Oh dear, sorry to make you think harder on this topic than you had already
but thank you. Yeah, see, there's 3 outbuildings, and at the very least I want video feed(s) from all of them, so I need to get into them *somehow*.
My thought was sort of like this, and it's still a little incoherent (I'm back to the "crown of thorns made up of icepicks" this morning, but I can see, at least); When I search for, say, an automatable door deadbolt, I tend to first find ones that are wireless and Zwave. So then I read about Zwave, and Zwave info talks about how it works with any wi-fi system and every device acts as a repeater, so every one you have makes the signal stronger, back to the computer device which can read and control all those signals.
What I couldn't quite figure out was if it could actually send signals OVER wi-fi. And I haven't read on the other wireless protocols yet. [There's so many, it's hard to figure out where to get started. (I'm still looking for an automation consultant locally.)] So what I was trying to ask was, if the hardware at the other end, in one of the outbuildings, has any wireless signal, can the *wi-fi* antenna pick it up and get it to the controller at the house?
Or is it going to need a protocol-specific (say, Zwave, since I already mentioned it, or whatever else I might have) controller--a "sub-panel," you say? Is THAT what I'm struggling to describe?--in the outbuilding that talks to the house over cable or wi-fi? 'Cause having a wi-fi access point, or wi-fi signal, out in the buildings will only help with the things that are wi-fi capable.
I do tend to think that running cables will be my best option; the electrician is willing to do it and it probably won't add much. But I've gotten dire glowers and predictions that the more wires I have and the more devices are talking back and forth over them, the more risk I have for lightning to take out a whole outbuilding (or at least all the powered or automated devices in it) along with several other probably-not-problematic reasons why I ought to go with wireless instead of wires. (EVERYthing is going to be trenched to below the freeze line--which admittedly in FL isn't that deep--so we can just lay all the wires and pipes at the same time.)
I suspect that in the future wireless is probably going to take over--EVENTUALLY--but for now, wireless devices are a lot more expensive, and my current experience suggests wireless may have connectivity and reliability issues. Probably when wireless becomes ubiquitous it will be unrecognizable to today's market.
So I think wired is probably the way to go with most of the things I want to do. IT's just that I'm even more confused now, about how to handle the outbuildings, than I was before.
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On side topics...Falling. I think *maybe* with Tasker and built-in motion sensors,
if I can rmem ber to carry my phone around all the time--that's a big "if"--I might be able to come up with a few "gestures" that are typical of the way I fall. I have two problems: I pass out, usually in a fairly distinctive fall, apparently--so says The Spouse--and I trip, and geez, the tripping probably looks much the same most of the time I do it. I can also try to teach the tablets what a "thud-shriek" sounds like (tripping, falling, and yelping).
Not sure what "different than your first instincts mentioned" means; using your example, the washing machine? I figure if I have a leak detected at one of the water-using appliances, the automation system should shut off a water valve where water enters the house, and the appliance. (Which first? Not sure.) But it sounds like that's sort of what you meant in the example; that shutting down an appliance only helps if the water is shut off too. Doesn't it say so on the page? Lemme go check. (Yeah, it's there.) So I'm not quite sure what you're talking about, and if you'd care to go into it more, I'd be quite interested to hear it. (Among other things, the valves I can find are REALLY expensive and if you're talking about some kind of alternative to THAT, I'd be thrilled.)
Yeah. I figure the thing that makes the most sense with water is to have a flow sensor and a valve on each pipe leading from the well-house. Then if the flow sensor suggests there's a leak on one of those pipes, close that valve, at the well. So I wouldn't have valves all over the place ('specially since they're damned expensive) and it'd give me more organized and centralized control. And allow for actions like shutting off most of the pipes during freezes, and so on.
Except for the house, since the house will have a lot more STUFF in it. I should also have a valve at the house. The way I'm having appliances put in (elevated, so I can reach them), we're already building an overflow drain directly to the outside of the house from most of the ones that use water. But even so, if there's a leak, I think it's probably better to have a valve _at_the_house_ that turns off all the incoming water, along with any affected appliances. That's much less water on the potentially-broken side of the pipe to leak all over the house. Or, hopefully, leak *out* of the house through the overflow drain. But you never know.
I'm rambling now--sorry, do that when I can't think straight--but please do tell me where you think I'm aiming less-than-effectively and I'd love to set it up better.
