Joshua Pressnell

You can actually update homebridge from the web UI just as easily. But I generally figure that if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. If there’s something you need to correct, or some new feature you need, go for it. But mostly I tend to just leave it alone.

No... it’s probably just a permissions or location issue. If you want a hand getting it installed, send me an email and I can get it installed for you and you can probably take it from there.

You will need to edit the underlying homebridge configuration files to include the setup that the qmotion package requires. They should provide an example of what options are needed. Just be sure to leave the rest of the file formatting alone. If you get something super screwed up, I can always help out.

Yeah... unfortunately, not so much. I can pull C4 stuff into HomeKit, not the other way around (at least not yet)

Give it a try and let us know how it works! Worst case, it should be pretty easy to revert back out if you don't like how it behaves.

No, there shouldn’t need to be. I saw this happen one other time when an upgrade went weird. Most times it just corrects itself and uses an accessible temp directory instead. If you’re having issues post-update, PM me and we can get you sorted out.

Yes. At home and turned on.

Probably. HomeKit requires Bonjour, which is a local network thing. I'm not sure your VPN would be configured to allow Bonjour across? HomeKit is also based in iCloud, so if you have a "HomeHub" (iPad or ATV4+) then they will act as the HomeKit proxy, and you won't even need the VPN to get through to the home.

You're right... "It shouldn't matter"

Yes, I'll be adding more device support as I can. 1) Blinds - Apple doesn't have "good" native blind support. They assume that blinds *must* be able to indicate actual relative position (0%-100%) and support "move to position" calls. Most blinds in C4 don't do this. They support "up" "down" and "stop" commands. You can support those already by using virtual switch drivers and linking those in programming to proper blind commands. 2) Fireplace - This is coming. 3) Hue - There's a homebridge Hue plugin already. You should be able to use that to enable HomeKit for Hue without going through C4. Updates: It should matter what order you do them, as long as you reboot the director first, and then the appliance after updates are done, and as long as you update all of *my* software to the latest version (to make sure it's all compatible, although I do try to remain backwards compatible where possible). Firmware: Yes.. if you installed my OS image, then you're running my firmware.

When you change the homebridge configuration, you need to restart homebridge. I did that so you can apply several changes without auto-restarting many times. The idea is that you make all the changes you want, then choose to restart when you're done. The devices occasionally moving back to the default room is an artifact of Apple's. In my experience it only happens during initial setup, when you're making a LOT of changes to HomeKit. I believe it happens because Apple is using iCloud as a backing store for HomeKit, and sometimes the iCloud changes don't save, and old data gets applied. In my experience, you just move those devices back to their intended rooms, and then they stick there once the actual change successfully hits iCloud.

^--- What Elvis said. Pretty much everything *will* propagate.. but how quickly can become a question. Apple uses iCloud as a backing for this feature, and sometimes it takes a while for iCloud to move all the data across devices. Siri also uses a *different* part of the iCloud database, so sometimes when you add/move devices they'll work fine in Home, but Siri won't be aware of them for a few hours or more, while the data propagates around in iCloud. Eventually, it all catches up to itself.

Perhaps. Doesn’t mean I should add to the craziness. I far prefer the “elegant” approach. Not sure how many people out there want to integrate Harmony remotes... but conceptually, the driver wouldn’t be too difficult

The latter would be FAR FAR better. Apple doesn't have any AV support in HomeKit, nor does it really have the concept of "remote control"... so any support for it via homebridge would be a hack, at best.

1) There is no support for room assignment in Apple's HomeKit protocols. While I could (probably) detect the room a device was in via the C4 driver and include that information in the appliance (although I've had some issues doing that, it might be possible eventually), that information would be for visual reference only. There's zero way for a "device" to tell HomeKit which room it lives in. 2) Homebridge works fine in docker. I just can't get my web management setup running in docker, because my system *has* to have access to modify the lower-level operating system setup. You've already run into that because you have enough devices that my appliance provisioned an extra bridge to link devices to. I suppose that theoretically I could just create a docker image that had 10 homebridge services pre-configured, and the appliance could just tell you how many of them actually had devices linked to them. It's probably unlikely that someone would have over 1000 devices in their system. I'll re-investigate this when I have some time to spare to look at it. The other issue is the homebridge and firmware install locations. To work in docker and to allow updates, I'll need to have those in mapped data directories so they can be updated and persisted separate from the docker image. 3) Yes, you can install any plugins you like. I already have the "most popular" ones pre-installed (you can see them if you enable the advanced options). You're welcome to install any others that you like yourself. Once they're installed, they'll show up in the appliance advanced options automatically, and you can update them via the web portal as well.

1) Yes, Apple limits the number of devices that can be on a single "bridge", although this is not documented anywhere that I've found. To compensate, if my system detects you have enough devices in your Control4 setup, it will start multiple "bridge" services for you, to allow all devices to be paired. 2) Yes, when you first pair the bridge, you will need to then add each device *in* the bridge to HomeKit. This is the way Apple's stuff works, and you'd need to do that with any bridge, mine or otherwise. 3) Due to Apple's design, there's no way for me to communicate which room a device is in prior to adding it to HomeKit. If you think about it, that's realistic. How many light bulbs know ahead of time which room the socket they're screwed into is in? In Apple's world, *they* are the equivalent to the main Control4 system. The C4 switches you add don't know which room they're in, until you or your dealer assign them into a room in the C4 project. So as devices come online in HomeKit, you need to add them, and assign them to rooms. I realize this is a burden, especially for people with lots of devices to add... unfortunately, it can't be helped. But at least it's just a one-time setup thing. It's also useful to note that Apple does have some issues with HomeKit and iCloud. Sometimes when you assign a device to a room initially, that assignment won't be remembered, and the next time you open Home, the device will return to the default room. That's just Apple having issues syncing iCloud. Re-assign the devices back to their proper room, and it should stick the second time. 4) For device names, you can either change the names *before* you add them to HomeKit (as indicated in the guide), or you can re-name them *IN* the Home app. If you rename them in the Home app, the names will stick that way in HomeKit, but will not be applied to the homebridge appliance. That's perfectly fine. I frequently rename devices in Home to make them more usable by Siri.

I don't mind selling the driver to end users. It's available through my website as well as through HouseLogix. In terms of getting the OS image setup, there's a little more to it than that. Once you get the OS installed, you point your browser to http://homebridge.local. The default user/pwd are listed in my users guide. From there, you'll see a licensing page, and there's a button to click to run some post-install steps. Click that button, and then *wait until the page reloads*. That may take several minutes. Trust me, it'll reload eventually. Once the page reloads and the setup button is gone, then you send me the MAC address listed on that page, and reboot the Pi. I'll generate your license, and you apply the license in the web portal, which unlocks the full configuration page. From there, you can follow the instructions in the users guide. It sounds scary... but Vince will attest that it's not too bad once you really look at doing it, and the web config portal makes dealing with setup and configuration VERY easy.

Exactly. If you're reasonably technically savvy and provide (and support) your own Pi hardware, but don't want to go through the process of installing, configuring, and managing a homebridge server yourself, you can install my ready-made Pi OS image and license my software. The result is a unit in your hands that behaves exactly like what I'd ship you, and you can follow the users guide from there. If you're really technically savvy (and brave), you can build your own homebridge server, install my open source C4 homebridge plugin, do all the unix configuration and config file setup yourself, and end up with a working system for only the cost of the C4 driver. There are folks on this forum that have done that... but my software package makes managing the details of homebridge and HomeKit much much easier.

The $225 price does *not* include the C4 driver price. I separated them out specifically so that you can choose to buy my appliance or not. The DIY types only need the driver. Many dealers license my OS image and provide their own hardware to install on. Several dealers and end users choose to just buy the ready-made unit from me. Depending on your comfort level you can get a fully working HomeKit solution for $175 (just the driver), $225 (driver + OS license), or $400 (driver + ready-to-install unit w/ my support).

It got temporarily put on hold while my day job kicks my butt. I have the actual integration 100% working on my unit at home. I need to finish the "upgrade and installation" process so that it works seamlessly in the current web configuration portal. It's up high on my todo list when I get to have my own time to work on my stuff again.

If you want a license for the OS image, you can also order those at the link above. If you need something else, you know how to reach me.

http://www.varietassoftware.com/control4

I have quickly realized that a docker image is going to be problematic for the more "generic case". It's one thing to handle persistent configuration files in a mapped directory, but in order to function properly within Apple's limitations for HomeKit bridges, in many cases I need to dynamically spin up additional linux system services. I haven't figured out a good way to do that yet within the "docker" approach. Any time I add new services, they disappear as soon as the docker image is reset. It's not too hard to run my setup in docker as a base case, though. I just hesitate to release it as a product (which I'd have to support), knowing that it will cause all sorts of complications for more involved setups.

You could potentially, but it wouldn't be dead simple. You'd want to compare the old list to the new list, for example, so you don't double up. You wouldn't want to just drop the old list and replace with the new list, because you might have non-C4 devices in the HomeKit setup (as an example). And you'd need to restart the homebridge service after each change. If you want to try and take that on, PM me.

I don't provide an automatic way to do that, for a number of reasons. Generally, I can think of quite a few scenarios where "auto-importing" would result in undesirable behavior and additional admin overhead. If you run my appliance firmware (either by purchasing one from me or by installing my licensed OS image on your own pi) then my firmware makes the import a one-click process via an easy-to-use web-based configuration portal.