Hey @Mariano_Colmenarejo - I appreciate the feedback regarding being more open around Edge drivers. You’re right, I probably could’ve been more clear around what to expect and give assurance that we will support all of our products, even the discontinued ones.
What I personally struggle with (and the point of me writing this is to provide some context - I am listening to feedback - I’m just caught in a rock and a hard place sometimes) is what can and cannot be said due to NDA’s that are signed between us and SmartThings.
It’s a bit different when you’re a volunteer coder to create these drivers for the community and as I mentioned, we’re extremely grateful for people like you. But when you’re a manufacturer, there’s a lot more that we know then the average customer due to many privy conversations. The one you referenced is a perfect example. It was a conference call between @erocm1231 (our CTO), myself and four of the lead engineers of SmartThings, plus one of the guys from the Edge program.
I specifically asked them if I could share anything with our community. I’m not sure if you hang out in our community, but I’m very open with everyone about the good and the bad of our company and I wanted to talk about Edge bc we do get a lot of customers who write in and are freaking out (rightfully so) about whether or not their products they purchased from us will be supported on Edge.
I was told I was not able to say anything at all until everything is official. We still have no clue when the official date is, so I’m at a standstill. Do I break the NDA and let people know everything that will be available via edge and risk losing any sort of partnership with SmartThings? Or do I just kind of sit on the sidelines and wait until I’m told it’s ok?
The best I can do is give assurance that we will support our products (which I did) and follow through on that request when things are official.
The other part that is challenging - again, I know it’s not your problem, but I’m trying to paint a picture from our side - is exactly what @JDRoberts mentioned… Bandwidth…
There are four of us that work at Inovelli. We’re not some huge company filled with engineers that have all the time in the world to mess around with beta projects.
Eric M is the only one on our team that knows how to write any of this. He’s been on the phones constantly with SmartThings trying to figure out how to get the advanced features working (notifications, scene control, etc). Some of the features are not even possible on Edge (notifications) but he’s working with them to make it possible.
So, we get these questions daily - when will drivers be released? What products are you supporting? What features are available?
And I emphasize with you bc I’m a SmartThings user too and I want to know these things, but I don’t have the answers. And somehow this gets taken out on us as the manufacturer bc we’re not transparent enough or perceived as not trying hard enough, but the truth is that we are in a very similar boat. However, our boat has a target on it and if we say something we shouldn’t or promise something that doesn’t come to fruition, it has serious repercussions that the volunteer coder does not have.
All that to say - I genuinely meant it when I said thank you. People like you who step up and help out take some of that risk off our plate and we do (and the community does as well) appreciate it.
Edit: just read your deleted comment and I genuinely hope you don’t feel that way.
