Looking for insight on different HA solutions

[iceverything]

I have been a member of this forum for about 10 years.  Since then I have built up a fairly decent amount of devices.  I have 25 UPB switches and 10 outlets along with wired motion and wireless sensors for windows and lastly plenty of security cameras.   For the longest time I had an HAI/Leviton until recently.  (My mother board crashed.)  So I switched to Elk.  After setting up my system I got everything up and working to have it run almost identical to how the HAI system was set up.  I have about 125 different tasks for the system to carry out  which works great.  But now since I feel like tinkering again I have started to research other solutions to enhance my automation. I have looked at Homeseer, CQC, and Home Assistant.  Because I have a lot of the automation already run by the Elk system I am not sure what the benefits of having everything taken out of the Elk and run by a different platform.  What I am mostly wanting to do is to control my dedicated home theater.  Currently I have a URC remote control that works ok but...I want an app to be able to set up a macro to take care of start up, shut down and all  modifications in between.  I also have a man cave which I have 9 tvs to watch all the football games on Sunday afternoons, so I need a program that will control the Directv and the 9 different tvs during that time.  (I have looked at the HS directv module but I think that is only for the directv receivers not the tvs).  I am not a programmer but I have taught myself CNC and the Elk and HAI softwares so I guess I am not that old of a dog yet.  Thoughts?

 

[LarrylLix]

ISY994i interfaces with the ELK. I do not have an Elk but others constantly tell about cool interfacing usages they do.
ISY994i interfaces with X10, Insteon, Zwave and almost anything Ethernet/WiFi via many different methods.

 

[upstatemike]

I would not look to replace the Elk but rather to expand on it. I use Elk + ISY/Polisy + Homeseer + Amazon Echo Routines and I do not think there is a practical way to consolidate that to fewer components or really substitute anything without losing functionality that is important to me. 

 

[carealtor]

I'm using ISY/Polisy to control my Insteon, Ecobee, Rainmachine, Sonos, 6 Harmony remotes, etc, and I can do anything I can dream up.  However, I don't have UPB, Elk or Alexa.  I also don't have any wireless Insteon, which from what I read, can be problematic.  I've also been playing with Home Assistant for several months, but I don't do any automations with it.  I like Home Assistant a lot and I bet you could do want you want with it, but the more I use it and add systems to it, the more unstable it seems to become, even without any automations. YMMV.  Lately I've been working on integrating a Brilliant Home Control into the mix too, mostly for video doorbell, to replace the antique intercom system, and Sonos control.  If I like it I will probably buy 5-7 more.  Someday I will be integrating motorized blinds too.

 

[bbrendon]

I would get into a Software Hub like HASS, OpenHAB, HomeSeer, etc. They unlock a lot of things that weren't possible before. Personally I was a CQC user for a long time and switched to HASS. Based on my experience with CQC, I wouldn't recommend it mainly because I found it very buggy and getting bugs fixed on it took almost a year in some cases with many hours of effort on my part. HASS is way more stable and bugs are resolved quickly. Also, the CQC community is tiny compared to HASS as well.
 
I'm not saying get HASS, but check out the options. There is a whole world of free and paid automation platforms.
 
My house and home theater setup is completely done with HASS. Every device talks to HASS and HASS forwards on the information. I have a combination of IP-controlled HDMI, IP-IR, and IP-Serial, IP-relays, sensors, and other things.
 
Sorry, no URC experience. I use RTI which I have setup to only talk to HASS. I'm guessing you could do something similar with URC.
 
Basically I love having HASS be the broker of all home automation. I can track, insert, remove etc information when one device wants to talk to another one.
 
Good luck!

 

[pete_c]

Welcome to the Cocoontech forum @iceverything,
 
The Elk and HAI combo security automation panels have both been a staple of the Cocoontech forum for many many years.
 
First of their kind and many many folks here have stayed with the basics automation built in to both of the panels and conconcurrently went to using software addendums to the panels way back.
 
Personally here went to using Homeseer in the late 1990's and adding the use of the HAI OmniPro 2 panel in the early 2000's.  Worked fine for me.
 
Lately also test OpenHab and Home Asistant.  Today running Homeseer and Home Assistant on one mini PC and it works great.
 
You can do the same today with your new Elk panel and continue to have the best of security and automation.

 

[simplextech]

If you have URC already you could extend that with TotalControl to interface with the rest of your items and access the DirecTV receiver and control TV's.
 
In general most of the DIY systems have very poor media integrations for set top boxes or TV's.  CQC used to have better integration but it hasn't aged well and its' future is questionable.  MyServer Allonis has more media integrations than the other common players so you may look at that for a DIY setup.