General feedback after 2 days with Gladys

Development
1

Hello everyone,

As I already wrote in my thread Hello from Germany, I only discovered Gladys two days ago and have already tried everything. From openhab, ioBroker, and for many years Home Assistant (with a brief detour to Homey in between), I thought I had found something with Gladys that works well for my needs. I was also always willing to forgo some functions if everything works well.

General:

  • I need something that simply works reliably and I am always willing to invest my expertise and free time to improve existing products. Therefore, in addition to my 2 integrations, I have already created my first PR https://github.com/GladysAssistant/Gladys/pull/3221 in the core.
  • With over 250 devices and 2500 entities, as mentioned above, I need something that works. I appreciate the work here by everyone, but I still have the feeling that it is still a bit of a « tinkering solution Â» in some places. At least for what I want to use it for (more on that below)
  • The UI of Gladys is beautiful and I wish I could use it.
  • Developing integrations is fun. I have already released my first integration External Integration - FF-Agent and am currently working on the free@home integration by Busch & Jäger
  • So far, I have not tested MQTT/Zigbee and Z-Wave yet, as I do not want to simply move my devices blindly, but I think that should not be a problem.

Now the « negative Â» or what makes it very difficult for me to seriously use Gladys in my home.

  • I use several tablets in the house that are mounted on the wall. These are permanently connected to flush-mounted boxes that I can switch smartly. So far, it has been the case that I can keep the battery level between 30 and 70% using automation in HA (because a real Home Assistant app runs there and I can access the device’s sensor data), so that the battery is preserved. If the battery level changes, I check whether it needs to be charged and if so, I simply switch the flush-mounted box on and off again at 70%. With Gladys, this is practically impossible because I do not have access to the device data, such as battery level. Unless I have overlooked something, then please correct me.
  • There is already a PR that allows the sidebar to be collapsed. This is essential for such tablets that are mounted in the house, as otherwise they take up unnecessary space
  • Since there is no native app, I can also not set a screensaver, for example, and wake the tablet up again when motion is detected (via the built-in tablet camera). An external motion detector also does not help, as I do not have access to the tablet.
  • I exclusively use iPads. I have tested other devices, but everything except Apple is too slow, unstable, and simply impractical for me.
  • Since there is also no native app, the native status bar of iOS (time, battery level, etc.) cannot be hidden, especially on Apple. This would be possible in native apps.
  • The development of widgets or the rules and preferences of what is possible in them is too limited for me. See also External Integration - Worldwide Departure, where you could do really great things, but are technically limited. In my opinion, this has a lot of potential.
  • Generally, as a developer, I am unsure whether the Docker approach with integrations (Homey does something similar) is the right one. With individual Docker containers, the required resources increase significantly and quickly with a corresponding number of integrations. Simple solutions like Raspberry Pis or Synologys, if you do not have a bit more power behind them, quickly reach their limits here. My current system has 16GB RAM, and even with 9 integrations, the loading times of the installed integrations and just the listing are already slow, and the execution consumes resources. It’s not that bad yet, just a note.
  • The integration into Gladys Plus is solid but not yet fully thought out in terms of UX. Especially when switching systems to test your integrations, I often get stuck in a « stale Â» status. That is, I am connected, but my Gladys Plus login has not been linked to any user and the system does not notice that either. So I have a status of my Gladys (with external Plus URL) that should not occur because I am authenticated, but I do not have a valid user. In general, I do not find it ideal that you practically need 2 user accounts. Once on the Gladys Plus page and once on my system page, which you then have to link. It would be nice if Gladys Plus only provided the « tunnel, Â» for example, with a custom domain, and the local user worked out of the box.
  • As I also wrote and asked in my post Hello from Germany, I, as a developer, do not really get along with everything being in French. Even now, as a German, I find it very strange to write in German :slight_smile: I am simply used to communicating in English in developer life, especially in international open-source projects. From my point of view, an AI translation also does not help here, because as I said: screenshots remain in French, links as well, discussions in GitHub often too, which then simply feels more like an island solution to me. I understand and appreciate your honesty that the « French are just like that, Â» but at the same time, it also feels like you want to stay among yourselves and remain that way. Within France, within your own four walls, and scaling and growth beyond national borders is rather undesirable.

These are the things that have come to my attention so far. There is certainly much more when I delve deeper, especially into all the automations I have at home :slight_smile:

All in all, I still have to say that it is really great what you have accomplished here. I also see a lot of potential here, even if some « rules Â» are unclear to me here and there and « processes, Â» for example, when PRs are merged into the core, under what conditions, etc., are unclear.

It has been fun to play around with it so far and create the one or other integration. I will also complete the other integration, but I believe that at this point in time, Gladys is not yet in a position (unfortunately!!!) to replace my Home Assistant. I will continue to follow the development with hope and, as soon as it is possible, also migrate :slight_smile:

Until then, I wish you and especially @pierre-gilles all the best. And if you have any questions, want feedback, or need help with anything, feel free to contact me at any time :slight_smile:

2

Did you notice there’s an external integration called ‹ Apple device tracer â€ş, and it allows you to see the device’s battery level? It works with my iPhone, so it should work with your iPads.

Here’s a screenshot from my iPhone: the actual battery in the top right corner, and the battery reported in the Gladys dashboard. There’s a 2% difference because the information isn’t real-time, but it’s acceptable for managing charging…

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3

Thanks for this new user feedback @stefanbauer, it’s very instructive and interesting for those who have already been using it for a while.
For my part, it took me some time to understand Gladys’ philosophy. I came from Jeedom and it’s a whole different world (still French :wink: ). I had looked at HA but, even though I like tinkering, I prefer to focus on applications and not the piece of code to add every time something doesn’t work correctly and which is never fixed.
With Gladys, it changes the game because we start from the principle that what is inside is a choice made from the start: no options in all directions, a simple UX.

I’ll come back to some of your points, not all of them because I don’t have the answers to the others, other contributors will be able to enlighten you I think (and me too).

If you put this tablet in Tablet mode, does that meet your request? (top right of the dashboard)
image

If you use a Z2M and a zwave-js-ui, then Gladys can point to the right MQTT brokers.
A small downside for zwave-js though, as the name in the MQTT configuration must be zwave-js-ui to be discovered by the external integration:

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After if you want to retrieve your devices coming directly from HA for testing, you can take the MQTT integration that allows the automatic discovery of everything coming from HA (by pointing to the MQTT broker of HA).

Gladys is precisely a non-wobbly solution because, as mentioned above, the philosophy is to only release a version when everything is validated and operational, without multiple options.
And if something is missing then we make a Feature Request.
From my point of view, it’s rather HA that is a DIY solution where you always have to play with yaml.

I can join you on that, I had a hard time too.
On the other hand, it is not planned (and I unfortunately tested it at my expense) to have a Gladys Plus for several instances like for example one for production and one for development.
There is a risk of blocking or « stale Â» as you say.
Before taking Gladys Plus, I used Teleport with my Unify hardware: you activate Teleport and the VPN is on, you go to Gladys, perfect.
On the other hand, for users who just need to use or consult Gladys, connecting via a VPN and then going to Gladys is not WAF at all, Gladys Plus is there so that everything is smooth and without questioning.
When I am with a test base, I deactivate my Gladys Plus account on this instance.

What hardware do you have?
If you have HDDs, loading times are long, and can become even longer.
Gladys must run on SSD, SATA at minimum, NVMe is of course the top.

That’s it, I hope I was able to shed some light on your lantern.
Everything is not perfect yet but we are really moving forward well on the project and quickly now, 6 months ago, you would have been very disappointed and you might not have tested it given your level! :sweat_smile:

4

That’s already very interesting. Thank you for that!

5

Thank you so much for your detailed answer. What I really really like here, despite the fact that all the French have a really strange attitude, is how incredibly friendly everyone is. You have to give everyone here that :slight_smile:

6

Yes, that’s the question. In my normal browser I see this icon, on my tablet it doesn’t exist :wink:

7

I have now tried the integration, but I can’t get it to work…

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I have several trusted devices. I also receive the 2FA code, and when I enter it, I consistently get a 409 error. Are there any known issues here?

8

Can you post a message on the dedicated thread for a faster resolution?

9

Hi @stefanbauer

Could you please post a message on the dedicated thread and copy-paste the external integration logs so we can find the issue more quickly :smiling_face:

Thanks

10

Hi Stefan, and thanks for this very thorough feedback! This is exactly the kind of outside perspective we need, especially from someone who knows openHAB, ioBroker, Home Assistant and Homey well. Thanks as well for the PR and the integration :folded_hands:

The community has already covered the specific points, so I won’t go over them again.

On the bigger questions, here’s some background on our choices:

  • Docker: each external integration runs in its own container, and that’s deliberate. Anyone can publish an integration to the store without approval from us, so it has to be isolated: no access to the database, the file system or other integrations, a dedicated network, no privileged mode and a read-only filesystem. That way a buggy or malicious integration can’t compromise your setup. Docker’s own memory overhead is negligible, and the integrations themselves are very lightweight. Here are a few real numbers from my own instance:

    • SMTP: ~21 MB
    • Philips Hue: ~25 MB
    • MELCloud: ~34 MB
    • MĂ©tĂ©o-France: ~37 MB
    • Telegram: ~40 MB
    • Apple TV: ~84 MB

    Most of them use 20 to 40 MB of RAM, and each one is capped at 256 MB anyway. So with 16 GB, nine integrations shouldn’t be noticeable at all. If things feel slow on your side, the cause is probably somewhere else, and I’d be happy to look into it with you.

  • Language: the forum automatically translates every post into four languages: English, German, Spanish and French. As mentioned in another thread, notification emails are still sent in the post’s original language for now. That should change within the next week, because Discourse (our forum provider) is working on it. I’m fully fluent in English myself, but unfortunately I never managed to get an English-only forum off the ground. I don’t believe in a “one forum per language” approach either: we’ve tried it and it didn’t work. I think this forum will become more international over time, and I really hope most of it will be international in the future. If anything here still bothers you, please let me know!

  • Gladys Plus and the two accounts: keeping them separate is intentional. Your local account lives only on your instance and works without Internet. Gladys Plus is just an end-to-end encrypted relay: our servers carry your data but cannot read it.

Thanks again, and welcome to the community!

11

Hello,

I won’t respond to your entire message, as some points are a bit too technical for me, being just a regular Gladys user.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank the entire community for making home automation so easy to use on a daily basis!

Regarding automatic translation, I find this idea very relevant in the age of AI. The reason I originally came to Gladys was precisely because the community was French, and I could express my requests and issues while being sure of being understood. For French-speaking users, this is a real advantage.

Even if most developers are bilingual, this isn’t necessarily the case for all users. Being able to communicate in one’s native language greatly facilitates exchanges, mutual aid, and getting started with the solution.

Thank you for all your contributions and the improvements you bring to Gladys. They will benefit the entire community!

Best of luck!

12

Thanks for your great message. Basically, I don’t mind. I’m writing in German here anyway :slight_smile: I just struggle when screenshots are shared, links are shared (and for example in the official Gladys documentation), when there are screenshots in French, but the documentation itself is displayed in my language. The context is then simply not good and disruptive to the flow of reading.

But to backtrack a bit: In less than 3 days since I met Gladys, I have already submitted several PRs to the core, the second integration is coming right up, but even more exciting: I have already migrated almost 80% of my Home Assistant, over 30 scenes that are dutifully doing their job and very reliably. Although I can now better understand Pierre’s argument regarding Docker, I am still not convinced that this will work sustainably in the long run. But we’ll see… I’m still here for now and continuing to develop as long as I don’t encounter major problems. @guim31 has certainly contributed a great deal to this, who reacts quickly when things apparently really don’t work. This makes the progress at home strong and you don’t have to wait forever for new versions. So thanks for that too.