Site updated at 2018-01-28 22:02:31 UTC

This commit is contained in:
Travis CI 2018-01-28 22:02:31 +00:00
parent 57a21e9eb0
commit 01b474f87c
268 changed files with 412 additions and 412 deletions

View file

@ -86,13 +86,13 @@
<li>Is it open and expandable?</li>
<li>Does it run locally without any reliance on the cloud?</li>
</ul>
<p>In my opinion, Home Assistant accomplishes the majority of these very well with a combination of Automations, Scripts and Templates, and its Restful API.</p>
<p>In my opinion, Home Assistant accomplishes the majority of these very well with a combination of Automations, Scripts and Templates, and its Restful API.</p>
<p>So why <code class="highlighter-rouge">AppDaemon</code>? AppDaemon is not meant to replace Home Assistant Automations and Scripts, rather complement them. For a lot of things, automations work well and can be very succinct. However, there is a class of more complex automations for which they become harder to use, and appdeamon then comes into its own. It brings quite a few things to the table:</p>
<ul>
<li>New paradigm - some problems require a procedural and/or iterative approach, and <code class="highlighter-rouge">AppDaemon</code> Apps are a much more natural fit for this. Recent enhancements to Home Assistant scripts and templates have made huge strides, but for the most complex scenarios, Apps can do things that Automations cant</li>
<li>Ease of use - AppDaemons API is full of helper functions that make programming as easy and natural as possible. The functions and their operation are as “Pythonic” as possible, experienced Python programmers should feel right at home.</li>
<li>Reuse - write a piece of code once and instantiate it as an app as many times as you need with different parameters e.g. a motion light program that you can use in 5 different places around your home. The code stays the same, you just dynamically add new instances of it in the config file</li>
<li>Dynamic - AppDaemon has been designed from the start to enable the user to make changes without requiring a restart of Home Assistant, thanks to its loose coupling. However, it is better than that - the user can make changes to code and AppDaemon will automatically reload the code, figure out which Apps were using it and restart them to use the new code with out the need to restart <code class="highlighter-rouge">AppDaemon</code> itself. It is also possible to change parameters for an individual or multiple apps and have them picked up dynamically, and for a final trick, removing or adding apps is also picked up dynamically. Testing cycles become a lot more efficient as a result.</li>
<li>Dynamic - AppDaemon has been designed from the start to enable the user to make changes without requiring a restart of Home Assistant, thanks to its loose coupling. However, it is better than that - the user can make changes to code and AppDaemon will automatically reload the code, figure out which Apps were using it and restart them to use the new code with out the need to restart <code class="highlighter-rouge">AppDaemon</code> itself. It is also possible to change parameters for an individual or multiple apps and have them picked up dynamically, and for a final trick, removing or adding apps is also picked up dynamically. Testing cycles become a lot more efficient as a result.</li>
<li>Complex logic - Pythons If/Else constructs are clearer and easier to code for arbitrarily complex nested logic</li>
<li>Durable variables and state - variables can be kept between events to keep track of things like the number of times a motion sensor has been activated, or how long it has been since a door opened</li>
<li>All the power of Python - use any of Pythons libraries, create your own modules, share variables, refactor and re-use code, create a single app to do everything, or multiple apps for individual tasks - nothing is off limits!</li>