I've been reading up on home automation for a few weeks now, and, interestingly enough, in one article by Microsoft (http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/project

I've been reading up on home automation for a few weeks now, and, interestingly enough, in one article by Microsoft (http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/homeos/ http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/homeos/) they go into detail about how users were a bit adversed to automated a large portion of their life (Slide 13 here: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/homeos/brushccw2011_homenetworkingpanel.pdf http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/homeos/brushccw...). No doubt what Derek Low did was super awesome, but he only hit the tip of the iceberg on what users 'want' (Slide 11). Sadly, while they loved creating scenes (modes), they weren't compelled to drop additional funds for it. If he wants to continue pursuing this for his degree, I'm sure someone like Nest will try to scoop him up in a heartbeat. As a side note, that automated blinds system was uncomfortably loud.