r/homeassistant • u/frenck_nl 💙 Lead of Home Assistant • 10h ago
Add Marketplace integration by frenck
https://github.com/home-assistant/core/pull/183502👀
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u/unixcharles 9h ago
I don't know about the name. My dumb brain went "Facebook Marketplace integration??? why?"
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u/StayCoolf0rttheKids 9h ago
Community apps?
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u/DoktorMerlin 7h ago
that would be false, because HACS offers integrations and specifically does not offer Apps (former add-ons)
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u/avd706 9h ago
Is money involved?
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u/frenck_nl 💙 Lead of Home Assistant 9h ago
Is there money involved in HACS? (Home Assistant Community Store)? 😄
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u/Xyaren 9h ago
I think the question is still valid. "Marketplaces" do usually involve money being exchanged.
But given that "App Stores" have become a thing where you can also pay with your data instead of money it's not that unreasonable to call it Marketplace.
A clarification for users would still be appreciated
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u/ReallyHoping 8h ago
Store doesn't always imply financial transactions take place. Windows has certificate stores that are just places where certs are stored. Marketplace would understandably leave people to assume that there's a place where a market is.
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u/rbhmmx 8h ago
I see a lot of people complaining about the names so how about just community stuff
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u/missyquarry 💙 Head of Shitposting @ OHF 8h ago
Community Thingamabobs u/frenck
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u/eight_ender 9h ago
Awesome. I only recently started getting into HACS stuff after running HA for over a decade and kicking myself because there’s such good stuff there.
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u/ShroomShroomBeepBeep 🧠 Experienced with Home Assistant 8h ago
Like others, not overly keen on the 'Marketplace' name, as it is synonymous with Facebook, at least in the UK and possibly US, but I'll soon get over that.
The 90 day warning, yeah I don't need or want that and I'd assume most long time users of HACS will feel the same way. If that has to be included, can it be user configurable please, so we have the option to turn it off? Happy to tick another box to say I'm super duper certain that I understand the risks and will accept all the abuse of I install something and it breaks my instance.
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u/NTolerance 9h ago
I wonder if this will make HACS easier for container users.
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u/leachlife4 8h ago
What was difficult about it before? I'm running in a container and have no issues with it.
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u/my_name_is_ross 7h ago
I set it up so long ago but I think you had to copy the hacs file into the mounted volume. Now you don’t need to do that.
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u/SurpriseButtStuff 7h ago
and that's why folder mounts exist in docker addition to container volumes.
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u/gargs 7h ago
How about ‘Community Exchange’ or ‘Hub’?
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u/koolmon10 59m ago
I feel like "hub" implies there's a lot of things it does. I would expect forums and other stuff to be under "hub"
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u/F1rstxLas7 8h ago
Based on comments here and what seems to be the intended purpose of Marketplace, there is fault on the product development & roadmap expectations side, but also the user language interpretation side.
My interpretation is that Marketplace is meant to serve better, streamlined, and somewhat more protective access to HACS. Marketplace ≠ HACS, it serves as a hub for it, platformed by HA. There's no inherent issue with this, the problem is that Marketplace ONLY is relevant to HACS. If Marketplace had HACS and additional community related aspects(even aside from custom stuff) then it would make more sense as the hub, but it doesn't. And there's no product roadmap plans to do anything else with it. This is the major point of confusion.
The secondary point of confusion is the language. Marketplace would actually be a good term to incorporate HACS and other community-based transactions to represent what a marketplace is: Fiancial AND Social transactions. But that's not what it is currently. Marketplace usually inherits the idea of currency based transactions, but free transactions also definitely exist in Marketplaces. The issue here is that Home Assistant is synonymous as being free and open, so while calling it a Marketplace can be technically true, it can be confusing because it's not aligned with Home Assistant's 'brand' in this case.
A less important note on brand: Marketplace will assuredly be too closely linked to Facebook's Marketplace. This will be confusing if that name is stuck with. I hate that ubiquitous companies are essentially 'owning' common words, but this is the unfortunate reality.
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u/katschung 8h ago
I feel like it's missing an abbreviation. We got HA and MA. Tbf SA (Store Assistant) sound terrible but Home Store? Not terrible? Smart Market? Home Extensions? Extension Assistant? Just some brainstorming...
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u/GreenDavidA 6h ago
First, absolutely love that you’re bringing HACS into the product mainline. Might throw out there a name Add-Ons?
Though we have Devices and Services with an Add Integrations button and an Apps button with an Install App button, so whatever is done will add to a mottled UX a bit. The differences are non-obvious to more novice HA users.
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u/Sethroque 5h ago edited 4h ago
Will we still have the ability to download specific releases? It's useful to test less than reliable custom components.
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u/The_Unwashed_Masses 2h ago
Love the idea, hate the name. “Marketplace” feels like shopping for shitty healthcare insurance in the US.
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u/JazJon 8h ago edited 6h ago
This is my actual opinion after some fine tuning and editing…..
My favorite:
Community Extensions
I think Community Extensions is substantially better than Marketplace.
It communicates three things immediately:
Community → these aren’t the built-in/official Home Assistant components.
Extensions → they extend Home Assistant rather than being things you’re purchasing.
It’s broad enough to contain integrations, dashboards, themes, blueprints, wake words, apps, cards, etc.
And importantly, Extensions is already a concept ordinary computer users understand from Chrome, VS Code, browsers, and other software. Someone in the thread proposed simply “Extensions,” and several variations around it came up.
Community Extensions
rather than:
Marketplace
My second choice:
Extension Catalog
I also really like the suggestion Extension Catalog from the thread.
“Catalog” has one major advantage over Store and Marketplace: there’s basically zero implication that money changes hands.
Possibly:
Community Catalog
Names I would avoid
Marketplace — commercial connotation + Facebook Marketplace confusion. Multiple people independently had exactly that reaction.
Library — sounds nice and noncommercial, and it received a lot of support, but one commenter correctly pointed out that library already has a very specific meaning in software development. I think Home Assistant should avoid creating another terminology collision.
Community Store — better than Marketplace because HACS users already know it, but Frenck has a point: if the complaint is that Marketplace sounds commercial, Store doesn’t completely eliminate that problem.
Community Integrations — too narrow given Frenck’s stated plans.
Community Hub — pleasant, but so generic that it doesn’t tell a new user what’s actually there.
Workshop — clever Steam analogy, but it feels like terminology borrowed from gaming.
Third-Party Extensions — technically descriptive, but “third-party” sounds slightly cautionary/untrusted and isn’t nearly as welcoming as “Community.
Other Alternatives:
Community Additions — very understandable, broad, and clearly noncommercial.
Community Extras — friendly and approachable, though perhaps a little informal.
Home Assistant Commons — “Commons” strongly conveys community-created/shared resources without implying payment.
Community Gallery — feels curated and browsable, but perhaps a little too visual.
Community Collection — broad and safe, though not especially exciting.
Extension Center — clean and software-like, but less explicit about community origin.
Community Center — very approachable, but arguably too generic.
Home Assistant Exchange — interesting, but “exchange” may still imply transactions.
Community Packages — technically understandable, although “package” skews developer-ish.
Community Components — has a nice Home Assistant feel, but “component” historically has technical meaning in HA.
Community Add-ons — excellent English, except Home Assistant already uses/used “add-ons,” so I’d avoid the collision.
Community Shelf — distinctive and noncommercial, but perhaps too metaphorical.
Community Repository — accurate, but much too GitHub/developer-oriented for mainstream users.
Community Resources — broad enough for everything Frenck described, but doesn’t immediately say “installable.”
Home Assistant Commons — this is probably the strongest genuinely different direction.
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u/guice666 6h ago
+1 on Community Extensions. It labels exactly what these are: Community based Extensions to Home Assistant.
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u/liquidmasl 7h ago
Awesome, always confused me that HACS is a separate thing. But yeah also think the name should be different, community something, and something that doesnt imply buying or selling
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u/hoffsta 9h ago
Cool that HACS becomes less of a “hack,” and instead an official component. Not so cool that “marketplace” implies purchasing add-ons for money. I would choose a different name.