[jqp]

So much has changed even in the last 6 months in the Home Automation market. I say market because the consumer technology is so market driven - this will be a multi-billion dollar market in the US alone.

Home Automation Market: By application

• Lighting
  
• Safety and security
  
  • HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air-Conditioning)
    
  • Entertainment (Home audio and video)
    
    • Others(Robotics, heath care)
  Home Automation Market: By networking technology
  
  • Wired home automation systems
    
  • Power-line home automation systems
    
    • Computing network home automation systems
      
    • Wireless home automation systems
    
    I have finally purchased a hub for my house, a Staples Connect. There are a few others out there from Home Depot, Samsung, Lutron (mostly just lighting) others, and still others in the future.
    
    I got the Staples Connect because it does not depend on the internet once it is set up, and it is reasonably priced. Also it has plenty of approved devices out there to actually do some automation. This hub can be controlled with an Android, iOS, or Windows 10 app, or a browser.
    
    This is not a cheap hobby, which we are used to, but it is also full of confusion and bad information, which we are also used to. Anyway I decided that I could be interested in what there is at this time.
    
    In addition to my Connect hub (D-Link wireless router with Zonoff software) I bought a Lutron Casseta dimmer switch and remote control (kind of the same interface as the switch).
    
    I am still just beginning. I got the Connect hub set up and can control it via the Staples Connect website. I am still working on wiring up my switch to control a couple of overhead lights with LED bulbs in them.
    
    This is the nature of HA at this time: there is lots of trial and error. I found that my overhead lights are controlled by not one but two switches. The second switch was one I never use and is actually behind some stacked equipment and boxes. I have had to research this scenario becuas eht eLutron switch did not work in my first attempt. It is know as a 3-way switch and appears to have "traveler" wires to get the job done. It also turns out that there are at least 4 possible wiring schemes that may be used, and so I will have to determine which one is implemented here. I know one thing for sure, the red wire connected to the "common" terminal on the switch is not the usual way to do this, at least according to the sires I have read. Usually a black wire is used for common, but here is seems they picked red where red is usually used as a traveler wire from a five-wire bundle. So this is one example of why DIY home automation is not always as simple as it may seem. But no different from audio, right?
    
    The common things about HA systems is that networking is involved (for example Z-wave mesh networking), and different wired or wireless devices are purchased to perform work that our fingers and eyes and ears would normally have done. Since there is no one standard for all of these systems and components, it can really be worse than audio. Many people have more than one system represented in their house, with multiple components that may or may not be useful. I jumped in once I felt that I could do a few things I wanted to do without spending too much money. My hub is $70 and the switch plus remote is $60. I can live with this if I can get it to work. Others have spent thousands and still have an unpredictable experience.
    
    The market is changing literally month to month. The Nest thermostat has been bought by Google and they and their Thread group are trying to push a new protocol called Thread which is a mesh network that also has IP addresses, IPv6 addresses. This is crucial since we are about out of IPV4 address and the internet of things requires the many additional IP addresses we will get from IPv6. So this sounds good but I am not going to wait until/if that protocol takes off. I am going to get some basic Z-wave things going now and assume I will later upgrade the hub at least.
    
    Not only are things rapidly changing, but things, as in the Internet of Things, do not always talk to each other. A component may work with Home Depot Wink, but not another system. Sometimes some components will work with more than one system, sometimes they won't. So as I said you have to pay to play at this point.
    
    Other things going on - the Amazon Echo can now voice control some individual devices such as a dimable light or wall outlet. I can talk to the Nest thermostat at this point and I am sure many more devices will be addded. The Echo is an amazing personal assistant/remote control device that has a very robust voice interface. I will receive mine today!
    
    Currently HA can be kind of kludgy. There is the promise that you can configure things using ITTF (If This Then That) programming but you will get mixed results. You can get crazy delays and inconsistencies in the system. I have tried to start out simple and to try to do a few things well. We shall see how that works.

[randytsuch]

Hi
So it's been a while, wondering how you HA project is going, or went?

I bought some zwave light switches and outlets a long time ago.  Some are tied to my Monster AVL300 (same as a Harmony 890) remote.  It can dim the lights when we watch a movie, and it turns on my amp and subwoofer.

The other stuff is under utilized, but I want to try HA again, it seems much more capable now.

I'm looking at going pretty hardcore DIY, running openHAB on a raspberry pi.  Not the easiest route, but looks to be very flexible, and has a large user group for support.

But the Staples Connect looks interesting, its certainly cheap enough.

Randy

[randytsuch]

Guess I'm taking over JQP's thread 

Been looking at low cost home automation options, mainly diy.

Guys are using multiple arduinos with NRF24L01 RF modules and different types of sensors, and with the RF they can send/receive data with Raspberry Pi.  The Pi runs OpenHAB, or some other open source HA program.  You can access OpenHAB from your phone through an app.  And you can also connect other sensors to your Pi

So you have
Sensors -> Arduino
Arduino -> Pi
Wifi Sensors -> Pi
Zwave sensors -> Pi
Pi -> Android or iphone

You can also add in relays and other controller type things into the mix, so you can monitor your house, and control lights, garage doors, sprinklers, etc.

I'm going to start working with my Raspberry Pi and OpenHAB, and see if I can get it to interface with my zwave light switches, to turn on and off lights.

I'm also going to setup an arduino in my garage.  I plan to connect a relay to the arduino so it can open/close the doors, a couple door sensors so it can tell me if the doors are open or closed, and a NRF24L01 RF transceiver so the arduino can talk to the Pi.  The Pi will actually control everything.

I'd also like to do something similar with my sprinklers.  Relays to 24VAC will turn on sprinkler valves.  So an Arduino in a weatherproof box with a RF transceiver and a relay module should work as a controller.

I'll admit if I consider my time as a cost, there are cheaper ways to do this.  But since I don't charge myself for my time, this is the cheapest way for me to get to an home automation system that will do the kind of things I want.  Like zwave or wifi sprinkler controllers are not cheap, at least $100 from what I've seen.  I need two of them, one for front and one for back.  Since this is an "add on", it will cost at most $20 in parts.

And I'm surprised how cheap you can get mini arduino's these days.

Randy

[EdRo]

I love the idea of an in-house system to run/control anything I might need, from thermostats to in-house cameras, but the thought of hackers bother me. What are the sadeguards, and how secure are they?

[randytsuch]

I love the idea of an in-house system to run/control anything I might need, from thermostats to in-house cameras, but the thought of hackers bother me. What are the sadeguards, and how secure are they?

Hi EdRo
It depends  .  Good answer, right.
Depends on what you want to do with it, and how you want to control it.
You can run this just from a Pi on your home network.  The only worry then would be someone hacking into your home network, or if you have wireless RF communications, someone hacking into that com link.
I think it is very low risk that someone would do this to get to your HA system.

If you want to control from a phone app, then you need to create an account at myopenhab, which is cloud based, and then someone could hack in I suppose.  You also need myopenhab to run IFTTT stuff.

At that point, you are more vulnerable.  But if you have a good password, I would think its still low risk.  I would also create a myopenhab user name that does not lead any "bad guys" to you.  So, even if someone could hack into myopenhab and see what you have, they would not be able to associate it with your physical location.

And honestly, I've just started down this path, it will be a little bit before I look into the phone apps part of this, and I'll do a little more research into security, but in thinking about it I'm not worried.

Also, it depends what you do with your system.  Controlling lights and thermostats and sprinklers, who cares if someone hacks in.
Controlling garage doors is more worrisome, and some people have wifi door locks, which would worry me even more.
I don't plan to do my alarm system through this, some people create self monitoring alarm systems like this, but I have a separate alarm system. 

I may link my alarm system to openhab to arm it, but you'd still need to know the alarm code, so it would be secure.

One more thought.  Do you really think the "typical" burglar can figure out how to hack into a system like this?  If he was that smart, I think he'd be further up the crime ladder 

Randy

[randytsuch]

Update.

I installed openHAB and habmin, and had them working, but they could not find my zwave switch.
It is an older model switch, and wasn't in the database.

I may have been able to get it working, but it seemed like it was not going to be easy, so I decided to try something else.

I then installed Domoticz.  Another free, open source HA program that can run on a Pi.

Domoticz uses openzwave to handle the zwave devices, and that appears to have a larger database that openHAB, at this time.

So far, I was able to make Domoticz turn on and off my hallway light.  I also installed an android app, so I can turn on and off (and dim) the light from my phone.
Small victories 

For the internet security  aspect, this is what I have worked out so far.
I have an asus router that supports openVPN.  OpenVPN looks to be a very secure method for my to control Domoticz when away from the house, on the internet.
With openVPN, the router makes a special file, that I need to install on any client I want to talk to the router with.  So, I would install openVPN on my phone or pc or tablet, with this file, and that lets my device talk to my router.
So to break openVPN, you need to break the 128 bit cipher from this file, and then guess the user name and password.  I think you can use longer ciphers too, I'll see what I can do.
I still need to implement this, and see how it works. 
I also need something called DDNS, which my router also supports.  This is supposed to give my an ip address, in the form of "someaddress.asuscom.com" that I can always link to.

I'll post some more once I get more things working, but it looks pretty promising at this point.

Randy