We’ve got a lot of irons in the fire for 2024 and the year has only just begun! In this blog edition, we’ll be focusing on two exciting developments. Our MyHS service is getting a major update and our new Zigbee Plus plugin has sailed though beta testing and is finally released! Moving forward, we’ll be posting a lot more frequently to keep everyone in the loop. We’ve also created a new “Under Development” section on our forum. If you’re not already a forum member, be sure to register today and subscribe to this section to receive the most up to date notifications on our projects.
MyHS Updates
by Jon-Luke West
Hi everyone! My name is Jon-Luke West. I am the CTO at HomeSeer and I work on designing our technology and shaping our vision for smart homes moving forward. You haven’t heard from me on our blog before, but I’ll be chiming in more often in future posts. I want to share what we are up to more regularly and build a better smart home experience with you. There’s a lot I want to say about our mission and some of the cool new stuff we have been working on, and I will dig further into that in a followup post. For now, I’ll say that we aim to forge a deeper, more meaningful connection between people and their homes.
Improving the User Experience
Speaking of being more connected to your home, I have some exciting news for you about our latest update to MyHS. We have completely overhauled the user interface on MyHS. Now, it matches the style of HS4 and HomeSeer Mobile. This change has been sorely needed for a long time, and we are thrilled to be making it happen. We focused on streamlining the experience from MyHS to HS4 so it feels like the same platform and follows the same design principles. It’s dynamic, mobile friendly, and intuitive. This way, everything is easier to access for you and any secondary users you have configured. Camera recordings and system backups are much simpler to interact with now too meaning you can find recordings and backups from different systems quicker. These changes also allow us to more easily work on the platform, include additional features, and expand on existing features while minimizing disruptions to your user experience.
I believe that the user experience is changing too frequently for most products. This frequent change is frustrating and often forces me to completely change how I use some tech unnecessarily and, sometimes, at inconvenient moments. At HomeSeer, we want to reduce frustration whenever you interact with your home, whether you’re at home or away; so we will limit any more significant changes to the MyHS user interface for the near future. These updates represent a new foundation for us to build from.
Jump In and Stay Connected
This is just the beginning of a bunch more we have planned for the year; including more important changes to MyHS coming soon. Stay connected, and look out for more news about MyHS in the next few weeks. I’ll be talking about that as well as our roadmap in upcoming posts. Till then, check out the new look and feel of MyHS and share your feedback with us. If you have something fun set up that utilizes MyHS for your home, share it with us on social media with #homeseer (hashtag) included. And don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter so you are notified about future changes.
Zigbee Plus Plugin
by Mark Colegrove
Z-Wave technology has been a focal point for HomeSeer for more than 20 years. We were the first hub company to support it, and we’ve built an entire ecosystem of hubs, sensors, switches and more based on Z-Wave. Today there are more than 3,000 Z-Wave products available around the world and, for the most part, they work nicely together.
Zigbee technology has also been around for more than 20 years but, until recently, we didn’t embrace it. Why? It comes down to product compatibility and selection. In the early years there was no common standard for implementing Zigbee and products from most companies did not work well together. Additionally, most products were designed for commercial use and very few smart home products were being developed. Fortunately, both of these issues have been addressed with new Zigbee smart home standards and last June we revisited Zigbee integration with the introduction of our (beta) Zigbee Plus plugin for HS4!
The Zigbee Plus plugin adds more than 3,400 new devices to our supported products list. Many of these devices are only available as Zigbee devices and many are considerably less expensive than their Z-Wave counterparts. There are many Zigbee products available for less that $20 and even some available for less than $10. If you’ve never tried Zigbee before, now is a good time to start! Curious? Learn more
Upcoming in 2024
We have a lot planned for 2024. We are working on some new products and updating existing products too. There’s a lot to talk about here, and we plan to do a deeper dive on some of the stand outs in future posts. Stay tuned for that. In the meantime, you can check out the forum where we more regularly share about our various projects. Here is a sneak-peak for now:
PS100 Presence Sensor – PS100 will enter beta testing this month and specially priced pre-production samples will go on sale very soon. Learn more
Reminder Beacon – The Reminder Beacon is a small, new smart device you place next to things you need a reminder to do. Then, when it’s time to do the task, it flashes! Follow our progress on creating the Reminder Beacon here.
Z-Wave Plus Plugin – Our new Z-Wave Plus plugin is based on the popular Z-Wave JS open source project and it supports thousands of Z-Wave products from around the world. Beta testing for Z-Wave Plus will begin soon. Learn more
5 thoughts on “Major Updates to MyHS and Zigbee Integration!”
Been using the Zigbee Plus on a docker container the past year and love the access to the details in the devices. I use an external front end, but it has been so stable that I have tested it as a released version. I have access to so many more devices now. I use Z-wave and zigbee. Can’t wait to test the Z-wave plus.
Thanks for posting Jeff. Zigbee Plus has been a great addition for us. Also, Z-Wave Plus works really nicely. I’m using the (internal) beta in my home system now and it’s rock solid.
Hi Mark, Fantastic new stuff. It would be very helpful if the Beacon would have a user adjustable audible feature as well. I have a few of the HS water sensors and it does not have any audible function when water is detected. If this new product had audible feature it could be placed in high traffic areas to alert people of water etc.
If you’re looking for beta testers for your presence sensor toss me into the basket. I have a Tuya ZY-M100 sensor linked to a Moes gateway – great sensor which I cannot link to HS4 so it’s interesting, not useful.
Steven – thanks for your post. Be sure to subscribe to this forum to be notified about our pre-production testing on the PS100: https://forums.homeseer.com/forum/homeseer-news/under-development/1643374-ud-ps100-presence-sensor-in-progress-%E2%96%B6
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