Home Automation Architecture , Opinions, Pros and Cons

[Alexa in Canada]

This post is designed to encourage a discussion, there is no right answer only opinions.

I have been playing around with DIY home automation since X10 in the eighties. I have at times spent a lot of money on fully automated home theatres and have moved houses a number of times. I also have years of experience as a professional computer industry consultant, where standards and architectures come and go.

So what architecture or plan is a home owner supposed to start out with in 2018?  IMO there is no single answer for this, but I have some suggestions. I encourage others to participate with their experiences.

Start where ever you start. Take a look at what you have already and what you want to do next and go from there.

Safe to say everyone has remote controls for their TV, most people have too many and that is why programable remote controls were brought to market.  For me Harmony is the clear leader in this field. I used a Harmony One and it's predicecors for years.  I recently bought a Harmony Hub in anticipation of buying Echo and introducing Alexa as the voice controller. I looked at many options for a hub to control AV equipement, but Harmony's proven track record, product support and massive list of controllable devices, kept me going in this direction.

Voice control is the new thing that got me really interested in buying things recently. Google Home and Amazon Echo/Alexa have just had a massive competitive battle in the past few years for dominance. In Canada Echo was only available in Dec 2017, so that battle was fierce in last few months. IMO there is no clear winner here. This Christmas our family bought both based on slim advantages for individidual users.  In our home though, I picked Echo as the Voice control platform, because it appeared to have more open support for other system integration. Apple basically missed the Christmas buying season and may or may not recover from the gap it created.

This bring me to my main point of this thread, Open systems will tend to win vs proprietary systems. Now before people, start reacting to this point, I understand that there is a paradox in that statement. It actually takes major company resources to build a solid system, but IMO it is the way they do it that makes the difference. So far, Echos open development platform and easy to use programming interfaces, not designed to give advantage to one computer operations system is why I believe they will sustain advantages over Google and Apple who are also busy trying to protect their OS competitive base. However, I expect the use of all of these platforms will explode in the next few years. Many homes may even have a mixture operating at the same time.

Which brings me to my last point for now. I believe that a mesh style architecture will win out over a central hub and spoke type architecture. Meaning the open innovation of this area of technology right now means that home automation may be better served for the DIY person with multiple, layers of Hub control rather than one main platform, like Control 4 , Crestron or the other big offerings here. Control 4 recently introduced a DIY editor for the home owner which seems like a good idea to combat this issue. These tend to be expensive dealer only installation options. Of course people with lots of money who don't want to DIY will buy them, but they may get frustrated when the next new technology can't be integrated or they have to spend tons to upgrade the central controller every few years.  We will see. 

In the mean time I encourage other thoughts and opinions on this topic. A lot of people are looking for guidance on where to spend their money. 

[picklebreath]

Control4 gives you a great deal of control as to the programming by purchasing (one time) the "Composer HE" software.
Its not a complete DIY system it is dealer based but gives you the most control of a full HA, system compared to other similar systems.
An app exist for smart phone and is all inclusive, heat, alarm ,AV ,audio, camera's all in one app

Cons: dealer required for install and upgrade ( some of the more advance DIY techie type consider this a negative ) personally I don't. Once the initial installation and setup done I have had minimal need of dealer unless I added or modified my system physically. However not cheap but you get what you pay for.

I have been using it for 6 years and integrated Alexa "which is fully recognize by C4" and is in the skills list.
You can add a driver to your system that will give you even more flexibility in the use of you echo.

Some of the things that I control via Alexa an my HA
Fireplace
Thermostat
lights
audio
tv
My system is small and know that other owners have much more capabilities.

Cheers

[kevb]

I'm in the US. I started with X10 about 20 years ago. Over time, it became unreliable in my home. I switched to Z-wave using a VeraLite controller around 5 years ago. Z-wave is an open mesh system. Devices can be used with any z-wave controller, they are not proprietary systems like Zigbee, Hue being one example. Most z-wave controllers can also work with wifi devices like the Harmony Hub, which I also have and like. I've seen others use Broadlink, but I don't know anything about it. Being radio devices, there are different rules and frequencies in different countries. What works here may not work in Europe or Asia.

There's a lot of options out there. As you mention, if one is interested, look at what you want to start out, and what you might want in the future. The less expensive options can't do as much as the more expensive options. Less expensive also means you will be figuring out a lot of this on your own, or with the help of forums. It's more of a hobby, and can be frustrating at times. More expensive options, like Control4, Crestron, etc, are less hands on, and are much more reliable from what I understand.

Personally, I can't see the Echo ever being a "smart hub" like they are trying to sell it. It can do some things, but nothing like SmartThings or Vera can do, and these 2 are simple systems. (Homeseer is another option, which runs on a PC or pi, and is much more powerful than these.) I see the Echo as voice control, which is not the same as automation. Yes, it can do some things based on a schedule, but home automation can involve motion sensors, geofencing, etc to determine who is home, what room they're in, and adjust lights or devices accordingly. The Echo is, however, our main control over our home automation.

I have lights, thermostat, locks, garage door, AV, Hue, even those LED candles and my wife's Diffuser connected. It's also fun to just say "Turn on Christmas" and all the lights come on.  Thanks for starting this thread!

[Alexa in Canada]

Thanks for the responses so far for this thread.  There is some good information in the replies so far.

I would like to clarify something related to Alexa in this architecture.  My plan is for this to become the primary "voice" input platform for my home. As such it will not be the main hub controller. However, many of the products I am using and plan to use also have cross platform control options available. Therefore, I plan to use which ever control platform works best at any given time. 

This will mean a lot of fiddling and possibly some programming, but, it is also why I am suggesting multi layered mesh of products may be the "best" architecture.  I guess to be clear my definition. Of best is "best" function for the money.

I hope it proves more fun than annoying.

[coyote]

Some new things have come along over the past few years. Whatever ‘architecture’ you choose, consider the following:

Voice Control is no longer the future; it is now. And it will be the primary interface for “in the moment” control of your environment. So if you’re just starting out, start there. Choose Alexa or google or whatever you wish, but start with voice control. Reason being that your naming conventions should be built around the voice control system. The most natural names of things, routines etc should be assigned to the voice control system.

[asianrocker]

I've thought of voice controlling my TV through alexa and even thought I can do it since we also have harmony remote and my husband has actually programmed it already like if he press a button it will automatically switch inputs and turn on/off devices needed.

But was sad that our harmony remote is not the one that is compatible with alexa coz I called the harmony support.

Glad our Samsung smart tv actually have voice recognition. So I don't feel left out. LOL. I have to press a button on the remote  before I can speak though, better than the headache of all the setup just to work with alexa.

Voice recognition automation is not new technology though. Alexa just made it more mainstream.

[Alexa in Canada]

I've thought of voice controlling my TV through alexa and even thought I can do it since we also have harmony remote and my husband has actually programmed it already like if he press a button it will automatically switch inputs and turn on/off devices needed.

But was sad that our harmony remote is not the one that is compatible with alexa coz I called the harmony support.

Glad our Samsung smart tv actually have voice recognition. So I don't feel left out. LOL. I have to press a button on the remote  before I can speak though, better than the headache of all the setup just to work with alexa.

Voice recognition automation is not new technology though. Alexa just made it more mainstream.

I have had Harmony remotes for years. The model I have now is not compatible with Alexa either, but it still works well. So recently I invested in a Harmony Hub so I can turn TV and other devices on and off , change channels and change volume all with Alexa voice commands  For all other tasks, I can still use the Harmony remote or the Harmony App on my iPad to control little things I do when I watch TV like changing menus in TiVo.