What do you recommend to friends who want to get into automation?

[LarrylLix]

<p>Alexa is good also, but I find it less intuitive to set up.&nbsp; If I recall correctly, also, it has no automation ability.&nbsp; I would treat it only as a voice-based controller, perhaps equal to, or better than, the google home at this point.&nbsp; For home automation, I think I am still picking the homekit.&nbsp; I guess it depends on what you are looking to do.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>As far as cloud dependency, I find it hard to argue that the echo has an advantage over homekit.&nbsp; Do not both rely on the internet and the cloud?</p>

Yes they both rely on the cloud and I would not base any HA on the cloud if I could help it. However I do base vocal controls on cloud things like Alexa and in turn ISY Portal (double cloud dependency) so some of my RC does depend on cloud services.
 
However this guy wants a simple as possible method of pleasing the non(semi?) tech friends into a HA/RC environment that should cause him to be glued to the phone helping some crisis he created by showing off his own HA.
 
To me, using cloud services (make it complicated later if they get techie themselves) with WiFi devices that use cloud services and something like Amazon that uses cloud services and can connect them together would be about as fancy and easy as one could get. In the Alexa app you select a type of device, then the manufacturer and enter you account credentials and Amazon does the rest displaying all your devices. I don't think you can get RC easier than that but I haven't seen some of it. My SIL has set up her home with many lights and automatic notifications using both GH and Alexa now but she is far from a techie. She was an all  GH person and now has converted over to both systems, due to Amazon having features she couldn't get with GH.
 
In addition Amazon has been adding amazing Routines features to their repertoire. Using mostly pulldown menu options with pictures, I can create a routine based on any event, including a voice phrase, device on/off, internal time, internal device event, ISY event etc...etc.. (I haven't bothered with most as I have an ISY) and cause any other event to happen, including voice announcement, turn on/off any device that my ISY can control, any device the Alexa app can control, do combinations, use wait timers, turn them off again. etc... The most complicated portion of any of that was the ISY Portal setup.
 
At the rate Amazon is accelerating with their technology on this they will be competing with the functionality of ISY in maybe another year. I haven't been watching GH technologies after having so many account problems with my GH and several Minis, but I haven't heard anything on their end like this, so far.
 
Yes, Amazon has added all the smart-ass, sarcastic, and funny responses GH had from the beginning which made it so candid and cute and more.
 
Anyway, back to the OP request. Amazon and some WiFi devices available at AliExpress, eBay, Newegg, Home Depot, Staples, or 99% of the hardware stores now, could get them going with RC with the level of knowledge of installing a mobile phone app. As they progress, and want more, Amazon has some of it now and I believe will meet or surpass the abilities of an ISY994 (now) , within a few years, when they may be ready to get more.  This means these nonTechie friends will not reach a dead end in the next year or two. It may be totally cloud dependant, but 95% of the people out there don't know the difference anyway and most think it is cool to let the cloud do it.

 

[upstatemike]

Just curious, how are you doing your TTS announcements with the ISY994?

 

[LarrylLix]

Just curious, how are you doing your TTS announcements with the ISY994?

I don't know what a TTS announcements are but Alexa brought in routines a while back.
 
With the ISY Portal you can make a variable appear as a motion detector or contact device, state dependant on any variable value. In the Alexa app you can then use a motion detector or contact device as a trigger for a Routine, which can cause any combination of voice outputs, device operation On/Off, or even send notifications via SMS, phone call or other URL call, with preset vocals.
 
With Alexa Routines it is so simple to make anything trigger anything. It should be noted that in the Alexa webpage app this feature does not show up, only on the mobile app versions. This is all done with simple pulldown menus except the custom vocals require user text input and Alexa doesn't understand Canadian spelling.
 
Just for fun I have introduced a few vocal trigger Routines such as .
Alexa, alexa on the wall...who is the fairest of them all?
In a very small and far away land, in a town named mytown, way up on a hill there is a woman named wife'sname.
 
Garage door announcements are done off a variable activated by ISY from ANDing the two garage door statuses together.

 

[pvrfan]

Yes they both rely on the cloud and ...

 
Actually, Homekit does not _rely_ on the cloud.  Automations in your home will continue to work when the internet connection is down.  I tested this back in 2014 when Homekit was first released.
 
Siri voice control requires an Internet connection but of course we know that that is not really an "automation".  
 
Homekit uses Apple servers to synchronize the Homekit database amongst devices.  That will happen whenever the Internet connection comes back up.  And obviously remote control from outside the home relies on an Internet connection.
 
Don't know about Google Home but I think local automations DO require a working Internet connection.  Pretty sure automations with Madame A stop working without a functional Internet connection.  Can someone confirm or refute?
 
Craig

 

[LarrylLix]

Thanks for that information.
I guess most (all) of the devices I use are not Homekit smart but either plain WiFi or Insteon. I have now disconnected my Hue and MiLight devices so I wouldn't require hubs and I know they worked locally also as I wrote support software to help control them from my ISY.
 
Google Home and Amazon speakers do not even know the time of day if the Internet is down. Voice recognition takes more processing power than available in the little speaker boxes.

 

[upstatemike]

I don't know what a TTS announcements are but Alexa brought in routines a while back.
 
With the ISY Portal you can make a variable appear as a motion detector or contact device, state dependant on any variable value. In the Alexa app you can then use a motion detector or contact device as a trigger for a Routine, which can cause any combination of voice outputs, device operation On/Off, or even send notifications via SMS, phone call or other URL call, with preset vocals.
 
With Alexa Routines it is so simple to make anything trigger anything. It should be noted that in the Alexa webpage app this feature does not show up, only on the mobile app versions. This is all done with simple pulldown menus except the custom vocals require user text input and Alexa doesn't understand Canadian spelling.
 
Just for fun I have introduced a few vocal trigger Routines such as .
Alexa, alexa on the wall...who is the fairest of them all?
In a very small and far away land, in a town named mytown, way up on a hill there is a woman named wife'sname.
 
Garage door announcements are done off a variable activated by ISY from ANDing the two garage door statuses together.

 
I guess my problem is that I always use the web app so I've never looked at routines.. I find tablet devices hard to see and the touch screens never work reliably... maybe I am statically charged or something. I'll take a look at using Alexa routines with my ISY and see what trouble I can get into. 

 

[oberkc]

Actually, Homekit does not _rely_ on the cloud.  Automations in your home will continue to work when the internet connection is down.  I tested this back in 2014 when Homekit was first released.

 
Thanks.  I was going to test this.  I suspected that local control and automations would work without internet.  I was not sure whether one could add a new device without internet, or adjust or add an automation, but suspect not.

 

[upstatemike]

Starting to narrow the field... am I forgetting any good options?
 
Options to consider:
Google Home/Hue/Nest
Amazon Echo/Lifx/Ring
Abode/Hue/Nest
Atmos/Caseta/Nest/Ring
Logitech Harmony Hub/Hue /Nest
Hometroller Zee/Z-Wave/Nest
Homey/Hue/Ring
 
Options to avoid:
Smartthings
Hubitat
ISY994
Openhab
Elk
OmniPro
Vera
Wink

 

[LarrylLix]

I guess my problem is that I always use the web app so I've never looked at routines.. I find tablet devices hard to see and the touch screens never work reliably... maybe I am statically charged or something. I'll take a look at using Alexa routines with my ISY and see what trouble I can get into. 

Yeah. I spent my first 12 months swearing at the stupid thing. Then when I ran it on an android mobile phone, another half a year telling people there was no such thing as this and that on my app. People gave up on me until one person noticed the fine print before you download the app the first time (remember two years ago when that didn't exist? . ) that the app wouldn't work on anything less than Andoid 5.0.
This was one of the reasons I had to buy a new mobile phone....planned obsolescence marketing.
 
Anyway, you require a more recent Android or more recent iBox to make the app work properly. Of course you would never know about that, and they won't tell you either, but most of the better features just don't exist in the half crippled app, and you wonder WTF people are babbling about...marketing pricks!
 
Anyway. Alexa has come a long way in the last 6 months.
 
I hate touch pads also and nothing but problems with them. I just bought a new laptop and one of my perquisites was ''''no touch pad. I tried that with a cheap Andoid 12" touchpad and much of the mouse features don't exist. Touch pad people don't seem to realise they are missing half the latest Internet browser features. Wikipedia is a great example of that now and with keyboard finger exercise I am just starting to get some of my dead finger feeling back, and my neck vertebrae are starting to heal.
My wife has now warned me not to punch her iPad after touching her screen twenty times and nothing happens.

 

[upstatemike]

Played a little. Got "announce" to work OK but "speak" only lets you pick one device to speak through, I was hoping to click on a list of 4 or 5 strategic Echos to speak a given reminder. Will work with it some more to find the real limits.

 

[LarrylLix]

Played a little. Got "announce" to work OK but "speak" only lets you pick one device to speak through, I was hoping to click on a list of 4 or 5 strategic Echos to speak a given reminder. Will work with it some more to find the real limits.

I use "Same speaker as spoken to" a lot. Sometimes it doesn't seem to be an option though and I can;t figure out why the option disappears.
The group speak would have been nice.
 
Right now I am toying with a guided tour through my house, using Alexa Routines, for realestate agents. It speaks some of the features i built into this house that the realestate agents would likely have no clue what they meant or wouldn't bother, turning lights on in rooms as they go to attract them into each room on the tour. The lack of inline conditionals makes Amazon RC/HA fall down at this point.
 
My entrance instructions tell about the rest of the "asks" for information. I spent oodles of time and money on making this place energy efficient and most agents wouldn't mention it as they wouldn't understand much more than R40 walls.
 
Not sure it won't send some people running from a haunted house though. hmmmm..... "for a few thousand more, I will throw in the cell phone with the Alexa app "built-in"!  You know the "key" to all the secret coloured lights? "

 

[upstatemike]

I never saw an option for "same speaker as spoken to" but I would probably do those scenarios with Alexa Blueprints rather than Routines anyway.

 

[LarrylLix]

I never saw an option for "same speaker as spoken to" but I would probably do those scenarios with Alexa Blueprints rather than Routines anyway.

I haven't seen "BluePrints" yet. I think my son used some of those but it seemed they were a separate app done by a third party?
 
Actually, my garage door open/closed Routines speak out of two speakers. I had to deselect a few of them as the reverb effect was too much and made it hard to understand. I have four Echoes in one large room. So it must be available.

 

[pvrfan]

Thanks.  I was going to test this.  I suspected that local control and automations would work without internet.  I was not sure whether one could add a new device without internet, or adjust or add an automation, but suspect not.

 
For Homekit?  I think you could add a device or create an automation without the internet.  If your iPad, say, is the only device that controls Homekit, I think everything would be fine.
 
However, multiple iOS devices (say iPhone plus iPad), Apple TV(s), HomePod(s), and Mac(s) can all direct the Homekit devices.  Homekit creates a database that is synced amongst these controllers.  I think that syncing goes through iCloud and therefore requires a functional internet connection although I've never tested that.
 
BTW, I'd love to know how the magic works that Homekit knows which controlling device is 'in charge' at any particular time.  If I have an iPad, iPhone and AppleTV, which one sends the command to turn on the lights at dusk?  Just my curiosity.  
 
Craig