Web based home controllers?

wby0nder

wby0nder

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Matt Michael
Wondering if anyone has any experience with home controllers especially for iPhone? I need to set up smoke detectors thermostats WebCam and I have no idea where to begin
Thanks in advance
 
nddons said:
Oh, I thought this was a solution for the sequester... ;)
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I seriously thought the government was considering crowd sourcing ATC!

(I use a wifi thermostat that I can control from my phone but I think there are better solutions out there now)
 
ChrisK said:
I seriously thought the government was considering crowd sourcing ATC!

(I use a wifi thermostat that I can control from my phone but I think there are better solutions out there now)
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Great minds run on the same track. ;)
 
I look forward to reading what ideas have been developed... I see few of the commercially available systems that I like. Many of them require use of a subscription-based service, and (of course) if their business fails, you've bought bricks.
 
If you're looking for a whole-home integrated solution, something like X10 is going to be the answer. (Is there even any competition for X10? Maybe it will be your only answer...)

If a single, one-stop-shopping answer is not a firm requirement (and budget is not a big concern), then you might consider the Nest thermostat and just-announced Nest Protect smoke/CO detector to cover those portions of your requirements. All the Nest devices are linked to your home network via wi-fi and can talk to each other, so when one smoke detector triggers, the others will too (and if you turn one off, they'll all turn off). If high levels of CO are detected, the detector will tell the thermostat to kill your gas furnace. Etc. (And of course there are mobile apps for iPhone and Android to control everything, as well as a web-based interface from any computer with a browser and Internet connection.)

I have a Nest thermostat, and while I'm not 100% satisfied it lives up to the hype, I'm also not too dissatisfied with it. I really have only two significant gripes: (1) A big feature touted is "Auto-away". The device supposedly uses a proprietary system of sensors and algorithms to determine when the home is occupied or empty, and when empty, to limit heating/cooling to save energy and money. Yeah, well, apparently my habits are such that it can't determine that, so that feature doesn't work for me. That was actually a big reason I bought the thing. (2) It's one of those "smarter-than-you" devices which means even when it's wrong, it insists that it's right, and that gets frustrating. Sometimes, I want to just override everything about it and tell it "just stay at 75 until I tell you otherwise", but there's no option for that. Either it's running its program, or it's in "Away" (energy-saving) mode. Fortunately, I always have my phone with me, and it's easy enough to open the app and make adjustments.

I had similar-but-different annoyances with the programmable thermostat the Nest replaced, but I paid a lot less for that old thermostat so it was easier to swallow the things I didn't like. :)
 
I got rather annoyed with both the quality of the smarthome (switchlinc, etc...). Nearly EVERY SINGLE ONE of these I installed in my house over the years has FAILED. Their customer support is abhorrant.

I've gone ZWAVE now which is a multimanufacturer standard. I have a Nexia (originally Schlage) box that I use primarily for the door locks while I hack on the HOMESEER PC interface for my system.
 
A buddy coworker of mine and I are starting to dive into the RaspberryPi + Arduino world - specifically for home automation.

We are tinkerers by nature, so not sure how much of a 'complete' solution we'll come up with, though.
 
The Ardinos are great for nifty little control projects, but for lighting/power it's easier to interface to one of the packaged products: X.10, Zwave, etc..
 
I got snared in the web of a home-based controller once. Kinda turned me off marriage, let me tell ya...

-Rich
 
X.10 won't cross phases unless you put a bridge (which only works with the traditional SINGLE PHASE 240 split into 120). Of course, the Insteon stuff is supposed to augment that with RF, but frankly, these are exactly the devices that keep dying on me so I'm not throwing any more good money at Smart Home.

The idiotic assumption in X.10 that you'd never have more than 16 nodes in your system ,while workable, just adds a layer of silliness.

Most Z-WAVE stuff are active network participants so if you want to extend the range to something all you have to do is add a switch or light module somewhere in between and let the network reconfigure. Also, Zwave's comms are very low power (and not coupled to the power line). This means you can have hand held devices and battery powered things like motion detectors talking DIRECTLY to the devices (X.10 remotes have to talk outside the protocol to some device that then inserts the X.10 commands).
 
flyingron said:
The Ardinos are great for nifty little control projects, but for lighting/power it's easier to interface to one of the packaged products: X.10, Zwave, etc..
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I'll look into those. My co-conspirator on this stuff is going hardcore and trying to replicate the RF frequencies of some of those plug-in wireless switches.

He's working more on the home automation as far as turning lights/appliances on/off while my focus is leaning more toward multi-zone HVAC control system with a fancy-dancy custom web-based control system.
 
Guys, Guys, I'm a pilot not a rocket scientist! I want a couple smoke detectors, a thermometer or maybe a thermostat, possibly a light switch and a camera that I can see/operate from my phone. I live in the country were I don't have to worry about people hacking my wireless. I just want to know if my house is burning down or my dogs are OK.

I get the impression this is all do-able fairly easy and affordably. Tell me what to get before I go buy a bunch of stupid crap for too much money from Best Buy that's going to fail or burn my house down for me.
 
wby0nder said:
Guys, Guys, I'm a pilot not a rocket scientist! I want a couple smoke detectors, a thermometer or maybe a thermostat, possibly a light switch and a camera that I can see/operate from my phone. I live in the country were I don't have to worry about people hacking my wireless. I just want to know if my house is burning down or my dogs are OK.

I get the impression this is all do-able fairly easy and affordably. Tell me what to get before I go buy a bunch of stupid crap for too much money from Best Buy that's going to fail or burn my house down for me.
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I use one of these. Pretty easy to use.

http://www.radiothermostat.com/
 
CJones said:
I'll look into those. My co-conspirator on this stuff is going hardcore and trying to replicate the RF frequencies of some of those plug-in wireless switches.
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It would be easier to just buy an interface. The stuff is up at 900MHz and the protocol isn't trivial. It's only technically available to consortium members though there are copies of it floating around the internet.
 
I have two of the radio thermostats with Z-Wave modules, though they now have WIFI. You can also get other ZWAVE and WIFI thermostats from others (they even stock them at the borgs these days).
 
I use Iris by Lowes, which is ok for a starter system and will do all you listed. I've been pretty happy with it. I've had it for a year now and have cameras, remote thermostat, outdoor light mondule, indoor switches, motion/door/window sensors and a smoke detector. To get all the services you have to subscribe to the premium service ($10 a month) but they have basic service for free. I wished I'd have gone with a Vera system though. No subscription fee, but the components can be a little more expensive. The Vera has much more flexibility with scenarios or scenes that let you control various components than the Iris system does and you can buy components from many different manufacturers instead of being pretty much restricted to Iris components.
 
While this isn't "control", it certainly seems useful. I should note that it's a Kickstarter campaign that just started, and is not available immediately. It definitely should fill a niche, but that's just my uneducated opinion.

Neurio Home Intelligence: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/energyaware/neurio-home-intelligence

I also have a Nest for my thermostats and I think it's great, and I have Automatic for my two cars, and I think it's great. The way I'm hemorrhaging money on all of these techno-gadgets...I should just buy a plane! That should get rid of my disposable income!
 
EppyGA said:
http://www.smarthome.com/22947/Simp...versal-Inverting-Phase-Coupler-Booster/p.aspx
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Sometimes those work, sometimes they don't. X-10 has some serious design flaws.

More info (and oscilloscope screenshots!) than anyone ever wanted to know...

http://jvde.us/x10/x10_couplers.htm

Personally, I want to replace the house's thermostat, it's old and the LCD is barely readable but it has an interesting feature... it tracks hours:mins of run time between resets.

Dad had quite a spreadsheet going (which I haven't kept up on, he was retired...) that he was doing an analysis of when/how much to run the propane furnace vs. fire up the pellet stove, tracked down to the fuel cost per gallon of propane and per 40 lb bag of wood pellets. He also tracked the day's high/low temp on each day and cleared the thermostat daily for the two previous winters to get propane run-time. Didn't know he was that bored? LOL.

I looked at Nest, but while they have some "zone" functionality, they don't quite "get it" when it comes to a split propane (base heat)/pellet stove (additional heat)... the closest they get is a mode that can handle a split heat pump/aux heat configuration... and of course, the pellet stove needs a 24V power source (wall wort) and appropriate wiring to make use of a "standard" thermostat.

Let's not even get into how uneven the house gets if you NEVER run the propane...

A REALLY REALLY "smart" system might be able to control both as well as pop only the propane's fan system on from time to time if the pellet stove is being called for "high" heat (it can be thermostatically controlled for two of five available pellet feed rates/heat levels also), to redistribute air around the house. The propane system really has a poor air return design, in that it sits at the top of the stairs on the second floor right in the hallway where the heat comes up from the basement if the pellet stove is running... but, that's not such a bad thing if you just want to "redistribute" it.

Pretty much with the uneven heating options available here, I'd have to custom-design a multi-zone thermostat and control system. On a really cold day, both might be roaring along and the challenge is to get the hot air from the basement great room where the pellet stove "lives" to move around... it does go up the staircase pretty well. We also play the "run regular house fans" game a bit in the basement to get that heat to travel laterally into the master bedroom.

Ahh, the fun and games of HVAC...
 
darrell said:
...and I have Automatic for my two cars, and I think it's great.
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What is that? (And what a lousy name for a product...who's ever going to be able to Google "automatic" or "automatic for cars" and get any relevant information??)
 
I have the phase bridge for X.10 in my Virginia house (I bought the version that's hardwired rather than the dryer plug). It works fairly well with some devices and not with others (go figure). My master bedroom where I have most of my stuff (got tired of having to get up and shutoff the bathroom light my wife left on or the hall lights the kids leave on) is scattered on both phases.
 
John221us said:
My experimenting was a few years ago and I am not sure this was around then. Does it work?
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I have a version of it where my dryer plugs in and do not have any problems with my X10 devices.
 
Jim_R said:
What is that? (And what a lousy name for a product...who's ever going to be able to Google "automatic" or "automatic for cars" and get any relevant information??)
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It's an app for iPhone and Android that receives info from a small device that plugs into your car's diagnostic port. Mostly it gives me a running total of how far I drive, how much gas I use, and how much that gas costs based on local averages. There is a "crash alert" part that's in beta so I don't know much about it.

http://www.automatic.com/
 
I tried X10 years ago. It worked most of the time. Problem is noise on the line. It really sucked when the lights went on in the middle of the night. I had phase bridge and all kinds of filters but still had issues.
 
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