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The end of Insteon and why the smart home keeps faltering

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Re: The end of Insteon and why the smart home keeps faltering

#111

Post by lupinglade »

gh02t wrote: post #8

The reason these companies keep faltering is that they push cloud-based and/or locked in product ecosystems. Then they are either forced to a) operate on a pyramid scheme where new customers finance the ongoing costs of existing users or b) a subscription model that gives them a strong incentive to keep customers as locked into their ecosystem as possible. Either of these leave customers high and dry when the house o…

Insteon isn't closed - it had an open and documented protocol and was supported by various software. It did not require "the cloud" either. The problem with Insteon is it was low quality hardware, not a very reliable protocol and there was a lack of good software.

Re: The end of Insteon and why the smart home keeps faltering

#112

Post by jaidan »

______-_-______ wrote: post #12

Let's say I want to dip my toe into smart homes, maybe get a smart light switch or two. I care about: - privacy - staying out of the cloud (so things like TFA don't affect me) - an open protocol interoperable between vendors Can anyone recommend a good "for dummies" guide written from that angle? I know that software-wise Home Assistant is generally recommended, but how do you decide what hardware to get?

I use Home Assistant and a mixture of Z-wave and wifi devices. The way I choose wifi devices is by finding which ones can have Tasmota firmware flashed to them.

For example, in Australia, many hardware stores sell “Grid Connect” devices. This is a cloud solution for the likes of Arlec. However, most of these devices can be flashed with Tasmota. This removes the cloud and keeps everything in house using MQTT. Security is WPA2 and TLS. I run my IOT devices on a separate VLAN and use 2.4Ghz network as it seems to have more coverage and is more reliable.

Here is a list of >2000 devices which can take the Tasmota firmware:

https://templates.blakadder.com/

Re: The end of Insteon and why the smart home keeps faltering

#113

Post by pinot »

______-_-______ wrote: post #12

Let's say I want to dip my toe into smart homes, maybe get a smart light switch or two. I care about: - privacy - staying out of the cloud (so things like TFA don't affect me) - an open protocol interoperable between vendors Can anyone recommend a good "for dummies" guide written from that angle? I know that software-wise Home Assistant is generally recommended, but how do you decide what hardware to get?

Hubitat + Z-Wave or Zigbee switches is a little less hacky than HA+RPi+Dongles and ESP modules.

I wouldn’t want a non-UL listed doohicky switching 120v in walls.

Self-hosted, cloudless solution.

Re: The end of Insteon and why the smart home keeps faltering

#114

Post by MandieD »

touisteur wrote: post #104
groby_b wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason DIY is "bad" is the time investment that comes with it, and the fact that all good systems required a lot of bespoke work, which means there's a skill gap too. Home automation, when it works, is great. If you don't have the time & skill to do it yourself, the cost of having somebody do it well for you is prohibitive unless you're in a fairly high income demographic. And that's the problem with DIY - it's a…

And you might be able to DIY right now but once you've had one accident that reduces mobility or, let's say, gumption to tinker, all this can become a burden. I have this image of the Father in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, harping on his friends not taking care of their BMW motorcycle, letting it heat too much and not checking on it at every stop, while he's watching his Japanese model like a hawk, look…

While I was pregnant with my son: woo, got my Baby Buddy instance spun up, now to integrate it with Home Assistant and my idea for a Mycroft-driven baby monitor!

After he was born, through now as a toddler: Baby Buddy ensured that I really was waking him up to feed every four hours as a newborn and helped us keep tabs on fevers vs. diaper signs, because my brain is broken. Raspberry Pi 4 is just running PiHole, with IoT gear sitting in Aspiration Cabinet. I am relearning Kubernetes and Terraform. Thank God Germany has really strong parental employee protections.

Re: The end of Insteon and why the smart home keeps faltering

#115

Post by WheelsAtLarge »

Home automation needs a standard all companies can get behind. Right now, there are multiple standards so it's hard for customers to decide which to choose. We need companies to adopt one that will be the standard so consumers can feel comfortable with the one that's chosen without having to think about what standard to choose and whether it will be supported in the future. Wifi is a very good example of what is possible. Home automation companies should follow that example.

If that's not possible then a large tech company should dominate the industry. It should not be Google since they have a bad reputation of taking on projects and dumping them once they feel that their are no near term profits. Microsoft is more focused on business products so they will have a hard time moving forward with the project.

It needs to be Apple. They have the customers that are willing to adopt the product just because it's an Apple product. They can charge a premium and make the product the best it can be. And since home automation fits well with their other products they can be patient while people adopt it. Also, you can't dismiss the products design. Right now most home automation products need to be hidden from view since they aren't very stylish. Apple would change that.

I think Apple should focus on home automation as their next hardware product category. Forget the car, they have a huge opportunity in putting order into the home automation industry.

Re: The end of Insteon and why the smart home keeps faltering

#116

Post by Terretta »

gregmac wrote: post #91
Terretta wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no equivalent for Insteon KeypadLinc there are a variety of HomeKit buttons that are sold as e.g. dimmers or multi-bulb, but in fact can trigger arbitrary homekit devices, scenes, automations, etc. i’m guessing these fall in the category you say “comes close”? an example of what i mean is “Philips Hue v2 Smart Dimmer Switch and Remote” which is actually 4 arbitrary device, scene, or automation buttons that magnetic…

For some context, here's one of my old keypads [1]: controlling outside lights, garage door (status plus control), and scene control (Welcome = several lights on the main floor; All off = very slow fade off of everything). The other one I really miss was in the kitchen and had "Bright", "Dim" and "Off" and controlled lights over the island + sink + under-cabinets + range-hood + some accent LED strips. Honestly I'm no…

Agree with you about preferring real switches.

If I recall, I tried that Leviton and actually chose that Lutron Caseta one instead:

[5] https://www.lutron.com/en-US/Products/Pages/SingleRoomContro...

It did scenes, but also worked for normals wanting to press normal switches.

I forget the name of the thing I used to translate, it was the popular competing home hub in late 201Xs.

Re: The end of Insteon and why the smart home keeps faltering

#117

Post by xyzzy21 »

The value-proposition of "smart home" has NEVER been convincingly constructed. This goes back to the days of X10 remote control systems, while at the same time never has the cost been reasonable. I've followed this stuff since the 1970s and honestly it's never been worth it as a consumer.

Anything with "Cloud" or "Account" to simply use it an automatic 100% no-go for me. I was looking for a new weather station recently - the "nicest" and most elegant one required both an internet account and cloud connection plus all the data had to be uploaded to the cloud even to just access it in my house. It allowed a BLE access if and only if you were in range but that was unusable based on other BLE range limits I've had.

So because of that barrier to entry I noped out completely. If it's cloud, I don't buy!

What I actually wanted: a remote weather station with a local internet server capability that could stay off the cloud and operate if (actually WHEN) the internet goes down - we have only 2-9's on power reliability in the boonies - i.e. we lose power for about 3-4 days a year, every year.

Instead I'm now looking at "separate components" and "homebrew" instead as well as looking at "professional grade" stuff.

Re: The end of Insteon and why the smart home keeps faltering

#118

Post by [deleted] »

Crosseye_Jack wrote: post #19
______-_-______ wrote: post #12

Let's say I want to dip my toe into smart homes, maybe get a smart light switch or two. I care about: - privacy - staying out of the cloud (so things like TFA don't affect me) - an open protocol interoperable between vendors Can anyone recommend a good "for dummies" guide written from that angle? I know that software-wise Home Assistant is generally recommended, but how do you decide what hardware to get?

Home Assisant, MQTT and Sonoff devices Not that Sonoff devices are "great" out of the box for using them off the cloud, but they are pretty easy to flash tasmota onto them. With HA there are a number of plugins that will allow you to easily setup duckdns&ssl, there is a app on both the Play Store and App Store. EDIT: I run HA on a Rpi3 just fine, I also added a zigbee USB dongle which I use to control my TRVs. I also…

[deleted]

Re: The end of Insteon and why the smart home keeps faltering

#119

Post by zwily »

jvolkman wrote: post #103
_0w8t wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with remotely controlled switches is that they can be (and will be) placed in very inconvenient places. So when the remote part breaks, one cannot just continue to use them because it can be difficult to reach them (like behind refrigerator that has to be moved to use the switch or on a wall in another room).

I've never had this problem. All of my remotely-controllable switches are just in spots that people would place normal switches, but they're additionally remotely controllable.

That is how smarthome retrofits usually happen, but not new builds.

Re: The end of Insteon and why the smart home keeps faltering

#120

Post by jvolkman »

zwily wrote: post #119
jvolkman wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never had this problem. All of my remotely-controllable switches are just in spots that people would place normal switches, but they're additionally remotely controllable.

That is how smarthome retrofits usually happen, but not new builds.

Well, that seems like a builder problem, no some inherent problem with smarthome equipment.
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