hornbyben It’s easy to worry as we base our perception on cheap consumer electronics that is designed to fail after a year or two, but items like modern cars very rarely have electrical issues, as they’re designed to last. Loxone is in that camp.

Sure! I do agree I am overthinking a bit. Although, these could last a life time, prevention and planning for the unexpected are critical. Risk analysis and solutions to address a single point of failure are what I do in my work ! 😊

    LMSC fair enough. At the end of the day, like most things there’s no right answer, only the compromises that best suit you. These systems aren’t cheap.

    I just didn’t want to see you with candles as your lighting solution 🤣.

    • LMSC replied to this.

      hornbyben I just didn’t want to see you with candles as your lighting solution

      Sure. No body wants to ! 😅

      That would exactly be my concern, should these pack eventually and there is no recourse to an instant alternative, which will always be manual switches.

      Covid has made our live so fluid and anything can happen to anyone. We have lost some close friends and family members, and some in 30s and 40s even. I am an old man, should I pack, I don’t want to think I don’t care. I want to ensure everything will work as normal as before the switch, if required.

      I am reading a lot on Laxone and heard only great things.

      Imagine a failure in winter. My family will be unsettled and furious and so I will be. Haven’t told my wife the cost yet 😂

      I need to do some serious reading and thinking. We will call an electrician first under a pretext of a routine inspection, which is over due anyway.

      I will post.

        LMSC sorry to hear about your losses. This has definitely been a fluid time.

        My wife can use the system no problem, but if anything ever happened to me then I’m sure she’d need to take out the support option from Rob. Currently I tend to do all my own maintenance and updates.

        If you want the benefits of a smart home then I don’t think you can get away from the centralised model really, and this is certainly the approach of choice for the professional systems. The distributed model still tends to communicate back a single source (usually cloud), and I think is really because it makes selling them easier (think Hue light bulbs etc). I’m not sure which approach ends up cheaper in the long term though. I seem to recall Loxone saying they designed for an 80 year life. I’d be surprised if the consumer stuff is designed for more than a couple of years average failure rate.

          My wife has told me if I ever die then she’s getting an electrician in to rip it all out 😂

          However we can at least use the light switches for manual control. and if one ever dies and doesn’t allow control, it’s a 5 min job for me to remove it.

            hornbyben sorry to hear about your losses. This has definitely been a fluid time.

            Thank you mate!

            hornbyben If you want the benefits of a smart home then I don’t think you can get away from the centralised model really, and this is certainly the approach of choice for the professional systems. The distributed model still tends to communicate back a single source (usually cloud), and I think is really because it makes selling them easier (think Hue light bulbs etc). I’m not sure which approach ends up cheaper in the long term though. I seem to recall Loxone saying they designed for an 80 year life. I’d be surprised if the consumer stuff is designed for more than a couple of years average failure rate.

            • Centralised or LAN is definitely the way forward. It is the only viable plan.
            • Distributed model at least ensures you can source from other vendors. The risk of a single point of failure is reduced not eliminated as there is a pause between switch overs.
            • Third party cloud : **** that. 🤣 Am not having it. If I want a remote access, I will add a VPN service : either a reliable one or add my own as a part of the firewall server.
            • I don’t think Laxone or other distributed servers will fail in 2 years. I would expect them to last a lot longer : May be 10 or 20.
            • My only concern is what if they go down.
            • No business is “can’t fail”. We have examples like the Mighty Lehman Brothers. It went down, people lost jobs overnight and all their stocks as a part of their annual compensation. I was affected personally by this collapse, lost almost all our life savings over the next 6 years, and rebuilt from scratch since then!

            Smart home is the future. It’s still maturing.

            simonc My wife has told me if I ever die then she’s getting an electrician in to rip it all out 😂

            She is well prepared then! 😂

            simonc However we can at least use the light switches for manual control.

            It is an important fall back option. Will have to think how. If the switches have neutral, then potentially there is a workaround. The electrician would know.

            @>@simonc″#p12897 if one ever dies and doesn’t allow control, it’s a 5 min job for me to remove it.

            on a lighter vein!

            Giphy - Searching Haunted House GIF by Brahms: The Boy 2

            This has been interesting to follow, and I’m pretty much of a mind with LMSC, certainly in terms of single point of failure, etc. .

            I might go back a stage further than that, though, in terms of Dave’s “revert to switches” comment.

            For me, any “smart” capabiliies are a function of what convenience they offer, versus what they cost. If they either offe too little benefot, or cost too much, they aren’t worth it. Obviously, I mean worth it to me. Others mileage may vary.

            That ends up meaning simple add-on devices, like smart bulbs, with or without either motion sensors (got a couple, where relevant) or additional remote switch/faders, are fine, but a whole home integrated system, to me, just isn’t wrth either the hassle or the cost. At the end of the day, we managed with simple light switches and thermostatic radiator valves for years and could easily do so again.

            Getting ‘radio’ through the internet is also fine …. while it works. But a pain in the rear when it doesn’t, which for me is far too often. Relying on smart switches that cannot be over-ridden simoly by flicking an actual normal on/off switch is not acceptable.

            Which brings me to single point of failure. Quite a few times I’ve lost audio services becaue my net connection goes down for anything from minutes to a couple of days, so a system with a remote element (like Amazon/Google) is not acceptable except as an add-on. Anything that requires on-going service visits is also,for me, an uuter non-starter, as is anything that requires any form of coding to set up, or to maintain. To be clear, I can do that, having been coding since the ’70s, but the wife can’t, and I don’t know how long I’ll be here. Could be many years, but might not. I’m not saddling the wife with that, for any reason.

            So …. smart add-on services, like lights or radio, are viable providing there’s a manual system lying behind it that can be a fall-back for someone with zero technical expertise, and even less than zero inclination.

            And because the utility of such add-ons is inherently limited, so is what I’m prepared to pay for them. A full “smart” home mght be the way of the future but not, in my opinion, until the cost comes way, WAY down, and setting up. tweaking and twiddling gets to be no more complicated than adjusting a dial on a thermostatic valve, or pushing a button on a dimmer switch. Do I want those kinds of household functions reliant on either broadband or cellular data? Hell, no. Definitely not. Nor will I accept anything fundamental, like control of lighting and heating depending on a remote “smart” company. It’s bad enough depending on gas and electricity (and water) companies, which is why I’m much more interested in home insulation, personal micro-generation (and storage) etc. It’s not (for me) viable to rely 100% on that, at least not yet, but if I could, and could be sure not be be saddled with expensive but proprietary solutions, I would, providing it was financially viable.. It’ll come, I beleive, but not any time soon. It’s all too nascent, too early-adopter, and I’m not interested in beta-testing, (or currently (excuse pun) more like alpha-testing) it.

              CoffeePhilE I agree with this….the acid test for me: If someone can come into the home and operate everything without thinking about how. Then it’s very smart….

              • A lot of my lights come on and off to a schedule, but can still be operated using the light switch, because only the bulbs are smart
              • Anything in a smart plug can either be plugged in normally, or the manual button on the smart plug used..

              I can control every device by voice or phone, or let it run to its schedule..but anyone can come in and control it manually as normal. Otherwise, I think things can become so clever that they end up stupid.

              CoffeePhilE Can’t disagree with your reasoning at all. That’s why I had asked two consultants those two questions. The mileage varies. Using a prop system carries higher risks of a single point of failure, while captive distributed systems has lower risks but higher dependencies of resellers. The market for home automation is still niche, hence expensive and the requirement to get some one to do it. It is complex too and needs to be done carefully as it could impact insurability and re-sale value.

              My wife and daughter are capable, should they want it but they can’t be asked. That’s why a manual over ride is important. A few days of candles with no-recourse to heating in winter is a no, even if you and I are around. We are over thinking , but we need to have a plan. As others advised, a couple of spare servers and relays may also do.

              This is the future; the technology will mature and I can see these becoming a norm in the future.

              I don’t want the entire home functionalities rest crucially on accessing some one’s cloud. That’s why some of us like the local / home only access.

              We are talking about convenience, ease of access and so on than significant gains. It would be perfect if these systems addressed the potential single point of failure, which is like buying an insurance. I think is a fair ask. It is also fair if the recommendations are spare servers and relays! 😊

                @hornbyben

                Questions

                1: Did you have to consult or advise the council as the work involves replacing the electrical wires by ethernet cables (PoE)?
                2: How did it impact building control ?
                3: Did you get a certificate from an electrician that all ok ?
                4: Did you advise or speak to the insurance about these changes ?

                @simonc

                1: Same questions to you
                2: You have a lot of third-party devices - heating, etc connected to homekit, etc. Did you have to create an account with each of those providers to ensure the devices work and then connect to Homekit. In other words, do you need to sign in, and need the internet to work? Example: Nest and Hive have extensive smart radiators, lights and switches. But, you need an account, sign in, etc. They can’t be configured to work on LAN only. I have an old Hive. If it loses internet, I can’t use. I need to go to the master and manually operate, which is ok. It’s a pain to switch off.

                Thx

                  LMSC We are talking about convenience, ease of access and so on than significant gains. It would be perfect if these systems addressed the potential single point of failure, which is like buying an insurance. I think is a fair ask. It is also fair if the recommendations are spare servers and relays! 😊

                  Absolutely. The target, for me at least and you too by the sound of it, is convenience. It’s not like the supposed benefit (a different debate) of smart meters, but about convenience. For instance, my mobibility is a bit impaired, and on a bad day, getting out of bed is a pain, literaly, so lights, radio, etc is a pain-reduction technique. Mostly, that’s not an issue ut it’s a deteriorating situation and that is largely why I’ve automated anything. It’s what, for me, is the real value. All I need now is a way to automate dealing with needing a pee at silly-o’clock, in the middle of the night. And yeah, there probably is a way but I’m not there yet- I’ll put up with the pain. :D

                  Yeah, I too think a lot of this will be standard in future, just like electric lights and mains was the future when thebestwe had was gas wall-lights. And,for that matter, outside loos. Oh hell, thank goodness we got past that, but I just about remember them.

                  As for the spare servers, relays, etc yeah, fair point. That’s party what I was getting at when I mentioned the degree of convenience gained versus the cost. I have much of my media collection on a NAS, and that represents a LOT of time stting it up. I have a backup server, and a couple of other backups, because the effort involved in doing it all again …. well, I probably wouldn’t bother. I’d just hook the CD deck and turntable back up. So, it’s worth a fair bit of money to me to ensure that, along with other data, I don’t lose it all.

                  But there’s a limit to what level of cost I’m prepared to indulge in to cover spare server, relays, etc for home automation and, essentially, I’m not. Any system that requires that level of system ‘infrstucture’ is too fancy for my needs or wants. Hence, the same approach as Dave …. the old finger-controlled switch is my backup.

                  This is very definitely one of those things, though, where how far to go and how much to spend is a personal choice. Some of my friends think I’m a nut for sending what I have on coffee and camera gear, despite one of them having spent similar (or, thinking about it, a lot more) on fancy fish, and even fancier watches. Whatever floats your boat. Though, I gather floating fish aren’t so good.

                  • LMSC replied to this.

                    CoffeePhilE Sorry to hear about mobility! 😌

                    I am a great fan of technology and love these kind of things. I always aim to buy the best, while my family keeps reminding me the most expensive item need not be the best. They always say this man is nuts, complicates everything unnecessarily and takes a few generations to make up his mind! 😁

                    Once this is set up, the usage is a breeze. But, complication is what I definitely want to avoid as far as the home automation is concerned. Hence, the manual on/off for absolute emergency. They would then be comfortable in the knowledge that should they fail, they can go manual and sort out the replacements. I am therefore ok getting a spare server or relay or both as back up as long as they don’t cost a fortune. I know they can call an electrician and ask him/her to swap.

                    • Convenience is definitely the most important element here. We can’t put a cost for this. Every day, we miss this lying on the bed for an example. We
                      have an automated drip irrigation for the garden except the lawn. This is a God send feature as we love gardening but can’t be arsed to water. This season, we will automate the lawn watering.

                    • Cost, energy savings and net zero can go packing. Because, home automation is expensive and we don’t expect them to save a lot of cash as energy savings. Edit: The carbon monoxide emissions from these devices 24 × 7, I am sure, will be far more than any reductions from elsewhere.

                    • Travel access for lights, TV, etc is another reason. It will be through VPN only.

                    • Cloud, Third-party access to data, etc. No way. We hate having Hive as we need to sign in. We will try putting it on the LAN; the BG did say it needs the internet access . That’s why, we haven’t expanded to their smart home ranges. It is another reason, we aren’t using smart plugs as well. This is a yet another reason, we are exploring LAN only smart home with VPN for remote, if required.

                    At the same time,

                    LMSC
                    1: Did you have to consult or advise the council as the work involves replacing the electrical wires by ethernet cables (PoE)?

                    • No, I didn’t consult or advise the council. I didn’t see anything that would require this. It was part of an extension, so building control visited the property and didn’t make any comment. It was all signed off by the electrician though.
                      2: How did it impact building control ?
                    • As above it didn’t
                      3: Did you get a certificate from an electrician that all ok ?
                    • Yes, I got a certificate for all the wiring changes. Probably the most important is that you can’t mix low voltage and high voltage. So when you put a smart switch in that runs on 24v you can’t have 240v in the same switch plate.
                      4: Did you advise or speak to the insurance about these changes ?
                    • No, I don’t see why it’s any of their business. There’s no additional risk for them. The only reason I would tell them is if you use the home automation as an alarm system and have declared that you have an alarm system, in case they don’t recognise it.

                    In terms of usability people quickly figure it out, and the only complexity is due to some switches having multiple functions. For example a single switch in the open plan area controls electric blinds, the living/dining lights and the kitchen lights. This is the main reason we got it to be honest. We can have a system like loxone and a single switch, or go traditional and have 1 switch and two dimmers for the 3 lighting circuits in the kitchen, 3 dimmers for the lighting in the living area and another 4 switches to control the blinds. Operating a bank of 10 controls would take even more explaining.

                    Mostly it just operates in the background. Blinds open and close based on sunset/sunrise and time. Some lights also come on automatically based on the time or sunset. I have some PIDs so some lights work based on them. Heating learns the dynamics of the room and knows the weather forecast, so it will only heat as much as needed to be the temperature you want when you want it.

                    From an energy management perspective they can help depending on how they’re setup. There’s certainly a lot of potential benefits, but they need to be setup. Here are some ideas:

                    • You can integrate an energy meter, and this lets you manage flow. For example you can set appliances on smart sockets (or interfaced depending on the device), assign their power usage and priority, and then if you have solar power you could set the system to run items only when you have surplus power. I’m sure if you had a variable rate electricity supply it would be possible to bring this information in too to manage the energy use.
                    • If you have PID sensors then you can use presence detection to turn off lights when people aren’t aren’t in a room
                    • window sensors can be configured so that if a window is open the heating in that room doesn’t run so you don’t waste heat (you can get controllable valves to have individual room control). I have a temperature sensor on the flue of the woodburner, so when the fire is running the heating is deactivated.
                    • if you had openable windows it could control ventilation to give free cooling
                    • auto shading can be used to block out the sun when it’s very hot, reducing the need for cooling (if you had air con)

                    You can also help protect the house. In addition to using all the sensors as an alarm. Temperature sensors can be set to indicate fire and send alerts or alarms. Water sensors can trigger alarms, or even could be linked to shut off the mains water if you had a valve there, reducing the risk of water damage.

                    Partly it’s a change in mindset. There are plenty of things in life where we use an expert. We’re used to paying to get cars serviced annually, or boilers serviced. If you think of it that way then it’s not really that extravagant. I enjoy the programming and setting it up, but I could have just paid for that and used everything as is.

                    • LMSC replied to this.

                      LMSC

                      Devices were chosen with local access in mind. Everything, except Siri or Alexa control is local. Runs on a Mac mini and doesn’t need internet. I have remote access via vpn, the company that provides the software (is a secure setup) and Apple (figure of someone hacks Apple to get to my network I’m pretty screwed anyway). I don’t have devices that require internet accounts for access or storage, or no Ring doorbell.

                      Heating is Heatmiser. Yes there is an internet account but my Mac controls the hub locally. Alarm is Texecom that has local access to the control panel. Cameras are all controlled by Mac and record to NAS. Don’t believe sonos needs internet to be controlled but as 99% of my listening is streamed that doesn’t really matter. Denon amp and TVs are all local, as is harmony remote. I also have a mesh of raspberry pie that can detect key ring tags and phones to show which room they are in and make them beep.

                      Almost all devices have manual override. All lights do. However still some issues with automated lighting. I rarely touch a switch so in some rooms where there are 4, I forget which does which. Then if kids want to turn lights off, the house sees motion and if it’s dark turns them on. You can all Alexa to turn them off and then motion is deactivated for am hour but she doesn’t understand 3 year olds thankfully.

                      Actually, my irrigation is internet and standalone. I was tempted to get it integrated but couldn’t see why. I’ve based the build on not requiring the internet and each being solid standalone devices. I couldn’t really see the need to integrate the irrigation plus I liked the sensors the Netro has.

                      Like you I have mainly beds irrigated, and one pop up sprinkler but need to add more this spring. Water pressure is a problem, but at least I understand flow and pressure better than hardness and alkalinity!

                      • LMSC replied to this.

                        simonc hornbyben

                        Thanks gentlemen! That’s a lot of useful information to digest. I am going to have to digest and come back with more questions / clarifications. You are going to hate me for sure.

                        In summary, it is interesting and promising. Two different interesting approaches, which are expensive, keeps a centrally located installations and keep every thing local.

                        A few busy spring and summer seasons for sure - doors, windows, garden work, automation project plannings and home decorations (DIY painting). My hands are full for 3-4 years at least. I wonder, when I am going to find time to design and build my speakers!

                          I must say that I’m disappointed by the pace at which home automation is evolving. I built what was considered at smart home over 20 years ago (Crestron AV distribution with some of the first HDTV devices on the market, alarm, lights and other controls over X10, IR receivers and serial interfaces). Looking at it recently, functionality and reliability are still iffy by my standards (at least based on what I read and on my experience with Zigbee devices. IP protocols only offer limited benefits over RS232 but many devices are buggy, poorly documented and with too many constraints). I can see the merit of some cheap and limited solutions (Zigbee using Ikea lights), but am not convinced by the more costly proprietary solutions I’ve seen or played with.

                          LMSC No problem, always happy to give my perspective, but I fully recognise that what’s right for me may not be true for you.

                          One day I am going to walk into a house and feel like Joe Biden, unable to turn the lights on, work the TV, boil a kettle etc…I will just be stuck sitting in a chair in the dark…not knowing the command to recline it!

                          Giphy - Joe Biden GIF by GIPHY News

                          I just Joe doesn’t get confused and shout Launch, when he means lunch, because his football (Alexa briefcase) could start WWW3

                            DavecUK One day I am going to walk into a house and feel like Joe Biden, unable to turn the lights on, work the TV, boil a kettle etc…I will just be stuck sitting in a chair in the dark…n

                            You will be alright as your set up allows manual on/off using the switches