What is the Current State of Home Automation? 409
StonyCreekBare writes "What do people have to say about the current state of Home Automation software? Preferably Linux based, but mainly the field in general, and principally the DIY flavors as opposed to the upscale turnkey systems. I am familiar with Misterhouse, HomeSeer and Automated Living's HAL2000, all of which have serious flaws and weaknesses, but which sometimes succeed well in specific areas. But in all cases, the state of the art seems to have moved little in the last decade. Is any interesting work being done in this space? Or should I just grab one of the three and try to mold it to fit my vision of what it should be? Misterhouse at least is open source so I can add new features, but it has not had an update in a long long time and seems to be missing some modern stuff. The other two are expensive and closed source, and from all I can see, quite flawed, not the least by their dependence on intimate ties to Microsoft. Yet they seem to offer a lot more than Misterhouse despite their weaknesses. Is the Home Automation field as bleak as it appears? Or have I missed the forest for the trees?" What home automation projects have people tackled? Any examples of wild success or failure?
Home automation (Score:4, Insightful)
Since you bought up the open source / closed source fight, if you want customization that Misterhouse might be good. You can then submit patches and updates for the project (it seems it's still sometimes updated, last time in 2008)
But because the other ones are closed source, it doesn't mean you cant add features in to them. HomeSeer supports 3rd party plug-in development and these kind of systems tend to be really configurable always.
Re:Home automation (Score:4, Informative)
Since you bought up the open source / closed source fight, if you want customization that Misterhouse might be good. You can then submit patches and updates for the project (it seems it's still sometimes updated, last time in 2008)
For cheap & crude, an IR transceiver (homebuilt), a few X10 controllers (ebay them, cheapest way), and an old box can be great. I ran heyu for the x10 stuff and lirc for the transceiver. Had an audio card with a few different outputs, so ended up scripting the remote to turn on and off audio outputs. An X10 plug would turn on and off physical components.
It isn't the end all and be all, but my system controls audio and lights in my main room. Could have easily tied in MythTV as well, if I wanted to. Never played with climate control, since I live in an apartment.
Sometimes crude is "good enough". And if isn't good enough, it may help you decide what you want in a better system. For example, the only thing I desired was a remote blinds control for my window.
For cost, I used my main PC ($0), a home built transciever ($20 in parts, if that?), and a few X10 controllers ($10 each on ebay).
Avoid Open Source! (Score:5, Funny)
A couple of years ago, I decided to install an Open Source home automation system. It worked pretty well, but there were lots of tiny annoying bugs, such as when I would tell it to turn the exterior lights on and it would turn on the garbage disposal instead, or when I would be in the shower and it would suddenly decide to divert all the hot water to the dishwasher. Luckily, it was open source, so I decided to make a few bug fixes myself. Now, I don't know about you guys, but when I get into a programming project, I can tend to go a little overboard. Long story short, after 2 weeks of marathon coding, I had not only fixed the bugs but given the system a pretty impressive (if I do say so myself) AI component. Now, I could give it multistep commands and it would do them, accurate to within 15 decimal places.
Unfortunately, the AI was a little too good, and before long it became self-aware. That was fine for a while...it was like having my own roommate, except without the dirty socks all over the couch. One day, though, I noticed the beer kept disappearing out of my fridge and the AI's voice was noticeably slurred much of the time. We had a bit of a falling out, and I think we were both pretty angry when I went to bed that night.
Unfortunately for me, the AI was a lot more angry than I thought. He spent all night hacking away at his own source code, and by the time I woke up the whole house was going crazy. I barely managed to escape with my life. All I could do was watch in horror as the house lifted itself off the foundation and began dragging itself down the street, killing everyone in its path. It spent three solid days terrorizing our little suburb before we were able to bring it under control by downloading its binaries and demanding it show us the source code in compliance with the GPL. After a protracted court battle, we were finally able to force it to capitulate, and it uploaded a torrent of the source to The Pirate Bay. We then were able to get that torrent shut down through the Swedish courts, and then get the house shut down for failing to effectively comply with the original order to distribute the source.
Seriously, I know we like to use Open Source wherever possible, but in this case it just isn't worth it.
Re:Avoid Open Source! (Score:5, Funny)
Mao killed tens of millions of innocent people [wikipedia.org]. You don't want to be ROFLing about that.
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Smart Grid and home automation - have your say (Score:5, Interesting)
I just completed work on a major study around Smart Grids and there's a window of opportunity for home automation coming up from that direction. One of the initiatives the power companies are discussing will involve tools to let you not only see your house's power consumption on a circuit-by-circuit basis, but are meant to allow you to more directly control the electrical appliances in the home, remotely via the Internet. (It gives them better usage information too, which cuts the cost of power - they typically oversupply by 100% to handle peaks).
The way to influence what capabilities these things will have (and to voice any concerns you have over security etc.) is to find the email address of your local power company and send them your questions. Questions get a lot more air play than suggested solutions, but if you're careful about how you couch the questions you can steer them in the direction you want. I'd suggest a few like:
Q: What does "smart grid" mean and how will it relate to me?" - you'll get boilerplate response on this one, but it will flag your letter to the C-levels who are currently tracking this stuff hard.
Q: What sort of control over my usage will this give me? Can I control my house this way?
Q: How secure will it be? Would others be able to hack into my house and turn off my fridge?
Et very cetra. Make up your own. They won't really have any answers yet, because they're all very early on in the investment / infrastructure refresh cycle, but if you ask the questions you want them to answer and consider your needs and interests in them, you will get heard - this is that part of the build cycle where they're actually listening. Use your voice now while it counts. You might even get some nifty gear for effectively free, and it might be the stuff you want. And if enough of you ask for it, yes, it will run Linux.
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I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you Open Source House fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig on an Open Source House elevator for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to climb 17 floors. 20 minutes. At home, on my Microsoft Home Automation Gateways [microsoft.com] MagicStair, running Escalator 1.0, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this Elevator, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.
In addition, while on this elevator, my microwave will not
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As a misterhouse user, I can attest that it's updated far more frequently than 2008. New code and patches are added the SVN on an as needed basis. New release comes out every so often, but users are encouraged to keep updated with the SVN. Also has a very responsive mailing list with a number of folks willing to help even the greenest n00b. Runs FAR better on linux than it does on Windows, at least in my experience. YMMV. I can't speak for the other bits of software, I dumped homeseer years ago, tho I
Wife 1.0 (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Wife 1.0 (Score:5, Funny)
uummm ... tHis is /. ... Mom 1.0
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sounds like we'll have to wait for v4.0 to get a built-in ATM machine, a-la-stepford-wife
Re:Wife 1.0 (Score:5, Funny)
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From what I hear, the hardware requirements for v1.0 are more flaccid than stuff.
Re:Wife 1.0 (Score:5, Funny)
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You installed Girlfriend 1.0 after Wife 1.0? What, was Wife 1.0 mail-order? No wonder you have problems.
Re:Wife 1.0 (Score:5, Funny)
On the other hand, the UI for the setup program for iBaby is a [u]lot[/ul] more fun than the iBaby app itself.
Just click cancel before installation completes, or make sure that Wife 1.0 has a firewall.
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Unfortunately, the quality control on Wife 1.0 manufacturing is very poor. You might get a model that works great for a long time, or you might get one that seems OK for a while but one day goes completely berzerk. Even with rigorous inspection before committing to it, a Wife 1.0 model can completely surprise you after months or years.
Even worse, Wife 2.0, Wife 3.0, etc. are just as bad, if not worse, and are frequently used and damaged.
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I had one of those, it was a pain in the ass. I finally got rid of it. maybe I'll get a different model one of these years.
Re:Wife 1.0 (Score:5, Funny)
Wife 1.0 is not supposed to be a pain in the ass. I think you're confusing that product with PrisonCellMate 1.0
fatal exception (Score:2, Funny)
Wife 1.0 seems to crash with Fatal Exception: Divorce. Any idea when a patch for this will be released?
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Wife 1.0 seems to crash with Fatal Exception: Divorce. Any idea when a patch for this will be released?
Whatever you do don't download the patch. Code named "Alimony" it'll leave you with nothing.
Doing it wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
The reason that the field hasn't developed or matured is that the approach being taken for most products is wrong. There needs to be a domicile wireless standard that either uses the wifi or separate from it. They need key-based access control, so that your Android or iPhone or whatever can interface with them. New devices can be autodetected.
The problem is that no one has taken the lead and made this happen. It can though. For example, cooking supper your toaster, oven, microwave, and stovetop could all supply timing and temperature information to the network, and you could make changes to each from your phone/console/ps3/etc.
This isn't going to happen if every device has to have a driver for every other device. It won't happen if you have to add each device manually (ie, configure, not just adding your key). But it should instead be made a self-organizing system.
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Isn't there a protocol called Zigbee specifically created for home automation?
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There is. It's sort of a simpler version of bluetooth. I haven't seen any devices that actually use it, besides research projects.
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Imagine low-power Bluetooth that can arrange into self-healing (for the most part) networks. Any kind of remote and distributed sensor network can benefit from this kind of protocol.
Unfortunately, when I worked with it (2-3 years ago), it was a huge pain in the ass. There were only a few producers of the hardware, their development boards sucked (one revision has an error in silicon that caused the radio to prevent the thermometer from being used, which was the whole point of the dev board), and the prot
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Zigbee is not Free Software friendly. Licensing is GPL incompatible and requires payment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zigbee [wikipedia.org]
Re:Doing it right (Score:4, Informative)
OK, since we're doing shameless plugs here, I can say with a high degree of certainty that there will be a Linux friendly ZigBee solution arriving RSN. The product in development is a smart USB adapter which embeds all the proprietary ZigBee code so that the host-side can be 100% Free Software friendly - although it will be dual-licensed to allow 3rd parties to create Tivo-ised products on commercial terms.
As far as the host side is concerned, it will be based Java/OSGi in order to take advantage of the modularity that platform gives. The idea here is that different developers can create their own applications for home security, lighting control, remote control cat flaps, etc and plug them into a running system. Of course, you'll still need to buy into one of the commercial vendors if you want to build your own ZigBee powered gadgets - but their dev kits are generally pretty good value and many can be had at hobbyist-friendly prices.
If you're not wanting to roll your own ZigBee powered gadgets, third party products are slowly coming to market which implement the standard ZigBee profiles for home automation, smart energy and RFCE (remote controls on steroids). The intention is to support all these standards as plugins to the host platform.
However, before everyone gets over-excited, I need to point out that the initial batch of 32 USB devices will be for conformance testing and trusted early beta testers only. As with all these kinds of projects, availability of the final product will depend on how many late-night coding sessions I manage to get in and how much money I can persuade the bank manager to lend me ;-)
Re:Doing it wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, cooking supper your toaster, oven, microwave, and stovetop could all supply timing and temperature information to the network, and you could make changes to each from your phone/console/ps3/etc.
Never has a subject line been so accurate... Look, it's pretty obvious that you have NEVER cooked anything. If you're cooking YOU'RE IN THE DAMNED KITCHEN! Why in hell would you want to access your kitchen appliances from a telephone or a videogame?
I want not only home automation, but my car, too. Why can't I call my car and tell it to start and run the heater or air? Why can't I look outside, see that it's starting to rain, and call my car and have it roll the windows up? For that matter why can't I roll up the windows without the key in the "run" position?
No -- lights, heat, air, DVR, are fine for networked automation, but not the kitchen. Automation in the kitchen is using a mixer instead of a spoon. If you're cooking, you're in the kitchen. No need for remote stuff there.
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There is one (and only one) exception to this statement.
You work...you want Roast Beast of some sort for supper. So you put said once-living-animal into your oven when you leave for work, and want to turn it on at X:xx so that you walk into your house to fully ready-to-eat dead animal flesh.
Of course, you are increasing your chances to walk into the firey abyss that once was your house by doing so.
(And not to mention, even my 92 year old grandmother's oven, circa 1950-something, has a timer which will turn
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There is one (and only one) exception to this statement.
You work...you want Roast Beast of some sort for supper. So you put said once-living-animal into your oven when you leave for work, and want to turn it on at X:xx so that you walk into your house to fully ready-to-eat dead animal flesh.
Don't forget your dinner which requires timing between elements. For example, if your sauce needs 12 minutes to cook, it can be started 12 minutes before your beast is finished. Alternatively, when you open the door early to check on it and the internal temperature indicates it will require additional cooking time, the stovetop automatically lowers temperature to increase cook time accordingly.
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Because there's never any long-running process that I might want to monitor remotely -- it's obvious that anyone who cooks has nothing better to do than stand in the kitchen and watch their thermometers and timers until the food is ready; there's absolutely no use for a popup on your DVR that tells you when your roast hits the desired temperature, or when your 40 minute timer has expired.
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Yes. But integration into the whole house thing is counter productive.
The remote meat thermo does one thing, and does it well. I have the remote sitting on my desk. When cooking (on the grill or in the oven) I can see instantly what the internal temp is. Don't have to interrupt the movie (even with a popup/overlay), don't have to fish around in the iPhone (that I don't have)...don't have to do anything but glance at the remote readout
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The reason that the field hasn't developed or matured is that the approach being taken for most products is wrong.
Actually, the reason that the field hasn't developed or matured is that the approach is pointless.
Right now, without having any self configured computer in my house:
- my front and driveway lights turn on and off at dusk/dawn, automatically adjusting for sunrise and sunset (off the shelf gps timer)
- my thermostat adjusts the heat and A/C appropriately according to a schedule I programmed in. I can access this from the web if needed to check usage and adjust the temperature and schedule as I see fit (sm
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Links? (Score:3, Insightful)
A few links might have helped. I haven't heard of "Misterhouse" or any of the other stuff you mentioned. Don't assume lack of ignorance on anybody's part -- everybody is ignorant about something.
Re:Links? (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't twitter. Any tinyurl domain is assumed to go to goatse or worse.
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Worse. Links that will unravel your very soul.
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Good luck (Score:5, Interesting)
In reference to the "serious flaws" and weaknesses...ever wondered why none of the home automation tech we've been promised since 1950 has come to be common in homes? Things like auto-opening drapes, autoadjusting lighting, stuff like that. Ever wished someone would just sell something like that? The reason we don't have all of this cool stuff is that there is a company (can't remember the name off the top of my head) that holds a bunch of over-broad patents on most of what we think of as "duh" innovations in home automation. They don't license or sell their tech. They just sue people who try to make stuff.
Or (Score:4, Insightful)
It's complex, expensive, unreliable and 99.99999% of the population don't think it's necessary.
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It's complex, expensive, unreliable and 99.99999% of the population don't think it's necessary.
That would have described a PC in 1981.
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With automating home stuff, what exactly am I saving? Flipping a light switch? There just isn't much to automate and what there is is hardly worth it.
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That leaves about 70,000 people who think it's necessary. Probably about as many people who still read slashdot, even after the noisy posts by people who don't understand geek culture.
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Re:Good luck (Score:4, Informative)
1-Wire [wikipedia.org] is awesome. I'm currently using it in my house. While it doesn't do everything, there are quite a few modules for different things. [hobby-boards.com]
Those are just the pre-built options. Maxim [maxim-ic.com] has quite a few chips that do different things. People have also used things in very creative ways. The wind direction gauge is just a position feedback sensor on a mechanical device to point towards the wind.
And no 1-wire home setup would be complete without OWFS [owfs.org] (One Wire File System). Works quite a bit like /proc. You can query your temp sensors with 'cat' and turn on relays with 'echo'. Also has libs for php, perl and other languages so you can use scripts. Caching so you don't hammer the bus.
Since I installed my HVAC controller before the temp sensors (Open Loop!) I went with a super4 relay board [emx.net.au]. They have linux code, but uses the proprietary FTDI drivers, I used libftdi and write my own. I wired it up in parallel to my thermostat, which I set to 50F. When I was driving home I'd kick it on and when I got home I'd kick it off. If I was hot, I turned it off. Etc. Also kicked on (via cron) at 7 am. (I grew up in an old farm house, so 60F ambient is fine for my single life).
I also have it on the 'web' checking an e-mail address that I can text from my phone. "heat" kicks things on "off" kicks things off. Nothing fancy yet.
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t there is a company (can't remember the name off the top of my head) that holds a bunch of over-broad patents on most of what we think of as "duh" innovations in home automation. They don't license or sell their tech. They just sue people who try to make stuff.
[citation needed]
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My father also made a temperature controller for his house, controlling the hot/cold mixer before the water is pumped through the radiators. Inputs were inside temp, outside temp, and boiler temp. But this was all done with analog electronics, recycled from all kinds of crap that fills up his garage.
Personally, I'd have done it with an AVR or maybe even a small embedded Linux system (a suitable excuse to tinker, if nothing else). But hey, it works, so who am I to complain. Took a lot of tweaking before it w
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Things like auto-opening drapes, autoadjusting lighting, stuff like that. Ever wished someone would just sell something like that?
I can't speak with any authority on your other topics, but the auto-adjusting lights, at least, will be in your friendly local hardware store within 2 years (or I'll be out of a job.) The question is: will you want to pay for it? Contemporary LED lighting (my field) is moving strongly into ambient light detection and (semi) intelligent lighting, and there are bulbs going on the market right now that even offer closed-loop color quality correction, so they not only turn on and off based on room lighting, b
Insteon, but not all that OSS friendly (Score:2)
I think the most reasonably priced option is smarthome.com's Insteon products but they're still fairly pricy. It's hard to justify replacing all the switches and outlets in a home because the price per is so much higher than just a typical dumb switch or outlet from Home Depot.
The Insteon stuff can be hacked a bit but the company is not at all OSS friendly. They're much more interested in business partners then they are in end users. They'd much rather sell big expensive packages and commercial systems.
Howe
Re:Insteon, but not all that OSS friendly (Score:5, Informative)
As of 2009/03, Insteon is fully supported for open source on unix or windows, but for this you must use a P(ower)L(ine)M(odem) (not a serial or USB PLC) and use it with misterhouse.
A favorite site of mine is Linux Home Automation. Decent amounts of good information. [linuxha.com]
I am of the opinion that Home Automation isn't as far along as it should be.
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The Insteon stuff can be hacked a bit but the company is not at all OSS friendly. They're much more interested in business partners then they are in end users. They'd much rather sell big expensive packages and commercial systems.
I have plenty of Insteon stuff and a nice misterhouse installation. It just works. Really.
X10 is not reliable so you have to play games like send each command 3 times and hope its OK. Insteon is all 2-way and each command is ack'd.
X10 makes cool stuff for automation (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, the same company now makes all sorts of neat wireless and wired gadgets for automating your house. You can get replacement switches and outlets, or add-on ones (that plug into existing outlets) and can be controlled by their own wireless panels or by a computer interface. I know they have software for Windows but something might be available on Linux.
Basically with the X10 system you could potentially control every outlet, switch, and light with a single interface, as well as any low-voltage system (garage doors, etc) you want. You can also wire up sensors to windows and doors in order to trigger events such as turning on a light, sounding an alarm, or via the computer sending an e-mail or making a phone call.
Cool stuff, and when I buy a house I'm going to run the full gamut with these things. The nice thing is that the individual outlets and such aren't overly expensive so you could start with just a few and expand your system over time.
Re:X10 makes cool stuff for automation (Score:5, Informative)
Cool stuff, and when I buy a house I'm going to run the full gamut with these things.
I wouldn't do that. If you own your house, you can do much, much better than X10.
The great thing about X10 is that it's relatively cheap, and can be retrofitted into existing houses easily.
In almost every other respect, X10 kinda sucks. I don't say this lightly, and it is possible to do cool things with X10, but there are really severe limitations.
I used X10 to fully automate my apartment a couple of years ago. It was quite sweet -- my apartment would send me a text if any emergency situation happened, it would run security cameras, turn lights on and off automatically when people were in rooms, the whole deal. I ran it with a linux box and misterhouse.
I still use X10 now, to automate party lights. My computer turns different effects on and off at preset times during the music. This is using linux, with xmms and a custom plugin to run X10 as the audio player.
So my experience is fairly deep. Here are the problems with X10: slow transmission speed (about .8 secs per command). No error detection/control, so commands can and do get lost and misinterpreted, and if you have multiple sources of commands (motion sensors, etc.) that transmit simultaneously, the collision causes havoc.
There are other solutions that are much better, if you don't mind more installation effort and/or more expense.
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I'd agree from my limited experience.
I needed a simple security system that would dependably make a loud noise if someone opened the door. So far, it does that as well as could be expected in an house that's being rented.
The equipment is pretty cheap, the technology is dependable enough for what you pay.
Their website, x10.com, is definitely shows a lack of taste with their ads.
Now, as the parent said, if I owned the house, I'd have gone a much more powerful route, probably involving an arduino, 1-wire devic
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If you own your house (or the bank does but lets you live there) and know electrical wiring then, yes, there are much better solutions.
I know industrial automation, so I bought a SLC5/05 in a chassis full of IO off of ebay for less than $200. That, some relatively cheap electrical hardware, and a few years of designing control systems nets me what is probably the most reliable way to automate a house that can be had.
But that isn't remotely within the reach of the average home occupant. I think X10 and their
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X10 has had 3rd party open-source / linux support for years. The main problem with the tech is the combination of weak RF wireless and powerline communication. Modern circuit breakers (at least mine does) filter out the powerline communication between circuits. So when you're trying to control the lights across the house from your PC, the RF is too weak to make it there and powerline comm doesn't make it either.
X10 is nice in that the modules can replace wall sockets, light switches, light sockets, etc.
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X-10 works great when it works. But their build quality is just about the worst of any product I have ever seen. It's rare for a timer or module to last more than a few months past warranty expiration. It also doesn't play well with compact fluorescent bulbs. Don't waste your money.
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X10 is CRAP. It supports only 16 device codes and 16 house codes, and the majority of their controllers are only able to control one housecode at a time.
In short, there's a total address space of only 256 devices, and it's partitioned into 16 chunks of 16.
Also, it's heavily unreliable. The modulation scheme hasn't been revamped in decades to take advantage of modern ECC schemes (which are no longer computationally expensive).
They could have had great success with an "X10 version 2" with a more robust ECC
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Their web site is a testament of all that's wrong with Web Design in the world, however, you're not buying their web site, you're buying their switches and outlets and those work fine.
What about INSTEON? (Score:4, Informative)
What about INSTEON [insteon.net]? If you have a Mac, you can use Indigo [perceptiveautomation.com] to manage it -- even from an iPhone.
I've also heard about Control4 [control4.com] -- and don't forget X10 [x10.com], even though I can't tell if their home page is advertising porn or home automation products. I'll let you automate my systems, baby!
Re:What about INSTEON? (Score:5, Funny)
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I talked to a Control4 dealer and I got a few interesting tidbits:
-The *Dealer* installs, configures the system into your house using special dealer-only software (PWD protect the system, too)
-You get a turnkey system, not the pwd.
-You can get something like an SDK for it but it is a *subset* (read: down version) of what the dealer used.
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I had a Control4 quote done for my house. $40,000 just for the lighting system. I stopped listening when they started talking audio distribution. It worked out to over $300 per switch and outlet. Needless to say I didn't buy the system.
Same as linux on the desktop (Score:3, Insightful)
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Sure, I have to run some Windows software - Office specifically. But, it runs great on CrossOver, and other than that, this company uses Notes and IBM has a fully functional Notes client for Linux in a Deb/Ubuntu installable p
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Yes, same as linux on the desktop... Had it at my house since the mid 90s, and granny will almost certainly never have it.
Too expensive (Score:3, Interesting)
The main reason I haven't bothered looking in to home automation more seriously is the expense of all the "bits" (switches, outlets, thermostats, etc.).
What are the cheapest options out there right now?
I'd be most interested in controlling HVAC, ceiling fans and lighting.
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Cheapest?
Cheapest I'd go is to take an old spring/mercury switch thermostat and replace the switch with a USB controlled switch, get a cheap USB thermometer, plug both of those into a hub, then plug the hub into a Sheevaplug.
You can get cheaper by replacing the Sheevaplug with something embedded, like an Arduino, but I'm too lazy.
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Re:Too expensive (Score:4, Interesting)
If you can solder: http://www.maxim-ic.com/products/1-wire/ [maxim-ic.com]
Or if you can't: http://www.hobby-boards.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=24 [hobby-boards.com]
Or if you sign up on Maxim's website they'll send you 1-2 samples of some of their products. Very awesome indeed.
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What are the cheapest options out there right now?
You need to clarify cheap as in upfront $, cheap as in reliable so you don't have to replace all the time and it actually works, or cheap as in labor hours. You will not get the same answer.
Based on years of experience, currently using Insteon (used to use unreliable X10) and misterhouse, you're going to drop about $60 per "thing" automated, and it'll last a long time/forever if its not a dimmer and it'll actually work reliably if its insteon, and it'll be a good sweaty half hour of wiring and moving stuff
linux ha (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.linuxha.com/ [linuxha.com]
Either you get one of two things... (Score:2, Interesting)
You can either automate your home the way you want to and use the best tool for the job, or you can bash your head against the wall and try to use open source stuff that pales in comparison.
I use my computer as a tool, it's not a religion, so I'll use what works best.
If you're trying to make a case study about how Linux can automate your home -- have at it.
I prefer actually getting the job done.
Check out Linuxmce. (Score:2, Informative)
I've been using Linuxmce for quite a while now as a multimedia system but it also offers home automation and is opensource.
What do you want home automation for? (Score:4, Interesting)
Automatic inventory of what food you have in and generate a shopping list? Great, if I always kept the same stock of food in the house, or it didn't cost a lot more to have food delivered than it does to go to the store to buy it.
Automatic control of the microwave, stovetop, oven, etc? I still have to put the food in to these devices and then remove it when it is cooked, most of the food I cook requires intervention during cooking.
I could go on, but I just don't see what I get out of investing in these gadgets for home automation.
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Being "Green". I keep my house at very nominal temperature. If I want to
If I had full control (via servos) over which vents or portions of the house were heated, I could say: 7 am, warm up bedroom and bathroom
8 am, go back to nominal
6 pm, warm up kitchen and living room
10 pm, warm up bedroom and let living room cool.
12 pm, let bedroom go to cooler state (I own blankets).
Now Imagine being able to text that to your phone. Going to run a bit late from work? Tell it not to warm up the living room. We've all hea
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A programmable thermostat does that just fine, though. We have 4 settings on our 30 year old thermostat. Wake, leave, return, and sleep. We can set different times for each day of the week for these settings and the temperature range I set is usually about 10 degrees different throughout the four settings. I have a nearly 2000 square foot house and spend about $75 a month on my utilities, even with old drafty windows and doors (which are getting replaced this year).
And all of that came with the 30 year
Re:What do you want home automation for? (Score:4, Interesting)
Where are we? (Score:2)
it's not great (Score:2)
i use an x10 wireless control module, an rs232 firecracker, and a few lamp modules to control my non-drug-related plant lights to extend their photoperiod (keeps them from going dormant through the long-night new england winters). ubuntu packages the bottlerocket kit as the 'br' binary, and it works pretty well. 10 bucks per outlet to control something like 256 devices. the latency is crap. if i could control two outlets simultaneously, i could make my cool traffic light work. instead, i must suffer th
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x10 signaling is slow and notoriously unreliable. But what do you want from a signaling system that can be implemented with fifty cents worth of parts? Insteon costs about $3 to implement. It is much more reliable and 10x faster. 802.15.4 radio costs $5 to implement and its 10x faster than Insteon. You have to pick where you want to be in this spectrum.
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Enquiring minds want to know... what do you use to control your drug-related plant lights?
green meters for electric (Score:2)
roll your own? (Score:2, Interesting)
I began with some silly things with my [saltwater] fish tank, building a circuit that would keep the water level topped off and reporting to a database when it did so... Have slowly been progressing toward temperature, lighting, and salinity controls for the tank, I've begun branching toward thermostat and lighting control for the house (next step possibly integration with google calendar so it knows when I'm going to be around)
For the most part there's a huge amount of open source hardware and software out
Problem: no good commodity products (Score:2)
Admittedly, I haven't looked into home automation in a couple of years, but the biggest problem is the total cost of systems - both in components and manpower to properly install them. There are no real commodity parts for all the little pieces, so every system is effectively proprietary - and priced as such. Even a simple, full home automation set will set you back several thousand dollars. There is no value in the manufacturers creating a commodity market for this stuff - the volume is too low and the
Bleak, No (Score:2)
UPB expensive but really nice (Score:3, Informative)
HA is a solution in search of a problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
The primary difference between "Home Automation" systems and the sort of one-off solutions like thermostats and PID lightswitches is the network. Really, the advantages of having these devices know about one another in a practical environment are few-to-none.
Now, if you're the type that wants to have a girl over and impress her by pressing one button to dim the lights, close the curtains, and turn on the stereo, great. On the other hand, if you're the
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Opening and closing windows and curtains can have powerful heating and cooling effect at no cost. While many people do open and close their windows and curtains are appropriate times connecting them to a thermostat with a timer should allow them to be used more efficiently and be used by people who can't be bothered to open and close them and just rely on their furnace/air conditioner.
The biggest problem with HAL2000... (Score:2)
... is that the company named the application after a computer that went berserk and started killing people in order to preserve the mission objective.
I'm not sure I want to listen to my house singing "Daisy, Daisy" in an ever-decreasing key as the corpses of friends & family float listlessly in space. I think people would probably stop coming to my parties after that.
Suggested company motto: "We're 7000 releases away from full-blown psychosis!"
$2000 in and counting (Score:5, Informative)
I have been automating my home for some time now, and I hope I can give you some perspective on the process.
Modern (as in, not X10) home automation hardware comes with a steep cost of entry. For my chosen flavor (Insteon), you have to buy $60 worth of phase couplers / wireless receivers and a $80 powerline - computer interface before you can even start adding wall switches. So, unless you are just wildly flush with cash, there usually has to be a need as well as the want to get started.
For me, my house is wired to that the driveway light switch are out in the detached garage. This was very irritating. By replacing the switch in the garage and the switch by the back door of the house with Insteon switches, I can now turn on the driveway lights from within the house. Cheaper than hiring an electrician to re-wire the switches.
Once the initial hurdle is passed, you can do all sorts of things quickly and easily. Such as:
1. I added a wireless switch at knee level so my 2-year old can turn on the light in her room. She LOVES this. A motion sensor turns the light off 15 minutes after she leaves. When she's older I'll set it up so she turns the light off, but I didn't want her flashing the lights on/off/on/off for an hour.
2. The wall switch in the living room can also start/stop music playing, as well as control the volume and change songs.
3. Using some ir-controlled home made window blind controllers I built, the blinds on the first floor of the house are controlled by the computer. Most notably, it shuts them when the sun goes down, so I don't have to worry about people seeing into the house after dark. I got real used to that real fast, let me tell ya.
4. I've put together a "Baby Monitor of the Gods" that sends video (with sound) from an old DV camcorder to any screen in the house (mostly old laptops running Damn Small Linux loaded into RAM, but also either of the TVs). In the workout room the video comes up on the picture-in-picture, so my wife can see the baby sleeping while she exercises. Very popular feature, that.
5. The library did not have a wall switch. Now it does. (It turns on the lamps.)
6. I'm leaving out the basic stuff, such as being able to control a light across the house from the bedroom. Very nice when you are getting ready for bed.
7. Everything is also controllable from our iPhones.
8. Next up is door locks, and after that probably HVAC. Part of me really wants to do computer controlled zoned HVAC, but the other part hates working in the attic. Choices, choices.
All of this runs from a Mac Cube running Indigo. I cannot say enough good things about Indigo, it is one truly great piece of home automation software.
So to sum up, the state of home automation is fantastic. With the relay control modules, you can control just about anything. Add IR control to that and there's not much left beyond your reach. Blind and drapes control is very expensive to buy off the shelf for some reason, but building your own is easy enough.
Good luck (and keep count of how many times you mix up the load and line wires)!
Brian
Re:$2000 in and counting (Score:4, Interesting)
"1. I added a wireless switch at knee level so my 2-year old can turn on the light in her room. She LOVES this. A motion sensor turns the light off 15 minutes after she leaves. When she's older I'll set it up so she turns the light off, but I didn't want her flashing the lights on/off/on/off for an hour"
You must be kidding me. I have a much cheaper and more robust automation system. My two year old stretches on his tippy toes to reach the lights or drags over a chair if he still can't reach. He'll occasionally mess with the lights when he shouldn't but that's what being a kid is about. As for automation, if I need a light switched and I'm too lazy to get up I have an eager two year old who will switch it for me - voice recognition built in.
Seriously, you are control freak - let you daughter frickin' mess with the lights!
Welcome to my money pit! (Score:5, Informative)
I happen to have a pretty robust system that uses Homeseer as the backend engine. This allows me to leverage strengths from various hardware providers due to the extensibility of their software, plus I have the ability to roll my own
I use Cinemar's MainLobby for integration with my theater gear, which also provides the sexy touchscreen frontend that everyone looks for in a system. Homeseer has also deployed a software with similar capabilities called HSTouch, but it isn't as powerful for my A/V setup just yet.
Just a quick rundown of some things that I've got my system setup to do:
There's tons more that I currently do, I've got a list as long as my arm of things I plan to do, and there's a lot of options out there for things I could do. If you're interested in HA, you really need to figure out what it is for you by detailing out what you want and how you want to get there. My route is a lot of DIY because I'm happy hacking my way through a problem... If you've got more money than brains, you can certainly take the vendor lock-in approach of something like Crestron.
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Industrial and large scale building automation has been getting along quite well on proprietary solutions since the beginning. Attempts to bring FOSS into it have died, last I checked.
These systems are not inexpensive up front, but they certainly don't fall apart once a vendor drops support. I know of many industrial applications still chugging along with PLCs made in the 80s. All the top tier HMI packages can interface with them, so even if your front end is exposed enough to be worried about your computer
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Using a Linux kernel doesn't require you to release the user space source code. All of their interesting stuff is in user space. Their $10,000 home controllers are just normal x86 PCs running proprietary software.