first that is holding some locks.

We have the Android app on our Tablets and besides confirming they work, aren't really used.  We now have the iOS app on our phones and are using it actively.  This seems to not know or cache the Sensor state at all.  I can turn on a sensor from the App, then 5 minutes later open the app to turn it off, but it already says off.  Connect.Securifi.com seemed to handle this better.

Lastly, a positive note, I saw this thread: http://forum.securifi.com/index.php/topic,1461.0.html where someone had a GE Basic Remote and was able to add it to his network and have the ALL button work.  I can report that I was able to add my GE Advanced Remotes to the network and the ALL feature works with all my current ZWave Sensors!  This has made my wife very happy!

[LGNilsson]

Thanks for the feedback as always.

How many sensors do you have connected? Someone tested this today and connected 20 sensors, but we're still looking in to the issue.

As for the reboot issues, not sure what's going on to be honest.

The iOS app ios very basic at the moment, but it shouldn't be having issues like that. We're expecting to have notifications in place for the Android app in 2-3 weeks time and Automation is coming, it's just a little bit behind schedule from what I understand and we don't expect it to be ready until early October now. I have informed our team about the issues you're having with the iOS app though, as this shouldn't be happening.