Just a quick note. Most DIY smart homes and Pro systems are in the $10k range the difference being upfront or over time… Example Ring start kits is what $300? You can install a ELK system for around $500 if you know how… just putting that out there.
The price difference in “most” Pro systems is the labor and technical skills you pay for and most of it can be done DIY you just have to work with the dealers. FYI most PRO systems installed also use consumer hubs in their installs too. HE didn’t want to work with us for integrations and fixes. Vera has been the historic “go-to” for z-wave in the past by Pro systems and some installers still mix in ST.
Pro installed really just means Pro designed where the components are known to work well together and give reliability.
Very likely. Lots of shops that have displays or “showrooms” are Control4 dealers. They have nice gear but they are expensive. Everything is going to be more expensive than Z-Wave/Zigbee but not always significantly more when looking at the overall quality and lifetime of the product. I never worry about my Lutron switches because if one dies I know Lutron will replace it. Regardless of it being 1 day or 10 years old.
When people hear Pro installs or dealers they instantly jump to “expensive” and “can’t play with it”. Not true. Anyone that sells anything is a “dealer”
I forgot the most important wish:
KISS
IMHO it is better to have 5 apps/driver that do 1 thing really well, than 1 app/driver that does 5 things half baked.
Yes finding the right one is a pain, but the stability should be through the roof!
Something that would be a game changer would be to allow the hub to learn on its own. For it to recognize that such and such a light should turn on or off when there is motion or none on this or that sensor. No programming to do… It learns lights, heat, alarm, locks, etc. on its own with simple reinforcement.
Add to that an ability to reproduce this on its own when users are all away, and you have a winner!
I would also like it to be able to do TTS and announcements to both Google Home and Alexa. Hopefully an easier way to create “Rules” I still struggle with RM.
Not sure what is in the works for presence detection, leveraging Life360 or something in house, but I recently integrated OwnTracks with the cloud HTTP endpoint of HE and it is working decently, I have not been able to test it completely, but it is promising. OwnTracks also supports MQTT but not sure what the exact tradeoffs are, but implementing a system like that would make sense with the locally hosted and open source mantra this project seems to be taking.
Also adding built in IP based presence detection would be great for a non-GPS, non-dongle way to detect.
Also I think a lot of us use a UPS as a battery backup, so first party integration into Network UPS Tools, NUT, would be a good step to get a large swath of compatible UPS devices and being able to shutdown gracefully in the event of impending power loss. Being able to host the NUT server would be icing, but that can be done a Pi relatively easily.
I don’t know what @markus and the rest of the team have planned.
But I think it would be prudent to let those who plan on using NR (such as me) run it on hardware that will meet the demands of their desired sequences/flows. Especially because NR permits integrations with external palettes of unknown computational demand.
The built-in MQTT daemon/client will make an external NR integration very simple.
I understand exactly what you are saying. And I know for a fact that my own set up using MQ at the heart of my new red flows would certainly make integrating it using MQTT. I just wonder if building a rules/flow engine is a worthwhile use of investments given how great node red is. Also if no bread was built in then that would be one fewer Dr. container for me to maintain.
@Tmichaeltx, I can’t tell from this post if you are arguing for or against building NR into the new platform. Nevertheless, I completely agree with @aaiyar that having MQTT in the new platform is all that is needed/desired (by me at least) and it would be very wasteful to go further in the new platform.
I have no idea what will be provided for built-in apps but I am quite sure it will make HE look like a rookie effort.
