This is the first part of many (definitely more than one) of my home automation journey and will act as an anecdote of my experience while trying to setup the home automation. It may not be informative but surely would provide an insight of what not to do.
Yup thats me, you probably wonder how I got here.
Year 2019
The year 2019. I moved into new place and my family was away for a while. It allowed me plenty of time to day-dream and fall into this rabbit hole. Marvel’s Avengers Endgame released, (If you’ve not seen it yet! mandatory spoiler alert) Iron Man was no more and I wanted Jarvis/Friday of my own.
It was tough to decide a winner among voice assistants. I got both Google Home and Amazon Alexa, albeit the cheapest ones. There were mere voice assistants and contained no built-in hub for any of the automation. They came with their own set of strengths and weakness. It provided a good gateway understand merits of each platform. Google Home was great with weather, news and directions (pushed to phone if use Google Maps). On the other hand, Amazon Alexa came with wide variety of integration and better sound quality for media consumption. With Nvidia Shield (2017) with Android TV, I could basic built routine to turn TV off at pre-defined time.
Hubs Incoming
This was the first time I came to know about Zigbee & Z-Wave. There were many Zigbee & Z-Wave products in the market and apparently I was late to the party and it was just choosing a hub. I did not want to be locked into one platform and wanted it to be accessible out of home and across devices. I had few options:
- Google Home with hub – a great platform and I’m using many of its services. It was a great fit to start with.
- Amazon Alexa with hub – a forerunner in home automation and integrated with multiple developer supporting it. It is a no-brainer to start home automation.
- Samsung Smartthings hub – Backed by Samsung and overall a better solution due to support for multiple supported protocols and integration.
- Philips Hue – Some automation and Philips branded hardware and only with support for Homekit.
Marketing won and I chose the obvious, Philips Hue. On the flip-side, it was in a deal and came with light bulbs for quick start. It connects to Google, Amazon, Smartthings and Apple Home. Philips Hue ticked all boxes for me: voice commands via Google Home & Amazon Alexa and location aware automation. The biggest problem was it needs a direct LAN connection. My router had 2 LAN ports and this was a premium to pay. Yes, I love LAN ports.
Cracks in the system
I was never fond of a system which is required to be connected to internet all the time and that with a physical connection. The silver lining was it was Apple Homekit compatible and I didn’t need to install any separate app and home automation would work. Coming late at night and lights turn on automatically for you was like magic – no more switches hunting in dark.
Philips Hue lights were not the brightest of the lot. Cheaper wi-fi bulbs were brighter and vibrant. As part of Philips Hue deal, it came with a remove called Hue Dimmer. I couldn’t use it to fullest considering I could ask Google or Amazon otherwise access from mobile.
Everything was seemingly perfect. An iPad acting as home hub, mobile for location access. If I forget to turn of the lights while out of home, no problem. Got few wi-fi smart plugs to control non-essential lamps and floor fans. It was in not a big home automation but worked for me.
The crash
Apple came up a brilliant idea to impove Home hub or rather sell more of them. iPad can no longer be used as home hub. You needed more Apple devices and pay more Apple tax all the while being sucked deeper into the ecosystem. I had nothing to worry, as long as I didn’t hit the shiny “Upgrade” button.
That’s exactly what I did. Kaboom! Now I’m back to square one.