drvnbysound said:
I still enjoy it and do a lot of the same. My repeated theme for many of the current solutions is, as you mention.... yeah, but that's not automated, it's just remote control.
Having said that, we bought a new home almost a year ago and due to various circumstances, I was not able to get any wiring pulled last winter; the home only has basic telco and coax installed. I live in the southeast and I avoid my own attic in about 9-10 months out of the year. So we've gone almost a full year without an automation system. We also had 5.1 in the living room of our last home as well as a 6-zone whole-home audio system. None of this is in place now and it's driving me nuts!
Having said that, the time "away" has me re-considering many of the things we had in place and provides an opportunity to re-evaluate and potentially upgrade before putting in old stuff back in.
I hear ya, the Alabama heat and humidity is bad enough on it's own, crawling into the attic after 8:00am is just asking for a slow, painful death! I've been ding less-and-less lately, mainly because we know we're going to move next year, so I'll start the process of pulling out and getting the current house ready to sell soon. I'm sure the'll be lots of re-evaluations in my future.
Dean Roddey said:
It's the inevitable thing. Suddenly something catches on and the previous, fairly insular, community that had enjoyed it before gets shoved aside by the sheer mass of newbies. I've seen it happen a few times now. Sometimes it's just a community forum that suddenly catches on, sometimes it's an industry like automation that suddenly becomes hip. The old timers tend to move on after a while. That's not a good thing ultimately, since it becomes the inexperienced leading the inexperienced in a way. But, with broader participation comes much increased personality conflicts, tedious arguments, blow back against the old curmudgeons and their ancient ways, young studs challenging the elders, etc...
A really good example is the Gearslutz.com forum, which is audio-production oriented. In the late 1990's when digital production tools suddenly made everyone a 'recording artist', what was initially mostly a community of industry veterans and fairly dedicated amateurs was overrun. Over the next decade'ish the veterans pretty much all drifted away because they got tired of the endless arguments and nastiness and having to justify their positions to people who didn't even know who they were or what they'd done. They could care less about the cheapest available reverb plugin or which volume maximizer could remove the most dynamics from a track and make it as annoyingly loud as possible.
The automation world hasn't reached that level, and maybe it won't go that far. But it has an early 2000's audio production world feel to it now, where it's starting to move in the same direction.
It's funny you mention gearslutz. I have a friend at work who is also an audio guy for a lot of the local concert venues, I've heard him say the exact same thing. I suppose you're right about it being inevitable, I had something similar happen 20 years ago with car audio pro installs, and to a lesser extent with auto-performance and racing (scca and drag) over the years. At least wood-working is still fun, the newbies are still pretty respectful there.
linuxha said:
You are not egg-cited about an egg tray that counts the number of eggs in the frig or a IoT piggy bank?
The issue now is folks are throwing solutions at the wall and hoping that it falls on a problem.
I'm working on things I need, IR nodes, Weather Radio node and now I'm working 'virtual' sensors (AQI, Pollen, UV, etc.). These are things I want. I haven't seen any modules that haven't been around for a while. Just the protocols I want (ZigBee and Z-Wave).
You nailed it! So many products these days are solutions to problems that don't exist, that and the concept of "an app for everything" drives me nuts! Still have your copy of "Linux Smart Homes for Dummies" BTW!! I remember when you were researching it years ago and your conversations on the Misterhouse forums.
I've been somewhat decent on limiting the protocols and technologies I put in place, Insteon for lighting (been one of the lucky ones with almost no problems), Sonos for audio, and home-grown for almost everything else (IR, IO, etc.). I did just recently buy a Hue hub, but only use it in an integrated fashion with Indigo. It's "cute", but the always on after a power outage/restore pisses me off and I can't imagine a whole hose full of them.
pete_c said:
Was HA more fun when everybody wasn't doing it?
It's a hobby here that I have enjoyed for many many years now. I enjoy today like I did yesterday.
Here too like working on little automation projects. I do not know if I need them for my automation; really just want them; sort of thirst quenchers.
Purchased a little postage stamp size lightning sensor recently; amazing little device; can't figure out though how to make lightning with it....
Well that and sort of figured out how to use Mosquitto™...
I do enjoy watching the yut of today being automated by inanimate objects. Poor generation snowflake. (don't mean to sound derogatory here).
Easy selling automation to generation s (the coddled generation) these days....honestly ...they have found a purpose in life for counting (cloud beancounting) eggs in their refrigerator...
....
"ask not what your smartphone can do for you, ask what you can do for your smart phone."
Pete, you're my high-water mark! I follow you here and on the HS forums and am always amazed at all of the spinning plates you have in the air!! Mosquito/MQTT is pretty nice - I do prefer it to Modbus, XAP, and the other protocols that I've dabbled in though the years. I have several Sonoff switches that have been re-flashed to local control (they use the esp8266), and all of my RPi's talk to Indigo using MQTT messages.
Terry
