I was planning to introduce myself in the next couple of days once things had slowed down, but now that the question has been asked, it is time.
My name is Rob, and many of you will recognize me from the HE community before this post is over, but bear with me as I feel story style is the best way to explain who I am and what I bring to the team.
I’ve been fascinated with the idea of a smart home since i was little, having read about one in a sci-fi novel. I kept track of various developments in the field but never felt that there was a good solution or combination of solutions that had the reliability, security, compatability and cost factor to be worth the trouble.
Fast forward to last year when I grabbed a set of Smart RGBW bulbs and a free google mini during the black friday sales madness to mess around with. I was quickly dismayed to learn that although the costs factor finally seemed acceptable the reliability and security were severely lacking,
I began to look into ways to alter these devices to do what i needed and that research led me to HE. After spending a few minutes researching the hub I discovered the community and all the awesome people developing and supporting the platform and I just knew the HE was the product for me and I dove right in and bought one.
3 days later my hub arrived and it was out of the box and running my first simple automation less than 20 minutes later. Sure it was just a simple thing, turning a light on when motion is detected, but the rush of excitement I felt when that bulb lit up was all it took… I was hooked, Obsessed even, with home automation.
I began buying devices left right and center, before a months had passed i had over 60 light bulbs, 20 motion sensors, 40 contact sensors, well you get the idea…
But all was not well in my home. I began noticing major delays and glitches in my system, automations not firing, triggers being missed, you name it i was experiencing it.
So what did I do? I reached out to support and then began to research the issue in the community. After a few hours i received a reply from bobbyd, who did his best to help me with the resources available to him, and it was quickly determined my hub was having a duplex negotiation issue with my switch.
Now for most users that would have been the end of it, they would have just bought a new switch and went about their way… But I have been working with networking equipment in one capacity or another since i was 16 (that was 23 years ago for those interested in counting) so i knew better, so back to researching I went.
After a good deal of research and running a slew of tests on my network I contacted supported again with my findings and requested a new hub, as I was certain mine had a hardware issue and would like a replacement. When support told me to return my hub for a refund instead of offering me a replacement I was floored and turned to the community for support. (at this point you have likely added 2+2 and realized I was digitydogs)
Markus and I had already formed a friendship over his tasmota and zigbee drivers by this point, and he mentioned that he wanted another hub but the company was no longer shipping to china. A short chat later and next thing you know I have 2 brand new hubs sitting on my doorstep to use to prove my suspicions before sending them on to him.
Thanks to this I was able to provide proof through my logs that my hub was in fact defective and that there was NOT a problem with the netgear switches as claimed, and HE finally shipped out a replacement for me.
To my regret, my attempts to spread awareness of what I perceived as a quality control issue did not go over well and in my frustration with the denial of the problem and having my findings dismissed with “your just a newb what do you know, listen to the staff or get a refund and go away” I ending up lashing out at a people who were truly just trying to help me.
Because of the turmoil over the issue it was recommended that I start over under a new user name so I could move forward in the community in a positive manner, so at that point I was reborn on HE as DementedDragon.
At this point I want to take a moment to apologize to any of you reading this that I may have offended or upset in my quest to obtain a replacement hub over in the HE forum. That behavior was far from the best of me, and something you will NOT be seeing a repeat of here!
Now at this point some of you are probably asking yourselves how did a hothead like you end up in the good graces of Markus April and Eli and what could you possibly bring to the team…
Well to the first point I was very lucky, you could even say blessed, that they were willing to look past my initial temper tantrum and see my potential 
As for what I do for the team… Well if you ever worked in the service industry you have probably heard someone on the staff referred to as the gopher…
For those unfamiliar with the term it basically means I have general to advanced experience in most areas and can be tapped to help with just about anything.
You want a specific example you say? Well your using it right now 
Basically I’m the guy who makes sure the rest of the team can focus on bringing the goods.
I handle most of the tedious stuff like setting up servers, services, newsletters, building images, deploying fixes and maintenance, some graphics and basically implementing or doing whatever the team needs and can hand off so they can remain on point
If you read this far I think you deserve an award… PM to easily claim your Reading Rainbow badge and associated post flair (This offer will be removed after this post has been up for 1 week, at which point the badge will only be awarded to users that cross some arbitrary high and magic number of posts read)
Please feel free to ask me any questions you may have here on the thread and I will do my best to answer them. (Sorry I won’t be slipping any new details in my replies, that I’ll leave to Markus 
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