Introduction to automate your house.

You have now perhaps heard about home automation also known as smart houses.
With these systems, we can control things as:

• Light bulbs
• Entertainment systems
• Voice controls
• Climate devices
• Home robots (vacuum cleaner for example)
• Kitchen electronics (Coffee maker and so on)
• Smoke alarms
• House alarms
• Surveillance cameras
• Motion sensors

In other words, there are tons of opportunities, only your fantasy that sets limits. Or is it?

Limitations

Like everything else, there are limitations to these systems, but it’s getting better as the day goes by. The biggest problem I would say is those home automation systems are suffering from platform-fragmentation pFragmentation is that companies offers products of multiple highly-incompatible technologies or technology stacks,
forcing buyers of a single product to commit to an entire product ecosystem. and lack of technical standards.

So I can’t use some of my smart-devices then? 

The ugly truth is maybe yes, but it depends on your devices and what system you choose to use. I have tested out a Home Automation System called Home Assistant (Hass.io) for some time now and I’m very satisfied with that platform. It’s open-source so there are no secrets behind the scenes. One of the big carrots for this platform is that its community-driven, so developers from all corners on the globe are creating components for the system. Pretty cool right?

But is it safe to use? Am I sharing all my habits online?

Safe to use? Well it depends on your usage, you can set up access from online, but then you are vulnerable for outside hackers. Out of the box the system is only located on your local network, which is the best move I would say. Just make sure that you have a good protection of your home network, then you’re good to go.

And no all data on the system is all yours! The data on the system is only stored on your local system, so no big brother breathing down your neck to «optimize your experience».

So the conclusion is?

I will say plus one for this solution, it’s fun to set up your personalized system for your little castle. Some people say that this is the next step laziness and «Well, I am well capable to stand up and go down and turning off the kitchen lights. This is DUMB». I would say that this is people that haven’t got the bigger picture of what the system is capable of.

+ Multiple systems at one place
+ All personal data is yours
+ The price I would say

– Platform fragmentation
– You need some developer skills to manage the system for your needs.