Open Source Or Plugin Capability

As a software guy who is fascinated by home automation I would LOVE to be able to provide enhancements to the system. Have you considered open sourcing part of your system so that other folks can contribute? It can be a scary proposition giving away the crown jewels for free but I would bet that the amount of new capabilities you could provide would be interesting.

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@rlynch Interesting idea, how would you see this mechanism working?

I see one of two options. You fully open source all of your code, especially on the controller or you create a plugin mechanism possibly with its own app ecosystem.

As a far fetched example, I also have a solar rooftop system which could be a basis for understanding how much solar radiation my house is getting which could influence the watering time of the rachio. Or I could build the mechanism to add the rachio into a larger home automation framework. Or because I am really interested in having my two separate rachio controllers operate as if they were a single unit maybe I would be willing to do the development work and contribute it to the open source community. Its a model that has worked quite well in the software industry even through it can be counter intuitive.

Because it is either open source or an app ecosystem Rachio would benefit by having other technical individuals contributing to the capability of the system. Because you maintain control of the open source you can ensure the quality of the changes that actually make it out into a release.

@rlynch Thanks so much for the feedback. I am a huge proponent of open source and even built a Java framework in the past :wink: http://dozer.sourceforge.net/

I don’t know if that model would work for a cloud based architecture such as ours.

What does pique my interest is a pluggable framework where you could tie such things as moisture sensors, weather sensors, etc. directly into the device. We could create the interface that would drive these plugins.

Will put the kernel of this idea in our backlog. First we need to increase our footprint and win the professional/consumer based market and then I believe things like pluggable architectures will come naturally.

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yea, this would be a nice add. i would really like to integrate my flow meter data into the rain data used by the device. well, assuming that would be helpful, but a pluggable arch. would get me on the right path to understanding if/how this could be helpful.

for now im assuming it can be combined with rainfall amounts to play catch up at the end of the week.