Official 5.2 Beta Discussion Thread

[Dean Roddey]

[5.2 is out, so this thread is closed. A new one will be started for 5.3]

OK, 5.1 is out, so this is a new discussion thread for stuff leading up to 5.2. Of course it's pretty well known what 5.2 is going to be about. It's going to be about getting a first shot at a room configuration based client for non-Windows devices. How exactly it will be built is not 100% fixed. Likely it'll be Typescript/HTML/CSS, and a lot of work has already been done on that front. But we decided to prioritize CQC Voice first because voice control is such a big thing, and a simple, easy to set up voice control option was much needed.

But, this time we really have to get the portable, room config based client done, so that will be far and away the primary concern. We can obviously do a few other smaller things along the way, and will as always likely add drivers and make improvements of various sorts. 

One likely other thing we may work on is multiple microphone support for CQC Voice. It's working well now, but struggles in bigger rooms. Having multiple mics all listening for the same commands and using a 'voting' approach could really solidify CQC Voice's reliability in larger spaces which would be a big coup for us. Given that it's basically 'just' building another sort of layer on top of what's there for a single mic, it shouldn't be a monster rewrite (famous last words perhaps.) 

But, in both cases, portable client and CQC Voice, this is all way off on the periphery stuff, so there should be very little in the way of potential destabilizing changes made, and we'll be taking care of any reported small issues and such as is always the case. So 5.2 could end up a very tweaked out release and have some really nice new capabilities at the same time, which is rare.

Some time will be put into study for other things to follow of course.

[lleo]

Your words are music to my ears Dean... finally to focus on the most visible part of CQC
I remain concerned though about the limited usefulness of an interface that is based on the room-generation system and v2.0 devices only. Without a deep understanding of the background; here you have a clean slate, there is nothing to be backward compatible with.  I do not see why would you have to limit the interface to be based on room-generated templates.
The world of the mobile devices are dominated by Android and iOS  and  CQC is peculiar for not having a supported UI on these.

I think your stated goal earlier in creating a simple auto-generated interface for mobile devices was to bring on potential new users, but you are forgetting your power user base who are used to customize and create their own. Why not trying to cater to both?

[Dean Roddey]

The auto-generation based one is just step one. It's an important learning process in an easier to bite off chunk. It's something that will get us a better story on non-Windows clients a lot faster, which we need. And it's something that will allow for a low effort means to get nice touch screens (very nice ones on Windows and pretty nice ones on the other platforms) and voice control with minimal effort, which is very much needed. And not just for DIYers, but also for pros who want to get into a home with minimal cost and time, with an opportunity to up-sell to more customized solutions over time.

If we go straight to a full solution, it could be months before we have anything at all for non-Windows clients, and we may make a lot of mistakes along the way due to learning a new development platform. So this is a useful first step in a number of ways.

[batwater]

Dean I'm getting a different ZWave Driver Client Error.  "Unhandled System Exception in GUI thread" No Information Available.  Nothing in the system log and I can't close the Admin Interface without killing it from Task Manager.  Here's a link to one of your responses, this one lands near where you suggested I just try re-loading the install.  I have not done that yet until I hear back from you whether you want to do other diagnostics.

Something is not right and I keep tripping over it when I upgrade.

[Dean Roddey]

Is this when you try to use the module type selection dialog? Or just when you bring up the client driver tab?

[batwater]

Client driver tab

[Dean Roddey]

I don't think the thing we discussed before would cause that type of exception. Go ahead and stop the service, and send me your zipped up config repo file ([cqc]\CQCData\Repository\) I'll try again to load that and open up the client tab and see if I can reproduce it.

Then if you want to try the reload, go ahead and see if it makes a difference. It may not this time.

[batwater]

Repository Zip Sent

[batwater]

Re-install did not fix this problem

[kfly]

Dean I'm getting a different ZWave Driver Client Error.  "Unhandled System Exception in GUI thread" No Information Available.  Nothing in the system log and I can't close the Admin Interface without killing it from Task Manager.  Here's a link to one of your responses, this one lands near where you suggested I just try re-loading the install.  I have not done that yet until I hear back from you whether you want to do other diagnostics.

Something is not right and I keep tripping over it when I upgrade.

Had same Zwave Driver Client  issue after upgrade. Got it to finally come up but forgot the steps taken. issue is back now. Will try to look later to see if I can reproduce workaround.
K