🔌General Home Automation > Other Automation Systems
Lowe's Pulls the Plug On Iris Smart Home Platform.
arizona480:
Do any of the "modern" (whole) home automation devices have "dumb" remotes like x10 does that do not rely on any modern electronic devices?
bkenobi:
Nope, not generally. The only way to control one's device is through your phone or some other internet based server cloud. You can hack some of the off the shelf devices to enable local control through your own network (iTead is the most popular) or possibly 433MHz remote (iTead is the only I know of). It is possible to build your own devices based on ESP8266 modules, but the iTead devices are really pretty well made from what I've seen and read. I only have 1 and haven't done much with it yet, but I do like the look and feel of the one I have. If you do go with theirs, you can use any local HA software on your network to control your system should your internet connection be spotty or down for some reason.
racerfern:
--- Quote from: arizona480 on February 04, 2019, 03:23:51 PM ---Do any of the "modern" (whole) home automation devices have "dumb" remotes like x10 does that do not rely on any modern electronic devices?
--- End quote ---
My Homeseer system is in-house... my house. Sure there are parts that communicate to a cloud for various reasons but none that are essential to the operation of my whole house automation. The essential functions of lighting, notifications, basic security, all the events (almost 200 of them), etc. all kept local.
I do access the cloud for Geo-fencing and a couple of superfluous things like Google Home integration. I don't consider voice control a requirement although I do use it. I have the equivalent of palmpads all around the house that allow a myriad of events (macros) to be carried out without needing to be connected to anything other than the main PC and the z-net, zigbee, CM15A controller.
I even keep my router out of my home network loop so that if cable goes down, I'm still up and running. Although the router has 4 ports, I use only one which goes to a network switcher not to a PC.
bkenobi:
--- Quote from: racerfern on February 04, 2019, 07:48:40 PM ---I do access the cloud for Geo-fencing and a couple of superfluous things like Google Home integration. I don't consider voice control a requirement although I do use it. I have the equivalent of palmpads all around the house that allow a myriad of events (macros) to be carried out without needing to be connected to anything other than the main PC and the z-net, zigbee, CM15A controller.
--- End quote ---
Ok, well I guess it depends on what you would consider a "modern" system/device. Since Z-wave, zigbee, Insteon, etc have been around for several years, I didn't think we were considering those in the list. I assumed the definition of "modern" was cloud based. If we are talking about anything outside of X10 then sure, there's lots of options available. Iris was one of them (I think it was Zigbee but Z-Wave is just a closed standard mesh network similar to Zigbee). Sticking to the z- options, you have all the light bulbs, but then you also could choose the cloud based ones too. I don't know how they compare on a price point as they always looked pricey for anything more than a single bulb lamp.
And actually, I think most people knew Iris was going under a while back when Lowes cleared out the first round of their equipment. I was surprised when the kept selling the second gen for so long when my local Lowes had shrunk the display to almost nothing. The second gen hubs were kinda cool in that they could do Bluetooth, WiFi, Z-Wave, and Zigbee as well as a couple smaller standards. I picked up the HD version before they went under a couple years back, but it didn't work well so I returned it. My Lowes still has a whole section for Nest and others, so there are still options.
racerfern:
--- Quote ---Ok, well I guess it depends on what you would consider a "modern" system/device.
--- End quote ---
It's not so much the protocol as to how it's implemented and innovated, to me anyways. IMO, the best part of AHP/X10 was macros. It meant ease of automation plain and simple. AHP is dead but other software that can still control X10 devices with easy to create "macros" could easily keep X10 going strong. Of course for me, HomeSeer comes to mind. Homegenie is fine as long as I don't need to write scripts. That doesn't mean I shouldn't use it, it means someone needs to make it easy for me and probably thousands others to use.
We're back to X10 teaming up with some company that will extend the life of X10 for another dozen years. It's unfortunate that Smartthings or Philips Hue have to access the mothership because either of those could be the backbone of a good system albeit cloud based.
The only "modern" systems/devices would be those that communicate via WiFi or Bluetooth I suppose.
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