Smart Homes Often Dumb, Never Simple

An anonymous reader writes: Writer Adam Estes has tested over a thousand dollars worth of smart home gear from companies like Wink, GE, Lutron, Cree, and Leviton. Most of it worked correctly out of the box — which he said was great. But almost immediately, devices stopped responding and defects manifested themselves. Even after getting replacements and reconfiguring the devices, he found himself wondering if it was worth the effort to wrestle with all these devices, and ended up appreciating the simplicity of a plain old light switch.

Estes says, "Installation woes and bugs aside, my smart home never seemed handy. I had to tape off the regular switches so that the power would stay on and the bulbs' smart features would work. Even then, I had to pull out a smartphone or a tablet any time I wanted to dim the lights. That was never convenient. I could turn the lights on from my office, but that didn't really make my life better. I could impress my friends with a stray smart home feature here and there, but more often than not, I found myself embarrassed by the glitches of my smart home gone dumb." He concludes that while many smart home products can and do work, the biggest lie their marketers tell us is that it'll be simple and easy to set up and operate all these gadgets. Those of you who have wired up parts of your home, how has it worked out so far?

Comments

A smart phone is rarely convenient

[Overzeetop]

Even ignoring those in the house who don't always have a smartphone with them (young children, grandparents) and any visitor who isn't on your network, needing a smartphone to control most things is simply awkward in inefficient when compared to a dedicated remote control.

Re:A smart phone is rarely convenient

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It's not as though the current offerings leave you with much of a choice; but 'smart' is never going to be worth it if it is merely a high tech re-implementation of what you can already do with a few bucks worth of mechanical switches. Even if it works flawlessly, it's still going to be expensive and unexciting.

The only real shot for 'smart' is to do things that conventional systems cannot or do not. Exactly what those things are is a bit vague(lighting and drapes that automatically adjust to available sunlight? automatic dimming when you fire up the TV? subtle color temperature modifications to facilitate greater alertness or easier sleep depending on time of day?); but unless they figure those out, there simply isn't any any way that 'smart' could possibly be worth the trouble. If they do, then we can talk; but 're-implementation of a light switch by dragging an entire wireless LAN and more computing power than existed on earth in the early 80s' is just dumb, even if you polish it properly.

Re:A smart phone is rarely convenient

[TellarHK]

I think the missing key in current smart home options that most people can actually afford to purchase, is reliable voice control. I know Google's acquisition of Nest (and whatever Apple gets around to doing) will make a big difference here, but I can already say that I'd be a lot happier with my "smart" lighting if I had:

A: More money for more components such as light switches and socket replacements.
B: Voice controls that were as responsive and reasonably reliable as the Amazon Echo, which gets it right a surprisingly large amount of the time.

Re:A smart phone is rarely convenient

[michelcolman]

Exactly. If you need your smartphone to be able to dim the lights, you're doing it wrong.

Smart homes should still have switches and dimmers in the usual places where people expect them (not actual switches, but transmitters obviously) and then, on top of that, allow extra functionality like one button mood lighting, switch of all lights, switch on all lights (if you suspect a burglary), remote control, etcetera. If you get rid of the simple old-fashioned concepts, you're just making things harder instead of easier.

It's one thing to say "the light switch is next to the door, but never mind, I'll just do it for you with my smartphone" (which is way cool) but quite another to say "oh, you want light in the toilet? No, there's no switch, but let me get my phone, just as soon as I can find it, hang on..."

Re:A smart phone is rarely convenient

[vlad30]

I have seen smart home implementations work very well when designed into a new home with all the required sensors and switches at all the right places. It is usually the retrofit ones that go poorly as the necessary cabling is to hard to install.

As for controlling it from your smartphone unless you have backup with other switches and remotes it will be difficult for those that are not connected e.g. children

Cool features that could be turned on remotely is heating a spa pool so its hot when you arrive home so yes there are very few items that are worth the long distance remote reguarly most like turning off the lights is used when you forgot to do it at home however a few sensors and that is automated too

Re:A smart phone is rarely convenient

[eth1]

I think the missing key in current smart home options that most people can actually afford to purchase, is reliable voice control. I know Google's acquisition of Nest (and whatever Apple gets around to doing) will make a big difference here, but I can already say that I'd be a lot happier with my "smart" lighting if I had:

A: More money for more components such as light switches and socket replacements.
B: Voice controls that were as responsive and reasonably reliable as the Amazon Echo, which gets it right a surprisingly large amount of the time.

But the GP's point still applies. Voice control is still just re-implementing the dumb light switch, making it more complicated and prone to failure (although it would be an improvement over a smart phone or remote, and definitely useful for mobility impaired, etc.).

The key is automation. If you're not doing that, the whole exercise is relatively pointless (IMO).

Re:A smart phone is rarely convenient

[gregmac]

Yeah this is exactly the problem. The idea of a control that is fixed in a predictable easy-to-reach location, with tactile feedback (so you can use it without seeing it -- eg in the dark because the lights are off) and requires a single press to activate (eg: a switch on the wall) is a very good one, regardless of the fact that most if not all people have been trained to be used to this feature their whole lives.

There's this huge marketing effort dedicated to "control your lights from anywhere" and "do cool stuff with your smartphone" combined with a focus on products that don't require rewiring (eg: "smart bulbs" and plug-in modules). Great, it's a neat technology demo to get people sort of interested in doing more, but if it's taking away the simplicity of a light switch to get it, it's not going to succeed.

Re:A smart phone is rarely convenient

[OldSport]

Pardon me as I adjust my tinfoil hat, but convenience isn't the ultimate goal. I imagine the ultimate goal is to capture as much data as possible for a variety of uses.

Organizations can already access a wealth of data from mobile devices, enough to basically tell exactly what you're doing at any given time during your day. Unfortunately this doesn't work when you come home and plop your phone down on the counter -- when you're home, a great deal of your activity goes off-radar. Now just imagine if there was a way to track everything you were doing *inside* your home as well... hmmm...

Re:A smart phone is rarely convenient

[pr0fessor]

Sounds like my house 4 roku and no remotes to be found.

I scared my son and his friends one day they were in the down stairs family room watching a movie and I sent my cell camera to the roku and said "Hey! I saw that you are all in trouble" and then turned it off. One of them actually screamed.

Re:A smart phone is rarely convenient

[boristdog]

Pardon me as I adjust my tinfoil hat, but convenience isn't the ultimate goal. I imagine the ultimate goal is to capture as much data as possible for a variety of uses.

Exactly that. Plus the fact that they've created a whole new market to make people feel like they need to buy something they don't need.

But I'm old. I've seen the "smart home" touted every few years for the past 4 decades. It was probably touted in the 60's as well, but I was too busy playing astronaut then to read about it. The "smart home" and the "video phone" come around with a new implementation every 10 years or so, then they fade into the woodwork until the next group of geniuses thinks "You know what people just HATE? Flipping switches to make things happen!"

Re:A smart phone is rarely convenient

[Ol Olsoc]

I think the missing key in current smart home options that most people can actually afford to purchase, is reliable voice control. I know Google's acquisition of Nest (and whatever Apple gets around to doing) will make a big difference here, but I can already say that I'd be a lot happier with my "smart" lighting if I had:

A: More money for more components such as light switches and socket replacements. B: Voice controls that were as responsive and reasonably reliable as the Amazon Echo, which gets it right a surprisingly large amount of the time.

I want to walk over to my thermostat and go through about ten seconds or more of talking to it in order to replace what I do in a second or less by pushing a switch or rotating a knob?

Or tell my refrigerator to open when I can just open it. Or talk to my toaster after putting bread in it, whne my hand is right by that little lever.

The IoT is a bad solution in desparate search of a problem.

Re:A smart phone is rarely convenient

[Ol Olsoc]

Cool features that could be turned on remotely is heating a spa pool so its hot when you arrive home so yes there are very few items that are worth the long distance remote reguarly most like turning off the lights is used when you forgot to do it at home however a few sensors and that is automated too

side note - our old spa had a timer on it. Our new one is insulated so well that there isn't much point to stop the heating cycle. Its an outside spa too. The only time the heaters kick on full is when we are out using it in single digit weather. Whic by the way, is simply tremendous fun.

side note: make certain your neighbors know you have one, because the first time you use it at 0 degrees, (as in F) it looks like a conflagration.

Re:A smart phone is rarely convenient

[sumdumass]

Well, you brought up some interesting points. Like your thermostat monitoring your adjustment habits and automatically adjusting the temp for when you are away and home or normally turn it up/down, by displaying usage statistics along side your electric and gas usage and telling your water heater tank to not bother keeping the stock hot over the next 5 or 6 hours because you will be gone for the next 7 hours. Of course you should be able to still press buttons and turn nobs to override it, but you should also be able to sit at a web panel and adjust it too.

Your fridge, Your right, open it by hand. But let read a QR code when you put milk and eggs in or something that is perishable then have it remind you if something if at the expiration date or if you are low so you can stop and grab more or even create a shopping list for you. You should be able to pull a screen up on your phone or web panel and monitor it or perhaps it sends you a reminder at the end of the work day or something.

Don't think of it as fixing any problem, think of it as making saving money easier and general life more convenient. It doesn't need to be a solution. It's more like an enhancement I guess.

Re:A smart phone is rarely convenient

[Aighearach]

Voice control for lights reminds me of capacitive lamps; lighting in a metal case that you turn on/off by touching the metal. Really cool the first time you see it, especially for kids. Not actually any different functionally, other than malfunctions in an electrical storm or cycling the light at every brownout/ or power supply flicker.

But I will give voice control some credit; it is at least useful and reliable as Clap-On, Clap-Off.

As an accessibility device for the blind, though, voice control will be a major improvement. Combined with good interface design it would be possible then to have appliances with a voice-discoverable features and menus. For the most part we're not there yet. But I only fault product design for that. The blind don't need the voice control to be really great, only the masses need that. For people just trying to control important devices, they can simply learn to enunciate as the computer requires.

Re:A smart phone is rarely convenient

[Oligonicella]

I've done all that for over five decades using just my mind and a note pad. I have no desire to invest in something that costs way more than pocket change, requires futzing around to set up and is far more prone to malfunction than a note pad and pen. Aside from being attractive to the techies who simply want to reach for that Star Trek living I see no benefit. It's more of an embellishment than an enhancement for the bulk or humanity.

Re:A smart phone is rarely convenient

[drinkypoo]

I've done all that for over five decades using just my mind and a note pad.

Why shouldn't people dumber or busier than you enjoy the same benefits?

Re:A smart phone is rarely convenient

[nukenerd]

Microsoft learned the hard way with the xbox 360 kinetic fiasco that nobody like yelling at their TV. I suspect google will quickly find out that nobody likes yelling at light switches either.

It was designed for Bill Gates himself - he loves shouting. No so many people realise that he is a very shouty and bad tempered person.

In an outline of "The Road Ahead" Gates writes: "Some people don't like the idea of talking to a computer. ... But we talk to machines already. When your car or computer does not work, you shout at it. We shout at things all the time." Reference

"[At school] His intensity at times simply boiled over into raw, unthrottled emotion, and occasionally childlike temper tantrums" [from "Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the making of the Microsoft Empire"] He was also described by a schoolmate as arguing with his teachers, going up to their desk, and "shouting at the top of his lungs".

Gates, even as a "mature" adult :-

" was known to get into shouting matches with CEOs of rival tech companies .... perhaps the sorest victim of Gates's temper tantrums was Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who said that dealing with Gates's frequent explosions was "like being in hell." Reference

No shit

[smooth wombat]

and ended up appreciating the simplicity of a plain old light switch.

What a stunning revelation. A simple analog switch is better than hundreds of dollars of technology.

The familiar phrase rears its head again: Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

Re:No shit

[frovingslosh]

Actually a simple on/off switch is digital, not analog. You would need a dimmer to be analog.

Re:No shit

[myrdos2]

Any smart home setup that prevents you from using light switches is going to be painful. You should still be able to use all of the conveniences of your home, in addition to whatever smarts you're adding. Nothing else makes sense to me.

Re:No shit

[Anubis IV]

Precisely. I've been looking for a simple way to automate various things around my home, but I've been holding off until these systems can pass the "if I sell the house tomorrow could the new owners get by like normal without an instruction manual" test.

Which is to say, the bar for entry should simply be "works like a dumb device", with any technological enhancements layered on top of that functionality so that it supplements the dumb functionality, rather than replaces it. Instead, many of them outright eliminate the dumb functionality or else make it dependent on the smart technology, meaning that they're utterly useless if the wrong link in the technological chain has a hiccup. If I move out tomorrow, I want the new owners to be able to use the place like a normal house without having to configure arcane systems, regularly maintain misbehaving technology, or worry about which OS they're running on their phone or personal computer.

Re:No shit

[flibbajobber]

I'd argue that it would be binary, but not digital. It's not communicating a signal represented as a number - it's transmitting some level of power, which is available in two amplitudes (none and some). So it's analogue, binary (as opposed to continuous), but not digital.

A dimmer makes it continuous, so it would no longer be binary.

PWM, BPSK, etc. are similarly binary, but not necessarily digital. Few people consider a switch-mode power supply to be digitally controlled - it has continuous input, continuous output, and continuously-variable pulse width, yet the output pass device is only in one of two states - switched or unswitched.

Discrete != digital.

Re:No shit

[frovingslosh]

Oh, you children! Something doesn't need transistors or ICs to be digital (and things with transistors and ICs can still be analog). Switches and relay logic is digital, and you don't get much simpler than turning on the switch to light the light. In this case the voltage is the signal, and its message is "I want some light". It doesn't matter if the switch is controlling DC or AC, it is still a basically digital on/off concept. Dimmers can be either digital or analog in design, but in function the end result is that they are analog in nature, in that they allow for an apparent variable range of output (light) from a single source..

Remember, there are 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

Re:No shit

[preaction]

Exactly. Present the UI all the users are familiar with, then add another UI that can do other things, like turn the lights on remotely, or on a timer, or something.

I remember when car stereos went to all buttons, no dials, and it was distracting because it was (a) new, and (b) suboptimal. Distraction + driving = dead.

Less chance of dying here, but still...

Re:No shit

[NormalVisual]

and interfaces with an analog finger.

Fingers are digit-al. ;-)

There's a reason the REAL gear is expensive

[St.Creed]

You buy cheap stuff, you get in trouble, You can't get decent quality from those new market entries, because the market has been in place for decades, there's a lot of established and well-supported hardware out there, but... it's industry standard, and expensive. So the new entries try to bring their own standard in the home-market but with cheap gear that doesn't work well.

A colleague of mine, who is an IT architect, has designed his house from the ground up with the industry-standard switches, controllers, light, shutters etcetera. And even after 20 years the stuff he bought then is still supported and he can get upgrades and replacements for everything and it all works - all the time.

Do they work? Usually, but the writer got it right

[TellarHK]

Last year, I picked up a Wink Hub and four "TCP Connected" brand (which is a horrible name for obvious reasons) daylight LED bulbs to see how dipping my toes into home automation would work out, and it really has been a seriously mixed result just like the author of the the original article says. I'm using a very simple setup, two lights in my home office, and one light in the rear of the living room. The only "smart" part I have set up, is a group to let me control the office lights all at once.

And it's really not all that stable. The TCP Connected bulbs actually require the use of a home gateway and online service to control, and Wink ties into that. When that service is glitchy, things will either work or not work. There's no apparent reliable activity confirmation set up in the protocols from what I can tell, so the software never knows if a device is on or off. A fairly simple schedule I have set up dims my lights for a period before bed, and then turns them off later. This usually works, but not always. It's also supposed to turn them back on, and it doesn't appear to do that about half the time.

Is the problem the TCP bulb integration? Is it Wink? Is it the signal in my house? Is it a bug? There's no way to tell for sure, and systems just aren't bulletproof enough to rely on just yet. But is it a nice step? Absolutely.

The big thing I feel that I should do in my personal case though, is replace the light switches so I don't always have to pull out a smartphone or tablet. Is it a pain to do that? Yes and no. It's more of a pain than it should be for something advertised as super simple, because of the article's mentioned process of unlocking a device, loading app, swiping to control you need, and then hitting said control.

The prices can definitely be appealing, but once you realize that a light switch is going to be $50, it adds up.

Works Perfectly For Me

[friedmud]

I bought:

* Logitech Ultimate Home Control
* Logitech Home Control
* Nest
* Philips Hue Bridge
* 3 Philips Hue Luxe Bulbs
* 2 Philips Hue bulbs
* Philips Hue Light Strip
* 2 Philips Hue Taps

The Ultimate Home Control is in the living room along with the colored Philips Hue bulbs and the Light Strip. I also put one Tap in there right where the normal light switches are.

The bedroom is the regular Home Control with 3 Luxe Bulbs... again with a Tap where the normal light switches are.

Everything synced up perfectly and works perfectly. Having integration with the Logitech remotes is awesome. You just press "Watch Movie" and all of my AV gear resets for watching a movie while the lights dim: awesome! After the movie you turn the system off and the lights automatically come back on: sweet!

If you don't know what a Tap is... go check it out: http://www2.meethue.com/en-us/...

It's essentially a "light switch" that makes running the whole system super easy. Each one has 4 buttons that I've set up as different lighting combinations: Everything on, dim, dimmer, everything off... essentially. I have both set the same way in both rooms so that you can easily remember what the buttons do. Also: they don't take batteries! They're powered by the force of pressing the buttons themselves... so they are very reliable.

All of this is so dang simple and fool proof that my wife even loves it... she is a non-techie but she loves the extra flexibility with the lights. If she's reading at night she'll even pop open the Hue app on her phone and dial down all the lights except the one on her side of the bed.

My advice: don't go cheap. Buy actual name brand stuff: Hue, Logitech, Nest. Don't try to cheap out on something that you need to interact with all day every day...

Homes shouldn't be retrofitted for smart

[dino213b]

Some years back, I worked in home automation. During that time, I realized that the key is not retrofitting a home (that's an invitation for trouble or gimmickry) but to build a home with smart features in mind in the first place (ex: vent airflow and temperature sensors, actuators to adjust vents, etc.) Unfortunately, house builders were not really serious about the effort at the time and resorted to gimmickry anyway, when they could (calling a movie theater room with a single light and a touch panel controller 'home automation.')

What landed me the job was my "resume" - which was a side project where I automated a window shade controller and controlled it remotely through a linux machine. I cannibalized a worm gear out of an old VCR, connected it to a rotary window shade thing. Believe I used a segment of duct tape as a rudimentary U-joint. The motor was controlled by the parallel port and an H bridge, and a cron task would open the window shades in the morning and close them in the evening.

That was my first lesson in home automation: longevity. Home automation products, being new, aren't really tested for durability. My prototype certainly wasn't. At some point the contact switches I used for measuring rotation failed, and I came home to my venerable Linux machine twisting the window shades for hours.

Re:X10 Home automation

[frovingslosh]

I was a pretty early adopter of X10, back in the days of the ultrasonic remotes and the interfaces for C64s and their like. But it never lived up to expectations. Switches failed constantly. The remote stations were marginal at best. I would come home and find lights on that were off when I left. I could do a few nice things with the programmable interface (bypassing the childish software supplied with it), but overall the system was more trouble than it was worth. As I started adding surge suppressor power strips in various rooms, and even a UPS or two, I quickly found that even the surge suppressors suppressed so much signal that the X10 would no longer work. Not just for things plugged into the surge suppressor but for any X10 controller on the same breaker that the surge suppressor was on. X10 is simply bad technology.

It takes a college degree...

[Lab Rat Jason]

I'm still waiting for a simple way to control my TV, and DVD player. Universal remote is a double negative (or a double positive resulting in a negative?) While it's possible to unify a TV, a receiver, an xbox, and a cable box; it is far from simple. If you need a CS degree to get your IOT house in order, I really don't see it being mainstream. So yeah, in short, the OP nailed it... never simple.

Re:Tried and gave up

[wkk2]

I had a high end system with lots of keypads and dimmer switches. I removed it after finding out that the dimmer switches didn't get along with any LED bulbs. The only feature I really was happy with was "all lights on" triggered by the fire alarm. The furnace blower rotor locked at 2AM on a cold New Years day. It was nice to have all the lights on when I started searching for the source of the smoke.

Leviton switches work well

[hawguy]

I've replaced all of the switches in the downstairs of my house with Leviton brand smart switches (most are dimmer switches).

I linked them to a 6 button controller that is conveniently located both near the stairs and the front door, and set up scenes for each of the buttons (like "all lights on", "movie night", etc with varying levels for each of the lights. I did this linking through the switches and 6 button controller themselves, no external controller.

Works very well, press a button on the controller and the corresponding lights come on at the preset dim level, but each lamp can be overridden with the wall switch. Another nice feature of the switches is that they can be set to turn on at a preset dim level (which can be overridden with another press of the button), I have a 5 light chandelier in the dining room which is way too bright at full light level, so I lock it at about 75% brightness by default, but can set it higher if I want to.

At night, I just hit the Off button on my way up the stairs and all the lights turn off.

I've tried a couple automation products to let me control the lights from computer and have *not* been happy with them at all -- bad UI, hard to program switches, etc. Fortunately, I don't care so much about computer control and am happy with the 6 button switch.

I kept it simple

[drGreg]

I put motion sensors in the walk-in closets so the lights come on when you go in and stay on for 5 minutes. I did the same in the laundry room. The light beside my bed comes on at 10pm so I can turn off the lights on the way to bed and still have light at my destination. Automation should be for convenience. If you're living with your smartphone next to you, then maybe controlling your lights with them is fine. I put the basement lights on X10 and had a switch at the top of the stairs. Then I can do an "all lights off" before going to bed without having to go down and check them all.

Insteon Experience

[jtgreg]

I started with a few X10 components and moved to Insteon from SmartHome. My experiences and the acceptance by wife, teenage boys, and friends:
Wins:
- Control of outdoor low voltage lights. Works great, nice to have different schedules for different days of the week. No one cares but me.
- Christmas lights. Nice, but cheap timers work as well. No one cares but me.
- Combining switch locations. Our kitchen has switches in five different locations. Replaced one of the switches with a multi-button scene selector for the kitchen. Big winner with everyone.
- Panic button turning on all outside lights. Wife likes in concept, she still has not pulled out her phone to activate it if I am around.
- Indicator in kitchen that garage doors are open. Very popular
- Motion controller turning on lights when approaching front door. Popular, but cheaper to install a light with motion sensor.
- Wife wants ability to activate spa before we get home. On the list, but relatively expensive to add to Smarthome or pool controller.

Losses:
- Smart phone control of lights. I am the only family member who ever bothers to use their phone.
- Anything that changes indoor lighting unexpectedly. Startles everyone, even when they know about it.
- Even with Insteon's redundancy, I still have problems communicating with several devices. This is an ongoing debug effort.
- I am the only one in the family who can program this system. Software is almost user hostile.
- I have many systems with home control capabilities that do not interact: a satellite box, pool controller, garage door opener, Apple gear, Harmony remote, and Insteon.

You buy cheap stuff...

[MMC Monster]

...and what do you expect?

If you want a proper "smart home" solution, you have to get an integrated package. Those aren't cheap and aren't things you can generally get via amazon.com.

I spent way too much on mine. But my outdoor lights turn on at 15 minutes before sunset and turn off at a random time between 10 and 11pm. I've got a couple thermostats which will warm up the first floor on weekdays to 66 degrees on weekdays half an hour before I go downstairs in the colder months. Also have a music system that can play any playlist off my server in any room of the house, or play a radio or internet radio station or even the audio of a TV station. Everything via physical switches or via a phone app.

Systems in the future will do more and cost less. Hopefully they'll be as secure and integrate as well or better than what I have now.

Is it worth it? Of course not. (Well, it may be worth it so that I don't have to turn off the outdoor lights when I'm already in bed. Because there's no way my wife's getting out of bed for that.)

Who processes the commands?

[s.petry]

Maybe you were hinting at this, but just in case... Given our current technology, I refuse to use any voice recognition. Samsung is sending everything you say to a 3rd party, who can do anything they want with everything captured by the TV. Siri is no better, so I refuse to use Apple's voice recognition as well. At least with Siri currently, I'd have to push a button to use the service.

If we somehow had enough processing power and software _in_ the house I'd consider it.. but that system can't be directly connected to the internet to be used and I'd have to have full access to monitor communication in my house. I have a nice soldering gun to fix unwanted web cams and microphones I don't want and can't control. I believe the 2nd amendment protects my right to use my soldering gun in my house for protection!

Re:Who processes the commands?

[citizenr]

If we somehow had enough processing power and software _in_ the house I'd consider it..

We do. It was NEVER about processing power, it was always about control and gathering more data.
In part this data is later used to retune DNNs, but also to extract usage patterns, habits, scenarios, context.

It's jetpack technology: always 10 years away.

[tambo]

Over the years, I've invested thousands of dollars in several home automation platforms. I've yet to have an experience that I'd call "good."

Candidate #1: X10. Future-tech, circa 1978.

• Pros:
  • Drop-dead simple implementation - there's a physical dial on every receiver to specify a code, and a physical dial on every controller to specify which codes it controls.
  • Supported by a broad set of manufacturers back in the 1990's.
• Cons:
  • Wildly unreliable protocol = don't count on your lights actually turning on. Flakes out at the drop of a hat.
  • Hardware had extensive quality issues. Devices spontaneously died without warning. Wonderful if you enjoy debugging your light switches; terrible for people with better things to do in life.
  • Even when working perfectly, the latency was unacceptable: waiting a full second for your lights to turn on becomes painful fast.
  • No centralized management. Communication was largely one-way - switches broadcast; receivers receive - so things like "reporting status" and "verifying connectivity" were impossible.
  • Protocol security? What's that?
  • Deprecated and dead.

Candidate #2: INSTEON: The Commodore Amiga of home automation.

• Pros:
  • Designed with a lot more redundancy and reliability than X10. Something about mesh network communication and blahblahblah.
• Cons:
  • Overpriced. Holy crap, overpriced. Starter kits that controlled a single lamp ran for like $500.
  • One vendor = extremely constrained range of products. Sure, some of the gear had backwards-compatibility with X10, and mixing network gear was a great way to drive yourself insane fast.
  • Terrible business model = stunted growth and slow, painful death.

Candidate #3: Z-Wave: The People's Home Automation Platform.

• Pros:
  • Totally open protocol! Anyone can make a Z-Wave-supported device!
  • Potential for built-in reliability through mesh communication, etc.
  • Hierarchical mesh architecture can be centrally managed by a hub.
• Cons:
  • "Anyone can make a Z-Wave-compatible device" =/= "anyone can make a *good* Z-Wave-compatible device."
  • Entry-level devices are cheap, but inadequate. Fully-capable devices are reliable, but expensive. There are also expensive devices that are crippled, but no cheap devices that aren't. Have fun with that.
  • The architecture is both overcomplicated and poorly documented. Want to figure out how scenes work? Plan on setting aside an hour to scrape together bits and pieces of information from different vendors, and glue them together with guesswork and trial-and-error.
  • Lots of potential... not as many products. In theory, Z-Wave is great for motorized blinds. In practice... there's like one company offering an overpriced half-baked product, and an Instructable DIY video.
  • Hub architecture is feasible... but good luck finding a decent implementation:
    • SmartThings wants to be hip and polished, but feels like it was designed by ADHD-afflicted high school students as a summer project.
    • MiCasaVerde / MiOS / Vera is ambitious... i.e., overambitious, i.e., no support. Great for those who enjoy hacking a commodity-based Linux box and digging through log files to figure out why the kitchen lights won't turn on. The Facebook group is kind of surreal: it's a company rep posting happy-happy-joy-joy patch notes, and dozens of people asking why their Vera won't respond and why customer service won't get back to them.
    • Home Depot Wink is a subscription-based service. Let that sink in: you'll have to pay $x/month for the privilege of automating your light switches.
    • A handful of weird, little-known contenders exist (Staples Connect, ThereGate, the "Jupiter Hub," etc.), with virtually no buzz (and the bit that's there is typically poor).

Data harvesting, not home automation

[QuietLagoon]

The primary purpose of most current home automation systems is data harvesting about the home's occupants. The actual automation of the home is a secondary purpose designed to get the harvesting inside the home.

The Google House

[bussdriver]

Google's next project after that failed glasses thing:

The Google House

Most the stuff is FREE but you must log-in to enter your house. It tracks everything you do and keeps that information forever!

Your phone or grocery store advertizes that you might like to buy some bran muffins. no reason... (except Google House recognized you were constipated today.)