Integromat vs IFTTT vs Zapier

[ergophobe]

I'm a big fan of Zapier and IFTTT, but

- I find IFTTT a little clunky, though it has improved a lot lately. I'm also just always skeptical of a free service. It appears to be an affiliate model, but it just always makes me nervous trusting something that is important to IFTTT. Maybe that's ill-founded

- Zapier, on the other hand, is great to work with, but I find the premium pricing a bit steep. I'm at the lower threshold of needing it, and find it a big jump for a little extra

- Integromat - I just discovered these guys. They have a ton of integrations, generous free plan and a reasonable $9/mo first step up. Haven't built anything on them yet, but am looking to try.

More generally, services like this seem to be breeding like rodents lately. Every time I turn around, I find another. However, the ones that I find are typically either much more expensive than Zapier or much more limited or both.

Are people using any other similar services that you like/hate?

[rcjordan]

>IFTTT skeptical

^{previous post:}

This company is dominating the behind-the-scenes implementation of smarthome tech.  I don't use them because I think they're going to eventually squeeze freeloaders into some sort of subscription plan. But there are many, many smarthome and smartphone users who are up to their eyeballs in IFTTT recipes.

This uneasiness about future dependency seems to be strengthening in the home automation forums (I'm still the dumbest guy) and they're looking elsewhere. FWIW, see 'MQTT' rising steadily, but know nothing about it.

[ergophobe]

FWIW, see 'MQTT' rising steadily, but know nothing about it.

It's protocol, not a service. Like HTTP, it sits on top of TCP/IP

You are deep into geekdom in your automation forums if they're having discussions about MQTT.

My goal here is to save myself effort, not build a startup based on messaging protocol.

[rcjordan]

>You are deep into geekdom in your automation forums if they're having discussions about MQTT.

They've gone far beyond the discussion level and are writing drivers and device aps

"An application that provides linking of Hubitat devices directly with an MQTT broker i.e. without need for the 'middleman' bridge."

I'm still the dumbest guy in the room at Hubitat.

[ergophobe]

I know you've posted a bunch of links elsewhere, but what are the best of the forums you're reading on that topic?

[rcjordan]

95%⁺ now comes from the Hubitat forum.
https://community.hubitat.com/latest

The remainder comes from reddit smarthome-related forums & my bundled tech rss feeds.

The above mqtt came from the developers sub-forum
https://community.hubitat.com/t/alpha-mqtt-application/15708

<aside>
IMO, the Hubitat forum reached critical mass about 30 days ago. It's gone from warm to hot and trending toward white-hot.  The lounge is pretty good for tech in general --though still heavily skewed to smarthome.

[rcjordan]

What is MQTT being used for with HE? (MQTT for Dummies) - Lounge - Hubitat
https://community.hubitat.com/t/what-is-mqtt-being-used-for-with-he-mqtt-for-dummies/31170/8

[ergophobe]

https://www.instructables.com/id/MQTT-for-Dummies/

Hmmm... I think I'm not really up to the dummy level yet HHH

It all reminds me of something a client once said to me: "Okay, so you just said a lot of words and apparently those words mean something to you. But all of the words you just used that seem essential to the meaning of what you just said, mean nothing to me. So what I heard was 'The problem is blah blah, because the blah blah is conflicting with the blah blah because blah blah is running some older blah blah."

And I was really trying my best at the time!

[rcjordan]

>I'm not really up to the dummy level yet

Same.  ...But that won't keep me from a wild guess;

HE (Hubitat) is thriving on a sort of hacking-piracy of hijacking IOT devices.  That is, they take a device that is intended for a particular platform (cloud-based server, for example) and compile drivers for the HE hub that supplant that platform with their own.  Then a device no longer needs to phone home in this example, but still keeps some or all of its functionality. Intercepting MQTT may let them get into a device at a very basic level.

[rcjordan]

>>You are deep into geekdom in your automation forums if they're having discussions about MQTT.

I think they're on their 3rd MQTT beta now, but that's just the tip of the geek iceberg.  IMO, Hubitat has grown legs and is now pulling in geeks on a grand, international scale.  Almost daily, someone brings in some obscure IOT device and asks if anyone has worked out a driver.  And, frequently someone has or does.

Since I started Hubitat home automation, 3 or 4 large vendors in the market have withdrawn, gone to pay-to-play (subscriptions for cloud services), gotten so anemic they aren't dependable, or collapsed outright.  Many of those displaced users have migrated to the platform.