What do you geeks think about Smart Home Hubs?
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@IRJ I have loved home automation like this since the early 90's when I was first introduced to X-10 devices. Nee had many changeless to use it or its new offshoots.
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I like the idea of it but I don't like having something (seemingly) unnecessary chewing power.
As I wouldn't connect it to the Internet, the usefulness is severely hampered. -
@JaredBusch said:
@IRJ I have loved home automation like this since the early 90's when I was first introduced to X-10 devices. Nee had many changeless to use it or its new offshoots.
Did you mean to tag hubtech?
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@nadnerB said:
I like the idea of it but I don't like having something (seemingly) unnecessary chewing power.
As I wouldn't connect it to the Internet, the usefulness is severely hampered.Yeah the idea of tieing these things to the internet is what makes me not want to bother. It's clear that most companies today, even big ones, don't take security seriously. Why would I expect a small fish like home automation to be any better?
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I bought a starter kit from Schlage a while back. I can remotely control my front door lock and my thermostat. However, I also pay a fee to them monthly that I'm looking to get rid of at some point by switching to the Vera Control unit.
My system uses z-wave and works quite nicely. It's just that to add more components starts to get very costly.
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@doyle.jack said:
I bought a starter kit from Schlage a while back. I can remotely control my front door lock and my thermostat. However, I also pay a fee to them monthly that I'm looking to get rid of at some point by switching to the Vera Control unit.
My system uses z-wave and works quite nicely. It's just that to add more components starts to get very costly.
Exactly - they all want to be web based so they can keep you on the hook for monthly fees.
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@IRJ said:
@JaredBusch said:
@IRJ I have loved home automation like this since the early 90's when I was first introduced to X-10 devices. Nee had many changeless to use it or its new offshoots.
Did you mean to tag hubtech?
Oops. Yeah sorry about that. Meant to bother @Hubtech
On a completely unrelated note, I passed out at my keyboard a few minutes after posting that.
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@Dashrender - Yes, that's why I want to roll my own. I can always forward ports if necessary and access it from anywhere. I'm just trying to decide if I want to invest that much money into it. Once you get the brain, there's still every little piece you want to automate.
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It does cost money....but most of us here are nerds, get paid fairly well, and are willing to spend some of that extra income on these gadgets.
that being said..... SmartThings and Wink are free other than hardware to the best of my knowledge. The fact that they're internet connected doesn't bother me, in fact i dig it. I've already got a few of the more "expensive" bits. Nest, Dropcam, and the home security cameras/DVR. Things i'd like to add are: Light controls which will both allow me to use the dimmers and on off activity. Location awareness to know when either my wife or I pull into the garage. Will turn the lights on over the bridge to the house, turn the house lights on, unlock the door, and heck, even turn on the TV if I wanted :). I reckon, since none of use here really use the newer gen of tech, i'll do a bit of a bloggy/post/diy type thing here. i'm thinking of using "smartthings" seems to be a bit more techy and flexy
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It's not that I'm not willing to pay for the hardware, I'm totally fine with that. As I mentioned I don't trust the vendors to properly secure their networks anymore and as such I want my solution to be completely self contained.
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I got the Wink Hub free at Home Depot when I bought 2 LED light bulbs, but I can't get it working
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@Dashrender said:
It's not that I'm not willing to pay for the hardware, I'm totally fine with that. As I mentioned I don't trust the vendors to properly secure their networks anymore and as such I want my solution to be completely self contained.
You can setup system's completely internal. and if you want to acess it elsewhere just use a VPN.
The Raspberry PI and Arduinos are great for projects like this as well.
