HA: Is there really minimal "new" in last 7 years?

[IVB]

I might have some minor time and money to refresh my HA setup this summer, which hasn't changed much in the last 7 years since I "finished" it. I've been looking around, and find myself truly unimpressed by the minor changes I see.  For those who I didn't interact with back in the day, I had(and have): Whole House Audio (Concerto, sonos), Video (now Rokus); irrigation, HVAC, Lighting (zWave), security/motion: (Elk), uh, other stuff i'm blanking on.
 
In the last 7 years, all I've really done is:
A) work on access methods (Nexus 7 tablets, smartphones, voice recognition via those), I have a Moto360 and i'll look into using AutoWear for voice recognition in a bit.
B) add NFC tags as rfID was a blazing failure.    
C) I'm getting a new VRCOP in 1-2 days so i'll see if I can get my zWave touchpad door locks linked in.
D) Tasker on phone but for minor piddly HA stuff like WiFi near / Cell Tower Location based tasks.
 
But other than that, I find it odd that I don't see any material changes in technology or interoperability between HA devices. I was hoping for natural language VR by now but its still needs pretty structured commands. I had high hopes for IFTTT but it also underimpresses. 
 
And, it looks to me like the HA industry is still arguing amongst the big players and no single technology has emerged as dominant vendor. 
 
Or am I missing something, and the Next Big Thing is so obvious I've missed it?  

 

[tmbrown97]

I about share your observations IVB.  In some ways it's made me lose interest a little in pursuing HA because nowadays it's nowhere near as impressive when everyone has seen the commercials showing how by paying $20 extra/month they can get all the same stuff through ADT/XFinity/Staples/Lowes/Home Depot/Alarm.com with all the off-the-shelf products that claim to give them cameras, locks, lights, and everything else imaginable for a nominal fee.  Of course I only know one person who's gone all in on this, and he called me again last week for a consult to rip it all out and hardwire a proper system.  There's a HUGE push to jump on this HA market, but only because everyone is so caught up on getting a piece of the Monthly Recurring Revenue Stream.  Unfortunately, even if most of us weren't averse to anything "Cloud" based, it still just doesn't work.
 
Now take my 7 year old system that has had basically zero advancements since first installed... and it works.  Every time.  It isn't as flashy as some of the newest apps, but it's integrated and hard wired and 100% reliable.  I wish there were all kinds of crazy new apps coming out that let me take things to a whole new level, but I wouldn't trade reliability for flashiness.
 
Also thanks to rapidly declining budgets for these whale projects, it seems companies like Elk and HAI are operating on skeleton crews (I know HAI was bought but how many people in Leviton has this as their focus?)... further hurting development.
 
It's obvious there's a huge market opportunity - just look at Kickstarter and Indigogo with their new startups every day promising the newest singular standard that's going to bring the whole world together!  Maybe that's a bigger part of the problem... we're so overloaded, we're waiting to see what emerges.
 
Anyway that's my rant... I'd love to see advancement but unfortunately 90% of what we see getting all the attention is for things that do a fraction of what most CT'ers have today, but in a dumbed down format 100% reliant on the cloud and collecting a monthly fee all to overcome the complexities we've all overcome with our own systems to make everything talk together.  Which there is absolutely a need for!   Time will tell how it all plays out which is why I'm waiting on the sidelines, popcorn in hand...  but getting distracted because the game is taking too long and nobody is making any remarkable plays.

 

[pete_c]

It's just been ketchup time; except a major "me first" regression (KISS) which appeared to be something to look forward to compounded by 7 years of nada (where's the beef?).
 
[youtube]http://youtu.be/KXAzhVRFZlY[/youtube]

 

[NeverDie]

Off the top of my head, I see meaningful improvements over last 7 years:
1. For makers, I think the ESP8266 is noteworthy: wifi and a small Arduino IDE compatible microcontroller on a chip.  Toiday, you can buy a breakout board with ESP8266 on it for <$3.  That's a huge price drop compared to even two years ago.
2.  Intel has made some interesting porogress with passive Enhanced Wake-On radio's to extend the range to 37 feet.  That promises to greatly extend battery life of remote control devices.  I'd say it's still R&D, but in the pipeline.
3.  Thread Group is ramping up, and I have hopes it will disrupt the existing stalemate among the larger players by unleashing better HA netgworking technology while (hopefully) raising the bar on interoperability testing.  First products to be released in November (?).  Samsung already announced a couple hubs (alpha stage) with Thread on it.
4. Amazon Echo.  Not yet widely available, but some here have it and the reviews have been quite positive.
5.  Availability of "universal" dimmers that can handle dimming LED lights, which are cheap now compared to 7 years ago.
6.  Networking of z-wave controllers for better range and performance.
7.  With Baytrail, the prices on PC motherboards with embedded CPU's fell incredibly low.  I purchased a J1800 motherboards for around $32-34.  I'm running Linux HomeSeer on one now.
8.  Proliferation of arduino's, SBC's, and related sensors.
9.  Open Source computer vision.
10.  Kinect.  New GUI, and can read your pulse at a distance..
11. Zwave+.
12.  Proliferation of fairly powerful smart phones and tablets and the apps to go with them.   
13.  Higher resolution IP cams at much lower prices.
14.  HDD storage prices dropping like a rock.  It's reasonable now to have triple parity ZFS on FreeNAS.
15.  SSD's.
16.  BTRFS almost ready for mass adoption.  Maybe in another year or two?
17.  ESXi, Hyper-V, and other hypervisors.  Free!
 
 
I'm sure others here could add to the list from their own top-of-mind.  If you've been Rip Van Winkle for 7 years, surely you find something there of interest?

 

[IVB]

@NeverDie, of that list, I feel like you're trying to tell me something but i'm not getting it. Maybe b/c its Monday morning and i'm trying to wait until 10:30am for coffee. 
 
I agree that access methods (tablets & voice) are "new", but I'm already doing that and it wasn't really that monumental. At one point I had a nexus 7 mounted in the kitchen with AutoVoice turned on, so I could talk to the system. I had Autovoice->Tasker->CQCWebserver->Devices/scripts. After the "gee whiz" I didn't really use it that much as I had to be within a few feet, plus my dad wanted to try playing with tablets so I gave it to him.  I am planning on trying to integrate the Moto360 voice recognition so I can do it while walking around, but I already have that working with my phone. Given the lack of natural language usage and the need to speak directly at my phone, I end up just walking over and turning the lights on by hand.
 
I was considering finding bluetooth microphones and putting them in a few locations but only one can pair to a phone or tablet at a time (I think). Plus I'd have to figure out how to power them, my bluetooth headsets won't stay on/connect if they're plugged in.
 
I guess I was just hoping for more from a 7 year slumber than baby steps in VR. Nothing really works together, Microsoft/Google/Apple still haven't come in to "unify" the space and drive an interoperability standard.  
 
Frankly, it proves Dean, BSR, electron right when they said "companies will never play well together" almost 10 years ago.  

 

[ano]

And Zigbee. I have Zigbee locks made by Kwikset, Zigbee light bulbs made by GE, Zigbee modules made by HAI/Leviton, Zigbee pool switches made by Smartenit. They all work great together and are controlled by my many year-old HAI/Leviton system. This certainly wasn't possible 7 or even 2 years ago.
 
When you say nothing is new, I can only ask, what do you want that ISN'T available?  I think people have gotten a bit spoiled by the fast advances in technology, and expect major changes every year.  Personally, the I like the fact that I could buy a HA system 7 years ago, with and not have a reason to replace it today. I wish that was true of other products like TV's and computers.
 
Certainly HA technology HAS evolved and become cheaper. I couldn't monitor my eggs from anywhere in the world with my smartphone 7 years ago, certainly not for under $10
http://www.amazon.com/Minder-Wink-App-Enabled-Smart-Tray/dp/B00GN92KQ4

 

[NeverDie]

@NeverDie, of that list, I feel like you're trying to tell me something but i'm not getting it. Maybe b/c its Monday morning and i'm trying to wait until 10:30am for coffee. 
 
I agree that access methods (tablets & voice) are "new", but I'm already doing that and it wasn't really that monumental. At one point I had a nexus 7 mounted in the kitchen with AutoVoice turned on, so I could talk to the system. I had Autovoice->Tasker->CQCWebserver->Devices/scripts. After the "gee whiz" I didn't really use it that much as I had to be within a few feet, plus my dad wanted to try playing with tablets so I gave it to him.  I am planning on trying to integrate the Moto360 voice recognition so I can do it while walking around, but I already have that working with my phone. Given the lack of natural language usage and the need to speak directly at my phone, I end up just walking over and turning the lights on by hand.
 
I was considering finding bluetooth microphones and putting them in a few locations but only one can pair to a phone or tablet at a time (I think). Plus I'd have to figure out how to power them, my bluetooth headsets won't stay on/connect if they're plugged in.
 
I guess I was just hoping for more from a 7 year slumber than baby steps in VR. Nothing really works together, Microsoft/Google/Apple still haven't come in to "unify" the space and drive an interoperability standard.  
 
Frankly, it proves Dean, BSR, electron right when they said "companies will never play well together" almost 10 years ago.  

I haven't yet put any effort into VR, but it sounds like you should take a look at Amazon Echo and maybe (?) Kinect.  

 

[jkmonroe]

I don't really think there has been anything dramatic.  Lots of neat things in the connected arena, and lots of neat things for smaller setups and newcomers, but not really for us.  I think the thing for those of us already in this space will be data analytics and 'greening' with something like the Brultech GEM.
 
Consider that I have 'done it over again' within the past year, and basically ended up with the same setup as you.
 
Fanboy-ism aside, Apple will very likely win the voice war (with Homekit) considering how far ahead their advanced natural language processing is.  Alexa (Amazon Echo) is a neat toy you can screw around with, but I doubt anything you have could be connected.

 

[ano]

 Alexa (Amazon Echo) is a neat toy you can screw around with, but I doubt anything you have could be connected.

 
Unless you have a Philips Hue Bulb or a Belken WeMo switch. But considering its still in Beta, that isn't bad.
 
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201749230

 

[IVB]

Re: What I would want to see? Interoperability, or at least the promise of it. To me, 
 

And Zigbee. I have Zigbee locks made by Kwikset, Zigbee light bulbs made by GE, Zigbee modules made by HAI/Leviton, Zigbee pool switches made by Smartenit. They all work great together and are controlled by my many year-old HAI/Leviton system. This certainly wasn't possible 7 or even 2 years ago.
 
When you say nothing is new, I can only ask, what do you want that ISN'T available?  I think people have gotten a bit spoiled by the fast advances in technology, and expect major changes every year.  Personally, the I like the fact that I could buy a HA system 7 years ago, with and not have a reason to replace it today. I wish that was true of other products like TV's and computers.
 
Certainly HA technology HAS evolved and become cheaper. I couldn't monitor my eggs from anywhere in the world with my smartphone 7 years ago, certainly not for under $10
http://www.amazon.com/Minder-Wink-App-Enabled-Smart-Tray/dp/B00GN92KQ4

What would I want to see? Interoperability, or at least some hint of it.  JKMonroe will attest to the lack of it within zWave.  How about a zWave/Zigbee/UPB bridge of some sort that doesn't require excessive programming by the end user?  It still seems far too difficult to implement an HA system.
 
Imagine if wireless networking was just like HA. You can use an entirely Linksys based system, but if Netgear comes out with a cool add-on you need to rip out all your Linksys stuff or run dual networks. I wonder how prevalent wireless networking would be?  (Not very we'd all still use wired).
 
What I find depressing is that in 7 years, vendors still haven't realized that they can move more product if they voluntarily adopt a standard.  Even better, make it a publish/subscribe type system.  Devices to be controlled could publish their message to the network, devices to do controlling could subscribe to those messages. 
 
The potential market for those who want automated egg monitoring can be measured on one hand. Two hands if you look world wide.  But if you knew you could pop in a new (HVAC, stereo, sonos, roku, doorbell, whatever), control it with your (whatever controller concept you want; sw based, cortana type, even AMX/C4 tie-in), you'd see a flood of HA devices.
 
As it stands right now, what you think is a positive is a negative. The HA system that took you hundreds of hours 7 years ago cannot be upgraded because nothing is any better. And someone else doing it now will need hundreds of hours to do it. There have been no material implementation efficiency improvements.  

 

[IVB]

Re:Echo, I might look into it now that they've got an IFTTT channel. 

 

[drvnbysound]

I think of Elk as that bridge for me... Having Zwave, I don't see a benefit of Zigbee in terms of device support (at least not at the moment, which Elk doesn't support now anyway)... but I could add UPB if I really wanted to.
 
I really haven't found much that I can't do today that I want/care to do. I really have no desire to do VR stuff... I rarely use any VR stuff on my phone as it is - even the speech to text. I used Siri to call my wife yesterday - probably the first time in 2 years I've used Siri.

 

[IVB]

The elk is the harshest possible way to manage lighting. I used to use it, but moved the management to cqc as I got sick of remembering what device was A05 vs B09/etc.

Voice is like wireless networking vs wired, or laptops vs desktops. You don't think it's that valuable when you're just using the original technology, but once you start you'll wonder why it took you so long to change. An NFC chip puts my phone into car mode, Tasker does TTS on inbound SMS, and I speak the replies. I currently have some auto voice for HA but not much due to language restrictions. I have to Trigger one task, wait, then trigger another. Pulling up to the house I'd love to say "OK Google, disarm security, unlock the door, and turn on the outside lights".

 

[picta]

 Pulling up to the house I'd love to say "OK Google, disarm security, unlock the door, and turn on the outside lights".

Why would you want to say that? You can use geofencing and a rule to do all of this and more, like individual preferences for different people.
 
On the original post, I see the most changes in HA happening in the UI area. Tablets, phones, watches etc. I got an iWatch recently, the Space app for it is reportedly coming soon, so using VR will be a lot easier, but even now I can issue commands to my system from the watch using siri.

 

[ano]

Re: What I would want to see? Interoperability, or at least the promise of it. To me, 
 
What would I want to see? Interoperability, or at least some hint of it.  JKMonroe will attest to the lack of it within zWave.  How about a zWave/Zigbee/UPB bridge of some sort that doesn't require excessive programming by the end user?  It still seems far too difficult to implement an HA system.
 
Imagine if wireless networking was just like HA. You can use an entirely Linksys based system, but if Netgear comes out with a cool add-on you need to rip out all your Linksys stuff or run dual networks. I wonder how prevalent wireless networking would be?  (Not very we'd all still use wired).
 
What I find depressing is that in 7 years, vendors still haven't realized that they can move more product if they voluntarily adopt a standard.  Even better, make it a publish/subscribe type system.  Devices to be controlled could publish their message to the network, devices to do controlling could subscribe to those messages. 
 
The potential market for those who want automated egg monitoring can be measured on one hand. Two hands if you look world wide.  But if you knew you could pop in a new (HVAC, stereo, sonos, roku, doorbell, whatever), control it with your (whatever controller concept you want; sw based, cortana type, even AMX/C4 tie-in), you'd see a flood of HA devices.
 
As it stands right now, what you think is a positive is a negative. The HA system that took you hundreds of hours 7 years ago cannot be upgraded because nothing is any better. And someone else doing it now will need hundreds of hours to do it. There have been no material implementation efficiency improvements.  

I certainly see your point, but i think the difference between networking and home automation is that home automation still really hasn't gone mainstream. We talk about ELK and HAI/Leviton. Both of those controllers are many years old, but do you see those companies or others rushing to update them?  Leviton had to release a $150 board just so their controller could send an email. That tell you the market just isn't there. The sad fact is, until there is money to be made in home automation, your not going to see much money invested in home automation. We here can jump up and down all we want and complain, but that doesn't change the business case.
 
Look back at your list of wants, and ask yourself, how many others want that as well, and more importantly, how many are willing to pay for them?  If you think there are enough people to cover the development costs, then you are more brave than most companies out there, and you should start a business to fill the void.