So... which eco-system does one go for?

[icornish]

Since "Smart home" tech seems to be becoming the norm, the question is which one do I invest in?

It seems that most need their own "hub" (some newer items dont)
It seems that most seem to need their own "app"

I guess its more down to what I want to do...
1) Control the Multi-zone heating (Likely to be Hive or Nest)
2) Control lights (with motion sensors)... ie, if you walk into the bathroom, turn the light on if after dusk, then turn it off again afterwards kind of thing...
3) Remotely Turn off that TV/Device thing the kids left on...

So, a combination of Hive/Nest, Hue + something else for the IFTTT actions?
Or, can I make use of my QNAP NAS given recent news?

I'm not a expert on this stuff, more a tinkerer and a learner....

 

[thiggins]

It's a tough decision. No "ecosystem" is perfect or all-encompassing.

One bright spot is that Amazon Alexa can control many different manufacturer's systems by voice.

One thing to keep in mind that most all smart home products go belly-up if your internet connection goes down, even if you are not using them remotely.

 

[matthelm]

I'm a firm Non-Voice believer.
1. It never works well for me. (I think it's me, as others have little issue.)
2. As far as I know, it all reports to a cloud server to do the voice translation.

There are HA systems that support cloud services and no internet. Off the top of my head, both Vera (the one I just started installing) and Homeseer will work fine on and off line. You could also roll you own, if you really want.

 

[icornish]

Interesting that you mention Vera... I was looking at that earlier.
Next question would be best bulbs, and best plug switches (Im UK based)

 

[sfx2000]

There's a lot of ecosystems out there...

Insteon - which is fairly vertical and proprietary - does not need internet to function
X10 - the old school and still around... - not dependent on internet
ZWave - similar here, more open, but again, it's a proprietary air interface/chips
HomeKit isn't explicitly dependent on internet connectivity, but apps might be.

Don't forget that at the radio/physical layer - ZWave and Insteon are RF based, but then we also have Zigbee, BTLE, and some 802.15.4 stuff outside of Zigbee/BTLE as well.

This is a fast moving market right now - a lot of new API's flying around (Alexa is one of many here) and also a lot of security concerns - which is a rich market for upcoming devices and services.

What I'm getting at is that the entire stack here is under heavy development, and there's some big players and there's start ups - and things will eventually sort themselves out via market forces...

For now - find something that works, but expect that next year, it might or might not...

 

[sfx2000]

Since "Smart home" tech seems to be becoming the norm, the question is which one do I invest in?

And lastly - people have lived in homes for thousands of years - and have been fine with the sticks and bricks being what they are - people don't "need" SmartHome technology... much less the Connected Car or Quantified Self (or any of the other IoT verticals here).

But the technology is there - just be careful, and like I mentioned above, just know that things can, and likely will, change.

 

[System Error Message]

as far as the smart home stuff goes, the best one so far is one that you can build yourself. Products that rely on a hub within your own network are fine especially if you can use other hardware (such as running your smart home stuff using a raspberry pi as a hub for instance). It musnt break things when there is connectivity failure (such as a smart thermostat running wild when it cant connect to network). Avoid smart home products that require internet connectivity to function.

Alternatively you can build your own using some electronic engineering, the ATMega chips that arduino uses for instance, getting a circuit board and soldering the chips, components and sensors and the wifi bit as well would be better but requires some electronic engineering and programming which is the only way you can create your perfect smart home stuff for now.

Despite the fact that smart home products are being bought more and more few realise the problems surrounding IoTs such as the lack of security, internet dependency and other issues. For example IP based CCTVs became a botnet and ended up attacking servers so that really shows that many current smart home and IoT products create a bigger problem in their current state. Buying one now is like being an early adopter for a product that can hold you hostage or allow others to do things to you or others with your own stuff, granted that even phones, PCs and networking hardware also need to be secured too but people tend to overlook these things.

Shodan can show you just how widespread the issue is. Try searching for certain types of IoT devices on shodan, many are visible to the internet. In the past it was possible to access various IP cams visible to the internet via some sort of code on google search. Some of the cameras were public, some were a webcam in some guys/admin's room.

There are also been various articles and videos that showed the issue with cars being connected to the internet as well. Its a potential life threatening problem.

 

[abailey]

I'm a firm Non-Voice believer.
1. It never works well for me. (I think it's me, as others have little issue.)
2. As far as I know, it all reports to a cloud server to do the voice translation.

There are HA systems that support cloud services and no internet. Off the top of my head, both Vera (the one I just started installing) and Homeseer will work fine on and off line. You could also roll you own, if you really want.

I don't trust cloud services so I chose Homeseer a couple of years ago and it has been running well for me. I just have a local Homeseer server to control everything.

 

[System Error Message]

I don't trust cloud services so I chose Homeseer a couple of years ago and it has been running well for me. I just have a local Homeseer server to control everything.

Steam is a cloud service that is widely used. It stores your games, screenshot and saves. However steam doesnt operate on the concept of always needing to be connected to the internet as you can use offline mod as well. Not sure how well you would rate steam though.