varietas vs finite labs Apple homekit integration?

[chudel]

Hi,

Was curious if anyone's done a side/by/side comparison of these two Apple Homekit integrations? 

Thanks!

[Amr]

I did but against DTI, search for it.

[chopedogg88]

I haven't done a detailed comparison because I'm not an Apple guy, but I've used both for various clients over the years and the feedback seems to be that the Finite Labs one is much easier to setup and maintain, and everyone seems to prefer it.

[chudel]

Replying to my own note since I've now personally used and compared both the Finite Labs and Varietas Driver versions.  Here's my limited assessment:

 

Cost

• FiniteLabs list price on Driver Central is $250
• Varietas Driver is listed as $200.  Strongly encourages use of a custom Raspberry Pi image for setup & management.  (Or buy a pre-installed Pi for $225)

Support

• Both provide quick responsive tech support to email requests
• Both provide support for the lights/switches that I use in my system - I have UnifiProtect for cameras which I manage using a separate Homebridge plugin

Ease of Use

• Finite Labs is the clear winner here. My reasons are:
  • Integrates with stock homebridge (so you can easily use homebridge gui to manage set of C4 and non-C4 plugins
  • Loads the homebridge gui right from within the C4 management gui
  • no extra plugins/custom pi images to manage
  • I didn't do benchmarking, so this may be inaccurate but the FInite Labs -feels- more responsive. (Could be my imagination)

 

[ekohn00]

On 1/31/2024 at 3:11 PM, Amr said:

I did but against DTI, search for it.

+1 It's worth checking out the DTI driver. easily works in a docker container too.

[tmj4]

Finite Labs variant is far more polished and developed in a much more professional manner. There are many quick updates pushed out as soon as issues arise as well. Wouldn't even bother messing with any other variant.

[Puffen]

I've had the veritas driver since shortly after it came out.  It has gotten the job done although there can be annoying latency at times.

The primary issue I have with veritas is that there has been very little ongoing development with it.  One could argue what else do you need but if you go to their GitHub repo, you'll see that since being developed in 2017, there has been very few ongoing commits to it nor responses to issues raised, etc.  I've honestly thought that it has essentially been orphaned by the company or the company was gone.  Homebridge is also moving to 2.0 and my preliminary read of it is that the driver may have issues with it.  It is one giant file with a lot if if/thens, etc. which probably feeds into it having performance issues.  It would benefit from being redone as a driver using a more structured approach to it.  I've looked at redoing it myself for myself but haven't carved out the time.  

Probably cheaper to go with Finite Labs for now.  Honestly not sure if it is better or worse.  Then add in the new X4 coming homebridge/homekit integration whose scope is unknown which may reduce the need for either driver.

My personal pet peeve though is the lack of any concept of security.  Essentially it is a bunch of get/post commands with a wrapper around it.  Arguably that is any integration but given that C4 has removed the terminal access (as IOT devices have not been historically secure) but for all intensive purposes your system is controllable if you have network access.

Where I live now, I haven't bothered integrating the security panel but I believe the driver supports a security panel.  Open network (yes I've seen people spend 10s of thousands of dollars on systems and then they do something stupid like don't use a password or use a default password) or easy crack of WPA2 and now there is access to the house.  Then again, I suppose a rock does the same thing but doesn't disable the alarm.

All of that said, the varietas driver has allowed for integrating the two and it is better than nothing.