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An Idea - CQC as Front End for Home Assistant - Printable Version

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An Idea - CQC as Front End for Home Assistant - znelbok - 04-26-2022

Because of the decline in CQC and I have a of of devices that are now not connected to CQC and I need to integrate somehow, I was unfortunately forced to look at Home Assistant.

Things like Tuya, Modbus, and many other mainstream integrations exist in HA that we really should have had in CQC.

People talk about how great it is, but honestly, CQC is far better with only the lack of drivers being its biggest issue right now.

So this got me thinking, HA has an API, so if we could build a driver for CQC to talk to HA, we could then use CQC as a graphical front end to HA, and this could breath some new life into CQC.

Keep all the drivers there, so something not in HA can be covered in CQC, and just add the HA drivers and auto import all fields from HA.

Any thoughts on this as an idea - I am still learning HA (2 days into it), and I still prefer my CQC by a long way so far.

Mick

RE: An Idea - CQC as Front End for Home Assistant - kfly - 04-28-2022

(04-26-2022, 01:49 PM)znelbok Wrote: So this got me thinking, HA has an API, so if we could build a driver for CQC to talk to HA, we could then use CQC as a graphical front end to HA, and this could breath some new life into CQC.

Mick

Was in same position. CQC still best and most flexible front end GUI. I kludged together a CQC driver to access the SmartThings Hub API and let it control all the devices that are no longer controllable by CQC.
CQC has a really good IDE and lots of driver examples. 
If you  can get a couple commands from the API  to work in postman "https://www.postman.com/" creating a driver in CQC is not that hard(just poll every x seconds).   Creating a more elegant driver with the features you suggested would probably be in the paid work category (Dean?)

https://www.charmedquark.com/vb_forums/showthread.php?tid=11225

Best of luck on your Home Automation journey.
Kevin

RE: An Idea - CQC as Front End for Home Assistant - Shaky - 04-28-2022

While I'm not currently unable to automate any new devices without CQC, I can see this coming up soon and was also looking at what else is out there.  Coming to the same conclusions as you guys.  I can't see myself setting CQC aside. It's still great and what I want to use but I'll need to address the lack of new drivers likely ever being available sometime.  CQC has been a huge part of my hobby life and I'm having a hard time coming to grips with it going away.

I've only ever edited a driver in CQC but don't have the skill/desire/time to write a driver (or multiple drivers) from scratch currently. HA seems to be quite active and can talk to a lot of different things from what I could see, but the UI/way you interact with it doesn't interest me as much for what I am used to. (Haven't actually installed it though).

Your idea is interesting for sure.  Actually the SmartThings driver idea is very similar.  Both could be great to breath some more longevity to CQC.  Count me as  interested in your thoughts as you explore HA a bit further and feasibility of a driver.  At some point I'd be willing to install it too, or maybe buy a SmartThings (or both).  

As a simple hack, I've been using IFTTT for a couple newer devices to get status into CQC and have a google home and speaker tied to CQC in a closet that gets text to speech commands to do things via CQC for now... not how I want to continue to pseudo automate things.

RE: An Idea - CQC as Front End for Home Assistant - kblagron - 04-28-2022

I agree on doing what we can to make sure this continues to work down the road as much as we can as we use it everyday in our house. I don't know anything about HA, so can't really comment.

I was very hesitant writing drivers for CQC even though I had coded in Fortran and C back in the 80's and 90's for technical applications for my company. Since there are so many drivers that have been written, it was much easier than I thought to grab one as a template, and then work through the coding for a driver. The ones I did were simple JSON retrieval, but I wouldn't be scared now to attempt a serial or ethernet driver.

RE: An Idea - CQC as Front End for Home Assistant - EST - 12-26-2022

Has anyone made this attempt?  I still love CQC and am still trying to utilize it but with new tech and lack of drivers, it's becoming difficult to leverage with my devices.  As devices break, you cannot add new ones because there is no driver.  

Or have most just not done any upgrades and keep using as long as devices work and not add any new tech?

Or begrudgingly abandoned CQC and converted to other means?  I am considering this option and transition to Home Assistant.

RE: An Idea - CQC as Front End for Home Assistant - kfly - 12-26-2022

(12-26-2022, 07:36 AM)EST Wrote: Has anyone made this attempt?  I still love CQC and am still trying to utilize it but with new tech and lack of drivers, it's becoming difficult to leverage with my devices.  As devices break, you cannot add new ones because there is no driver.  
Agree CQC is still be best automation front end. What it cannot poll I use SmartThings Hub to poll the device and get it into CQC via an API driver.
https://www.charmedquark.com/vb_forums/showthread.php?tid=11225

CQC would have a long life if the polling was done by the most popular smart-hubs and just a CQC API driver for those smart-hubs (smartthings,HA,???)
Let these hubs deal with polling and all the versions of coms(zwave,zwave+,zigbe,etc.) that change every year. The API into these smart-hubs will change very little over year over year.


What other front end has the flexibility for end users to create home automations screens like these???
https://www.charmedquark.com/vb_forums/showthread.php?tid=11055

[Image: tXf3Tpg.jpg]
Kevin

RE: An Idea - CQC as Front End for Home Assistant - Shaky - 12-30-2022

(12-26-2022, 07:36 AM)EST Wrote: Has anyone made this attempt?  I still love CQC and am still trying to utilize it but with new tech and lack of drivers, it's becoming difficult to leverage with my devices.  As devices break, you cannot add new ones because there is no driver.  

Or have most just not done any upgrades and keep using as long as devices work and not add any new tech?

Or begrudgingly abandoned CQC and converted to other means?  I am considering this option and transition to Home Assistant.

I'm still here and using daily. I just have no reason (so far) to add anything new so status quo for now.

When I do wind up needing new tech I don't know how that will go...  If I had a choice, it would be extending CQC somehow (API's to other devices/Programs) and would even be willing to throw some funds at it, but not likely an option.  So, for me personally, no plans to move on just yet until something big happens that forces that to happen I guess.

RE: An Idea - CQC as Front End for Home Assistant - kfly - 01-03-2023

Agree. Now that Matter and Thread are looking like the new home automation standard. An API into one of the main hubs would give CQC access to all the Wi-fi, Zigbee, Z-wave, and new Thread devices.