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Dueling Home Automation Systems at SXSW (Video)
Austin has a strong western heritage and more country and western music than you can shake a fiddle bow at. So when Timothy came back from SXSW with video clips from two home automation companies with different approaches to this question: "How can you work with a whole bunch of lights and thermostats and other IoT home automation pieces that all have different OSes and control APIs?" we obviously had to call the resulting video 'Dueling Home Automation Systems.'
The two companies shown in this video are called WigWag and Yonomi. WigWag sells you a "Relay," which they say "is a powerful mini computer that gives you control of your home's smart devices." The minimum pre-order buy-in for WigWag seems to be a $149 WigWag Relay. Their 'products' page his page shows the Relay -- and many other gadgets and kits that could easily run your total tab up to $1000 or more. Yonomi, on the other hand, "resides on your phone and in the Cloud. No need for a hub, controller box or other additional hardware. Yonomi magically finds and enhances your existing connected devices allowing them to interact with one another in ways never before possible."
Yonomi may start with a free Android app (iOS coming soon), but you still need to buy lights, speakers, thermostats, and other things that are Internet-aware, so you're not going to save much (if anything) over buying a WigWag relay and the rest of what you need to create your own, private Internet of Things. And what about good old X10 and other home control systems? They're still out there, still doing their thing in millions of homes even if they aren't getting all the IoT buzz. In any case, it's nice to see new home automation alternatives coming down the pike, even if their cloudness may make them easier to hack than an old-fashioned appliance like this coffeemaker.
The two companies shown in this video are called WigWag and Yonomi. WigWag sells you a "Relay," which they say "is a powerful mini computer that gives you control of your home's smart devices." The minimum pre-order buy-in for WigWag seems to be a $149 WigWag Relay. Their 'products' page his page shows the Relay -- and many other gadgets and kits that could easily run your total tab up to $1000 or more. Yonomi, on the other hand, "resides on your phone and in the Cloud. No need for a hub, controller box or other additional hardware. Yonomi magically finds and enhances your existing connected devices allowing them to interact with one another in ways never before possible."
Yonomi may start with a free Android app (iOS coming soon), but you still need to buy lights, speakers, thermostats, and other things that are Internet-aware, so you're not going to save much (if anything) over buying a WigWag relay and the rest of what you need to create your own, private Internet of Things. And what about good old X10 and other home control systems? They're still out there, still doing their thing in millions of homes even if they aren't getting all the IoT buzz. In any case, it's nice to see new home automation alternatives coming down the pike, even if their cloudness may make them easier to hack than an old-fashioned appliance like this coffeemaker.
Lutron seems much further along with their new home automation tech. A friend has been raving about it.
...to quote the character Penny from The Big Bang Theory, "or we could just have a life."
I'm sure there are those that disagree with me, but automation for its own sake does not achieve anything. There are lots of things that people fantasize about automating that simply cannot be automated with the current designs of the appliances themselves. The best that you're going to get for laundry will be a notification that it's time to move it from one machine to another for example, and that can be handled with a simple buzzer in the machine. Your refrigerator and pantry aren't going to be able to notify you about bulk goods or other fresh/raw ingredients when their inventories get low since those ingredients don't have means to affix RFID tags or other identifiers to them, even if such gets applied to prepackaged goods.
We're not really there yet for home automation. We've tried it before; I have a house built in the seventies with a whole-house intercom system; but such technology ends up abandoned even if it's still functional.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
they want their relays back
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X10_(industry_standard)
The problem with these gadgets is that they're too small and proprietary to be taken seriously. Home Depot and Lowes both have competing products with different standards for example. Then there is a host of competing companies that do the same thing. Some use power line communications, some use custom 700MHz, 2.4 or 5GHz spectrum which all may interfere with each other, WiFi and other things.
There are open standards for this kind of stuff, some may be less open than others but at least they're available. Give me a 'gateway' or hub that I can replace myself with a custom implementation on a computer. I'd trust Linux/Mac, heck even Windows over one of these devices.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
If you don't have a hub, or if you are using your mobile phone as one, then you don't have home automation but integrated remote control only. You need a hub to build some intelligence into the system, and have it work for other members of the household as well as yourself, and have it work when you are not at home. A mobile phone makes for a great way to remotely control your smart home, but a good smart home works without it. I use my phone for remote access, but for day to day stuff when I am at home I prefer dedicated remotes and switches.
And the cloud? This stuff needs to remain private and has no place in the cloud. Another good reason to do HA using a hub that you own and control.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
I was kinda hoping to see two home automation things battling for control of a light bulb or something..
If I have to push buttons to control the lights, systems, etc. myself then that's not "automation", that's being too lazy to walk the 10 feet to the switch. I want things such as for the house to know that if you have 3 people sitting on the couch and the DVD/DVR/whatever is set to play that it should dim the damn lights itself.
slashdot devs. please, add a volume slider to the video player! you are the only ones without it and sucks having to adjust your system volume because of one website decided a volume slider was too much to ask for!
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
If you put you home on the Internet, you are inviting everybody to hack your house.
Convenience should not sacrifice your security.
OT: why the fsk can't you access /. with https?
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Like another earlier poster, I still consider home automation to be a hobby, especially after trying it enthusiastically for a while. Reason being: It's expensive, it takes a lot of time, it's buggy and it's not necessary. But it can be fun if you're willing to deal with the downsides.
The big power-user product for home automation control is a very powerful piece of software called homeseer. If you're really serious about it and you want to do a lot with scripted events, that's a good bet, although it's not consumer friendly. It does run locally, you're not surrendering data to a company or the cloud and everything is yours and everything is configurable. I'm curious about the new localized box in the link as an alternative.
For a while I installed insteon switches and controllers all over the house. One by one they died, I don't think they liked the unreliable power where I lived at the time. Frustrated, I tore it all out and went back to plain old switches; I knew they would just work when I needed them to. I'm open to trying again, especially now that I am in a much larger house and I want to do things like gang-control upstairs and downstairs thermostats in unison to optimize efficiency for the temperature gradient, and control far flung light switches with a master switch or smartphone app. But it's quite an investment to replace all those switches and outlets. Fortunately you don't have to go all in at once, you can just do the things you need the most to start with.
If it's cloud based it's crap.
These companies need to stop with the freaking data harvesting and give us controllers that will work 100% when the internet is down like it is whenever it rains in DSL land.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Looking at the climate data for Houston - http://www.climate-zone.com/climate/united-states/texas/austin/ - I'd wager you'd be able to set your A/C by hand without too many problems, without exposing your entire house to an unnecessary attack vector.
You're pissed off now when the net goes down? Welcome to the future, when the net goes down and your AC/heating/freezer/Microwave/Cooker/Toilet crashes as well. Because you were too lazy to keep up with 18000 patches/day | stupid enough to connect things to the net that have no business being there.
Now get your networked home automation crap off my lawn!
I've been doing home automation stuff on and off for about 10 years now. It seems like every new device in the past few years has to have a connection to the internet and be controlled through a web-connected app. In some ways I kind of understand this: so many people have a smartphone, and they already know how to get it online, so if you connect your "IoT" device to the internet then you kind of get your remote control for free.
However, the whole idea of broadcasting data from the inside of my house to some 3rd party server on the internet is such a crazy idea. I recently installed a whole home energy monitor (it monitors the incoming feed and a bunch of the main branch circuits). It does come with software that I was running on a local PC, but the main way that they recommend to use it is to sign up for an online service (around $2/month) and have it upload your data there. Since their software wasn't great, I was tempted to do that... for about 10 seconds. Do you realize how much personal information that would mean transmitting to a 3rd party?When your stove, microwave, dishwasher, and washer/dryer runs? No way! Looking at the data it's pretty easy to pinpoint when we're there and when we aren't. In the end, I opted to write my own logging and reporting software, and that gave me the ability to add some useful features, like emailing me if the backup sump pump turns on (meaning my main sump pump has stopped working for some reason). Still, most people just have to take what's offered, and I think that's pretty scary.
Also consider the nest thermostat, which has an occupancy sensor, or the Xbox 360 which has a camera that's reportedly "on" all the time looking at your living room. This isn't a good idea.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
As someone who had done HA for over 20 years using mostly X10 I follow this kind of topic quite avidly. And I was quite impressed by the Wigwag kickstarter, which I bought into in 2013. They promised not just hardware but a new programing environment. And despite investing over $200 all I've ever received have been project updates, 46 of them, the last one in January. This is more like the Duke Nukem of HA.
I have had the opportunity to admin a system running Smarthings. I was appalled to find that everything ran out of their servers, so that if your internet connection goes down, you don't get the nice automated features you programmed in. You can't even log in to your own hub.
Homeseer is a decent app for running on a home server, although they like to charge for upgrades, more than I like. OpenHAB looks like it has some potential, as does Open Source Automation. Avoid X10, when that was all there was it was fine, but Insteon or Zwave is much nicer.
There are some nice things you can do with home automation and augmented control (state changes based on logic, one button to change multiple items for instance.) And there are finally some nice options coming up. But stick to someone that can actually ship a product.
Yeah, I want my home automation systems to be dependent on my DSL link so that the furnace can go out if SaskTel hiccoughs.
I want my refrigerator to be hackable from the internet so all my food can spoil.
I want someone who is into doxing to be able to flash my house lights randomly for giggles.
IoT: Just say "No!"
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
New app released last week works with common Bluetooth bulbs and Philips hue and wemo. Check it out: Switc# by Semireg Industries,
https://appsto.re/us/sefG5.i
No way am I connecting my house to the cloud.
"Austin has a strong western heritage and more country and western music than you can shake a fiddle bow at."
HAHAHAHAAAAA... you've never been here have you?
If this is /. then shouldn't we at least be mentioning OSS solutions like OpenHAB in a discussion like this? Which is both open and agnostic.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K