Is HA a solution looking for a problem?

[tattema]

Hi All,
 
I've been reading this forum for a while now and have found a couple of excellent threads that discussed what's new over the last 7 years and the frustrations with HA but no specific thread about the real-world problems that HA actually solves.
 
Having built my own custom HA ecosystem for fun, which is really does the same thing as every other system designed to date does, I'm forced to reflect and ask "is HA is really a solution without a clear-cut problem to solve?" Is there a link between this and the lack of broad HA adoption for the average family?
 
From a technology agnostic perspective, what problems around the home are solved by automation? A different angle to the same question... Could you live without your HA installation and if not, what aspects of your HA solution are wants v.s. needs.
 
Regards
Trev
 
 
 
 

 

[pete_c]

no specific thread about the real-world problems that HA actually solves.

Well still do defend the purchases of $50 and above automated switches to my wife who knows that she can utilize a $2 dollar light switch and really it does the same thing except you have to walk up to the switch and physically touch it. ....personally after a spend of over 10K there has been no ROI other than my own tinkering satisfaction. 
 
Automated lighting can make the house look lived in when no body is around...but really who cares...as the lights illuminate for nobody...cuz there isn't anybody in the house...
 

ask "is HA is really a solution without a clear-cut problem to solve?" Is there a link between this and the lack of broad HA adoption for the average family?

 
Over the years on the Homeseer forum folks (since 1998) have automated functions relating to their household members...automatically turning lights off because of bad habits, changing the water temperature on extended hour showers by teens well and stuff like tracking children (or their wives) in a house to text them good night.......helped an automation peer's widow a few years back...she was not IT or automation centric...I did shut down all of the automation in the house after around a year of her husband's death...as she never wanted to learn it or have a need for it.  That said though friend did put multi toggle UPB switches with links all over the place which she learned and was very proficient with...those did remain in the house...well and I really didn't feel like replacing all of them..
 
....most of the "glitter" of automation that I have seen is that new remote control widget (its that psyche of control thing I think) on a cell phone device that people (of all ages) sleep with these days...my cousin though now is enamored with her Amazon Echo rather than her IPhone and does talk more to her Amazon Echo than her husband (but she also talked more to her IPhone 5 years ago than her husband - who is just an entity she shares a home with these days)..
 
.....geez last weekend helped an IT person  helping a man of 75 who had a stroke and mostly remembers how to automate his house but cannot do it now...I did have to remotely teach the IT helper (family of his)  who was at his home visiting...thinking the man is happy because the automation that he configured 20 years ago is working now....personally thinking that remembering of automation stuff will help him recoup a bit ....
 
...the fun part of my visit to Argentina a few years ago was watching a IT customer service representative making a fool of himself...initially asking the cabbie who won the Falklands war then when leaving having the airport authority lock him up in a sound proof glass house watching us board the plane back to Chicago and him calling us for help on his cell phone...they did tell him he was going to stay and I did see tears in his eyes for bit....
 
Personally here just want my house to have an AI personality and just be in charge of whatever it is I automate here....and really only talk to me when spoken to..or asked questions relating to methodologies of processes and whatever it is doing....if that makes any sense....recently couldn't find a 7 shot (one cup of my coffee) automated espresso maker....so removed the automated 2 cup device and manually doing the get go from beans to coffee cup...well and do enjoy and savor what takes a bit of time to do ....then again I would enjoy having to look at a 50 year old espresso maker in the kitchen but not use it...(like antiques here)

 

[Neurorad]

Music in my MBR at night is scheduled on/off.

Stair lights scheduled on/off.

Near future plan - exterior lighting scenes. Currently 9 zones of exterior lights, controlled with a multitude of 2-3 way switches, scattered around the house.

All I've done so far is a couple rooms of lighting control.

 

[Dean Roddey]

Hey, sex was a solution looking for a problem, but it did ok in the end I guess

But, anyhoo, I think that automation has a lot to offer people. A major problem always remains how to deliver REAL advantages in a way that can scale up in breadth and down in price. The recent DIY IoT type stuff that has been coming out doesn't begin to demonstrate the real advantages of serious automation. But, those real advantages of serious automation are very difficult to deliver at a cost that's acceptable to any broad swath of the buying public. Other than perhaps in large tract housing type schemes where a single, very well worked out solution can be delivered many times over, providing economies of scale while still having all the advantages of extensive customization to the needs at hand.

Nor do I think that things like HomeKit will do much better on this front. It will still be fairly light weight control of loosely confederated devices. It requires not even any deep knowledge of Homekit to know this because it is not possible to do much more than that without extensive human intervention to make any system do more and/or adapt to the specific circumstances of the particular customer's situation and desires.

I'm not even sure if the ultimate actual long term solution to that will even be desirable, because what would be it? It would almost have to be something on the order of artificial intelligence, and unlike in the sci-fi movies that AI isn't likely to belong to you or be your loyal friend. It will be belong to some large corporation to whom it will pass on everything about you, which is has to know in order to adapt itself to your needs, adapt to changing conditions and moods, deal preemptively with hardware failures and so forth.

Somewhere between here and Deus Ex Machina, I think there will continue to be solutions that can do a huge amount given the money and time, and solutions that can do a moderate job given a little money and time, but maybe not so much in the middle. The middle almost by definition has conflicting requirements of low cost but extreme intelligence and very robust hardware and secure control. The two sides will probably continue to nibble inwards, but I'm not sure how far they can go.

So, I guess all of that was my way of saying, I dunno.

 

[pete_c]

I'm not even sure if the ultimate actual long term solution to that will even be desirable, because what would be it? It would almost have to be something on the order of artificial intelligence, and unlike in the sci-fi movies that AI isn't likely to belong to you or be your loyal friend. It will be belong to some large corporation to whom it will pass on everything about you, which is has to know in order to adapt itself to your needs, adapt to changing conditions and moods, deal preemptively with hardware failures and so forth.

 
or
 
the DIYers / Pioneers of automation here like you Dean or Neurorad or Trev which started the OP...
 
Ultimate would be to create an at home personal AI box that only you could teach...now this would probably be the roots being able to create that cloud based AI with just a bit of a uniqueness to the individual home...(Like the Amazon Echo maybe?).
 
or
 
maybe purchasing an entity piece of an omnipresent AI software like in that movie Her (2013)
 
In the 1980's enjoyed playing with Eliza on whatever I played with at the time...today in 2015 we are way beyond Eliza AI.
 
.....well too now we can clone a favorite pet such that it lives forever sort of....
 
...and really with a little bit of magic (not really magic these days) involved we can stop/pause the beginning of cellular growth (life) and swap genetic material (the kernel OS that is what makes us what we are) like replacing an engine on an old car these days.....but we cannot replicate artifically that little device in our head called the brain which works with no batteries... (most best state of the art computer that exists today)...
 
well...a bit of brevity here relating to automation and sex....I'll remove it if it offends anybody...
 
[youtube]http://youtu.be/Isrd7E5nzIQ[/youtube]

 

[tattema]

Well still do defend the purchases of $50 and above automated switches to my wife who knows that she can utilize a $2 dollar light switch and really it does the same thing except you have to walk up to the switch and physically touch it. ....personally after a spend of over 10K there has been no ROI other than my own tinkering satisfaction. 
 
 
 
...the fun part of my visit to Argentina a few years ago was watching a IT customer service representative making a fool of himself...initially asking the cabbie who won the Falklands war then when leaving having the airport authority lock him up in a sound proof glass house watching us board the plane back to Chicago and him calling us for help on his cell phone...they did tell him he was going to stay and I did see tears in his eyes for bit....

 
 
I too have to defend my decision to automate but i'll do it willingly because I love the technology and see possibilities. In contrast, my wife just wants to turn the lights on whereas I hate paying for excess power consumption when I don't need to so would like the lights to turn off by themselves. Around the value proposition for HA and costs, I wonder if anybody has done a study to compare the cost of automating just the lighting systems in a home at point of construction? Wireless HA costs could be offset by not running conduit and cables for light switches.
 
My Sony TV comes with built in HA but they don't call it that, rather, it's energy saving mode detects movement and turns itself off after 30 mins. I love it because they can keep it running and the device asks if it's still being watched (can't detect if you're in bed watching) and if you don't respond by touching a key on the remote, it switches off one minute later.
 
You mentioned the mobile phone... it's part in HA will be immense I believe. I wonder how it could be best applied to HA? I like that it's possible to just hit a button on the screen and have it trigger a bunch of activities but can it be more than that? Geofencing is another but it too has problems... driving past the home, into the geofence, triggers rules.

 
Pete, your argentine story made me laugh!! They're super sensitive about 'las Islas Malvinas' and sabre rattle with the Brits over oil reserves.

 

[tattema]

Hey, sex was a solution looking for a problem, but it did ok in the end I guess

But, anyhoo, I think that automation has a lot to offer people. A major problem always remains how to deliver REAL advantages in a way that can scale up in breadth and down in price. The recent DIY IoT type stuff that has been coming out doesn't begin to demonstrate the real advantages of serious automation. But, those real advantages of serious automation are very difficult to deliver at a cost that's acceptable to any broad swath of the buying public. Other than perhaps in large tract housing type schemes where a single, very well worked out solution can be delivered many times over, providing economies of scale while still having all the advantages of extensive customization to the needs at hand.

Nor do I think that things like HomeKit will do much better on this front. It will still be fairly light weight control of loosely confederated devices. It requires not even any deep knowledge of Homekit to know this because it is not possible to do much more than that without extensive human intervention to make any system do more and/or adapt to the specific circumstances of the particular customer's situation and desires.

I'm not even sure if the ultimate actual long term solution to that will even be desirable, because what would be it? It would almost have to be something on the order of artificial intelligence, and unlike in the sci-fi movies that AI isn't likely to belong to you or be your loyal friend. It will be belong to some large corporation to whom it will pass on everything about you, which is has to know in order to adapt itself to your needs, adapt to changing conditions and moods, deal preemptively with hardware failures and so forth.

Somewhere between here and Deus Ex Machina, I think there will continue to be solutions that can do a huge amount given the money and time, and solutions that can do a moderate job given a little money and time, but maybe not so much in the middle. The middle almost by definition has conflicting requirements of low cost but extreme intelligence and very robust hardware and secure control. The two sides will probably continue to nibble inwards, but I'm not sure how far they can go.

So, I guess all of that was my way of saying, I dunno.

 
 
 
The thing with solutions looking for problems is that from time to time, people don't realise they like something or that something is a possibility unless they taste it, try it, see it or use it. 'We don't know what we don't know". That's where I think home kit will help because they'll introduce HA to millions of people in one go. I was dubious about home kit as I am about thread but after looking into home kit in detail, i think they're onto something. They've found a way to separate the user experience from the underlying hardware so that it doesn't matter what hardware you use, the user experience is identical. I'm yet to be convinced about the value Thread will bring and the promise of harmonisation between devices. 
 
I'm in full agreement with you personally that automation has a lot to offer but do rank and file customers see it? I'm certain that the average consumer doesn't yet see it. Are they willing to fork out $50 for an intelligent device (perhaps more or less depending on the solution) if the perception is that the problem can be solved more cheaply? Yes, they do, when value is demonstrated.
 
Take NEST, a thermostat. Why would customers fork out over $200 for such a device when the one they had worked just fine? It would see to me that the value proposition postulated by Philip Kotler where value = cost/benefit holds true in this case because somehow, the perceived benefits Nest offered buyers was greater than the cost. What are the benefits of Nest?
 
Another marketing fundamental in the case of Nest is that the buyer and seller never agree on value but they always agree on price at the moment of transaction. To me, it's fundamental that HA somehow clearly demonstrate value and when that happens, price becomes secondary.

 

[Dean Roddey]

How much of Nest's sales was actually driven by anything in the minds of the buyers that was related to automation? How much was pure marketing and industrial design, and media reported benefits related to cost savings? Hard to say, but I'm not sure there's much there that would rub off on the automation world per se.
 
Though I guess there's some latitude for industrial design in some aspects of the automation world, it's not really going to help too much I don't think. I guess we could make the controller look like a large, multi-faceted crystal or incorporate a lava lamp or something

 

[tattema]

How much of Nest's sales was actually driven by anything in the minds of the buyers that was related to automation? How much was pure marketing and industrial design, and media reported benefits related to cost savings? Hard to say, but I'm not sure there's much there that would rub off on the automation world per se.
 
Though I guess there's some latitude for industrial design in some aspects of the automation world, it's not really going to help too much I don't think. I guess we could make the controller look like a large, multi-faceted crystal or incorporate a lava lamp or something

 
 
I really think you're onto something with the industrial design comment.... many of the devices I see in the HA space are very functional but less aesthetically appealing. I put a lot of work into the industrial design for my HA product set so that the wife would like it in the bedroom and entertainment room. A 3d printer really helped get it right too. DIY also seems to be more about function rather than answering the 'human question' so there's a lot of room for improvement I think.
 
Lol, we could make HA products have an inner glow, perhaps an angelic halo.

 

[picta]

.Somewhere between here and Deus Ex Machina, I think there will continue to be solutions that can do a huge amount given the money and time, and solutions that can do a moderate job given a little money and time, but maybe not so much in the middle. The middle almost by definition has conflicting requirements of low cost but extreme intelligence and very robust hardware and secure control. The two sides will probably continue to nibble inwards, but I'm not sure how far they can go.

 
That is a brilliant observation!

 

[pete_c]

Is HA a solution looking for a problem?
 
I would say yes going outside of the realm of Cocoontech. 
 
The average non technical personal if using it today would rather not know it's mechanism of actions. 
 
Here it is just a hobby and I use my home as a little test bed of automation.
 

Lol, we could make HA products have an inner glow, perhaps an angelic halo.

 
The discussion has yet to go to the "dark side" / nefarious use of automation. 
 
Over the years I have seen it used in this manner yet with seemingly logical explaination.
 
In the 1960's in Chicago recall a radio announcement (s). 
 
Some person who had had his car stolen a few times told local radio stations that he had rigged up an explosive device that would trigger should a thief try to remove the radio. 
 
Well he said he did, maybe he was bluffing but do remember radio announcements all day one day.
 
Just recently it was documented that a few internet connect automobiles could be hacked / commandeered.
 
Around the same time one car automobile dealer somewhere said he used similiar mechanisms of actions to deliberately create havoc with a purchaser of an automobile such that they would use his service.  It was kind of dumb that he even mentioned this anyways.
 
Means to me that while recently it was tested in a controlled environment that the news or means of doing this while appearing to be new were already known for a while.
 
I am in to weather a bit here.  One popular weather station company name is Davis.  Over the years it has become a standard sort of where it is used to benchmark other types of weather stations.   The popularity has lead to a reverse engineering of the custom communications base used by the company and replication of same said communications and devices.  There are discussions relating to same said.  One side saids they own the device and they want to know how it works or have the right to know this.  The other side saids once it is publicized then the company will have to compete with copy cat companies selling similiar. 
 
Look what happened in the beginning to the Nest.  It did cause some issues with a very old company called Honeywell and patents created over the years relating to "the thermostat".
 
I still today refer to that cotton swap on a stick as a Q Tip or recording of television media as "Tivo ing" the recordings.
 
Just this past week someone on this forum posted a request for some information relating to the take apart of a UPB powerline automation switch.
 
Many folks already have taken apart the Amazon Echo to see what it is that makes it tick. 
 
Here I play with a device built a bit ahead of it's time from a company called Openpeak.  It was designed to be a cloud connected "doo what" of telephony, automation, power monitoring and an internet kiosk. Over time and piece by piece it was disassembled and said stuff was documented.  It is no longer sold and typically is not worth anything as the cloud services no longer exist for its use.
 
Most of this stuff can be on one side considered nefarious while on other side a means of teaching or learning; this sort of leading to those mechanisms new or old relating to home automation and does sometimes bring up the question of which came first; the chicken or the egg.

 

[wkearney99]

It will be belong to some large corporation to whom it will pass on everything about you, which is has to know in order to adapt itself to your needs, adapt to changing conditions and moods, deal preemptively with hardware failures and so forth.

 
This hits the nail on the head. Systems to 'help' automate the home will need to understand quite a lot about how the household operates. This will include a lot of current events-like interaction.  The programming and processing resources necessary to do this are not trivial.  Where's the money to be made in operating such a scheme?  
 
At some point there's likely to be a large enough subset of these routines that could be put into a "sell it once" kind of box.
 
I'm struck by how eerily similar this perspective is to the original timeshare systems.  At a certain point the computers and their programming became mature enough and the equipment small enough as to be deliverable in the form we know know as the 'personal computer'.  
 
But selling a company on a financial system or word processing system isn't the same as the on-going volume of daily interaction a household system would require. That and who wants their house to be as finicky/unreliable as their computer?  But making the system work, and stay that way, is not easy... nor cheap.
 
One difference is, once upon a time, the minicomputer and timeshare people weren't being driven by the staggering amount of greed driving some of today's schemes.  
 
Just look at Vizio's recent news; they fully expect to make their money selling your usage data, no longer on just the TV hardware itself.  no, No, NO!  But then the target market they seem to have been selling toward could be described as 'cheap and dumb', thus sheep ripe for the shearing.  I'm appalled at the naked greed and contempt that embodies.
 
Anyway, it's indeed a puzzling question of how to get automation moving forward in interesting ways that don't total revolve around raping the customer's privacy.  While still making a profitable, decent and honest living from it.

 

[wkearney99]

Though I guess there's some latitude for industrial design in some aspects of the automation world, it's not really going to help too much I don't think. I guess we could make the controller look like a large, multi-faceted crystal or incorporate a lava lamp or something

 
Or how about stuff like the Wink.  Nice, flat, clean looking box.  Looks like it ought to be wall mounted somewhere, get it up and out of the way.  But noooooo, it's designed with a bump out the bottom that entirely prevents this from being possible.  What, did they think it was going to be so pretty that people would keep it on table somewhere?  Gee, how dumb an idea is it to have something totally dependent on RF signals be left MOVABLE?  Definitely a clash between form & function.  But then Quirky/Wink have other problems on their hands...

 

[deandob]

I really think you're onto something with the industrial design comment.... many of the devices I see in the HA space are very functional but less aesthetically appealing. I put a lot of work into the industrial design for my HA product set so that the wife would like it in the bedroom and entertainment room. A 3d printer really helped get it right too. DIY also seems to be more about function rather than answering the 'human question' so there's a lot of room for improvement I think.

Trev, I agree, aesthetics are very important with the automation either hidden from view or when it is visible it needs to be sleek, matching and integrated with its surrounds. Which is why I have put so much effort into the UI for my widget based HTML5 client and am prototyping a room node which is basically a small 5" touchscreen in the form factor of a light switch. Do share the industrial design for your HA product set (are you marketing it or just for own use?).
 
Regarding ROI on automation, I also agree it is variable and certainly not high. In my (mostly) automated house I get the best bang from buck from:
- Switching the kids lights off during the day (power saving - kids previously would leave lights burning for hours not caring).
- Random lights on/off when away from home (security feature)
- Ability to open front gates from a touchscreen or button (convenience)
- Fancy light fading scenes in the home theater when a Blu-ray starts or stops playing (convenience)
- weather station info (curiosity - wife likes to know how hot or cold it is outside as the temperature in our suburb varies a bit from the city temperature due to microclimate, if it rained and how much fell and weather stats like coldest day this month)
- Turn off all the house lights via one CBUS button or touchscreen (convenience)
- How much power our solar system generates versus power consumed (curiosity & power saving - if house power draw is high I go looking for stuff to turn off)
- Graphing & alerts for ADSL router stats (improving service levels - we live a long way from the exchange so ADSL speed can be variable, and I can improve speed / reliability if I reboot the router if SNR is poor)
- Remote access to HA while away from home via smartphone and WhatsApp (security & convenience)
- Alerts and reviewing video archives of who has been in the front yard (security)

 

[NeverDie]

It can be hard to defend HA because it seems to take a lot more effort than it should to do things and have them work right.  I'm not even sure why that is.  At a superficial level it doesn't seem like it should be complicated, but somewhere along the way it usually becomes just that.   B)