The HA dilemma

[jennyfur]

I’ve been into HTPCs for over a decade. For almost the same amount of time I’ve envied those who had home automation (HA) setups. I wanted a smart house too! However, I was prohibited by the cost and the fact that I was a renter. Various life circumstances kept me in that bind. But still I followed the progress of different HA technologies, finally deciding that insteon was the way I wanted to go when I finally had a place to do it. It was pretty DIY and affordable. I kept a list of insteon modules to buy that I updated regularly. Now the time has finally come when I’ll have someplace to put them! Giddy with excitement, I figured I should probably review my plan and be sure that was still the technology route I wanted to go.

And that’s when I slowly came to the realization that we’re in an HA technology limbo of sorts right now. 

WiFi is widespread. It seems like the next most logical progression of HA. There are already a few devices that take advantage of it, such as wifi thermostats, though most seem to be rather stand-alone solutions at the moment. You can’t outfit your entire house in wifi devices and centrally control them like you can with z-wave, insteon, zigbee etc. But it looks like that may be where things are eventually heading. So with that in mind, I realized that spending a ton on insteon or whatever may not be in my best interest for the future. That’s when I came across this great article:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6354/home-automation-and-the-internet-of-things

It pretty much summed up everything I was thinking, and even mentioned some devices I was already interested in. It alerted me to the development of the 802.11ah standard for the so-called “internet of things”. But the time frame for that is years away, and seemingly so are some of the devices I want most (like lighting). Dilemma! What’s a girl to do… wait, or throw very limited funds at a technology that may only be viable for a few more years? It’s very similar to my thoughts on the slow death of media center. However, I wouldn’t mind buying new media center devices that may not have a future as much as I would doing the same for HA products (yes I’m looking your way Ceton *drool*). I guess because I’m so used to completely revamping my HTPC setup/software so many times over the years. 

[babgvant]

FWIW, I’m not convinced that WiFi will replace specialized protocols like Z-Wave and Insteon for many of the tasks they currently handle (light switches, locks, etc.). They do it better, are cheaper and require less power. I do think that WiFi (or general IP enablement) will supplement the specialized technologies for HA and will probably see wider adoption in general appliances (i.e. TVs, ranges, refrigerators, etc.) because everyone has these things and can realize some benefits from putting them on the network.

This is one of the reasons I went with the Vera, it is so extensible the underlying plumbing doesn’t matter very much. It can integrate with pretty much anything (expect Zigbee :)).

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