Monocle, please open source code and release on github
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@mudgen said in Monocle, please open source code and release on github:
I’m sure they’d be glad to give me double my purchase price back. ;)
Is the point that free should be useless? Anyways, this is why I requested open sourcing, so that the community can make it work when it doesn’t since free is usually insufficient motivation for creators.
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No, the point is that it is far from useless in spite of Google’s capricious API behaviors. I did not mean to disparage the notion of open sourcing.
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@mudgen Alexa is very fussy with cameras. The Monocle gateway does exactly what it needs to, but the solution can be very one-off per model number of camera. I have mostly Reolink cameras, a GW Gateway camera and an Amcrest camera. I have all these cameras working on my Echo 10" 2ng Gens and on my Fire TV 4k sticks. I have one Echo Show 8 and only the GW Gateway works on it. In general, the Monocle Gateway is awesome. The Alexa camera and device support are not designed to support other than their skill supported cameras. I had three Wyze cameras working great and two months ago the Wyze Alexa skill refused to display them despite no changes.
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@vmsman While I appreciate and understand the context, this doesn’t move the problem forward at all (unless the intent is to say “move along, it’ll never work”, a conclusion I can reach on my own).
However, I am able and willing to work with a/the developer to try to make it work and I have the capability to do some further reverse engineering (packet capture on my network, etc) on the cameras and/or Alexa devices if there is a will and availability of starting points (I have neither the interest nor time to completely re-invent the wheel, at least not yet).
So, where is this developer in this discussion then?
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Robert is the developer and he is a good guy. Perhaps he will chime in.
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I’ve used Monocle for nearly 4 yrs - and haven’t had anything but great luck and success. I don’t blame my wants and needs on Monocle, the opposite. I’m grateful it works.
Recently I had problems with new hardware and couldn’t solve. Today I found another user had solved. I’m happy and pleased.
I say all this because I don’t think Monocle should be Open Source. It would become just a sludgepool of support requests to solve different camera models. There are already numerous Open Source Proxies that could be modified if thats the desire. In my opinion, specific solutions work well in Open Source, but NOT when it’s a wide spread application with the potential of monetization. And lets not forget, it seems pretty common knowledge most of what I see are related to Amazon’s problems with Show models/versions. -
@jshimota Well stated and very eloquent points.
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Perhaps if the developer would allow a community moderator just to keep on top of the spam? I’m sure that would address most of the issues.
I think in part the reason that there isn’t much development is because in the majority of cases it just works. For a free skill that displays almost any camera that already puts it ahead of 1000s of other Alexa skills I have used :joy:
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@michael : A community moderator or two might help us to be more of a community to each other, pointing out esoteric clues in log traces and remarking on obscure config tweaks and such.
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@mudgen
Agree there… got an email this morning for a forum update, 5 spam topics and two genuine ones. Might be dipping out of this continues… -
This Github repo isn’t an exact match for Monocle, but the components and instructions there could get you a long way in making a DIY open-source Monocle service.
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I came here looking for this exact solution and found it, i am not much of a computer guy at all, but found the instructions and managed to get it up and running very well, albeit after a week of torture, i managed to find all the solutions here in the forums, personally i thinks works well and i cannot find anything else near, to do what Monocle does.
I do have a Smartthings hub which seems to predominantly work via Github and have only ever had headaches trying to install and get stuff working with the open source stuff, it just seems to be a minefield, a confusing one especially for people like myself who just want a nice .exe to do all the work, to the point where my ST hub is just a coaster for my cup of tea now. I cannot even get my Sage doorbell to work though ST to Alexa and all i see recently on the forums is people complaining.
The majority want something that just works and Monocle seems to, without to much hassle.