ALERT Beware the Ides of March

kenn10

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wardmundy I have standardized on Z-wave devices but still have X10 devices dating back to the early 80's. I'm not so concerned about turning things on and off from a tablet or smart phone, but that is a handy feature when I want to warm up the mountain house before I travel to it. The "Smart" of a smart house is to use occupancy data, location data, and other inputs to make intelligent decisions about what to do within a predetermined framework you specify. Here are some things I use:

1) Our smart phones report our geographic location to the HA system and it is able to adjust thermostats, control lights, etc., based on who is where. If no one is home and the alarm is set, it cuts back the interior temperature and reduces lighting to a minimum. If no one is home for an hour and the alarm is not set, it does it for us and sends a text reminder that the alarm has been set.

2) When I leave my mountain house, the system knows by my location and occupancy and so turns off the hot water tank, reduces thermostats to 55 degrees, and monitors the interior temperature of my well house to determine if it needs to cut on a heater.

3) As I approach a stairway indoors and no other lights are on, a motion sensor (which is actually connected to the alarm system) reacts and turns on stairway lights.

4) If I forget to close the garage door and a certain time of day is reached, the system speaks to me to remind me. If I take no action, it will close the garage door after another 30 minutes.

5) If the telephone rings (I have SIP extensions connected to the HA system that are part of my incoming ring group), rather than the phone ringing, I have the HA system announce the caller ID in the room where I am and can respond by speaking "Send it to Lenny" or "Send to Voice Mail". The call is then answered and dealt with without me ever touching the telephone.

6) When the weather service issues a tornado warning for my zip-code, the system turns on lights and alerts by voice and warning tone.

7) The system monitors my emergency generator to provide intelligent feedback on whether it is running a test, running when the grid is down, and gives me an alert if it is running and the grid is up. Too many of my neighbors have had their LP gas tanks emptied by stuck generator relays. I can send a command to manually shut down the generator if I need to.

The whole idea of Home Automation is to make the house smart, not just remotely control things or run things on a timer. It allows you to monitor energy consumption, reduce energy usage by utilizing occupancy intelligence, route music and/or video to different areas of the house by remote or voice command, intelligently control your lawn sprinklers, view cameras in your premise remotely without buying into some outrageously expensive alarm system, etc.

Many people don't need, want or care about Home Automation and I understand that. I just think that knowledge of what a smart home can do is what opens your mind to the possibilities.

LinuxMCE is a project that combines both Asterisk and Home Automation but does neither very well when compared to HomeSeer and IncrediblePBX.

I would encourage nay-sayers to have the same open mind towards HA that they do towards VOIP and consider the possibilities.
 

mbellot

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I currently do a lot of travelling and have had an X10 timer/controller turning various lights on and off at home. This works very, when it works. I had a couple of power outages that lasted longer than the back-up battery, so after the power came back on the internal clock would start counting from 12:00. Yes, the lights would all operate at the set clock time, but the actual time was offset by many hours. Not great.

I use X10 as well, but only on a handful of lamps. It's convenient, but far from integrated. A more integrated system would probably require too much work to be viable in an existing home... At least for me.


In fact there is no damn reason why any modern fridge that already has a circuit board can't provide this info without a proprietary interface or an service call. Same goes for every other appliance and device that uses energy.

The data can be used to determine the length of payback if purchasing more efficient replacements.

You answered your own question. Nobody wants you to know the real time for payback on the more efficient (more expensive) appliances because then you will be much less likely to buy them.

I did the math 10 years ago when I replaced my old furnace and went with a new "low" efficiency (86%) furnace because the extra $1500 (50% higher cost) for a "high" efficiency (93%) would take almost the life of the furnace to pay back. Factoring in the much higher repair costs along with the more frequent incident of failure and the high efficiency furnace would actually cost more to operate and maintain over it's expected life than the low efficiency one.
 

synack

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kenn10 Very impressive indeed. Thank you for providing some compelling reasons to investigate HA again. Any experience with other open source software? I would like to see something more platform agnostic than linux MCE. I do however like the media integration, but it really cramps my XBMC style. I'm not a big fan of the mythtv UI even with the various plugins I've tried. Its awesome as a backend, but the front end is sorely lacking.
 

kenn10

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Any experience with other open source software?

I'm not trying to hijack this thread since it was about Google. The open source HA software seems lacking in many regards. My system is proprietary and licensed but supports open add-ons. You can PM me for more info so we clear this thread for its original intent.
 

wardmundy

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kenn10 By all means, continue. This has been fascinating. Nobody much cares what Google does about Google Voice. :dots:
 

kenn10

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OK then. Back in the days of Asterisk@Home, there was an Asterisk xPL interface module that allowed dialplan command to be used to send commands to an HA system. The sound files still exist on all installs in the /var/lib/asterisk/sounds/ha directory. I don't know where the development has gone. There is also an Asterisk xAP connector out there that does similar things. I have not done any further research on it due to lack of integration evidence. There are several Home Automation systems out there that seem fairly mainstream. If not violating rules to mention, I use HomeSeer. It can run on Windows or Linux (Ubuntu) and can run on the RasPI as well. It has a very active user forum with manufacturer participation.

I use the Windows version because not all plugins have converted to run with the Linux version yet. HomeSeer provides the basic HA intelligence framework and you provide the rules or "events" to make it work. There are many "plug-ins" that provide additional functions like the Z-Wave controller interface, the X10 controller interface, Weather interface, alarm system interfaces, audio and video systems interfaces, Smartphone location input, etc. Some are free and some are inexpensive. The core software is not free but there are frequent promotions at substantial discount. Those looking for cheap or free won't find it with the mature HA systems.

Other HA systems I am aware of are HAL2000, MisterHouse, and other proprietary offerings such as Iris from Lowes, and Savant. There are many others out there. There are many types of devices that can be controlled by HA including X10, Z-Wave, Zigbee, Insteon, UPB, and PLC to name a few. A good system should allow you to have different controllers to utilize any or all which suit your needs. You can buy Z-Wave light switches, lamp controllers and appliance controllers from many providers, including big box stores like Lowes.

I started with X10 and over time found it too slow and unreliable. X10 does not send back a positive confirmation when a device performs an action. Z-Wave has had growing pains over the years but has emerged as a very good solution. It works via radio waves and forms a mesh network between the devices so that signals have many pathways to get through and get repeated at each device. Each device is pollable and provides positive acknowledgement when it does something. This allows a generally reliable and fast communications grid for the devices and the controller.

Anyway, I just brought this all up because we have some great minds on this forum and HA is so much more than remote control of lights. If someone packages a mainstream interface for Asterisk to a mainstream HA system, they've got the potential for some good cash flow.

What do you folks think?
 

kenn10

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And as to a fairly sexy GUI, this one is pretty good when it comes to creating events for your Smart House. If you can think in logical terms, you can easily create events and interactions with other devices.

Now imagine if Asterisk could trigger events in your house or have the two systems interact in intelligent ways?
 

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Huckda

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Darn you lgaetz... Now you have me thinking. An Avr processor, 802.11b/g wifi module and relay could be made for ~$60.. hook that up to your furnace and interface to your AiaF server... instant smart programmable furnace controller. Wifi LED bulbs both inside and outside could have cheap temp sensors in them that feeds the server temperature data from around the house. The AVR could be equipped with a backup battery and an RTC in case of power failure and could be programmed by the server in case the server or wifi crashes...
A hall effect current sensor in-line with appliance plugs to sense power usage... I wouldn't want to entertain power control of appliances. but simple devices like lamps might be ok.
Fully wifi would get to be too expensive, xbee protocols or similar may suffice if done right. could slice the price in half.

Additionally, fully assembled hardware would need certification. How many people would be comfortable doing it "DIY"

Yeah... do-it-yourself seems to be the only "reliable" way to get any of this done... hell a BeagleBone with wifi dongle should be able to handle most all of it...buy some $1 solar yard lamps and scavenge the solar charging circuitry.. hook it up to a small motorcycle battery(or some other such) and you got 90% of what you need...
 
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I've been seeing a lot of X10 hate on various related forums, and I have to say I don't understand it. X10 is 40 years old and is the undisputed champ (sales volume) at turning lights and appliances on and off. There aren't many other digital technologies that are 40 years old that are even still in use, let alone the number one product.

I've been using X10 to control my lights for many, many years (my X10 controller is rs-232). It runs my lights when I'm on vacation and controls my Christmas lights just fine.

That said, X10 certainly has limitations, and there are much more capable solutions out there. That doesn't mean X10 is bad. Just because you can buy an Escalade doesn't make the Yaris a bad vehicle.
 

synack

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Lol a BBB would be overkill, unless you also wanted it to run your "Automation In A Flash" server. (like that one Ward?). but yes, BBB does open up the possibility of USB wifi dongles as easier/cheap wifi. Those 6v sealed lead acid alarm panel batteries can be had for song as well, if you know where to look. Also another use for the old RasPi that will be littering drawers once everyone upgrades to Pi2.

I was originally thinking Arduino style Atmel AVR 8bit chips over the ARM chips for remote devices. They are only about $5.00 all in for a chip, crystal, couple caps, wire and a regulator. Another couple dollars for a board. Adding some sort of "wireless" to them is quite a bit more expensive. This however brings a boat load of "makers" in the community and very low total cost of entry in terms of equipment and learning. A Pi derivative would come second, and BBB 3rd.
 

kenn10

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GomezAddams I agree with you on the X10 stuff. I bought my first ones at Sears way back in the early 80's. I still have lamp and appliance modules in use to this day running on my HA system along with Z-Wave. Its hard to find the X10 stuff anymore like wall switches that also send a signal to turn on other modules. Also, my house was a little too big with too many X10 modules for the signal to reliably travel over the electrical wiring. X10 is what initially turned me on to Home Automation.

Z-Wave has allowed me to grow and expand my network a lot. Actually, I now host two homes on my HA system. I'm contemplating virtualizing the HA system into the cloud now since I can have multiple X10 and Z-Wave controllers running to the host over Ethernet.
 

kenn10

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jrglass While there is a lot of truth to your link above, I would qualify the experience shown to be much the same as newbies to any technology. If you don't do your research, you won't get good results. I would stick with players who have been in the home automation space long enough to have a large number of customers and a strong forum support like you see here on PIAF. I would not jump into "new and sexy" until it is mainstream and not sexy.

Something software based that runs on your choice of hardware and operating system and then lets you choose the protocol of devices you'd like to use is going to be far more versatile than a "canned" system. Those systems typically have serious limitations in what you can do with them.
 
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GomezAddams I agree with you on the X10 stuff. I bought my first ones at Sears way back in the early 80's. I still have lamp and appliance modules in use to this day running on my HA system along with Z-Wave. Its hard to find the X10 stuff anymore like wall switches that also send a signal to turn on other modules. Also, my house was a little too big with too many X10 modules for the signal to reliably travel over the electrical wiring. X10 is what initially turned me on to Home Automation.

Z-Wave has allowed me to grow and expand my network a lot. Actually, I now host two homes on my HA system. I'm contemplating virtualizing the HA system into the cloud now since I can have multiple X10 and Z-Wave controllers running to the host over Ethernet.


It may be that your house isn't too big, but rather the fact that X10 has problems when your controller is one one leg (phase) of your power, and the module is on the other. For about $40 you can buy various devices that bridge the X10 signal across phases.
 

synack

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hmmm. they didn't think to use the neutral wire which is common to both phases?
 

Cynjut

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hmmm. they didn't think to use the neutral wire which is common to both phases?
The neutral wire is often tied to ground, which makes it hard to use for this application. The split phase problem with X10 has been a known issue for MANY years.
 

synack

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True... I'm pretty sure you could still "corrupt" the neutral line with enough signal to get around the house. It is also tied to the center tap of the service transformer.
Odd that the powerline network adapters don't have that issue. I should investigate that :)
Not important anyway, was just wondering.
 

kenn10

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It may be that your house isn't too big, but rather the fact that X10 has problems when your controller is one one leg (phase) of your power, and the module is on the other. For about $40 you can buy various devices that bridge the X10 signal across phases.

Actually, I do have the phase coupler. I also have a lot of noise suppression devices on motorized appliances. In any case, I've moved on to Z-Wave for all future devices.
 

wardmundy

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In theory, if you have a 240v dryer, you shouldn't need a phase coupler. We had both a 240v dryer AND a phase coupler and the :001 9898: still wasn't reliable.
 

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