Thank you Dan for your thoughts and info to my introduction! I'm really surprised (and pleased) that you (as the admin) take your time to answer to newbies!
Yesterday I read "your" transcript with Ram_Securifi about the Almond+ from 02/22/2013, very interesting and promising!
I must admit that I backed their development-kit which includes some sensors/actuators to get started.
I
really want to get into it!
Several times I thought about going for HA, but I was quite reluctant paying e.g. one and a half grand for an adhoco.H1 (central unit) using zigbee.
I bet this can be done with the Almond+ and its' support for zigbee as well.
OK, probably a little naive, but anyway...
If you or somebody else who's probably reading might share a good link of comparing technologies in HA? Especially Z-Wave "vs." ZigBee? This is not meant as an annoying reheated debate on principles, but as a good and hopefully unbiased overview.
Although Z-Wave has its own far reaching universe of components, they're not compatible. As far as I understood there are two different frequencies used in the US and Europe. Therefore it would be useless for me to try to communicate with imported US components. This is sad because "your" components are far less expensive and widely available.
The little market penetration of zigbee results in high prices as well I'd say.
Although zigbee is the "more" open technology, their network typology has a single point of failure what Z-Wave with its mesh doesn't have.
I'd really like to make an informed decision and delve into one of these technologies (first).
I'd love to help somehow spread one of these HA technologies with inexpensive sensors (in the beginning). HA should be easy and affordable. I think the first step could be the integration like the Almond+ does with its easy touch-integration.
Too ambitious this vision? Yeah, maybe. But why not trying it?
It seems CT could be a good starting point to gather information and work on this.