Comment by twothamendment | Hacker News Reader

Comment by twothamendment | Hacker News Reader

I've taken a very different path to a smart home - and I don't have any regrets. First - the house was built as any dumb-house would be - 3 and 4 way switches really are, with copper in the walls. I wired for alarm, but didn't bother to hook it up right away.

What is working now? The alarm is connected to a raspberry pi so I can hook into it. Now it arms/disarms at a set time each day so I don't have to remember to do it. It can text/email me when states that I care about have changed - like when the power is out, or the alarm goes off.

Z-wave - for a few light switches that really matter to me, mostly outside lights. Most are on a cron job to do what I want, but a web UI lets you take control.

Wi-fi thermostat with an API - no 3rd part website needed. Why can't they all be this way? I can turn the system off when I'm out of town and fire it up before I get home. I also wrote some stuff to log usage each day along with the weather. Adding the alarm system status with the HVAC status and it will text me if the A/C is running and a window is open.

Garage door, custom GPIO hack to the opener. Now with the alarm status it can make sure it is shut each night. I can open/close it from a web page, but that is rarely used.

Alexa skill - this is the latest piece and the only one that needs Internet to keep working (except sending email, of course). It ties into all the other pieces and gives voice control to the parts that make sense for me. I won't let it disarm the alarm, I just don't trust a 3rd party to do that.

I pieced this together so I could learn and have something to play with, but now it is just nice. The best part is if something quits working, I'm not left in the dark like the guy in the article - I just have to get off my butt and hit the light switch or walk out and open the garage door.

I have something against smart home stuff that requires the company to stay in business and keep their servers up and running, but that comes at a cost - I have to roll my own. At least I know who to complain to when it is broken.

> Wi-fi thermostat with an API - no 3rd part website needed. Why can't they all be this way?

Because without that third-party website the company selling you the gear (hopefully) has no access to the data you are generating — anything from trivial and benign telemetry to full-scale data harvesting. The vendor can also easily reach you for advertising new products and services, because you keep coming to them. For some vendors this may be an integral part of their business model.

Technically, it is also harder to let you turn on the thermostat from 100km away if you have to host the API yourself; not all ISPs support hosting your own services (some even forbid it). That third-party website is much easier to host, and if your smart appliance cannot be reached directly by calling its API, it can probably still poll its vendors central service to see if any commands are waiting for it.

Your raspberry pi note is interesting. My house has an alarm system in place from the previous owner which I've turned off and is not in use. I've been curious to know if there was anyway for me to utilize the fairly complete set of sensors without involving the original alarm company.

Both GE and Ademco alarms appear to be fairly easy to interface with from a computer, and they have decently vibrant open-source communities. I plan to go that route when we replace the alarm.

(Some communities let your alarm connect directly to the police department without a third party in the way. Making this work without a real off-the-shelf alarm controller is probably an incredible pain.)

I'm using an AD2USB (http://www.alarmdecoder.com/catalog/product_info.php/product...) to get an old school Ademco Vista 20p hooked up to the pi. Once you do that they have a decent python project (https://github.com/nutechsoftware/alarmdecoder).

Thanks to projects like these, the old, hardwired systems can be connected and be useful for more than they were intended. I don't mind my vista 20p once it is up, but they can be pain to setup the way you want. The good news is, once you do that you likely will never touch it again.

What brand is your thermostat?

the Radio Thermostat brand will let you do this. I have a CT50.

I had a CT-30 with wifi module in my previous house. It was flawless. I have two CT-80s in my house now and so far I've only been able to get one of them to work with wifi. Support from this company is mostly "You didn't buy from us and don't have your receipt? Goodbye".

I really like their product when it works, but I'm having a hard time deciding if I want to put down the cash to buy a brand new unit from them so I have support or gamble on 3 ebay units and hope one works.

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