What is the Current State of Home Automation?

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?

Comments

Doing it wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Good luck

[uvsc_wolverine]

I'm an open source fan personally, so I'd do Misterhouse. My father had a setup a few years back that he home-built with a linux distro that was made for a little headless machine that he stuck in the basement. He got really complex with it and did all the programming himself in Assembly (he's a masochist) instead of making use of the built-in tools. He wanted to do it HIS way. It worked great though. My dad's HA setup was dialed into all of the lighting and thermostat controls for the house and it did some cool stuff. He had a temperature probe on the outside of the house, and the system would decide (based on outside temperature, time of day, and whether anyone was in the house) whether or not to run the A/C to keep the house cool, but first it would spin up all the ceiling fans.

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.

What do you want home automation for?

[Attila Dimedici]

What purpose are you accomplishing with this home automation? I have seen these predictions and calls for home automation for years, but I have never seen a compelling reason for doing so.
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.

Re:What do you want home automation for?

[smellsofbikes]

I think having a network-enabled microwave is lame. However, I think there are some places where it *could* make sense to invest in home automation: intelligent control of heat and lighting. If you have sensors that tell the computer where people are (and some adaptive software so it learns where they generally tend to be and go at different times) and have zone heating/AC, it's possible you could save a lot of money. At my old house we quite rarely used the downstairs and one room, so we closed them off and closed the heater vents to them, and reduced our heating costs by about 20%. Likewise, intelligent lighting control would mean if nobody's in the room the light automatically turns off, or for areas that are often used, dims to 10% with a rapid-on if a person walks through. Since this is the field in which I work, I might as well add a few numbers: we're trying to do this for parking lot and street lighting, specifically using dimming to a fraction of full lighting, and somewhat intelligent prediction of where people are heading so we can just crank up the relevant lights, and are claiming municipalities can reduce their power costs by 30% based on studies we've had done. We hope it'll be even higher than that, but we feel pretty confident in the 30% claim, given that 80% of the lights will be using 80% less power about 65% of the time.

Re:Too expensive

[0100010001010011]

If you can solder: http://www.maxim-ic.com/products/1-wire/

Or if you can't: http://www.hobby-boards.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=24

Or if you sign up on Maxim's website they'll send you 1-2 samples of some of their products. Very awesome indeed.

Smart Grid and home automation - have your say

[Nefarious Wheel]

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.

Re:$2000 in and counting

[Coward Anonymous]

"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!