New Loxone Smart Home Community Forum. Let's all join in ONE place.

[Simon Mobius]

Hello everyone. 

Just like you I was pretty gutted to see the forum close down. I can understand the reasons (at least from Loxone's point of view) and am pleased to see that Loxone are at least keeping the old forum viewable. However that does not really provide a solution for you and me who still want to exchange ideas with each other. 

This morning, Andrew who I have been in touch with for over a year now through his own Loxone install, has opened a proper Loxone Community Forum. It is as we all so desperately wanted in ENGLISH and ONLY in English. No English bolt on onto a German forum like it used to be and was already suggested again.

It has only been up and running for about 12 hours, but already there is some good activity and I would really like to urge everyone to join and pass on the word. Andrew assures me that the forum can definitely handle the load. It is hosted in the Amazon Cloud and the hosting plan is pre paid for the next 12 month, so you can be sure that it is there to stay! 

Here a link: www.trulysmart.co.uk

See you there, 

Simon

[Simon Still]

I'm not quite sure I get why you're suggesting yet another forum as the solution - surely accepting this one would be a better idea than creating yet another (is that 4 now?)

Are you planning on closing/locking this forum?

[Simon Mobius]

Hi Simon, 

quite simple. I do not feel that a google group is the same as a proper forum and whilst I am sure I will alienate some people by saying this, yes I think everything else should be closed down and we should all get together behind one place.

Why am I supporting www.trulysmart.co.uk as the place of choice? 

1. vBulletin Platform - Sorry but this simply is the best forum platform out there.

2. Properly Hosted, not on some free server. 

3. Not a bolt on of a German Forum, which is what loxforum.com are proposing. Who wants multi lingual? 

4. High number of registrations and more importantly greater activity then I have seen on any of the other none German attempts. Including this one.

Let's face it so far everyone that had the skills has just set something up, but then has not actively pursued it to get people to join them. I admire that there seems to be some drive behind this one to really unite people. I know being this blunt will annoy some people, but I feel it is important to get behind one single forum. Let's be German about it and just get it done. Well apart form the language of course. ;) 

[sk]

What hosting cost is there for google groups?

I quite like the simplicity of google groups.  Tagging & search keeps things easy to find. The 24 hour emailed digest is an easy way to keep up-to-date. Also, the forum will live on past any company sponsored site.  

[smartbusinesstools.be]

Simon

You say 

Andrew assures me that the forum can definitely handle the load. It is hosted in the Amazon Cloud and the hosting plan is pre paid for the next 12 month, so you can be sure that it is there to stay! 

but to me, having just one person paying for and maintaining a virtual server + the vBulletin software is an unacceptable risk. What happens when Andrew decides not to pay anymore after 12 months. What happens when the server locks up and needs rebooting? What happens when updates need to be installed? What if the mailing from the server stops working? Is there a failover mechansism? Is there a business continuity plan? I have maintained servers myself and I can tell you: they will fail once in a while.

The risk in using Google Groups is very low, as it is maintained by Google and runs thousands of groups, some having a massive number of active members. It is free and ownership and administration can be shared or transferred.

In terms of use, I believe Google Groups has sufficient features. There are mainly 2 ways how people use a forum:

1. Find answers: you need good search capabilities. The advanced search capabilities are similar to vBulletin

2. Learn: reading all new posts. Marking read posts, e-mailing daily digest is similar to vBulletin

The main difference is the looks. Google Groups is simple. We even tried to make it even more simple by not setting up the sub-forums / categories i.e. not copying the structure of the original forum because everything posted in a single group is easier to read new posts (Learn), and you do not need the structure to find answers. Just good search capabilities and tagging.

I don't think we will get the German speaking community on the same page and have everyone post in English only. The German speaking community is just too big. But we might be able to convert some of them in the future if we get a single large active forum in English only.

[Simon Mobius]

Hi guys, 

why not ask the questions about shared ownership on the forum? I have already privately pledged my support to Andrew and he has been talking about putting together a group of admins and moderators as you do for any proper forum. I actually gave him use of the domain that he is using.  

I totally agree about the Germans. They will do their own thing. BUT I am keen that the English community is not just a bolt on onto theirs, because it will never get the same love and attention as their German part will get.

In the end it is up to everyone has to decide for themselves, so if you want to stay on google groups then go for it. For me simply looking through the number of members on here and the number of posts it is clear that this is not thriving... So my support goes to Andrew's site. Sorry. 

[sk]

Sounds like it still has key man/company dependencies.

I'll continue to post here but happily read yours if the content comes up in Google search.

[smartbusinesstools.be]

I think it would be best to decide early, so all information is collected in one place.

Here you can vote for which forum you want to prevail, and then, or later on see the results and decide.

http://goo.gl/forms/wuDqQ6FPRP

Please distribute to as many as possible people on the different forums to get a useful and honest result.

[Michael]

Hi,

I'm new to Loxone, but forum.loxone.com was a major driver in my decision in choosing Loxone, I liked the DIY and openness of the system.

Closing the forum is giving me the chills, maybe the company is closing on it-self, and I'm thinking about reducing my investment in the Loxone components, and eg. using as much of KNX as possible. It could be that LoxConfig is going to reduce the options for expanding to non Loxone components, so it gets more and more a walled garden, even though it might be nice.

I really miss doing site:forum.loxone.com searches, searching for images like this really helped me getting an overview of a log of things. Now I'm down to image searches on blog.loxone.com..

So the option for a forum etc. to close, is a risk. Google groups is very open, so it might be much better suited. But if a forum gets permission to transfer the messages etc. from the former forum.loxone.com, then it might tip the scales.

[Skarsol]

Not sure how useful a poll is. People will vote with their posts. Over time it's likely one venue or the other (or some even newer/better one) will "win" out. Personally, I'm not sure what benefit is gained by going through vBulletin vs here.

And really, just the act of setting up competing venues hurts the community in the long run as it will take even longer for everything to coalesce into one location (if it ever does). If you really care about a unified forum, etc, you'd shut down the latecomer.

[smartbusinesstools.be]

@Simon Mobius

Faster than expected:

[Simon Mobius]

It is quite sad to see that the one of the most popular posts on here is one that actually talks about a different forum and that it is degrading into proper rivalry with polls and almost gleeful posts about 30 minutes of downtime... 

If you took the time to actually go back to the forum, then you would see a very valid reason for the downtime

http://www.trulysmart.co.uk/forum/small-talk-off-topic/138-scheduled-maintenance-database-migration

Anyways, this is not at all what I intended... All I care about is brining people together in one place. 

And that being said I am off. Hope to see you all soon. No hard feelings, just a bit of disappointment about the responses. 

Goodbye. 

[Skarsol]

As long as that place is the one you prefer. ;P

[BartVB]

An even better option would be a section on an existing/active/stable site about home automation in general. A lot of topics are common to all different HA systems. LED drivers, communication with heating systems, door contacts, intercom systems, etc. Therefore a lot of knowledge can be shared between Loxone, Zwave, PLC, KNX and other systems.

I'm fairly new to home automation, I don't know if such a site/community exists?

[Simon Still]

I never found any generic HA sites that were very useful. A few I visited had too little traffic to be useful and at least one had sub forums for each and every Competing hA system

People are poor at categorising so most queries would just end up in the sub forum