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I've been into the home automation thing since before forever. There have been many periods of excitement over the years. They come and go. As a result I have t

I've been into the home automation thing since before forever. There have been many periods of excitement over the years. They come and go. As a result I have to admit to a high level of skepticism about the current period. The companies that generate and are influenced by this excitement tend to make two main errors. 1. They don't understand that without an open standard for controls and sensors they are just fooling themselves. No one is going to permanently install something in their house that is sure to be useless in 10 years. 2. They don't understand that people don't want to control everything ... they instead want to not have to control everything. Being able to control a light from your phone is not really any better than being able to do it from the light switch. People instead want the light to just do the right thing without having to think about it. They don't want a thermostat controllable from a phone. They want a thermostat that makes it so they are comfortable and not paying any extra money they don't have to. As a result, the home automation people actually want is a much harder problem than what everyone always seems to assume.

prottmann 12y ago
The problem is, that they want sell you something that you have to pay again and again -> vendor lock, you must use their tools / services / clouds / whatever. Things that just work for 10 or more years, omg! ;) But you are absolutely right!. I did not automate anything at home with separate hard/software, because currently it solves no problem for me. We need not a smart home, we need an intelligent home without controlling or programming everything. A house/appartment has to recognize if nobody is at home and turn off the light or heating. I dont wanna do that with my smartphone and i dont want controll everything.
romaniv 12y ago
Open standards are a real issues in the industry. I find it ridiculous that you often have to pay thousands of dollars for software that simply understands those protocols. Not only that, it requires you to jump through ridiculous hoops to do stuff that you could easily do with a reasonably simple Python script. (Look up Niagara AX as an example.) Another problem is APIs and connectivity. Tuning a light on or off should be doable with a simple POST call to a RESTful service somewhere. Instead, we are sold dubious phone apps for everything.
- fixermark 12y ago
  I had some luck awhile ago with an INSTEON setup using their SmartLinc central controller---but only because the SmartLinc itself had a sniffable HTTP protocol for its "phone control." So basically it was ideal for me, as long as I completely bypassed all the crap software that came with it (I ended up writing a small server app that read my Google Calendar for "light on / light off" commands and sent the appropriate HTTP commands to the SmartLinc to fool it into doing the actions). Unfortunately, the setup stopped working and I don't have useful tools to debug it; no way to know why an INSTEON controller can't see another component, only that it can't. Plus, I'd like to move away from systems that want to use the house wiring at all (INSTEON is hybrid x10 / radio) because I don't want an errant power surge blowing my $100+ of equipment.
- FrozenCow 12y ago
  This is what I do as well. One raspberry pi with all the required connections (Z-Wave USB controller, IR emitter and a wire to my PC) with an extremely simple node application that serves urls like /lights/on, /curtains/open and /computer/power. My phone running Tasker to trigger the various appliances. Add some buttons to the homescreen for direct control over everything. The real added value comes from a trigger from the wakeup-alarm app that runs a Tasker script, turning on the lights, waiting 5 minutes and opening the curtains. I haven't found an all-in-one solution to do all this. Then again, I haven't looked for anything else once I got my curtains going through Tasker. An open standard would've made the process much simpler though.
  - dnr 12y ago
    Hah, I ended up with a very similar system: raspberry pi plus a razberry z-wave controller[1], IR receiver and cheap universal remote, and a node app that exposes a simple API as well as a simple UI. stunnel plus port forwarding on my router so I can access it securely from anywhere. Trigger on my phone for geo-fencing to turn off lights when I leave and turn them on when I get home (only if it's dark out). (Cheap PIR sensors are the next project.) Overall I've found that z-wave is quite reliable. It never loses commands and latency is good enough. The protocol supports just about any kind of device or signaling you might want, in theory, though it can't really do high-bandwidth things. The problem is that devices are relatively expensive (compared to the cost of the components) because the protocol is quasi-proprietary. Zigbee is "open" and extremely flexible, but as a result, zigbee devices from different vendors often can't talk to each other. I'll take the more limited but working thing, thanks. (The Trigger app's geofencing is pretty unreliable, though. Has anyone found an android app that can reliably do http requests when crossing a geofence?) [1] http://razberry.z-wave.me/ http://razberry.z-wave.me/
jwr 12y ago
> 2. They don't understand that people don't want to control everything ... they instead want to not have to control everything. Being able to control a light from your phone is not really any better than being able to do it from the light switch. This. I keep seeing devices that make me do more manual work to control things around me. These devices make my world more complex, while I need it to be simpler. It's why I started working on my own system to control lighting at home.
x1798DE 12y ago
One of my biggest problems is the all-too-pervasive attitude that #2 means that users shouldn't be able to control things that "do the right thing", rather than that the device defaults to doing the right thing. I find myself all too often in "edge case" situations that would be very easy to fix manually if I could dig around in some settings panel, but modern design philosophy seems to consider including a setting like that to be a design failure in some way. One example is a lack of any kind of manual focus on any phone cameras. If I'm taking a picture of a person or a cat or something the autofocus does the job right almost every time, but try taking a picture of a small shiny button or something - it's a nightmare. If I could press up-down-up-down-A-B-A-B-start-select and get a manual focus slider, I'd be happy all the time, but instead my few salient memories of fighting with the autofocus have soured me on the whole experience.
- gsteinb88 12y ago
  FYI, if you have an iPhone there's now a couple manual focus camera apps. Free: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/manually-manual-focus-camera/id923233292?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/manually-manual-focus-camera... and $2, but I've been happy with it: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/manual-custom-exposure-camera/id917146276?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/manual-custom-exposure-camer...
  - morley 12y ago
    As far as I know, if you're in the stock camera app, you can tap a portion of the screen for the camera to focus on that area. My girlfriend has an Android phone and can do the same.
    - bryanbuckley 12y ago
      tap is to autofocus. So if the autofocus is wrong, enjoy your frustration, miss your picture, or enjoy your blurry picture.
      - TheSpiceIsLife 12y ago
click170 12y ago
#3 Home automation devices that require communication with the vendor's servers in order to setup and or operate. Vendors come and go, but if I've bought a product, I expect it to work until the product dies. And I don't consider the vendor going out of business to be a valid product death. Not to mention if I'm paying a one-time-fee, and this thing requires communication with vendor servers, that's a service. Who's paying for the servers? I agree, current user interfaces suck, but I think at least for some vendors that may miss the point. If they publish a full-featured API you could write your own interface, and or integrate it with your home automation control system. I agree, standards need to exist, but I try to reward the vendors who provide an API over the ones who don't cause at least I can work with an API. And honestly, looking at the result of vendors trying to produce "smart" TVs, I don't want them writing the software that runs my home automation system. I'd prefer a FOSS home automation solution over a vendor one any day, and wouldn't buy one that didn't at a minimum include the source code.
- dangerlibrary 12y ago
  Offline products without subscriptions go against two base principles of the current tech investment boom (bubble?). The first the that recurring revenue is strictly better than one-off sales. That means VCs aren't interested in business models that don't end in "aaS". The second is the emphasis on iteration - making users connect back regularly allows for automatic updates that allow you to ship buggy software and fix it later.
  - click170 12y ago
    I would understand if they did offer a service that you could subscribe to, but I've seen devices that are one off purchases that require live server access. That just doesn't make sense to me aside from your point about updates.
Joeri 12y ago
There is the KNX standard, but it's to home automation what the USB standard is to PC expandability. Yes, there's a standard, but saying that you're going to build a KNX installation is like saying you're going to build a USB installation. It can do anything, but anything you want it to do requires specific software, and the software in the KNX ecosystem is either a proprietary lock-in or just plain horrible.

prottmann 12y ago

The problem is, that they want sell you something that you have to pay again and again -> vendor lock, you must use their tools / services / clouds / whatever. Things that just work for 10 or more years, omg! ;) But you are absolutely right!. I did not automate anything at home with separate hard/software, because currently it solves no problem for me. We need not a smart home, we need an intelligent home without controlling or programming everything. A house/appartment has to recognize if nobody is at home and turn off the light or heating. I dont wanna do that with my smartphone and i dont want controll everything.

romaniv 12y ago

Open standards are a real issues in the industry. I find it ridiculous that you often have to pay thousands of dollars for software that simply understands those protocols. Not only that, it requires you to jump through ridiculous hoops to do stuff that you could easily do with a reasonably simple Python script. (Look up Niagara AX as an example.) Another problem is APIs and connectivity. Tuning a light on or off should be doable with a simple POST call to a RESTful service somewhere. Instead, we are sold dubious phone apps for everything.

fixermark 12y ago
I had some luck awhile ago with an INSTEON setup using their SmartLinc central controller---but only because the SmartLinc itself had a sniffable HTTP protocol for its "phone control." So basically it was ideal for me, as long as I completely bypassed all the crap software that came with it (I ended up writing a small server app that read my Google Calendar for "light on / light off" commands and sent the appropriate HTTP commands to the SmartLinc to fool it into doing the actions). Unfortunately, the setup stopped working and I don't have useful tools to debug it; no way to know why an INSTEON controller can't see another component, only that it can't. Plus, I'd like to move away from systems that want to use the house wiring at all (INSTEON is hybrid x10 / radio) because I don't want an errant power surge blowing my $100+ of equipment.
FrozenCow 12y ago
This is what I do as well. One raspberry pi with all the required connections (Z-Wave USB controller, IR emitter and a wire to my PC) with an extremely simple node application that serves urls like /lights/on, /curtains/open and /computer/power. My phone running Tasker to trigger the various appliances. Add some buttons to the homescreen for direct control over everything. The real added value comes from a trigger from the wakeup-alarm app that runs a Tasker script, turning on the lights, waiting 5 minutes and opening the curtains. I haven't found an all-in-one solution to do all this. Then again, I haven't looked for anything else once I got my curtains going through Tasker. An open standard would've made the process much simpler though.
- dnr 12y ago
  Hah, I ended up with a very similar system: raspberry pi plus a razberry z-wave controller[1], IR receiver and cheap universal remote, and a node app that exposes a simple API as well as a simple UI. stunnel plus port forwarding on my router so I can access it securely from anywhere. Trigger on my phone for geo-fencing to turn off lights when I leave and turn them on when I get home (only if it's dark out). (Cheap PIR sensors are the next project.) Overall I've found that z-wave is quite reliable. It never loses commands and latency is good enough. The protocol supports just about any kind of device or signaling you might want, in theory, though it can't really do high-bandwidth things. The problem is that devices are relatively expensive (compared to the cost of the components) because the protocol is quasi-proprietary. Zigbee is "open" and extremely flexible, but as a result, zigbee devices from different vendors often can't talk to each other. I'll take the more limited but working thing, thanks. (The Trigger app's geofencing is pretty unreliable, though. Has anyone found an android app that can reliably do http requests when crossing a geofence?) [1] http://razberry.z-wave.me/ http://razberry.z-wave.me/

jwr 12y ago

> 2. They don't understand that people don't want to control everything ... they instead want to not have to control everything. Being able to control a light from your phone is not really any better than being able to do it from the light switch. This. I keep seeing devices that make me do more manual work to control things around me. These devices make my world more complex, while I need it to be simpler. It's why I started working on my own system to control lighting at home.

x1798DE 12y ago

One of my biggest problems is the all-too-pervasive attitude that #2 means that users shouldn't be able to control things that "do the right thing", rather than that the device defaults to doing the right thing. I find myself all too often in "edge case" situations that would be very easy to fix manually if I could dig around in some settings panel, but modern design philosophy seems to consider including a setting like that to be a design failure in some way. One example is a lack of any kind of manual focus on any phone cameras. If I'm taking a picture of a person or a cat or something the autofocus does the job right almost every time, but try taking a picture of a small shiny button or something - it's a nightmare. If I could press up-down-up-down-A-B-A-B-start-select and get a manual focus slider, I'd be happy all the time, but instead my few salient memories of fighting with the autofocus have soured me on the whole experience.

gsteinb88 12y ago
FYI, if you have an iPhone there's now a couple manual focus camera apps. Free: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/manually-manual-focus-camera/id923233292?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/manually-manual-focus-camera... and $2, but I've been happy with it: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/manual-custom-exposure-camera/id917146276?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/manual-custom-exposure-camer...
- morley 12y ago
  As far as I know, if you're in the stock camera app, you can tap a portion of the screen for the camera to focus on that area. My girlfriend has an Android phone and can do the same.
  - bryanbuckley 12y ago
    tap is to autofocus. So if the autofocus is wrong, enjoy your frustration, miss your picture, or enjoy your blurry picture.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 12y ago

click170 12y ago

#3 Home automation devices that require communication with the vendor's servers in order to setup and or operate. Vendors come and go, but if I've bought a product, I expect it to work until the product dies. And I don't consider the vendor going out of business to be a valid product death. Not to mention if I'm paying a one-time-fee, and this thing requires communication with vendor servers, that's a service. Who's paying for the servers? I agree, current user interfaces suck, but I think at least for some vendors that may miss the point. If they publish a full-featured API you could write your own interface, and or integrate it with your home automation control system. I agree, standards need to exist, but I try to reward the vendors who provide an API over the ones who don't cause at least I can work with an API. And honestly, looking at the result of vendors trying to produce "smart" TVs, I don't want them writing the software that runs my home automation system. I'd prefer a FOSS home automation solution over a vendor one any day, and wouldn't buy one that didn't at a minimum include the source code.

dangerlibrary 12y ago
Offline products without subscriptions go against two base principles of the current tech investment boom (bubble?). The first the that recurring revenue is strictly better than one-off sales. That means VCs aren't interested in business models that don't end in "aaS". The second is the emphasis on iteration - making users connect back regularly allows for automatic updates that allow you to ship buggy software and fix it later.
- click170 12y ago
  I would understand if they did offer a service that you could subscribe to, but I've seen devices that are one off purchases that require live server access. That just doesn't make sense to me aside from your point about updates.

Joeri 12y ago

There is the KNX standard, but it's to home automation what the USB standard is to PC expandability. Yes, there's a standard, but saying that you're going to build a KNX installation is like saying you're going to build a USB installation. It can do anything, but anything you want it to do requires specific software, and the software in the KNX ecosystem is either a proprietary lock-in or just plain horrible.