pvrfan
Active Member
Old school automation is an utter failure; the new crop can't be any worse.
Old school automation is either horrendously expensive (Crestron, Control4, etc) or it is a DIY hobby for those very, very few who can't stop themselves. Neither of those are mass markets in any conventional sense of the word. We, on this board, are not representative of the wider world. For example, look how often someone posts that they've dismantled and ripped out their automation system before selling their house. An old-school DIY system is a potentially deal-killing liability in residential real estate. If that system provided 'real automation', why wasn't it useful or valuable to anyone other than the geek that built it?
The new crop seeks to widen that market a bit (not a lot) riding on the coat tails of smartphone adoption. Dean derides the new crop as 'not real automation'...which is untrue and irrelevant anyway. All of the new crop offer scenes, timers, and sensor-triggered actions. That they are less complex and customizable means that more ordinary humans can actually make use of them. Do these pass the 'house sale test'? I think the jury is still out on that. I've seen some anecdotes where, for example, a smart lock is seen as adding value.
Will the new crop disrupt the world and become can't-live-without? I don't know, time will tell. But what is clear is that disruptive changes are often called toys, initially:
Craig
Old school automation is either horrendously expensive (Crestron, Control4, etc) or it is a DIY hobby for those very, very few who can't stop themselves. Neither of those are mass markets in any conventional sense of the word. We, on this board, are not representative of the wider world. For example, look how often someone posts that they've dismantled and ripped out their automation system before selling their house. An old-school DIY system is a potentially deal-killing liability in residential real estate. If that system provided 'real automation', why wasn't it useful or valuable to anyone other than the geek that built it?
The new crop seeks to widen that market a bit (not a lot) riding on the coat tails of smartphone adoption. Dean derides the new crop as 'not real automation'...which is untrue and irrelevant anyway. All of the new crop offer scenes, timers, and sensor-triggered actions. That they are less complex and customizable means that more ordinary humans can actually make use of them. Do these pass the 'house sale test'? I think the jury is still out on that. I've seen some anecdotes where, for example, a smart lock is seen as adding value.
Will the new crop disrupt the world and become can't-live-without? I don't know, time will tell. But what is clear is that disruptive changes are often called toys, initially:
https://medium.com/learning-by-shipping/is-a-toy-21312a5c8aea?_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9YIWTEmhZbjEqhflqGiYGqsM7gGbQo4EvX7cuLY0VsyInsgeZu0fzIYj44YNe7Ph94C5x2_uWxXTV4Q0Iz4Y5_0A4LcVXMw_-pASFuNxLFVFUK0do&_hsmi=28099975#.yhenni6vaAs many have recognized, when inventions and innovations first appear they are often (always) labeled as “toys” or “incapable” of doing “real work” or providing “real entertainment”. Of course, many new inventions don’t work out the way inventors had hoped, though quite frequently it is just a matter of timing and the coming together of a variety of circumstances. It can be said that being labeled a toy is necessary, but not sufficient, to become the next big thing.
Craig