Guilty by association

[TechMedX]

I’ve wrote a couple drafts of this, and I’ll just say they were a lot less…respectful. Unfortunately speaking my mind openly here won’t do any good, so I refrain. Instead I will just stated the facts of the event.

Earlier today while helping some new users with smartly, the HE thread was “unlisted” by bobbyD

Privately, and politely, I inquired why they decided to do this now, after such a time lapse. I had a decent conversation with bobbyD, as usually, about the decision.

A few hours later I received message via email. The message was private, so out of respect, it won’t be shown. In that message I was accused of being “officially part of the Oh La team”.

Just so there is no doubt, let me be clear - I’m not a member of the staff. I have no knowledge of what is done production wise, or anything else OLL business related. I’m honored they have asked me to help out as a mod here. I freely give my time in support of smartly, just as I have done for HE since meeting @spelcheck years ago (until banned) .

In my effort to reply with something similar, I was greeted with…

and then this…

Am I pissed off? Immensely!!

However “stirring the pot” (another thing I’m accused of) would do no good here, or there. Those that know me, know that’s not my style. I’d rather engage in thoughtful disagreements, and witty banter, but that seems fruitless now.

C’est La Vie, Que Sera Sera - it’s a shame that HE has decided to take this road. My biggest disappointment is to those that will never know what HE dashboards CAN be, to those that HE now openly suggest go pay a SaaS fee to have a decent dashboard. IMHO that goes against why some/most got into HE.

I have asked bobbyD for further discussion, and an explanation via email. I don’t know if he’ll allow me back, or even give me the decency of a reply (I hope he does, I still respect him as a person, even now). Either way it’s clear they are actively going to put an end to smartly on the forums, and I’m not going to fight that battle there any longer. I will always support smartly!

It would greatly appreciates if someone could post on the HE smartly 2.0 thread (if it still exist) that I have been banned, and can no longer provide support going forward. I’d ask everyone to send people here, but that could be dangerous as you can see. Tread lightly, the bear is angry.

Thanks for ‘listening’.

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UPDATE 2/13/2021 :

After reaching out to bobbyD via email he gave me his cell# to discuss what happened. We had a 45 minute heated discussion on my suspension, evidence against me, assumptions made, and the actions taken on those incorrect assumptions. bobbyD listened to my side off the story, and took it back to the HE team.

30 minutes after finishing our call, bobbyD called me back. He apologized for the misunderstanding. Adding that he was able to quickly pull the HE team together to discuss the event, and they decided to lift my suspension.

During our conversations around the entire hullabaloo a few things came to the forefront

First like to say something to all HE cohorts here. I hold no ill will toward anyone that supports a community they respect. Actions that resulted in my suspension may have been done hastily, and without complete understanding, or investigation of truth; however I know they were done with good intentions. My only request is you consider the path you lay with them. In closing, I welcome your continued involvement in this community, and hope it’s a positive experience for all.

Another impactful result of this discussion is the agreement to let smartly fade away from the HE community, by not continuing my support of it there. I have agreed. This was inevitable since the hullabaloo. The time has come that smartly stand on it’s own here.

smartly WILL ALWAYS BE SUPPORTED! I was told by bobbyD that HE is not, and will not, actively take steps to ‘break’ smartly. I look forward to continuing to support, and help improve smartly here. There is no change to that. Only a renewed sprite, and desire, to make it the absolute best product it can be!

Thanks for your time, and support.

I also want to thank OLL for allowing this post/thread to remain. Doing so gave me a chance to defend myself publicly, and helped clear the air of these events. It is appreciated.

All statements are mine alone. As such they do not reflect the thoughts or opinions of the OLL company, the smartly project, or staff in any way.

[bdydrp]

Such a shame HE has gone to that lengths. For a community extension that helps HE dashboards, it would seem that anything (or if they think) anyone involved with OLL is not welcome at HE.

I don’t use smartly myself as I don’t have a need (yet) for a dashboard. But it i have followed the threads and smartly looks a lot better than the stock dashboard!

It is a shame you have been treated this way!
Your assistance in both community’s, have been greatly appreciated

I can update the HE thread, if not already done…
Let’s see what happens

EDIT: seems the thread has disappeared!

[TechMedX]

@bdydrp

seems the thread has disappeared!

It is unlisted so you cannot search for it.

EDIT: all smartly threads are gone now.

[TechMedX]

@LosinIt

I’m fully aware that OLL does not approve of what I’ll do. In fact, I won’t be surprised if they remove this post from their community

Out of respect for free expression of my feelings, they will not. That being said, I may.

@LosinIt

I’m going to take some time to think over what I will post to get the widest distribution before it’s taken down.*

Please do. This post is not meant to incite more animosity. Please respect it’s intent and consider your actions in that same respectful manner.

I appreciate your support.

[bdydrp]

They hid it good!
“Oops! That page doesn’t exist or is private.”

[bdydrp]

There were plenty of others posting in the smartly thread.
Surely someone will ask the question about where it’s gone?

[sburke781]

Kudos for your measured response @TechMedX. It would be easy to launch into a tirade given your situation but I think you have provided a measured response, even here and now where you would be free to unleash with relative impunity.

While I don’t understand all the details for this and previous events, I do get the sense that there is little detail from one side, which is a shame. At the very least for people like me, if we are expected to make any sort of decision about whether to assist or contribute in any meaningful way here vs the HE forum, it is hard to make that call without some direction on what actions will result in expulsion. Personally, at the moment, I don’t want to jeopardise any opportunity I have to contribute to the HE community, more so for those that I am helping with various drivers I am developing. Nor do I want to dampen my option to contribute to this growing forum… I suppose I should get used to any splinters I get from this fence…

Back to my original point…

@TechMedX

This post is not meant to incite more animosity. Please respect it’s intent and consider your actions in that same respectful manner.

Exactly, have an opinion, feel free to express it but at least take a moment to think about how you express it and the impact that has.

Simon

[Shaneb]

That’s pretty sad.

[epw]

Banned for 1000 years… unreal. I’ll be giving CC a whirl once it’s available, if for no other reason than I strongly disagree with HE’s management of their community. I don’t advocate for others to take one course of action or another, but for me a quality product isn’t enough… if the products’ manufacturers are disagreeable, I sleep just fine at night without their wares in my house.

[n0w0n]

Agree the Hubitat hardware is half decent but management attitude has always been a little poor.

[Cjkeenan]

Looks like the thread has been taken down entirely now, what a shame, especially since IIRC the goal of Smartly was to be a crutch for HE until they develop something to replace it. Like my understanding was that the goal/hope of the project was to be superseded by something first party.

I do applaud @TechMedX for the measured response though, I hope I would have the ability to do the same, but honestly, I am not sure I would. It is just so sad because they really do have a great product, at least in my experience and the staff I have engaged with are fine, Bruce was to the point but fine imo and the rest like bobbyD and gopher.ny were great in my few interactions with them.

[Cjkeenan]

@LosinIt

They seem to have no limit on repetitions of shooting themselves in the head, right?

Thats what happens when you have little to no competitors right? They can get away with it, cuz where are you going to go? Home Assistant? Home Assistant is great don’t get me wrong, but if that is all we can do, Home Automation will never make the mainstream, 99% of people will never touch Home Assistant.

The biggest shame is that the HE forum is chalk full of great info, I wonder if we can do a local backup of the posts sans screenshots, which would be a nightmare.

[TechMedX]

Please read the UPDATE 2/13/2021

[roberto]

Sad. All we can do now is waiting for good news from OLL. As soon as possible

[srwhite]

@TechMedX , I appreciate your candor and the fact that you’re clearly taking the high road when Hubitat will not. But that does not change the fact that the ban happened in the first place.

That said a lot about their corporate culture, one that Bruce is curating himself.

He’s a bully.

[TechMedX]

It seems obvious to me now, judging by the flow of great people here, and on the HA forums, the treatment shown to the community has started to take it’s toll. Once even a small part of your base starts to look elsewhere, you’ve already lost. Sooner or later those that remain will see the void, and the culture that created it.

Over the past few years I have seen good members like yourself go ‘missing’ quietly, and others leave, or be removed more ‘vocally’. At first I wanted to believe it was just “hot heads”, but at some point not everyone else can be wrong. I’ll admit I had high hope for what Hubitat could achieve. Unfortunately without a major change of course I don’t see how that’s possible at this point.

In the end, my biggest hope is all the great people I’ve come in contact with, and the ones I’ve yet to have the pleasure meeting; will find a welcoming place, deserving of their talents, and willingness to help others. I’d be a shame to let anyone disrupt that.

[LosinIt]

Y’all have no idea how much/long I held my tongue before “losinit” in this topic. For months I watched the escalation against the OLL founders and privately expressed my dismay, disgust, and outrage. It was a big stretch to convince myself that, somehow, OLL was OK with that treatment. But when you, @TechMedX, got thrown in the briar patch for your association with OLL I couldn’t sit on my outrage any longer.

Like you, I was a fan and supporter of HE. My disillusionment started with the downturn in release quality about the time 2.2.3 came out and the race to the bottom has steadily accelerated since. 2.2.3.135 came with a substantial performance improvement so I applied that version. Nothing since looked attractive so my HE will die with it. Hopefully soon with a CC replacement.

[Mario.Fuchs]

@LosinIt

thrown in the briar patch

Not related to the discussion at all (or is it?) but as non-native English speaker I haven’t heard this expression before , so I had to look it up. Besides some funny Urbandictionary “defintitions”, I found this. So what is it @TechMedX ? “thrown under the bus” or reverse psychology to get to the place you really intended?

[TechMedX]

@Mario.Fuchs

So what is it @TechMedX ?

Being that I’m not the one that made the statement, I cannot speak to it’s intended meaning.

Like you, I looked it up to understand it’s full meaning. This event was a complete shock to me. I had no idea it was coming until the event occurred. Without foreknowledge, I had no way of “requesting” punishment, and thus could not have played any “reverse psychology”.

When I use “under the bus” it’s when someone else messed up and rather than try to politely work around the mistake, we bring it right out in the open for all to see. The offending party is “thrown under the bus”. I don’t think that applies either.

Mainly this was a hastily made decision, based on incorrect assumptions, compacted by a lack of discussion. I’m not sure what ‘proverb’ would best suit that.

[LosinIt]

Briar is a thorny bush so being thrown in the briar patch is a prickly punishment.