Lowe's now entering into Home Automation

[JimS]

So is this device:
http://www.lowes.com/ProductDisplay?partNumber=339582-1353-45636
and this device:
http://www.lowes.com/pd_339580-1353-45635_0__?productId=3707740
 
really just a zwave device?  What would I need to control it? 

 

[Automate]

Interesting comment from the developers of Almond+ when someone asked about using Iris devices with the Almond+.
 

Sadly Lowes is doing something special to their ZigBee gear, but they can't do this on Z-Wave, as this is a more tightly controlled standard, so their Z-Wave devices should be fine.

here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2037429657/almond-80211ac-touchscreen-wifi-router-smart-home/comments?cursor=6092786#comment-6092785

I wish Zigbee would suceed since it is a more open IEEE standard rather than Zwave's closed API. But if companies do too much of this Zigbee won't make it.

 

[ano]

Its a bit apple to oranges.  Z-Wave is performed at the chip layer, money is made by selling Z-Wave chips or licensing Z-Wave technology to other chip makers.  Once you have a Z-Wave chip (or a licensed one) it will process Z-Wave commands.
 
ZigBee is an open standard, for practice purposes, and so is the home automation stack which can run on a Zigbee device, but companies are not required to use the home automation stack for their ZigBee home automation products.  They can design their own, and often do.  This is like Bluetooth, USB, and many other "open" standards.  I could buy a USB mouse, and plug it into a USB port on the computer and nothing happens. This is because the mouse may not conform to the standard HID interface that Windows or Mac has a built-in driver for.  My mouse may require me to load a proprietary driver that can handle unique buttons or keys.
 
So just because something is labeled as Zigbee, does not imply that you can control it with a "Zigbee" control program, just like a USB device may not work in your computer.  If it says Zigbee, and says Home Automation profile, you CAN control it assuming your software can talk to "Home Automation" ZigBee devices. Control4 uses Zigbee, and they sell Zigbee switches, but they don't use the Home Automation profile, so you can't control theseswitches with software built for the Home Automation profile.
 
Zigbee shipments are growing at 60% per year, so there is no question that it will be successful. But as a home automation standard? Only time will tell.

 

[Automate]

Well, since this is a home automation forum I though it was obvious that I was referring to Zigbee for home automation.

Zigbee is actually an older standard than Z-wave but due to each vendor using their own version of the higher layer protocols it lags far behind Z-wave in home automation.

Ethernet is another open IEEE standard. But due to vendors working together to make their devices compatible, it has been a great success.

 

[ano]

Well, since this is a home automation forum I though it was obvious that I was referring to Zigbee for home automation.

I think most people here would consider the use of Control4 switches "home automation" and they are Zigbee, but not compatible with the Zigbee Alliance Home Automation profile.
 
Likewise, the Lowes IRIS devices, the topic of this thread, are in fact Zigbee (and ZWave) devices used for home automation, but they also are not compatible with the Zigbee Alliance Home Automation profile.
 
For Ethernet, there always has been much reason for device makers to follow a standard, because the device makers never had the illusion that all devices in your network would be supplied by them.  In home automation, there is still that mentality of a closed system where all the devices you buy will be purchased from the same supplier.  In home automation there is much less competition, and for the most part, they can get away with making devices proprietary so they can charge higher prices and you are "locked in."  On the other-hand, device makers like Lowes and Control4  get the benefit of shopping around for the cheapest Zigbee hardware because they know it will all connect (at the hardware level) no matter where they buy their chips from. 

 

[wkearney99]

It's hard to tell sometimes what's an attempt at proprietary lock-in versus incompetence. Is a given spec really unsuitable enough that the vendor had to re-invent it with a twist? Or was the vendor's understanding of the tech so crappy as to make their developers con the management into letting them deviate? Hard to say, especially when there's such considerable opaqueness between the market and the actual developers doing the work.

At one point Ethernet (along with Arcnet and Token Ring) did have their own 'vendor implementations'. Just getting a software protocol stack was a separate purchase (and no guarantee it would interoperate, let alone, y'know, work). So networking wasn't always just plug-and-play. I know, I was there in the market at the time pitching the various products to resellers and distributors (as a mfg's rep).

 

[neillt]

Oh man, I am suddenly having evil memories of Ethernet II, Ethernet SNAP, Novell's bizarre way....
 
I am really glad those days are gone.

 

[neillt]

This is pretty relevant... and true.
 

 

[tmbrown97]

Ah yeah, I remember the early days of Ethernet when vendors didn't play nicely.  In fact, Netgear (though one of my favorite brands now) was one of the worst offenders back then - often only working correctly with Netgear NICs. Back then, 3Com was kinda my go-to.

 

[wkearney99]

3com, SMC, Tiara... there was a point where the bottom dropped out on Ethernet cards and the market just exploded. Arcnet, et al, never stood a chance of recovering. One great frustration was vendors over overcharging for the basic client stack, to say nothing of what per-user e-mail costs were...

I have a special bit of hate that still burns for the weekends destroyed due to a client's TeleVideo netware server...

 

[BaduFamily]

Yep, I still have dents on my otherwise pointy forehead from bashing my desk getting out the Netware for Macintosh channel training materials.
 
And now while the transport layer is basically OK there are plenty of issues to rebut an " ... ethernet just works" argument.

 

[pete_c]

Curious.
 
Been playing with Asix and Realtek NICs.  Many years ago Realtek used to provided a means of upgrading firmware on their NICs (or tweaking it).
 
I have been playing with one said Realtek on the motherboard NIC chip which is sort of a virgin; stuff that was left out and I want to mod it.
 
Does anyone here have the stuff I need?

 

[wkearney99]

I prefer to avoid Reaktek NICs entirely. Way too many little things that don't work, especially when you get into use with VMs and multicasting. I prefer Intel NICs instead.

But, no, I've not seen any resources for replacing NIC firmware like that.

 

[pete_c]

Thank-you wkearney99.
 
Yup; the PFSense firewall motherboard had two Intel NICs built in and I added 4 more Intel Gb Nics (server 2 port Gb NICs) for a total right now of 6 Intel NICs.
 
Personally always like Intel NICs over Realtek.  Realtek NICs have always caused me grief.
 
Also redid BIOS in for this motherboard as it started as an EFI BIOS (really dislike playing with EFI stuff though)  and now its a sort of legacy bios (coreboot) with the NIC stuff built into it; except that the NIC needs more stuff right now (doesn't have a MAC would be a nice start).  I have no issues using this NIC in Linux but it doesn't have enough stuff in the firmware to get it to work in wintel (sort of playing with 8.1 on it right now).

 

[pete_c]

Starting to play a bit with Zigbee and while I have Zigbee stuff with the Almond + want to goof around some with it.
 
I was going to go  to Lowes and do some shopping to see if their Zigbee stuff works with the Almond +; goofing around I can return it anyways if it doesn't. (not a wireless with battery automation person here at all; but what the heck).