NORA cannot be reached from Google Home mini

[Teckware]

For some time now, when I give an order to Goggle, I have received a reply that NORA is currently not available. But if I give the command two or three times in a row, the entity is switched.

For me, the HASIO system for home automation runs on a Raspberry 3 B + and on another Raspberry ioBroker, NodeRED runs on this, in which the NORA nodes are configured and then send a command via MQTT to the entities that are to be switched.

So far this has been going relatively smoothly, except for a few config problems that were homemade. At the moment I have more or less about 91 sensors, switches or light controls.

[Raul-7-7]

@Teckware this is happening alot the past few months. If you use HASIO you can make it trigger Nodered without the need of Nora. While there is nothing wrong, why you using MQTT to send commands to Home Assistant as oppose to using the websocket integration?

[SozapBo]

I have the same issue. Nora is a great service but I'll probably switch to something more reliable until it is more stable.

[davidmuc]

Seen this thread, guys?! I hope this initiative kicks off to make NORA more stable: https://github.com/andrei-tatar/node-red-contrib-nora/issues/104

@SozapBo, which alternatives do you have in mind? I'm not so keen on switching again with my NodeRed-homematic setup.

[SozapBo]

I use Nora to control entities in Home Assistant mainly, so either I can sign up for their cloud service (Nabu Casa) or I can set it up an app my self - https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/google_assistant.

[andrei-tatar]

Unfortunately I'm having this issue too. It's probably due to the high number of connections on that one single little heroku instance. I'm looking into updating the code to be more scalable and most probably moving it to firebase. Hopefully there's some other free service that can handle the load.

[davidmuc]

I'm looking into updating the code to be more scalable and most probably moving it to firebase.

...where can I buy you a beer/coffee to say THANKS, @andrei-tatar ? Seriously: as I'm not capable of contributing anything valuable here (code!), I'd like to express my appreciation at least in some other way.

[andrei-tatar]

Thanks @davidmuc . Hold that beer/coffee for later. It seems firebase is a good alternative but it will need to be under a paid subscription to hold the thousands of concurrent connections. I will see what costs it might generate once I finish the new version.

[Raul-7-7]

Thanks @andrei-tatar that is great. Another option could be if you get the chance to update the doc for running our own instance, I tried it but I ran into some issues which I posted on that repo. If I can get going, I will put together a detail guide for anyone who wants to take that approach. Either Way, you rock!

[Wireheadbe]

Thanks @davidmuc . Hold that beer/coffee for later. It seems firebase is a good alternative but it will need to be under a paid subscription to hold the thousands of concurrent connections. I will see what costs it might generate once I finish the new version.

I'm not adversed to paying for a service like this to be honest. The code is free. But support costs money..

[Aegnor1975]

@andrei-tatar , to help you for the server, personnaly, I'm ready to pay 1 or 2 dollars per month, because I like the job you made ! Except these last weeks because this "Nora can't be reached", before this, it works perfectly, easy to use and to configurate ! You made a great job, and thanks !

[andrei-tatar]

Yeah, I think the Christmas holidays lead lots of people to tinkering :) I'll leave the new service for free a couple of months and see what kind of costs it generates. But I don't expect the subscription to be more than 1-2 usd per month tops. I also need to look into what that means... I probably need to start a company in order to accept money for a service.

[nivekamoud]

if you can make it work again i think everybody is willing to pay some dollars a year.

[MickdezFR]

I confirm ... French User ... I use your service every day! :)(but token down now... google sign in down too...) very annoying for me I have no button on my shutters and I have automated everything with your app and a siemens s7 1200 ... cli command for open my shutters lol

[glennss]

Unfortunately, none of my devices are able to connect, been like it for 3 days now. I think I'll try and setup my own firebase instance of the nora backend, is anyone else suffering this badly ?

[Wireheadbe]

Guys, let's give Andrei the time to fix it. We know it's not working great now, and it just shows how much we've started to rely on something that was originally conceived as a proof-of-concept. Thanks for your efforts Andrei!

[glennss]

Guys, let's give Andrei the time to fix it. We know it's not working great now, and it just shows how much we've started to rely on something that was originally conceived as a proof-of-concept. Thanks for your efforts Andrei!

Absolutely agree, might also be a good idea if we streamline running our own backends too. Andrei has graciously provided the code and instructions for running our own and doing so would reduce the load on his main server.

Could be a good idea for those of us who have the time / ability. We could even share them

[sniperxnl]

I have also the issues that googles says can't reach nora, for weeks now. Hope it is fixed soon My Disabled wife use it a lot to control the lights and heater. I buy you a big coffee when it is fixed man

[JNash1232]

I too have been having this issue, it just says Nora is unavailable, then a few mins later it works fine, leave it long enough and goes back to unavailableness.

[michelefa1988]

Hey guys, iam currently having similar issues. What is the latest on this? Do the issues mentiond still exist?

I read somewhere that that there is a beta available, I would be ready to help install it and give my 2 cents. I really believe in the product and where it can go

Thanks

[andrei-tatar]

Please read description here: https://node-red-google-home.herokuapp.com/login

[qeggs]

I'm currently working on a new (Smart NORA) version that will be backed by Firebase and will be able to handle tens of thousands of concurrent users without a problem.

Andrei, how can we help you get Smart NORA ready faster? You clearly have a lot of users who are motivated to make NORA more reliable. It's probably safe to say that most NORA users are tinkerers and willing to dive into a project to contribute anything they can.

I'm sure there is a very wide variety of skill sets and levels of expertise among NORA users. What specific skill sets might be helpful? Are there any specific tasks which we could help with?

I see there is a slack workspace which I will go join. However, in order to attract attention to the needs of this project, I think you would be well served by make a list in this ticket of tasks where users could apply their skills or knowledge, and then direct them to the slack workspace. I want to help as much as I can, and I'm sure there are many others with the same motivation.

P.S. My wife is going to put me out on the street if she hears "NORA is unavailable" one more time.

[andrei-tatar]

It's already "ready". The problem is that it is waiting on approval from Google to be visible to all the users (for almost a month now). If they won't approve it, I will have to scrap the old Nora project and change the action to use the new version. That means a breaking change for all users. So I need to prepare an email to send to all the users, warning them about the change... etc.

[qeggs]

That's great news! Sorry to offer my support so late at the end of the development.

Hoping your approval comes soon. If it doesn't, I bet most users won't be very upset with breaking change to the old NORA system if it comes with a welcome improvement to the reliability with the new version.

[rgerrans]

@qeggs If you are able to help, I would suggest jumping into the new version builds and helping with building additional device nodes. There have been a lot of requests for different nodes from users and that's an easy way to take some of the load off of Andrei so he can focus on the main code.

[michelefa1988]

@andrei-tatar Are we still able to join the slack channel? Reason is link seems to be broken

[nicandris]

@andrei-tatar Are we still able to join the slack channel? Reason is link seems to be broken

https://join.slack.com/t/smart-nora/shared_invite/zt-nn2w4efp-AXE5jUimp8gzqFI9NK62Ng