Ask Slashdot: Options For Cheap Home Automation?

New submitter goose-incarnated writes I'm looking at cheap and simple home automation. Unfortunately I'm not too clued up on what my options are. There are such a wide array of choices, none of which seem (to me) to be either cheap or simple. I'd like to: Turn switches on/off (lights, wall sockets, general relays, etc); Read the status of on/off switches; Read analog samples (for example, temperature sensors); 'Program' switches based on analog samples/existing switches (for example, program a relay to come on at 30C and go off at 25C, thereby controlling the temperature); Similarly, program switches to go on/off at certain times; Record the samples of analog or digital inputs for a given time . I'd like to do the above using smartphone+bluetooth (for when I'm in the vicinity of the room), or smartdevice+WiFi (for when I'm in the house, somewhere), or even in a pinch, using HTTP to access a server at home from 600km away (which is what I'm willing to do). I'm definitely not willing to stream all my requests/data/responses through a third-party so third party cloud subscription solutions, even if free, are out of the question. Finally (because I know the Slashdot crowd likes a challenge :-)), I'd like something that is easily reprogrammable without having to compile code, then reflash a device, etc. What languages for embedded devices exist for home automation programming, if any. A quick google search reveals nothing specially made for end-users to reprogram their devices, but, like I said above, I'm clueless about options.

Comments

Re:Insteon vs x10

[Anonymous Coward]

Central control means nothing. X10 is completely insecure. Your power line is a shared bus. I had to coordinate with my neighbor to use different X10 channels, because we kept turning each other's stuff on and off. Anyone can just plug in a controller, and every X10 house downstream of the step down transformer will see the signals and respond. At one point I had a sniffer/sweeper running to debug the damn problem and that's when I got my neighbor's attention cause his house went bonkers when I swept the A channel. He moved to B and all was well after that. But still very insecure.