1-Ring

THE ALM

Another project to keep an eye on, might be of interest to early adopters.
1-Ring If I had some spare funds running up to Christmas I would be tempted.

Keeping an eye on this and other aio hubs to see how they progress. If they likes of this or the Echo Plus, Homey etc could provide all the functionality of the individual products it would be fantastic.

bk

Cooooooool! That looks awesome, though I'm not sure how practical it really is.

As for an all in one hub, I'm now convinced that they will never be as good as standalone hubs and then integrating them at a higher level like GHome, Alexa, IFTTT, Stringify or Home Assistant.

wexfordman2

bk wrote: »

Cooooooool! That looks awesome, though I'm not sure how practical it really is.

As for an all in one hub, I'm now convinced that they will never be as good as standalone hubs and then integrating them at a higher level like GHome, Alexa, IFTTT, Stringify or Home Assistant.

I think over time, a single hub will be workable, and makes sense tbh. Not overly convinced about the stuff thats comming out now though, I think it will take a bit more time for the market to mature.

There are "hubs" out there that function very well and interface to lots of protocols and are very stable, but complex to configure and setup. Whats needed is one that is plug and play, idiot proof and with a simple user interface.

A home hub should give you 98% of your IOT functionality without having to rely on external servers, that would be the goal I think.

THis one, I think is a bit of a gimmick, who wants a floating camera ?

bk

Short of a massive company like Google, Amazon or Apple doing it, I don't think anyone else will be able to do it. I think it would just take too many resources, namely skilled developers.

Stop and think about it, we aren't just asking that you can integrate different devices at a basic level, we are asking that hundreds of different devices from hundreds of companies to be integrated by the developers of the hub!

Think about just Philips Hue, think about how long that has been out and how it has matured and how much effort it's developers have put into it. Now think you are asking the developers of a hub to basically re-write all that software themselves and now think you are asking those same developers to do the same for Nest products, Netatmo, Tado, Hive, Evohome, TP Link, Logitech Harmony, Circle, etc. etc.

It would be almost an impossible job for anything short of a MASSIVE development team, certainly impossible for a small kickstarter company with one or two developers.

Even Google, with all their resources aren't trying to do this. Instead they are taking a smarter and much easier approach of defining generic API's for each category of products, e.g. lights, plugs, cameras, washing machines, etc. and then releasing them and letting the developers from each company integrate into that API.

This is how they have been able to add so many devices so quickly. They are averaging the efforts of hundreds if not thousands of developers from other companies, rather then doing it themselves. Smart

Where I do see a small possibility of an all in one hub developing from is maybe from Home Assistant or similar. From an open source community and the efforts of hundreds of developers volunteering their time to it.

But I'm not sure how user friendly that is and it mostly still uses other companies hubs anyway. So not quiet what you are looking for.

THE ALM

I think, unless you have a dedicated space/room, then a single hub would make sense alright otherwise you end up with a shelf full of all the various gadgets and cables and then needing sockets etc to power them all.

Certainly if ever building a house this would be the way to go with a centralised location unlike now where I am trying to retrofit everything, thankfully, as in a bungalow, access is good so not as big a job as for some and there is a bit of room to feed cables down existing conduits, just need the time to do it now as I have all the gear sitting ready for several months. The way things are progressing at the minute you could have 4-6 hubs in no time.

And who doesn't want a floating camera!

THE ALM

true bk, it would require a lot of work, just playing around with home assistant here as taken some time and some trial and error. Ideally if I can get everything hidden away, unlike now, and get automations set up for when home then I would be happy enough, then set up voice control and I may never have to get up of me ass!!!

bk

THE ALM wrote: »

I think, unless you have a dedicated space/room, then a single hub would make sense alright otherwise you end up with a shelf full of all the various gadgets and cables and then needing sockets etc to power them all.

Thing is I suspect most people do have the space. I live in a two bed apartment and still have the space. And in the end I don't actually have that many hubs. Hue, Netatmo, Harmony, MiHome and Xiaomi, not really that big of a deal. In the end just one power strip houses them all *

And the latter two are just me playing around, not really needed.

My old fashioned alarm system and fuse board takes up WAY more space.

If space was really at a premium, you could focus on wifi only devices, Logitech Circle, TP Link plugs and bulbs, Netatmo can be powered from the boiler. Only Logitech Harmony is the only one that has to be a Hub, due to IR blasting.

* To be honest, what takes up my space is my NAS, AV, various game consoles, PC, etc. The hubs are pretty much nothing compared to all that.

wexfordman2

bk wrote: »

Short of a massive company like Google, Amazon or Apple doing it, I don't think anyone else will be able to do it. I think it would just take too many resources, namely skilled developers.

Stop and think about it, we aren't just asking that you can integrate different devices at a basic level, we are asking that hundreds of different devices from hundreds of companies to be integrated by the developers of the hub!

Think about just Philips Hue, think about how long that has been out and how it has matured and how much effort it's developers have put into it. Now think you are asking the developers of a hub to basically re-write all that software themselves and now think you are asking those same developers to do the same for Nest products, Netatmo, Tado, Hive, Evohome, TP Link, Logitech Harmony, Circle, etc. etc.

It would be almost an impossible job for anything short of a MASSIVE development team, certainly impossible for a small kickstarter company with one or two developers.

Even Google, with all their resources aren't trying to do this. Instead they are taking a smarter and much easier approach of defining generic API's for each category of products, e.g. lights, plugs, cameras, washing machines, etc. and then releasing them and letting the developers from each company integrate into that API.

This is how they have been able to add so many devices so quickly. They are averaging the efforts of hundreds if not thousands of developers from other companies, rather then doing it themselves. Smart

Where I do see a small possibility of an all in one hub developing from is maybe from Home Assistant or similar. From an open source community and the efforts of hundreds of developers volunteering their time to it.

But I'm not sure how user friendly that is and it mostly still uses other companies hubs anyway. So not quiet what you are looking for.

Was thinking the same thing myself BK, the likes of home assistant are probably the closest to an all in one hub at the moment, but not easy to use.

There are projects and products which are capable of being a single hub, but they just hav'nt got that usabiltiy factor, the plug and play type configuration that it needs to be at.

As an example in addition to home assistant, I have a "hub" which is very capable of interfacing to most home automation interfaces, its very stable, very reliable, but not something that the average user could configure.

So, the concept I think is proven, there are solutions out there, but they havnt taken the leap to be user friendly and user configurable.

If you think about it though, the multi hub solution is also not really that user friendly once you go beyond the simply turn a light on and off again. Once you try and get some real clever stuff behind it, and then you have to go and integrate to IFTT, Smart Things, Hue etc, its cool, its great fun, but its not easy to the point that it should be, or needs to be. Thats why I think an all in one hub is needed, and will probably come eventually.

wexfordman2

Also, was thinking, maybe we get confused with what defines a hub.

A hub, could be ST, HUE etc, but a centralised hub, would be something that just talks to them all, and consolidates them into one overall logic device, making the hue hub nothing more than an interface to hue lights. So maybe the requirement is a centralised logic hub, that can talk to various different interfaces such as HUE, ST, KNX, Lightwave RF etc.

I suppose when you think about it, Smart things is aiming to bring everything into one logic controller/hub ?

A centralised logic hub would not need to have a zwave interface, a zigbee interface etc, it just needs to be able to talk the a zwave/zigbee gateway sich as st/hue ?

THE ALM

Yeah not everybody want to starts messing around with home assistant etc and are just looking a simple plug and play set up, it wouldn't be my area of knowledge but do enjoy learning about it and setting it up whereas me better half just wants to know if she can use it easily. I think the people on this particular forum would have a greater interest in all this but would imagine the average user, once the installer has left, just wants it to work.

You are right bk, we probably all have the space it is just the untidiness of it all if it can't be easily tucked away, again something I am trying to remedy.

bk

wexfordman2 wrote: »

A hub, could be ST, HUE etc, but a centralised hub, would be something that just talks to them all, and consolidates them into one overall logic device, making the hue hub nothing more than an interface to hue lights. So maybe the requirement is a centralised logic hub, that can talk to various different interfaces such as HUE, ST, KNX, Lightwave RF etc.

Well this seems to be the way Google Home/Assistant and Alexa are going.

Both seem to be adding routines, depending on how to design their routines, they could end up doing most of what most people want, allowing integration at that level. Though of course that means you still have multiple hubs and it isn't all within your own network.

wexfordman2

bk wrote: »

Well this seems to be the way Google Home/Assistant and Alexa are going.

Both seem to be adding routines, depending on how to design their routines, they could end up doing most of what most people want, allowing integration at that level. Though of course that means you still have multiple hubs and it isn't all within your own network.

Multiple hubs I could live with, but a controller would need to have the logic engine local, ie not dependent on internet connection.

bk

wexfordman2 wrote: »

Multiple hubs I could live with, but a controller would need to have the logic engine local, ie not dependent on internet connection.

And that is where you start to run into issues. So GH/Alexa, process your voice out on the cloud, so if you are using those you are going to need a internet connection anyway.

And then you have things like wifi plugs which often seem to use cloud services.

And even some badly written hubs even need an internet connection to work!

It is all a bit of a mess to be honest.

Apple is the only company who seems to be trying to do this right. Homekit requires all devices communicate with iOS locally only over wifi, no cloud services required. If they bring out their speaker with hub functionality built in, then it might be exactly what you are looking for.

But it does come with a cost, it makes it much harder to integrate with, which is partly why it has taken HomeKit so long to take off and it still supports far less devices then GH or Alexa. Also Apple stuff is a lot more expensive!

But maybe they will get it right and it will be a case of the tortoise and the hare.

wexfordman2

bk wrote: »

And that is where you start to run into issues. So GH/Alexa, process your voice out on the cloud, so if you are using those you are going to need a internet connection anyway.

And then you have things like wifi plugs which often seem to use cloud services.

And even some badly written hubs even need an internet connection to work!

It is all a bit of a mess to be honest.

Apple is the only company who seems to be trying to do this right. Homekit requires all devices communicate with iOS locally only over wifi, no cloud services required. If they bring out their speaker with hub functionality built in, then it might be exactly what you are looking for.

But it does come with a cost, it makes it much harder to integrate with, which is partly why it has taken HomeKit so long to take off and it still supports far less devices then GH or Alexa. Also Apple stuff is a lot more expensive!

But maybe they will get it right and it will be a case of the tortoise and the hare.

If my internet goes down, I can live without having voice control until it comes back, that's fine, but the guts of my home should still work.

I'm comparing my setup over the last 15 years, it's not dependent on any outside services, if I can't get broadband, if I lose my broadband, or if i dunno, I cancel I for financial reasons, then my smart home still works.

If I lose voice control, its no biggy, but everything else would work.

I think anyone who builds or integrates smart technology into a house that won't function as normal without a internet connection is a bit mad. I wouldn't touch any device that didt provide full local control with a barge pole.

bk

I agree completely, that is why I've chosen the systems I have. I've switched off my broadband modem to test it (wifi router still on).

Hue, Harmony, TP Link plugs, Netatmo, all continue to work well.

In fact even without wifi, all of the above except TP Link plug continues to work with their physical controllers (Hue switches/motion sensors, harmony remote, Netatmo thermostat).

The only device that has disappointed in this regard is the Energenie MiHome hub and plugs, despite being a hub, it stops working without broadband! As a result they have been demoted to just Christmas lights control.

So yes while I've done a lot of routine integration with GH and Stringify, it is nothing too important that wouldn't continue to work without broadband (perhaps in a less convenient manner).

As an aside it is also the reason why I warn against using IP cameras as the sole baby monitors. Traditional audio only monitor + IP camera gives the best reliability.