Home Automation - Mainstream price point & functionality?

Home Automation - Mainstream price point & functionality?

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anonymous-user

Original Poster:

53 months

Friday 6th February 2015
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[redacted]

Piersman2

6,596 posts

198 months

Friday 6th February 2015
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Do you mean for the initial purchase of the minimum kit to get started?

I recently wanted to enable a server at home so i could remotely turn it on and off. I ended buying a Wemo switch, which was about £40 iirc. Does everything you've described above with regards to apps and remote access using an app on my phone. I can expand it to cover any other device by buying another wemo switch.

I also looked into having something that I could remotely control my heating with as I'm often away from home or would like to turn on my hot water on the way home so I don't have to wait once I get home. From looking at options about a year ago it seemed I needed to spend £500 on kit to do this... I didn't bother as not interested enough to spend that kind of money. It seemed then that there were some players on the market trying to justify an inflated price for kit that seemed very simple in principle to me. I have a NAS server that can give me access to my home wifi from anywhere in the world, I'm sure in the fullness of time an app will appear for it that will allow me to control other items connected to it via home wifi, with little additional expense for the device iself.

Of course, with the wemo, there's not even need for this, however I was a little uncomfortable with the setup of the wemo, very easy, but ultimately an access into your home wifi controlled from an outside source.

If I has the nous to do it, I'd be looking at a system that could use a NAS server as it's core and develop devices to be controlled through that... a bit like the the CCTV apps that are available on NAS servers now. Cameras connected to the wifi, controlled by an app on the NAS, with ability to use the NAS internet connectivity to give remote access via app on phone or other remote device.


KrazyIvan

4,341 posts

174 months

Friday 6th February 2015
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Erm, is this not already covered by z-wave and it's associated products.

A friend has pretty much most of his home automated using it.

Lights, home alarm, blinds, camera's, heating, media pc, hell even his kettle is set up to boil automatically at 7:30.....think he's looking at locks next.


VEX

5,256 posts

245 months

Friday 6th February 2015
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Personally and as a dealer and installer I would (and think I have found) something with a sub £1k entry price.

Nest and the w'works with nest' range looks good - training in a couple of weeks.
Z-Wave looks very interesting - Fibaro training early March.

Happy to grab that beer we have been talking about after them and give you an update.

V.

Jon1967x

7,175 posts

123 months

Saturday 7th February 2015
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I had a play with lightwaverf - does most of what you ask, used to be in B&Q and maplin.

It's ok, not brilliant, can be little frustrating at times when setting up. I'm not rushing to buy the bits to control my heating.

NorthDave

2,355 posts

231 months

Saturday 7th February 2015
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I think Nest is the future for this kind of level. The range of stuff it talks to is growing daily and with Google's backing and development it has to go big. Apple will do some stuff too but I think it will be a very closed ecosystem.

As an installer at the high end I love it - starts people on the ladder and gets them to experience the benefits.

Rabbo

527 posts

200 months

Saturday 7th February 2015
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Loxone?

VEX

5,256 posts

245 months

Saturday 7th February 2015
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Yep, Loxone is on my radar as well.

I can't get to ISE this year but watching them all closely at the moment. Nest is interesting because of the number of remote manufacturers that work with it. I programmed a Harmony Ultimate remote yesterday and it was happy to talk to Sonos, Nest and Philips Hue. On another install it was talking to an Apple TV via IP quite happily.

V.

Murph7355

37,648 posts

255 months

Saturday 7th February 2015
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Jon1967x said:
I had a play with lightwaverf - does most of what you ask, used to be in B&Q and maplin.

It's ok, not brilliant, can be little frustrating at times when setting up. I'm not rushing to buy the bits to control my heating.
Lightwave RF is actually very good stuff IMO, and the end to end idea is pretty well thought out.

Only hassle is that they seem to have buggered up their supply chain.

My main reason for using it is laziness (the correct driver for all home automation smile). Allows me to switch a bunch of wall lights and standard lights off with one button. But you can turn on/off anything electrical very, very easily with it. And equally easily turn those things on/off with a smartphone app.

I also haven't tried the heating controls, but then I'm not convinced they're of much value for most people as I think they're simply fancy TRVs, rather than an end to end system....? (Same with Nest etc??).

Why hasn't this stuff taken off? I think for most people this is an unnecessary expense, so even at Lightwave RF price points, it's still considered too expensive. Either that or the products haven't been marketed well enough (both in terms of exposure and also explaining what it can do with plug in adapters, inline relays etc etc).

Craikeybaby

10,369 posts

224 months

Tuesday 10th February 2015
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What about all the Apple HomeKit stuff, where does that fit in?

marctwo

3,666 posts

259 months

Tuesday 10th February 2015
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Craikeybaby said:
What about all the Apple HomeKit stuff, where does that fit in?
I think it's worth waiting for established standards backed by the big players. Apple Homekit and Google Nest seem like the obvious choices.

MuffDaddy

1,414 posts

204 months

Tuesday 10th February 2015
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How about Smart Things. Open, conforms to ZWave and Zbit, works with Hue, Sonos etc. Simple to use apps on iOS and Android...

(I may have a slight connection with them)

scovette

430 posts

207 months

Tuesday 10th February 2015
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MuffDaddy said:
(I may have a slight connection with them)
Any idea when it'll be available in the UK? Seen the adverts on some podcasts and it looks good.

Salesy

850 posts

128 months

Tuesday 10th February 2015
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Take a look at this, One of my AV mates has been playing with it and reckons its very good with the added bonus of easy setup.
http://www.fibarouk.co.uk



Renovation

1,763 posts

120 months

Tuesday 10th February 2015
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anonymous said:
[redacted]
To be viable for me to purchase, firstly I'd have to want it and I'm unaware of ever wanting nor needing any automation.

Can you give me an example of what I'm missing ?

My heating is programmed I can have my lights turned on by timer / PIR / Dawn dusk - I can't see that I need anything else.

dirty_dog

676 posts

175 months

Tuesday 10th February 2015
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This all sounds great and gives me some reading to do on a couple of new manufacturers.

I've been wondering if I should look for a job in this sort of market... Coming from IT and having spent my teenage years selling home cinema kit plus a love of DIY I'm sure there is a perfect role for me somewhere!?

Anyway, I think the Nest type product / price point is a good start and not too nerdy. Its desirable to a wide range of end users without being an Apple product which brings its own set of pro's/con's. I have a Tado for heating and love it - they offered a rental type scenario vs outright purchase. Would this work? Everything nowadays seems to be on some kind of monthly plan or t'other.

I suppose all automation will be looked at as a luxury product to some degree unless you argue the energy saving / security benefits etc.

VEX

5,256 posts

245 months

Tuesday 10th February 2015
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Renovation said:
To be viable for me to purchase, firstly I'd have to want it and I'm unaware of ever wanting nor needing any automation.

Can you give me an example of what I'm missing ?

My heating is programmed I can have my lights turned on by timer / PIR / Dawn dusk - I can't see that I need anything else.
Renovation, to be honest you are (as are quite a few PH'er) ahead of the curve with your fancy timer lights and heating programmed. But imagine taking it a little bit further.

So, heating is traditional radiator but now zoned, like you have with underfloor heating, so you can set different temperatures for different rooms. This could save you lots on heating bills if you only use 3 rooms out of 9. But if you have guests you just run the 'visitors' profile and that adds in the guest bedroom and their en-suite. Or even better, you could have a study that you use but runs at as 15degrees, but the alarm pir knows when your in there and ramps the temp up to 19.

Your away on holiday, but the lighting system can learn your lighting button presses, so it repeats them while your out, simulating someone being at home. Better than that, it randomises the times by up to 10mins so no two nights are exactly the same and runs everything at 25% lower levels to save energy.

Two others, While your a sleep your young son needs a wee, so pressing his bedroom light switch between 8pm and 8am turns his bedroom, the landing light and the bathroom lights on to 30%, enough to see but not to bright to wake him to much. When he gets back from doing his business, the same button turns them all off again. Outside of these times, it is just a normal light switch!

Or while your all sleeping, the smoke alarm goes of and there is a fire in the kitchen, that escape route is blocked, the lighting system knows this by knowing which smoke alarm has triggered, so it flashes all the bedroom lights to wake you up and lights the landing, stairs, hall way and front porch lights to light your emergency path out.

All these are real and exist today as solutions/hardware, I have programmed most of them into systems.

The traditional problem has been that the vast amount of housing we live in today is not new and therefore these systems are harder to fit and install discretely. Hence the likes of Rako, Sonos, Nest and Fibaro which are all wireless systems (and no, we are not always talking unreliable wifi here)

V.



Edited by VEX on Tuesday 10th February 23:04

C Lee Farquar

4,066 posts

215 months

Wednesday 11th February 2015
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Now the debate has widened...

The main benefit I think we could enjoy would be a centralised video/Sky centre, whereby we could access our DVDs and recorded TV from any TV in the house.

We're not at first fix yet so hard wiring isn't a problem, but is an easy to use, reliable solution available?

I wouldn't want to change my Sky subscription, ideally, as I get 'free' Sky F1. I'm not interested in other sports so wouldn't want to pay for Sky Sports.

Thanks for everyones input, informative thread.

MuffDaddy

1,414 posts

204 months

Wednesday 11th February 2015
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scovette said:
Any idea when it'll be available in the UK? Seen the adverts on some podcasts and it looks good.
I do, but at the moment I cannot share.

eliot

11,363 posts

253 months

Wednesday 11th February 2015
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Renovation said:
My heating is programmed I can have my lights turned on by timer / PIR / Dawn dusk - I can't see that I need anything else.
Security becomes very easy when things are automated.
Evening when you are at home, general outdoor wall lights. Overnight and when nobody is at home and when movement detected, then switch on big flood lights, take photos, send messages, release the hounds etc