What is the point of Elk or other controllers?

adt2

Member
Well, that post title was click-bait, wasn't it? But it's a serious question. I don't think I savvy the need for something like an Elk controller, and I wonder if I'm missing something, or my situation is just unique enough that it really isn't necessary for me.
 
We are building a new house. We'll be installing hard-wired Ethernet at all TV and computer locations, plus wireless throughout the house. Will also have wireless (or possibly wired) network coverage to detached garage, detached barn/workshop, and front gate area (about 200' from house). We use cell phones exclusively, so no need for home telephone system.
 
For TV, we'll have DirecTV or U-verse throughout, plus an AppleTV at each location for watching Netflix and movies stored on the home NAS.
 
For security, we're planning to use Scout or Canary or something similar. For access control, we're planning on using August or Goji or something similar, and I'd like to come up with some kind of RFID solution for the driveway gate.
 
I keep telling myself we need lighting control, but frankly, I can't come up with a use case that justifies spending a bunch of money on it. It just doesn't seem like something we'd get a lot of use out of. I'd like to have the exterior lights come on at dusk and turn off at dawn, which can be done with photocells. I'd like to have the breezeway, mudroom, and kitchen lights come on when we get home in the evening, which I think I can do with a combination of the security system and some very basic lighting control, like Ube smart dimmers. (Ube says v2 of their firmware will include geofencing for just this purpose.)
 
For music, we use Sonos speakers controlled from various smart phones and tablets. Really no need for wall panels, although we do plan to use Legrand's Selective Call Intercom system.
 
Based on all of this, can somebody explain why I do or do not need some kind of controller? I'm not poo-pooing the idea if it's necessary, but I don't want to mess with it if it isn't necessary, either.
 
Thanks in advance for your input.
 
Elk is first and foremost a security system - but it also does automation.  Simply speaking, think of it as a great interface for I/O - inputs and outputs... it's a hardware device that can do anything with inputs (sensors) and can also do relay/switch actions quite easily... it's also a simple always-on controller that can do basic automation based on other inputs available - like lighting, security, etc... plus it has the interfaces for access control, etc.  When you have the basics in place, it gets really easy to control things - a motion sensor outside can trigger events; you can use the relays to open/close doors, gates, turn sprinklers and valves on/off, etc.
 
Also - the Elk is one place - that can talk to lights and security and HVAC and other systems - and in setting that up, you instantly have software that can control all your subsystems that the Elk talks to - either via windows or smartphone software.
 
Most of what you're describing is true - those are separate systems that don't integrate with each other - and if you're fine switching between 7 different apps to control your home, then great... but when you integrate them all into one system, they can all integrate with each other and run rules, etc.
 
Also just for comparison sake - the cost of a UPB switch from Simply Automated isn't much different than a nice standalone Dimmer from Home Depot - granted you probably wouldn't put dimmers on every switch in the house - but I can say that once you do, the possibilities are endless.  Just for example - in my house, bathroom lights and fans automatically turn off if left on for a long time; when the alarm is armed away, all the lights in the house (and the fireplace) turn off and the temperature sets back; when I go upstairs, I can double-tap a switch in the hall that kills the entire downstairs; when my kids wake up at night and open their door (there's a security sensor on their interior doors) it automatically turns on the bathroom lights for them at 40% then turns them back off when they go back to bed (they're young - too short to easily reach the switch)... 
 
Just some examples...
 
Elk and HAI are integrated solutions, meaning they tie many things together rather than have several independent systems.
 
The advantage is unified control and integration, and expandability.
 
For instance, basing HVAC control off of Security arming conditions.
Using Security contacts for automation purposes, turning on lights, etc.
 
Lighting control is useful in day to day situations as well as emergencies.
For instance. When there is a burglar alarm, all lights on, blink the porch light and turn all fans off. 
Turn the lights on, turn the exhaust fans on but the HVAC fan off when there is a fire.
You can set up a vacation lighting routine.  Or turn off lights in garages, basements and crawlspaces you accidentally left on without going back in those areas.
 
Secure the house water when there is flooding, or on vacation, etc.
 
The controllers also accept various inputs, environmental sensors, etc.
 
It's difficult to get integration without a master controller.  To get integrated behavior, you end up programming several systems, and making changes to all of them to keep the behavior synched.
 
An integrated controller turns your home/property into a unified system.
 
I like some of your ideas for lighting control. I'm not wild about the idea of UPB, but that's not based on anything resembling actual experience. It just seems like dirtying up the power lines is a recipe for trouble, either with the UPB system itself or with other nearby low-voltage systems.
 
I like the "when the alarm is armed away, all the lights turn off" idea. I find the idea of a wifi or other remotely-accessible thermostat to be a little funny; my T-stat is programmed when it's installed and we rarely touch it. I guess it would be nice to be able to nudge it up or down if the weather changes overnight, but I don't see that as being a feature I'd pay extra to have. It seems a little more like a "hey, check out what I can do" kind of thing.
 
I'm really not terribly wild about anything that requires software running on either a PC or a Mac to function. iTunes is the sole exception, and if I could get rid of it, I would (believe me, I've tried, but the AppleTV interface is one my wife and kids understand and can operate without instructions, so it stays). It looks like the UPB dimmers require software to do their thing.
 
It sounds like I need to come up with some realistic use cases for each of these systems, and then get some advice on what hardware I need that provides a common denominator to all of them.
  • Open the garage, turn on the breezeway/mud room/kitchen lights, disarm the alarm system, unlock the back door when I arrive home (i.e. the driveway gate is opened from the key fob or RFID on my vehicle).
  • "Bedtime Scene" - Turn off all interior lights except the stair treads and night lights (activated by the last person going to bed that night).
  • "Vacation Scene" - Random "vacation pattern" lighting when we are out of town.
  • "TV Scene" - turn off all downstairs lights except light above kitchen sink (set to 50%), stair tread lights, night lights, and backlighting near TV (activated by switch? pushbutton?)
  • Turn off all interior lights when alarm system is activated and set to "Away."
That's about all I can think of, although I'm sure there are many more used by other forum members that I'd find useful.
 
The UPB would be controlled by the M1 or Omni.  Once programmed, no software involved.
 
That brings up another reason for the controllers, they're hardware solutions, and thus pretty much bulletproof.  Other than replacing the backup batteries every few years, once setup you don't have to touch them unless you're making changes.  My OPII has failed once in 12 years, and that was from a direct lighting strike on the pole out on the street.  Considering the 11K worth of other things also trashed, I'm not going to attribute that to any flaw in the Omni.
 
adt2 said:
I like some of your ideas for lighting control. I'm not wild about the idea of UPB, but that's not based on anything resembling actual experience. It just seems like dirtying up the power lines is a recipe for trouble, either with the UPB system itself or with other nearby low-voltage systems.
 
It looks like the UPB dimmers require software to do their thing.
 
UPB software is only for initial programming.  That's the beauty of UPB - once setup, it can run stand alone without a controller.  It is also a very reliable on the power line.  There are very few devices that cause issues with it and when they do, you can filter them out.  Obviously you can control UPB via automation (HAI/ELK/etc), but its really the non-automated lighting capabilities that get used the most.  For example, when you enter a room like a living room, kitchen, bonus room, etc. you generally use more than one lighting circuit in those locations.  With lighting automation, you can easily turn on several lights in scenes with just a single button push.  In my home, most room switches are setup to press once to operate a single light and double click them to activate a room scene.  For the larger living spaces, I generally have a multi-button keypad switch that lets you select one of several room scenes.
 
So what is the "minimum initial investment" to get the lighting control? A controller, some software for programming (or is that included?), specialty switches/dimmers/bulbs or something else? What's the interface between the controller and the programming computer? Another piece of hardware, or just a USB or Ethernet cable? Or is it programmable remotely?
 
I try to program my UPB network to require the least intreraction from the controller for day to day use.
 
Something like my master bedroom / bathroom.
 
When I turn on the master bath light, it starts out dimmed and ramps up (so I don't get the shock early AM).  (I also have the bath heater come on depending on the temperature if it's not already on due to the timed schedule).
When I turn on the shower light, the fan automatically comes on.  When I turn off the shower light, the fan stays on for 1 hour.
When I turn on the commode light, the commode fan automatically comes on.  When I turn off the light, the fan stays on for 10 minutes.
When I turn off the bath light, it turns off the closet, shower and commode lights and the HAI turns off the heater.
When I turn off the bedroom light, all of the bath, closet and master bedroom lights go off and the bath heater - one switch control ather than going back through the entire master suite turning things off.
If I'm downstairs, I turn it off from there.
 
With the exception of the heater control, all of that behavior is programmed into the UPB switches themselves.
 
There's a lot of little things you can do with automated lighting.
When a car drives up at night, the porch lights ramp up.
When I open the front door, the foyer light comes on and stays on for a few minutes after the door is closed.
When I open the back door, the shop and shed porch lights come on, lighting my way to the out buildings.
When I walk into the garage, the lights come on.
When I walk into the laundry room, the light comes on and when I leave the occupancy sensor turns it off.
When I open the coat closet the light comes on and turns off when I close it.
The attic light has an internal timer in caase I forget to turn it off.
When I press one switch in my shop, all three banks of lights come on/off.
When I open the door to the shop at night, the lights come on.
 
Once you start playing with it, you come up with more and more things to do with them.
 
The HVAC control and opening/closing doors or occupancy & driveway sensors are controlled via the Omni.
Most of the lighting functions I described in the master suite are programmed into the switches themselves. 
Same with the shop and attic.
They would run without the Omni.
 
 
And since the time is near, the Omni runs the Christmas lights too.
I have a routine that runs from 25 November to 15 January.
I just plug in the lights (to UPB outlets) and the system turns them on and off on the correct schedule. 
Same with the tree and mantle lights.

For HVAC, I monitor the window status.
If a window is opened for more than 5 minutes the HVAC system shuts off or won't turn on until all the windows are closed.
It also changes programs based on ocupancy and uses the outside temperature as an entering argument in addition to the temperature inside.
I have a warmup routine run a couple of hours before we return home from work.
If we've been travelling, I'll call or logon via a smart device and bump up the temperature when we arrive home to the airport so the temp is back to normal when we get home.
Same with the water heater which gets disabled in vacation mode.

I have temperature monitors outside, in the attic, in the shop and wine closet in addition to the three T-stats.
I have individual room smoke detectors so I know where a fire originates.
I also have fire sensors in the attic, in the garage, in the shop and shed.
 
I utilize a Leviton / HAI Omni Pro II here. 
 
All of the in wall light switches are UPB.  Just recently upgraded many of the UPB switches to multiload and multitoggle.
 
That said I also still utilize X-10 for this or that.
 
I also utilize a Leviton Z-Wave serial PIM with the panel.
 
Integrated into the panel is a Russound zoned audio system, Omnitouch hub, temperature sensors, humidity sensors and thermostat.
 
Works for me.
 
BTW I know of no other company that provides the features set of security and automation that Elk or Leviton HAI panels provide today.
 
The above noted I did have an alarm panel in the 1980s in my old home which had integrated X-10 and text to speech.  This panel worked fine from the 1980's up until the early 2000's.
 
Okay, I ordered a 3-dimmer starter kit and a programmer thingy from Amazon. I'll try it all out at the rent house we're currently living in, and then determine whether to add that to the new house when construction starts. Thanks for the kindly advice. Anything else I need to know?
 
Powerline is nothing new - X10 systems have been around since I was pretty young - my father was into that so we had it in use extensively.  It had its weaknesses but UPB overcomes most of them.  The Simply Automated dimmers are pretty affordable and very flexible - there's a lot of info about them in the link in my signature.  Current powerline technologies are UPB, X10 and Insteon (it's hybrid). 
 
Desert_AIP - nice list of automation!
 
I'll list some of mine handy ones:
  1. My master suite also has switches in like 5 locations, a total of like 14 switches - so on the way in/out there's a scene controller that'll turn everything in the room off.  This helps with my pesky closet light I always forget and kills the fan.
  2. The outside lights are on a timer - mon through thurs they cut off at about 11, weekends they stay on 'till midnight.  If someone goes in/out the door or rings the doorbell at a later time, the lights come on again (handy feature - getting home from a trip in the middle of the night, we can just hit the doorbell to get the lights on so we can see what we're doing).
  3. Xmas lights - have scenes for inside and out - they run a schedule, but the tree is off if we're not home, otherwise it's on if we're downstairs.  Same with the bannister lights.  Outside they run their schedule - again on longer during the weekends; xmas night they stay on overnight otherwise they follow similar logic to the front door.  This is nice - I have a dedicated outlet that runs a lot of the lights so just using it and the appliance and lamp modules that sit in a box the rest of the year and they're instantly back on track - don't have to fiddle with anything.
  4. Kitchen - technically is 4 separate loads (over-sink can light, 4 other regular cans, and 2 more energy efficient cans - part of CA energy requirements) - switches in 2 separate places, plus I have new under-cabinet task lights and over-cabinet lights.  I don't use the scene switches much but I made it so a single paddle can get me most configurations based on how I dimmed up or down - including with or without the cabinet lights and center fluorescents and any dim state - all off the one switch; can also access all that from near the sink with a half-paddle/half scene switch.
  5. Guest Bathroom - hard to explain, but this one is tricky... it adjoins a bedroom so it has two doors - one on each side of the vanity... of course we never use the bedroom door - guest walk in via the other door.  As built, the two switches on that side controlled the light over the toilet and the fan - you had to walk to the other side of the bathroom vanity where there's 2 more switches - to control the over-toilet light and the vanity lights.  I converted both sides so there's a split paddle and a full paddle - the split controls the over toilet fan and the light separately, and the full paddle controls the vanity lights.  What each switch actually controls has nothing to do with what's wired into it in this case - I don't think any of them control what they're actually wired to.  Then as I had kids and guests, I tossed in a motion sensor so the lights come on/off by themselves since my kids were potty trained before they could reach the switch.
  6. Home Office - two switches as you enter - one was for outlet control, the other the overhead light - I capped off the outlet so it's always powered and put a UPB switch in that spot anyway just not hooked to any load - then programmed it to control a lamp module that's connected to my desk lights - so they're controlled/dimmed by the wall switch.  A double-tap of any lights in the office or the office bathroom turns off all 4 switches.
  7. My upstairs hallway has a 3-way switch at each end - double-tapping either kills the whole first floor, turns off the fireplace, and turns off the lights out back.
  8. We added landscape lighting in the back yard - on a new dedicated circuit.  Inside the transformer box is a jumper wire intended for installing your timer in the box - I instead put a UPB appliance module in there... now double-tapping the rear patio light switch turns the landscape lights on/off with the regular patio light.  Someday I'm going to swap this with a full multi-button switch so that it can have individual buttons for turning on/off the fountain, gas fire pit, and landscape and regular lights, as well as an indicator/switch for the light around the corner where the garbage cans are at.
  9. I'm also about to add a scene switch in my daughter's room - as it is the single wall switch is also used to turn on/off her bedside lamp - she likes it really bright when she goes to bed, so I'm going to put in a scene switch so I can activate "Bed time" and have it dim the overhead light over 10 minutes while the table side lamp will dim down over an hour so she'll never realize I even did it.
  10. Opening of any doors including the big doors in the garage turns on the overhead lights and resets the timer for 20 more minutes - need to add a motion sensor in there too... but this makes it easier to pull the cars in. 
  11. Entering the house when it's dark out automatically lights a path into the kitchen from whichever door you entered - based on security armed status.
  12. The other link in my signature is to my fireplace control - that's a bit custom but I absolutely love it - can press a button from anywhere to kick on the fireplace and with preset timers I know it's not going to just run forever.  I do need to tweak it some more so that the fan runs longer than the flame to extract all the heat out.
  13. In the upstairs hall, I wanted a switch location that's next to a hall closet for a scene switch so I left the phsyical wiring tied to the closet light but put on a scene controller faceplate.  This eliminated manual control of the closet light so I put a security sensor on the door so the closet light is now automatic as the door is opened/closed.
 
To answer some other questions - there's a "Computer Interface Module" that plugs into the powerline and has a serial port - this connects either to a PC or an automation panel (Elk/HAI) - you can live with just one but I have 3 installed - 2 for talking to systems and one for programming - they're all stacked in one location.  This is just to make my life easier.  As a standalone system, UPB all works controller-less - basically each switch can be programmed so that when it's physically touched it will 1) do whatever you tell to the local load, and 2)send out a link (command) of some sort.  Simply put, it'll send "Link 2 Activate".  Each switch also has typically 16 links it "listens" for - and has a programmed action to perform if that link is seen.  So you set what to do when it sees an "all off" or "burglar alarm" or whatever link - and it can be up to 256 switches that respond to that link, or just one - they don't know - this trigger/action is in each switch so they all react at the same time and without any central controller.
 
Where a controller is handy is to add in schedules, or security input triggers.  There are some smaller controllers, but they're not as well proven as something like an Elk or HAI - but can get you timed events... or you can get that $99 version of Elve and get a lot of advanced logic - yea it requires a PC but I have it running on an HP MediaSmart whos main purpose is to live in the closet and back up our computers and act like a NAS for our files... I have an old Fit2PC that's the size of a deck of cards - with a solid-state drive in that and automatic updates turned off, it'll run for 10 years and never need to be logged into even - been meaning to move to that and just put it in my automation cabinet.
 
adt2 said:
Okay, I ordered a 3-dimmer starter kit and a programmer thingy from Amazon. I'll try it all out at the rent house we're currently living in, and then determine whether to add that to the new house when construction starts. Thanks for the kindly advice. Anything else I need to know?
I think everything I could think of to tell a person is probably in that article in my signature - it's a bit outdated and needs to get updated (formatting got a bit trashed during the forum upgrade too)... but the protocol hasn't changed in the 6 years or so I've been using it.
 
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