Marking Devices as Favorites and Naming Questions about homebridge-unifi-protect

[hjdhjd]

Thanks Rodney, I really appreciate the feedback. So let's talk about each of these, though out of order:

On 2...you can name accessories same as you would with anything else in HomeKit. Nothing stopping you from doing that from within the Home app. Go to the settings of an accessory and rename away. It's not a plugin thing. 😄

On 1...the TLDR version: your issue isn't with this plugin, it's with the Home app. I don't intend to change the behavior of the plugin at this time.

The Home app behavior changed in iOS 13 so that when an accessory has multiple services, it wants to group them together and treat them the same. You can argue with Apple about whether this is a good choice or not. I think it's a perfectly reasonable approach, though it probably wouldn't have been mine.

I could force each "service" like the motion sensor, or motion sensor switch, to be a different accessory, which would allow the behavior you're looking for. I choose not to for two reasons...one technical, and one taste.

Technical:

There's a real limit to the number of accessories you can have in HomeKit, and a limit to the number of accessories you can expose through a bridge (like Homebridge). That limit is currently 150. If, over time, there are a variety of sensors and switches associated with a single camera (humor me for a moment) and let's say we have 10 services associated per camera. If you're in an environment like mine where I have the better part of two dozen cameras, I'm going to quickly blow through that accessory limit on just UniFi Protect. Mind you...that 150 accessory limit is for all accessories off that Homebridge instance. That gets pretty constraining, pretty quickly.

Additionally, Apple wants you to do it this way. If there's anything I've learned over the years in watching Apple do it's thing is that there's usually a reason why they encourage you to do something a certain way, and while it may not make as much sense today as to why, there's typically something in their roadmap that reveals why things are the way they are.

Taste:

I think software should have a point of view and express it. Inherently, I don't think exposing a motion sensor or a motion sensor switch on a home screen is a good idea in and of itself. the motion sensor in particular is not actionable. You can't do anything with it...so why show it on the home screen? You want to alert yourself when motion is detected...great, that's what the status area is for at the top and you can configure notifications.

As to the switch...I think it's a tempting thing for people to mess with, but in general they should only use it for automation. If you want to selectively turn on and off notifications, there are a rich set of options for doing so in the Home app. Go into the settings of an accessory, tap Notifications, and customize away. It's a lot richer and better on a host of fronts than anything I can do. My view, in short is: people should not be using the switch functionality built into each camera as their way to selectively turn on and off notifications on a regular basis. Use it for automation. If you want to limit when you get alerts, or which cameras you get them for, selectively enable or disable notifications within the iOS Home app.

If you really want to create a switch for yourself to control one or more cameras as a separate accessory, you can use the Liveview switch functionality to do so. That's a better approach, in general, because it allows you to affirmatively say "I want a switch to control this group of cameras"...you can decide what that group is. Again, it's primarily intended for automation purposes to streamline things for a user.

Finally...if you don't like the way Apple's decided to deal with accessories with multiple services, I'd encourage you to look at the many other HomeKit interface apps out there (Eve, Home+, etc.) - some of them are free and do a great job, others cost a few bucks but support independent developers. They all have their pros and cons...I prefer the iOS Home app myself, but you do you. 😄

This is probably a way longer response than you expected...I hope it gives you some insight into how I'm thinking about the user experience for this plugin and why I've made the design choices I have.

[RodneyCapron]

Good Afternoon, My apologies for the delay in getting back to you. I really appreciate your taking the time to respond to my questions in detail. 😀 1) The reason I asked about being able to name accessories within the plug in (or in the Homebridge config) is that I use Home Assistant for a lot of integrations exposed to HomeKit and if for some reason you ever have to remove (which I have done several times in testing) the bridge from HomeKit and then add it again, all of the accessories are named exactly as they should be and do not revert to the default naming convention. This would be a nice feature to have for the 12 cameras and sensors I have exposed to HomeKit through your plug in. 2) This makes complete sense and you are 100% on point with Apple's choices within HomeKit. 3) I have been using the Live View functionality which is absolutely brilliant! Really nice job on this feature!! 👍 4) I also wanted to mention that I have 2 doorbells and 2 G3 Micro Cameras. The 2-way audio is working as expected on the doorbells but not for the G3 Micro Cameras. I did see the microphone once (on one of them) but I have not been able to use it. If you are located in the United States, I would be happy to send you a G3 Micro that you can use for testing. Once you have everything figured out, you can send it back to me. Please let me know if that would be helpful. Thanks again for all your efforts on this plug in - truly exceptional work! Best regards, Rodney

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On Thu, Aug 20, 2020 at 12:39 PM hjdhjd ***@***.***> wrote: Thanks Rodney, I really appreciate the feedback. So let's talk about each of these, though out of order: On 2...you can name accessories same as you would with anything else in HomeKit. Nothing stopping you from doing that from within the Home app. Go to the settings of an accessory and rename away. It's not a plugin thing. 😄 On 1...the TLDR version: your issue isn't with this plugin, it's with the Home app. I don't intend to change the behavior of the plugin at this time. The Home app behavior changed in iOS 13 so that when an accessory has multiple services, it wants to group them together and treat them the same. You can argue with Apple about whether this is a good choice or not. I think it's a perfectly reasonable approach, though it probably wouldn't have been mine. I could force each "service" like the motion sensor, or motion sensor switch, to be a different accessory, which would allow the behavior you're looking for. I choose not to for two reasons...one technical, and one taste. Technical: There's a real limit to the number of accessories you can have in HomeKit, and a limit to the number of accessories you can expose through a bridge (like Homebridge). That limit is currently 150. If, over time, there are a variety of sensors and switches associated with a single camera (humor me for a moment) and let's say we have 10 services associated per camera. If you're in an environment like mine where I have the better part of two dozen cameras, I'm going to quickly blow through that accessory limit on just UniFi Protect. Mind you...that 150 accessory limit is for *all* accessories off that Homebridge instance. That gets pretty constraining, pretty quickly. Additionally, Apple wants you to do it this way. If there's anything I've learned over the years in watching Apple do it's thing is that there's usually a reason why they encourage you to do something a certain way, and while it may not make as much sense today as to why, there's typically something in their roadmap that reveals why things are the way they are. Taste: I think software should have a point of view and express it. Inherently, I don't think exposing a motion sensor or a motion sensor switch on a home screen is a good idea in and of itself. the motion sensor in particular is not actionable. You can't *do* anything with it...so why show it on the home screen? You want to alert yourself when motion is detected...great, that's what the status area is for at the top and you can configure notifications. As to the switch...I think it's a tempting thing for people to mess with, but in general they should only use it *for automation*. If you want to selectively turn on and off notifications, there are a rich set of options for doing so in the Home app. Go into the settings of an accessory, tap Notifications, and customize away. It's a lot richer and better on a host of fronts than anything I can do. My view, in short is: *people should not be using the switch functionality built into each camera as their way to selectively turn on and off notifications on a regular basis*. Use it for automation. If you want to limit when you get alerts, or which cameras you get them for, selectively enable or disable notifications within the iOS Home app. If you really want to create a switch for yourself to control one or more cameras as a separate accessory, you can use the Liveview switch functionality <https://github.com/hjdhjd/homebridge-unifi-protect2/blob/master/docs/Liveviews.md#how-to-configure-and-use-the-liveview-switch-feature> to do so. That's a better approach, in general, because it allows you to affirmatively say "I want a switch to control this group of cameras"...you can decide what that group is. Again, it's primarily intended for automation purposes to streamline things for a user. Finally...if you don't like the way Apple's decided to deal with accessories with multiple services, I'd encourage you to look at the many other HomeKit interface apps out there (Eve, Home+, etc.) - some of them are free and do a great job, others cost a few bucks but support independent developers. They all have their pros and cons...I prefer the iOS Home app myself, but you do you. 😄 This is probably a way longer response than you expected...I hope it gives you some insight into how I'm thinking about the user experience for this plugin and why I've made the design choices I have. — You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#44 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAJ76EEG3X7VTBP6EBHHO33SBVGSFANCNFSM4QGA6UQA> .

[hjdhjd]

Rodney - no worries.

1. If you change the camera name in UniFi Protect, it'll be reflected in HomeKit unless you've set a specific name. I have no plans to allow you to further set the name within the plugin configuration. I view it as redundant and confusing for almost everyone. You can name the cameras in UniFi Protect, and get those names by default in HomeKit. Or you can rename the cameras to your liking in HomeKit. TL;DR: no intention of adding this functionality. If for some reason you want to name things differently in UniFi Protect, and again differently in HomeKit, and again in Home Assistant, I'm afraid that's a use case I don't intend to automate.

Or...stop uninstalling and reinstalling already. 😄

2-3. Awesome! Enjoy!

4. That's disappointing. I had hoped it would work by default for G3 Micros. I'm going to order one for myself I think...I hope we can get this going in an upcoming release. My apologies.

[RodneyCapron]

Hello @hjdhjd,

Thanks again for the quick response and thorough answers.

1. Point taken and I understand your view on this one. 😄
2. I wanted to let you know that I did a firmware update on my UDM Pro (to version 1.8) and after the reboot the microphone appeared on the G3 Micro Cameras! I doubt the firmware changed anything but maybe starting Protect after Homebridge somehow made a difference (Homebridge had been rebooted multiple times since updating to the latest version of the plugin).

Thanks again and have a great day!

Rodney

[hjdhjd]

Great. Enjoy two-way audio!

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