Why Is My Smart Home So Dumb?

This article made me think about these idea for a bit. I thought of something that may not be very practical right now, but could be a way forward for these things. I think what a really good home automation system ought to do is a bigger version of what the Nest does.

All of the light switches, blinds, alarms, climate control, music, TVs, etc could be manually controlled at first, but there's a system that watches how you change all of them and coordinates it with your location and the time. It could look for patterns of doing several things in a row or doing them at the same time, and either offer to or just start doing them all together for you. Like you normally turn on lights 1, 2, and 3 when you walk in the door from work, so it notices and starts turning them on for you just from opening the door. Or you normally turn off lights 2 and 3 and turn on the DVD player within 5 minutes of each other, so it starts just turning off those lights when you turn on the DVD player.

Basically, something that notices what you already do and tries to do it for you, without you having to program things in with a smartphone or something. I bet normal people would love that. As long as it wasn't laggy and buggy, of course, which could be easier said than done.

Right, open standards. I think there's an XKCD comic about this...

There's no "open standard for wireless control of a light", because there's not one standard way to do it. For a dollar in parts, I can build a wireless light switch that uses 433 MHz, just like your wireless doorbell.

Oh, you wanted a network of addressable lights? Well now it's a dollar fifty. We'll move to 900 MHz and switch to a ZigBee radio.

Oh, you wanted to address them through WiFi? Well, here's the problem. Light bulb's don't have keyboards to enter your AP+Key. You could try and use WPS with a fixed pin code, but there's another issue. Putting an embedded Linux device that handles POST requests in a lightbulb is rather silly. We'll keep the ZigBee radios, and build a crossover "base station" that has a RESTful XML based JSON buzzword complaint interface.

Did I mention my ZigBee radio only talks with my brand of ZigBee radios?

The problem in making a standard comes down to the radios in the lightbulb. That interface will likely always be proprietary. Even if you get a standardized web interface, no one will be able to make a universal base station for all "smart" electronics. Wink is trying to do that, best of luck to them. I don't see it happening.

http://thegadgetflow.com/blog/wink-wants-new-standard-smart-...

I think the main thing that's lacking is good AI for these devices to work well together. The Nest does it pretty well, but the rest of these devices clearly don't.

As an example, I'd love blinds that knew my phone's alarm time and started letting in more light shortly before then, so that I can wake up then, without being woken up well before then.

I've already made windows that open and close based on the outdoor temp and forecast, to store up thermal energy (or lack of) in anticipation of the highs/lows later that day. These could work with blinds to let in/keep out sunlight, depending on the system's thermal needs. You could also tie in awnings.

Between these, you could have self regulating temperature with much less energy use than depending on a traditional HVAC system.

I am now on my 4 controller "Smartthings (ST)" after dumping Nexia my 1st and for many reasons such as compatibility and monthly costs et cetera, then Micasa Verde whcih was okay but not the creates their tech support sucks and more incompatibility issues, then Indigo6 which was okay for a year but they drove me nuts refusing to speak to my doors locks (schlarge) and had to use vera bridge which couldn't keep proper track of the state of the doors.

All the while I was researching a stand alone controller backed by a big company like google, apple or samsung. Then I found ST backed by Samsung.

So here we are. migrated and all. Learning how to deal with MODES OMG. No variables I can set to do things.

You're completely right. My original comment wasn't really fair to the Nest alarm device. It clearly does have it's benefits, but not enough for me to overcome the potential issues with the device. I don't think the cost is that terrible, but I don't entirely trust its reliability and durability. A $100 smoke detector is fine if I don't have to worry about buying another smoke detector for a long time, but I don't trust the Nest to provide that longevity.