Logitech Aims To Control the Smart Home

An anonymous reader writes: Household devices are getting smarter these days: the so-called internet of things is bringing software-controlled thermostats, lighting, and other appliances into the mainstream. Many companies are fighting for a piece of the pie, but Logitech is taking a different approach. They're mostly known for computer peripherals, but they also make multi-function remote controls, and now they're trying to build remotes that will control all of a home's smart devices. "Logitech doesn't want to own the device, it wants to own the app experience. But to do that, it had to build a software overlay and a controller that would convince people to put it in their homes. So it's offering a $100 hub that combines IR, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and RF that will let you use the Logitech Harmony app to control gear that uses those protocols. This means if you have a SmartThings, a Peq or a Lutron hub, the Wi-Fi in the Logitech device will let you control the others' gear from Logitech, which so far seems to have a much nicer interface." They've worked out partnerships with a lot of companies that are big in the home, like Nest, Honeywell, and Philips, all of whom seem to want this extra layer of control for the user.

Comments

Hopefully not like their TV remotes...

[mlts]

I hope their home offering isn't like the TV remotes, where to get it to work, I had to create an account with them (with demands for a lot of personal info), go through their relatively awkward website to find the televisionI was using, have that downloaded to the device via USB, and then add some configuring after that before the remote could be used as a remote.

Heck with that. If a remote can't offer an interface to locate stuff on the device itself, it should at least not require an Internet connection (the application should handle this, perhaps downloading codes for newer items), and definitely not require registration on a website to be used.

Re:Hopefully not like their TV remotes...

[shaitand]

That internet connection requirement gets you the largest database of remote control presets out there and more importantly everything added in the future. It also expands the database as YOU program custom buttons and functions.

If you can find another remote that you can buy today and know you'll be able to program it for your next set of not yet on the market devices, and the set after that, etc does IR and RF, and can mix and match device buttons and functions without switching button profiles, and still does let you program custom functions like a 3D button, subtitle button, VIA button, DVR button, TV Input, Setup, Menu, etc, etc, etc. And actually manages to provide a better interface at a reasonable price point. I'd love to know.

But thus far, the logitech harmony series is the only thing I've found that actually gets that job done at all and therefore is the best by default.

Re:Hopefully not like their TV remotes...

[phayes]

Then they need to add a button that lets me download the needed device definitions when needed but let me configure the remote OFFLINE! I have a Harmony that I abandoned precisely because their web interface is slow, kludgy and reveals information that I do not want people outside my home to know.

If Logitech thinks that I am going to export even more information on the devices I use & what I am doing with them so that they can sell it to others, they have another thing coming.

Re:Hopefully not like their TV remotes...

[Lumpy]

"But thus far, the logitech harmony series is the only thing I've found that actually gets that job done at all and therefore is the best by default."

Try the real stuff. Control 4, Crestron and AMX all blow the harmony remote out of the water so badly it is not funny. Hell even the URC programmable remotes make a harmony look like a joke.

One day, someone will explain it to me.

[holophrastic]

I still don't understand which problem these smart devices would solve for me. It's a light switch. It's on when I want the lights on. It's off when I flick it. The thermostat requires my attention four times per year, when the season changes -- and software doesn't help because the floor registers need to be adjusted manually, and it's still no more than 5 minutes of "effort" per year. I sure as hell ain't letting software turn on my oven, and I'm not letting water nor fire run when I'm not home -- because I've read my house insurance policy; can you say "negligent behaviour"? And again, none of this was difficult to begin with. How about solving a problem that I have, instead of trying to convince me that I have a problem?

Re:One day, someone will explain it to me.

[gstoddart]

But most of all, if the product and implementation have security flaws that have been exploited, don't buy them.

I rank that statement as about as intelligent as "if the food is contaminated, don't eat it". It's trite, ignores the problem, and acts like somehow consumers would actually know this.

The reality is, by the time it's known to have happened, and they actually tell people about it, it's too damned late.

Given the terrible approach most of these companies have to security, the fact that they hide the fact that they've been exploited, or are otherwise unaware that they've been exploited ... I sure as hell wouldn't trust them to know, or notify us if their security proves to be crap.

I just assume their security is crap from the beginning, because it usually is.

Tech people like their privacy

[gurps_npc]

People that buy technology, particularly the innovators that buy the new products like their privacy. You want to wire my home and be the company that sets the standard?

Make my personal privacy your priority.

Because honestly, that is my primary concern. I don't want to put a camera or microphone in my home and have ANY concern that someone else might look at it.

So you need to convince me that not only can I set up the password, but that I can trust your company not to put in a back door. That means convincing me that you will go BEYOND what I consider to be necessary. I need to believe that you will stand up to the NSA and close the company down if they come knocking on your door with a court order to not even talk about you getting the court order.

Otherwise, I would rather buy the equipment myself and pick the software myself. That way I know the software is not customized to open back doors on the hardware.

Because I am perfectly willing to give up the functionality you so loudly proclaim is helpful if I can't trust you.

Home owner

[wjcofkc]

Hopefully this will not bring new meaning to the term.

Re:Good luck

[davecb]

Fortunately my android already has apps for all the things I own which have "smarts". I plan to keep it that way by buying small apps from small developers.

Stupid luxuries?

[jandersen]

This issue keeps being pushed from time to time, but I am not at all convinced that there really is a good justification. It's not that I'm a luddite - or, I hope that I'm not - but introducing technology that doesn't solve a problem is idiotic - like eating oysters despite disliking them, simply because it is a luxury. I can see the use of being able to find free parking spaces in real time - that would be very useful - or having cheap, networked sensors measuring things like temperature, wind speed etc. But other things I have heard of - like being able to check what's in your fridge over your smartphone - that just solves problems that we don't have.

Re:Good luck

[TheWanderingHermit]

Logitech is just as much a "stagnator" as the bigger guys. I bought a few Squeezeboxes years ago and loved the system, but once Logitech bought out SlimDevices and took over the Squeezeboxes, I knew the days were numbered.

Logitech is the kind of mediocre and great and creating products that are average and could, with minimal effort, have been made great.

Re:Good luck

[Ash-Fox]

Including an app to control the Harmony hub...