We are in the very early stages of building a new house and I would like to incorporate "Smart Home Tech" into the house.
I've been doing a little research on the subject and it will quickly make your eyes bleed. Everyone from Amazon to Samsung and dozens more I've never heard of are getting in on the new industry. And I'm not sure I trust any of them.
The primary lessons I've learned thus far is that this stuff is expensive, "interoperability" is a foreign word said companies want nothing to do with, and security is a late afterthought at best.
My questions to the community are: does anybody have experience with smart home tech they could share with the rest of us? Is there a specific system that works better than others? Is there a good non-biased place a novice could go to properly educate themselves on the in/outs and comparisons of the competing technologies? And is any of this secure enough to actually use or should we all run away?
For the sake of the community, I would like to open the floor to pretty much anything that is "smart tech". Personally, I'm interested in lights and door locks. I'd love to be able to hit one button as I left the house and lock all the doors and kill all the lights. However, I'd be nice if all systems were linked together. Google's Nest seems to be trying to accomplish a unified control center for all things smart tech, (Kwikset makes a bluetooth door lock that links to Nest, neither of which seem like a good idea to me). But the (in)security of letting Google in my home scares the crap out of me.
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Nest is going to share data with its parent, Google.
Matt Rogers, a co-founder of the smart-thermostat maker, said in an interview that Google will connect some of its apps to Nest, allowing Google to know when Nest users are at home or not.
Users will have to opt in for their information to be shared with Google, Rogers said. "We're not becoming part of the greater Google machine." The news comes as Nest said it will allow developers of appliances, light fixtures, garage door openers and more to access user information, part of Nest's bid to be the operating system for the smart home.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2015, @07:02PM
Create some fun things with Raspberry Pis, let them monitor but not control things unless you really know what you're doing, and fuck spy clouds.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by urza9814 on Monday November 23 2015, @07:25PM
Agreed. There's nothing you can't control or interface with from a Raspberry Pi, and there's not much you can't make it do because it's *your* device. Even if that's as simple as drilling a hole and adding a relay across the device's buttons. Or LIRC to control IR devices. Or serial communications. Or web-based APIs. You can hit any of those with no problem. Hack together some PHP and Bash and be done with it. Even if you don't have a clue what you're doing, that's probably still as secure as the commercial options. Firewall it off from the open web and you'll be fine.
That's how I've done mine, although it's more of a media center than home automation. But it controls a projector, stereo system, and some room lighting. Not entirely sure how you'd interface with something like a thermostat but I already have some worst case hacks in mind that would work even if you can't get any communication to anything at all. For example, leave the thermostat cranked up all the time and have the Pi switch it in and out with a relay. I *highly* doubt you'd need to do anything that ugly though.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by iwoloschin on Monday November 23 2015, @07:04PM
I've been playing with Home Assistant (https://home-assistant.io/) recently, in an attempt to make my disparate "smart" things talk to each other. So far I've gotten my Nest thermostat to only have the heat on if a family member's (or anyone, really) cellphone is on our wifi network, which I'm assuming means someone is home. Long term I'd love to tie it in with some window sensors to keep the heat/AC off if a window is open. While I'm "off" from work this week I plan on hooking up an electric panel heater I have via a relay and a Beaglebone Black and some i2c temperature sensors to only come on if it's below a certain temperature in that space.
Long term I'd love to add in some smart outlets to control lighting, I really enjoy coming home to a lit house, so that'd be a neat trick. I'd also love to make my espresso machine smart enough to turn on before I wake up...but that'll be a hardware project since I'll need to solder onto the control panel to make it all work so that'll be a lot longer term...
What's neat though is everything is running on *my* own server at home, and it's all Python, which is easy to work with.
One major caveat, Home Assistant doesn't have any good external authentication yet, so it's hard to check in on how things are doing at home without opening up an SSH tunnel and/or doing some SSL reverse proxying (which should be pretty interesting paired with Let's Encrypt's upcoming public beta!).
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2015, @09:31PM
I really enjoy coming home to a lit house, so that'd be a neat trick
Wow... I didn't know I'd encounter someone who was so lazy that flipping a switch, likely right next to do the door they enter, would be too much!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by iwoloschin on Tuesday November 24 2015, @12:08PM
Sure, but having a wriggling 3 month old and a house with stupidly placed light switches combined with darker evenings, I frequently find myself wishing I had a way to make more light available without using my hands.
So sure, you might be too lazy to do the work to support such a contraption, but this is a hobby for me and it's something that could potentially improve my home experience, so who the hell are you to call me lazy for making what I want happen? Ironically it's kind of the exact opposite of being lazy...
(Score: 2) by N3Roaster on Monday November 23 2015, @09:41PM
If you wake up on a regular schedule the espresso machine trick can be done easier. Get a timer on the outlet (like $7 at Home Depot), leave the switch on the espresso machine on, control power from the timer. I have one used for other purposes where it can be set to four different modes. Off and on are just what they sound like. Auto on means it's on and will turn off at a pre-programmed time. Auto off means it's off and will turn back on at a pre-programmed time. So when you're done with the espresso machine, just switch it to auto off (or just leave it and have an off time on the timer as well depending on how practical that is for you) and it'll be off until the next time it's programmed to go on. Cheap, more timer settings available than you're likely to need, and no network connection at all. Granted, this assumes you've got a typical home espresso machine and not a big commercial unit that uses a bigger plug.
Typica - Free software for coffee roasting professionals. [typica.us]
(Score: 2) by iwoloschin on Tuesday November 24 2015, @12:11PM
My espresso machine has a momentary push button power switch, so any interfacing means pulling the front panel off and wiring up some GPIOs to the buttons/lights to tell what's going on. It's a super automatic machine because I'm not capable of operating a real espresso machine before some caffeine, and also the wife didn't want that kind of mess.
Like I said above, this is something I think would be really neat to do...but it's not likely to happen anytime soon. It also isn't really a big deal, this would be more for geek points than anything else.
(Score: 2) by aclarke on Tuesday November 24 2015, @10:17PM
Just be sure your $7 timer can handle the amperage of your espresso machine. My espresso machine will probably pull 10A, and I'm not sure a $7 timer will handle that. I'm not saying it won't, but check first.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by vux984 on Tuesday November 24 2015, @02:39AM
What's neat though is everything is running on *my* own server at home, and it's all Python, which is easy to work with.
There's an XKCD out there about how many likely dozens if not hundreds hours and dollars you've spent to accomplish a minimal time savings in turning lights on and off etc. :)
My 0.02... home automation is a hobby. Its not practical, its not efficient, it doesn't save you money in the long run. It breaks down in ways that a regular light switch never will, and you will spend hours and dollars dealing with its crap. If its your personal version of building and maintaining a railroad set then it will be lots of fun and personally satisfying.
Murphy's law says that stupid unforeseen shit will happen at the worst possible time. You'll go on a business trip, your router will die while your plane is outbound, you're wife will pick up a consumer router and plug it in to get internet access while you are gone, now your thermostat will refuse to turn the heat on because it's not hooked up properly to the new wifi and doesn't see any of the cellphones as being home; and the AC won't turn on because a one of window sensors shorted out and is reading open 24x7; thanks to a mouse chewing on the wiring for the organic plastic.
So... its a lot like maintaining a railroad set... except you and your family have to live inside it. Maybe that's your idea of heaven. And if so... enjoy. :)
(Score: 2) by iwoloschin on Tuesday November 24 2015, @12:19PM
Sure, but who said anything about saving money?
As far as everything breaking, that's a dire situation you propose, but kind of over the top. The beauty of Home Assistant, to me at least, is it's trying to orchestrate everything, but each individual component is still under it's own control.
Right now HA detects if our cellphones are home and turns the Nest between Away/Auto. So the wifi goes out...I get up off my ass and manually set the Nest, just like an old boring stupid thermostat. Not very satisfying, but it works quite well. HA might try to orchestrate control away again, but it's really easy to turn it off. It's called unplugging the computer running HA. Even my wife can figure that one out.
I do agree that it is a hobby. But I find hobbies that result in real world benefits, even if they're slight, are more fun to me than hobbies that don't do anything. I used to play a lot of video games, I still do every now and then, but I've realized I enjoy hobbies with tangible benefits more than intangible feelings of success (yay, I killed the dragon!).
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Tuesday November 24 2015, @07:20PM
Sure, but who said anything about saving money?
A common industry pitch for home automation is that it will save you money by micromanaging your HVAC and lights etc.
As far as everything breaking, that's a dire situation you propose, but kind of over the top
The failed wifi router leading to the thermostat not detecting any phones and not turning on the heat (and pro-actively turning it off again if you turn it on manually) is really not that over the top. I've seen stuff like that in the real world, where someone got a little too clever for their own good. The simplest fix of course is to unplug the nest from the network so that it stops receiving the shutoff commands originating from HA, or as you suggested simply shutting HA down by disconnecting it from the network, or unplugging it.
My suggestion isn't that your family will freeze to death due to failed wifi, but that relatively simple/routine failures have pretty annoying unexpected consequences. For another example, you might purchase a new cell phone, and hand your old one to the kids to use as a mini-tablet for games with no cellular service. If you forget to deregister it, suddenly your heating bill goes up because its always laying around the house, so the heat never shuts off. You get your next bill... and figure it out.
Or you go on vacation and let your nephew house sit. You registered his phone but then he replaces it the following week, now and the house won't turn on the heat while he's there. If your not around, he hopefully remembers your orientation and shuts off the HA. Or maybe he doesn't clue in that because he's not using the phone you registered the house thinks he's away and he doesn't connect the dots to link it to the HA. So he calls in a furnace guy who figures out your thermostat is set to away and keeps resetting itself to away and the heat goes off ... so if your lucky he just programs the thermostat to have the heat on while 'away' and you can sort it out when you get back. If your unlucky they decide to factory reset the nest to try and fix it (which it probably does since that knocks it off the network), or they replace it with a manual cheap thermostat until you get home...
Not the end of the world, and the thermostat or furnace could have failed even without Home Auotomation, but HA gives you a whole new and fun set of ways to fail. :)
I do agree that it is a hobby. But I find hobbies that result in real world benefits, even if they're slight, are more fun to me than hobbies that don't do anything.
Quite so. I don't discourage anyone from undertaking to play with Home Automation; I just think they need to go into it for the right reason: its a lot of fun and you can do lots of really neat nerdy things with it. Do it for the fun and fulfillment you'll get from doing it. Don't do it because you think it'll ever save you time and money.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Monday November 23 2015, @07:06PM
I have 15+ years with misterhouse. It "just works" really boring. Back in the old days initially bringing up devices was moderately difficult, once you've set up one, you feel you've set them all up of course.
You're on the right track with one specific project and keep expanding. Also with noticing the only non-misterhouse offerings are for silo builders who want to lock you in. Its the AOL walled garden pre-internet era. May never make it out of the pre-internet era.
I have the worlds smartest timer system WRT turning stuff off and only turning things on when its dark. No accidentally leaving outdoor lights on.
My tropical fish tank has GPS disciplined clock accuracy turning the lights on and off. Maybe a good place to start. The fish don't particularly care.
My security lights intelligently respond to the elevation of the sun and the attended or not status of the house.
Various light switches almost magically link things where perl code exists instead of wiring... so my basement stairway lights respond to the position of the basement door.
The main effect of home automation is as a living expression of procrastination. I need to wire in a switch for the lights over my street address on the front of my house. For 15 years I've been planning on very limited zoning, so lights on in the office mean HVAC open and lights off means no HVAC in the office. I still haven't hooked up the dining room ceiling fan
(Score: 1) by Cornwallis on Monday November 23 2015, @07:12PM
Absolutely another vote for Misterhouse. I've got 20 year old X10 modules still going strong working under Misterhouse on a POS Linux box.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Monday November 23 2015, @08:42PM
I like what I see from MisterHouse. For a ground up install, what protocol do you suggest? X10 seems to be the most popular, but if I could save some headaches spending a bit more money I would.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2015, @11:47PM
x10 is a bad protocol because it doesn't do confirmation of actions - you send commands out into the ether and have to hope they made it to their destination and were properly processed
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Tuesday November 24 2015, @12:50PM
Starting from ground up I'd probably openhab it. Its a livelier project than misterhouse. Although there's nothing wrong with either.
WRT X10 turn around and run run run. No auth and reliability of transmission is low. Its a manual product thats been hacked into working remotely so there are no retries or verification. The way we worked around that 10-15 years ago was to send everything three times, each a minute apart, at least for timed / scheduled stuff. You have to code on the assumption that much more than 1% of the time the transmission will silently fail. Probabilistic programming is hard for some people, also.
Insteon will result in pulling your hair out two ways. 1) anyone who says they never installed a device without writing down the magic hexadecimal address therefore having to take it apart to look it up again is lying. 2) linking is a great idea (its like opening a firewall port conceptually) but can also be a staggering pain. Once its linked and set up, its ridiculously easy to use and very reliable.
With X10 if code G3 turns on your desk lamp, anyone can plug into your power outlet or interference from neighbors or random chance and a G3 code will go out and your desk lamp will turn on. With linking, you get to link a switch to the modem and the modem to the switch before they control each other, but then random devices can't control random devices.
Either way you'll need a way to cross the AC phases and the clothes dryer plug in phase adapter burned out on me after a decade of happy service but all insteon RF access point thingies can act like a bridge so just install two in range of each other. There are quite a few RF connected insteon devices. Something like a basement door position sensor has a battery to generate its RF signal that lasts maybe a couple years. You'll want two RF devices.
Money is no issue. The time required to design, wire stuff, link, test, write code, test the code, deploy to the family, is so huge that you'd have to be either extremely devoted to the hobby or extremely poor to ever run out of money before running out of time / patience / motivation. Everything seems to take longer than predicted.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2015, @07:09PM
At least not until they get their development/release process under control. I went through two months of fighting with their firmware/software updates, and I was only using the remote switch to turn the lights off and on from my phone. No fancy timers, no IFTTT link, just their app with their devices. I finally gave up on them when they launched a firmware update about three weeks ago that orphaned one of my bulbs completely, not sure if they bricked the bulb for Wemo connectivity, but I couldn't find it again through their setup utility.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Monday November 23 2015, @07:17PM
We're planning to build a house in a couple of years, so I've done a bit of thinking about this. I think the most important thing is to realize that your house is going to be around a lot longer than whatever gizmos are currently around. Want a Nest camera and a Sonos player in every room? That's great, but you'll want something completely different in 5 or 10 years.
What does this mean? It means building your house so that you can add automation, but don't actually make the automation part of the house. Put in extra-large wiring conduits, and make sure the builders use them. Ensure that you have nice, large electrical boxes behind all of your switch plates. Even better: run a cable channel completely around every room (paint it a different color, make it decorative). Have at least one decent-sized closet for electrical gear, including space for routers, servers, whatever you decide you need.
Then, as a completely separate project, decide what gadgets you want initially. That's a separate project, and because it won't be a permanent part of your home, you can have more fun. You aren't making decisions for all eternity, just until the next nifty thing comes out...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday November 23 2015, @07:50PM
Totally agree.
To be precise, ideally you'd have a conduit and outlet box next to every power outlet (maybe not every one in the kitchen), inside and outside, and you'd line-item the cost of Cat-6, coax and fiber into the cost of the house. You might use 5 to 20% of it over the life of the house, depending on your trust of wireless, but it's there. Want to move the furniture? Cabling's the same anywhere, you just move the faceplate. Peace of mind.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Monday November 23 2015, @09:24PM
Move the faceplate?
Its easier to put in AND LABEL all faceplates when you install the cabling. Its a pain in the ass to do it later. Do it once, do it right.
Terminate them all to LABELED patch panels, and also LABEL the cables 2 feet before both ends, because they will be trimmed
when you least expect it.
Did I mention how important LABELs are?
And route them away from power llines.
I like the idea of structured composite cables. Costs a few bucks but its worth it.
Structured-Composite cables support many technologies for Data, CATV, Satellite, Audio, and high definition signals.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by aclarke on Tuesday November 24 2015, @10:21PM
Don't LABEL on duct tape, because your LABELS will get smudged and in a year or two will be illegible. LABEL on masking tape, or better yet something I don't know of that's probably designed for cable LABELS.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2015, @08:04PM
> run a cable channel completely around every room
Yeah, your wife will love that.
(Score: 5, Informative) by AudioGuy on Monday November 23 2015, @08:07PM
YES! This poster knows the secret.
This is the single most important advice I can give. I have been playing with this stuff for years.
Don't 'wire' your house. Make channels. You don't know what the future will bring.
Use simple, standard components.
Here are some of the things I have done:
1. I have added wainscotting to my rooms. It looks nice. It adds value to your house. But its real purpose is that I designed it with hidden channels. The top area is a hidden channel for low voltage wiring. The bottom area is a hidden channel for AC wiring. Below that, under the low base trim,is yet one more hidden channel which could be used for almost anything, pneumatic ines, water lines, gas, whatever.
The channels are a size specifically designed to accomodate commercialy available metal channels called 'Wiremold' (about 1 1/2 in by 3in - not the really small stuff) that has been used for many years in idustrial situtations. It is expensive, but I can also use the channels without it. Or just use short sections of it, for AC for example, with cheap conduit in between the sections, saving a great deal of money. It is designed to directly and safely handle AC outlets, etc.
The panels themselves are removable and can be either wood or acoustic material that can be used for sound absorbtion in, say, a media room.
2. Another good place to house wires and such is in lighting soffits. Why not put them in every room, all around the perimeter. Looks nice and provides excellent lighting as well.
3. ALL my switch boxes are double size. This allows me room for two manual switches (a single 'duplex' switch), PLUS, then, a clear duplex space. This is large enough to accomodate two triac controls suitable for controlling lights or motors. (Heat sinked on the front). (Same can be done with outlet boxes)
4. I have standardized my interfaces, all low voltage wiring is cat5 or similar. I even use this for audio, which is all balanced.
5. I have standardized my connectors, almost everything is either db-9, db-25, or cat5 type connectors.
6. Power to remote devices is 12v. Unregulated, regulated on important devices at the device.
7. All my on-off stuff is opto-isolated. Since this amounts to driving an led, I can use any voltage, though I default to 5 volt lines. This eliminates ground problems and is very safe, low current.
8. A house is really a light industrial environment, and you need to think about it in that way. Look at what industry does more than whatever the latest fad is.
9. Safety is really important. Some idiot is always going to hammer a nail through your wiring to put up a picture. You really need to design with such possibilities in mind.
10. All my house AC wiring is in conduit wherever I can do this, following the 'install channels, not wires' approach. There are many things you can do like this that are actually pretty cheap, that a contractor would never do to save some pennies.
11.Make really really sure everything is EASILY accessible.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday November 23 2015, @09:32PM
All good advice, but wainscotting is not so good.
Look, its a STYLE that comes into and goes out of popularity.
But you've locked it into your house, and the next buyer will walk away when they find it isn't removable. Even if you stay there for life, your wife's tastes will change over time. It dates your house, and imposes a style.
There are other, better methods than open (but hidden) cable races. Build a basement, and run them down there, exposed or in races. Everything then just becomes a riser.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by AudioGuy on Monday November 23 2015, @10:22PM
Its more than just a style. It has always had a real purpose, which may be to warm up and somewhat insulate walls if you have a stone house, or provide a way to keep chairs from scuffing walls, or offer a place to hide acoustical panels (the laws of acoustics haven't changed much), or maybe just provide visible proof you are wealthy. :-)
The idea is that it should be flexible. If it is the 1890s, it is all shellaced mahogany bead and ogee trim. If it is the 1950s maybe you replace all that with chrome and formica.
I can think of few times when it wasn't acceptable, particularly in more expensive houses. Perhaps the 1960s, with those hard flat walls. But probably even that could be accommodated with some creative thinking.
At any rate, it is just an example of what I did, others will do other things - the core concept is easily accessible wiring.
(Score: 4, Informative) by LoRdTAW on Monday November 23 2015, @08:30PM
Pull boxes in every room with flexible corrugated plastic conduit ran to a master pull box in an electrical closet might be a good option too. Then you can easily run cat5, coax, fiber, audio, video cables etc. Just be sure to have a diameter of 1.5 inches (~38mm) or larger so hdmi cables or multiple cables in a bundle can be pulled with ease. You could even do a tree setup where each room has its own pull box that branches out to junction boxes along the walls and a main that runs to the wiring closet.
If you have a two floor with an attic space and crawl space or basement you can drop all of your pull boxes down to dead ends as they fall. Meaning, if there is a junction box in the 2nd floor bedroom and you have a full basement, just let the conduit drop straight down through the wall and terminate in the basement from the pull/junction box. This way you can freely run the wires in the basement as you see fit while having a nice guide up to the junction box. Conversely, if you have no basement or crawlspace but you do have an attic space, do the opposite and let all the conduit end in the attic. If you have a crawlspace that can be easily invaded by rodents or other critters, you want to avoid running anything down there in case they start chewing. This is how our shop is setup with a poured concrete floor and basement underneath (supported a full machine shop, massive floor support structure). There are a bunch of 1 inch conduits with a 90 bend that were planted in the floor before it was poured. This way air, electric and communication lines could be easily added without the need of a core drill.
Though, with the push to make everything wireless this might be overkill for most. Unless you're like me and prefer that everything be hard wired.
Quick tip: some conduit had pre-installed pull tape. Some doesn't. If you need to pull wire for a long distance but don't want to buy fish tape for conduit pulling try this: Get a vacuum cleaner with a hose and hold the hose up against one end of the conduit. Then take string, preferably nylon masonry cord and tie it to a ball of paper just slightly smaller than the ID of the conduit. The diameter must be smaller so the ball moves freely through the ID of the conduit but not too small as you will loose the pressure differential on each side of the ball and it wont work. Wrapping it with masking tape also helps but avoid duct tape as it can bind up as it's a bit tacky. Then just feed the ball into the conduit while the vacuum sucks it through. Once you get the ball through, you can pull your wires. If you need a heavier pull rope, tie the pull rope to the string and pull that through and then use that rope to pull your cable (great for pulling heavy gauge feeder cable for machinery or panel boxes). Shop vacs work best but any good house vac with a lot of suction should work just fine. I have used it successfully on conduit from 1/2 inch to 2.5 inch without issues. Just be sure all of your couplings are tight. Used it at work once to pull a high power laser welder fiber through 2 inch conduit. Shop foreman said it wouldn't work until he saw the ball get sucked in and the string flying off the spool. Took 10 seconds to do a 100 foot run.
(Score: 4, Informative) by AudioGuy on Monday November 23 2015, @10:44PM
I have used conduit a lot over the years for high and low voltage wiring, multimedia wiring.
It has a problem which should be mentioned:
You design this approach thinking you have lots of room to spare, and it will be easy to upgrade later. At the time, it seems to work perfectly. You leave pull strings in place, etc. There seems to be plenty of extra room.
Twenty years later you try to do an upgrade. And discover it is not as easy as you thought. It becomes very hard to pull new wires through with old ones in place, because, over the years, the insulation has stiffened. And sometimes has become a bit brittle. And there are places where the wire has crossed over itself that make blockages.
And you realize you will have to pull it all out, and repull it with the new addition. But even that is a problem; because of the stiffness, that wire has become pretty locked into place.
This is real, I have experienced it more than once.
My current thinking is more along the lines of 'use troughs rather than round conduits wherever possible'
Another possible solution would be the methods used for installing modern optical cable: Have a large conduit with many small plastic tubes inside of it. This way, adding a new wire always is using a completely free 'conduit' of its own.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday November 24 2015, @06:03AM
Also, make sure a hot and a neutral are available in every switch box. It's annoying that X10 runs a constant current through the load to keep itself powered.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Monday November 23 2015, @07:44PM
(Score: 3, Informative) by Gravis on Monday November 23 2015, @07:46PM
if you are building a house that may require electricity to enter, you should add solar+battery. now with the less expensive high storage saltwater battery systems, [altestore.com] you can store a ridiculous amount of power and go completely off the grid with solar panels which are dirt cheap now. you will never need a UPS/surge protector for your computer and when some tree falls on a power line, you won't lose power. it's nice to have electric door locks... but only if they always have electricity!
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday November 23 2015, @08:42PM
I have relatively dumb electric door locks that use C size batteries, obviously the door closest to the garage dies much quicker than the batteries on the other doors. Most of them have a facility for an old fashioned key if all the batteries die.
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Monday November 23 2015, @09:09PM
Most of them have a facility for an old fashioned key if all the batteries die.
an old fashioned key? what are you, a caveman? go beat rocks together, caveman! ;P
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2015, @10:43PM
Yes, mechanical locks to bypass electric ones are mandated by law in most places for good reason. You also get the benefit that mechanical locks have been known to outlast the civilizations that made them.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2015, @08:03PM
Check out OpenHAB [openhab.org] - it is open source and not tied to any particular vendor or protocol. Almost all of the "solutions" from vendors are about linking your home to their cloud. OpenHAB lets you control it all in-home.
Also home autiomation reddit [reddit.com] is a decent place to talk about this stuff.
(Score: 2) by snufu on Monday November 23 2015, @08:54PM
that you are participating in the smart home alpha test stage. Please share your wisdom when you reach the other side.
(Score: 1) by SanityCheck on Monday November 23 2015, @09:23PM
Smart anything is only smart at one thing: "Separating fool's from their monies"
I doubt this will not be the case with the latest fad. The whole smart BS will be all our undoings. In 20 years time people who are in the know will have to make their own appliances, less their toaster stop operating because required, DRM and adware-ridden, update is installed. You know the one that ensure you only use the official toast in your toaster, because it is the only way that the company can "ensure a consistent and p[l]easant toasting experience for our customers."
Do I love an idea of an IT backbone built into the house, where I can add things to it in order to help me use my time more efficiently, save money, and have lots of cool factor? Yes, of course I do, every geek does. But the outcome will be far from my Utopian dream. Anything you try to go with will turn into an unworkable piece that fits yet non-existing "entire solution set," and you will just be left with a bunch of useless things that don't play together well.
Even if we could come up with something akin to the USB implementation, which was the best thing that ever happened to computers, for this new house-centric IoT, there will always be a weak-point that will let all the bad shit in. Like we have OS with PC hardware. Expect any control hubs for these to be a kludgy, useless piece of shit, that will try to up-sell you for their cloud subscription at every corner (yes I really want to save my settings in the cloud so I can import them to my other home when I move there for the Summer. Gimmie a break).
(Score: 2) by bryan on Monday November 23 2015, @10:52PM
Like, as your mentioned USB reference, the free "promotional" USB thumb drive you plug into your computer is actually a Keyboard HID device that fires up a console window and proceeds to execute a nefarious binary payload.
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Tuesday November 24 2015, @02:40PM
I don't disagree but keyboard shortcuts to console without prompt for admin password is really a stupid setup by the OS from security perspective. In this case it's not even for sake of average user's convenience because you hardly ever need to open it, and no average user even knows what it does.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Monday November 23 2015, @11:26PM
I don't know. I have Philips hue and it's a God send for getting up early. The lights come on automatically at the same time as my alarm. Makes getting up a lot easier and more consistent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2015, @09:28PM
does anybody have experience with smart home tech they could share with the rest of us?
Yeah... don't do it, kid... You'll regret it!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2015, @09:55PM
I think the most important part in a new building is to wire the place. Wireless tech usually works, but you will be much happier in the long run if you can hard-wire with CAT6 or better to at least one jack in every room.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2015, @10:46PM
My aunt once bought two $50 android tablets at the time (though last I checked they were going for $10 on Ebay and Amazon and now they are so obsolete that you can't find them) and they were so useless (so slow with so little memory) that you can't do anything with them whatsoever. Just browsing a website was not really that possible and took forever to just load the page. Forget about adding any apps. So I turned them into clocks. I have them plugged in, synced to the wifi, and they stay on and display the time, date, and day of he week. They're great clocks.
On one of them when the power goes out the screen turns off after a while (on the other one I don't think it does, when I unplugged it for about 30 seconds it doesn't, but am not that sure yet for longer times) but since it has a built in battery it can maintain the time for more than long enough (probably two or three days, we never get power outages that long). Given how often we get power outages around here (maybe a little less than once every two weeks though they only last maybe twenty minutes to a few hours, maybe close to a day at most but very rarely) this is great. When the power goes back on the screen automatically turns back on with the proper time set and the battery charges.
They have a built in timer that I set to remind me of street sweeping (the android clock). If there is something on the stove or something specific I can always use the android clock timer app for whatever I want (comes in handy to remind me of something that's going to take place more than an hour from now exceeding the maximum time the stove clock can allocate). I can also input things into the calendar (though it's still no replacement for a traditional paper calendar but for less important things it can complement one, for instance if you want to put that something happened on a specific date). It would be nice if I can place one outside and sync it to the others and use it as an intercom but there are no outlets outside next to the door.
I never have to set the time. The time automatically sets since it's synced to the Wi-Fi. Also when the time changes (ie: daylight savings) the time on the tablets change automatically without me having to do anything. In this day and age there is no reason why any clocks should ever have to be manually set or changed when the time changes. I can always depend on it to give me the right time, date, and day of the week.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2015, @11:03PM
On one of them when the power goes out the screen turns off after a while (on the other one I don't think it does, when I unplugged it for about 30 seconds it doesn't, but am not that sure yet for longer times) but since it has a built in battery it can maintain the time for more than long enough (probably two or three days, we never get power outages that long). Given how often we get power outages around here (maybe a little less than once every two weeks though they only last maybe twenty minutes to a few hours, maybe close to a day at most but very rarely) this is great. When the power goes back on the screen automatically turns back on with the proper time set and the battery charges.
Where the heck do you live with such a cruddy power grid? I average a blackout maybe twice a year, if that.
(Score: 2) by bryan on Monday November 23 2015, @11:30PM
Stick with standard copper wires. As long as you use decent quality cable, you will be able to run 10 gigabit Ethernet to all the rooms of your house. Fiber may sound neat, but there are too many drawbacks and almost no benefits over copper.
Benefits of copper over fiber:
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2015, @11:36PM
You distrust all the listen companies (for good reason). Apple Homekit was described as very privacy-oriented; and the specs seem to agree (the protocol wants to stay in the local home, and not in the cloud), but I suspect that Apple will want its servers to actually get the data of the homekit-compatible vendors...
Anyway, as someone who saw a little bit of the inside of Homekit (NDA specs, and colleagues working on a homekit product)... I can say it's a mess. It's badly designed, too complicated / too much overhead for something that should work on a $1 microcontroller if it really wanted to be THE protocol of everything, even as simple as a lightbulb. Instead, it requires to run a webserver, always-on wifi, parse and generate overly verbose json, implement Bonjour, and a dozen of different crypto standards. It's a bit simpler for the bluetooth version but not much. And more than 1 year after if was announced at the WWDC, it's still full of bugs on the iOS side.
And of course, once you have all your Homekit products.. you're locked with Apple.
(Score: 2) by dltaylor on Tuesday November 24 2015, @01:40AM
"Let's get a bunch of 'tech positives' to comment on all of the glorious buzz around 'smart home'. It will generate lots of page hits so we can show the trend is up, up, UP!"
It's ALL crap (except the build-your-own, maybe) designed to intrude marketeers into an almost endless data stream from your house. There's no security, and it doesn't work together any better than DLNA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 24 2015, @04:32AM
my "smart" lightbulb needs replacement every 3-5 years.
my "smart" wasching machine was replaced after 5 years because the mainboard started to "bleed".
my "smart" water-heaters built-in RCBO got fried after lightning fried a transformer not far from my smart house.
my "smart" vacuum-cleaner hose needed replacement because it broke off.
my "smart" roof needed an upgrade becaue of fear of possible future leak.
what else?
0h yeah ... monthly updates to computers and stuff. luckely some stuff i don't have to update anymore because the manufacturers consider 3 years old jelly-beans obsolete ... yeah more free time for me!
-
short: everything can break so a really "smart" house does with as little electrical and electronic appllicances and rather has simple mechanical solutions like a "smart" roof rain-collecting spout and a "smart" corner in the garden for composting.
catch my drift ^_^
(Score: 2) by drussell on Tuesday November 24 2015, @05:17AM
Run CAT-5 or CAT-6 to everywhere you might ever want to do something, even if it is just hidden in the wall.
If you want automatic blinds in area X, you will need power and signal to them, CAT5 is perfectly suitable... Run CAT5 by the big windows in the living room.
If you want data to area Y, you don't have to rely on wireless garbage, you'll have copper in the wall to your den, or your bedroom, or behind the TV in your family room...
If you need an extra speaker wire to area Z, splitting into two sets of pairs each connected together for positive and negative is essentially the same as a 16ga speaker wire.
That little extra bit of copper running to random places in your house doesn't really cost that much extra (especially if you don't bother to actually terminate most of them with jacks, etc. until you need them) but is SUPER handy when you want to actually do something somewhere.
Maximum versatility....
(and without having to run expensive conduit through every dang wall that you're never going to use... just run a CAT-5/6)