Home Automation Breakdown

Since purchasing our house (or rather 20% of it) in September, I’ve dived head first into home automation. It’s turned into a hobby, as it combines a lot of my interests - computing and virtualization, lighting and electrics, and working with my hands.
A lot of friends and colleagues have expressed an interest in home automation, so I decided to put together a short guide around what I’ve done and what’s worked for me. Before I lay claim that I have derived this information all on my own, I must admit it’s an amalgamation of information from forums, Amazon.com, friends, and neighbors (hat tip to Brian, if you’re reading).

Choosing a system

This is very much a developing industry and technology, and in many ways is still immature. There are many offerings from many manufacturers leveraging different protocols and technologies. It definitely follows the adage, “Fast, cheap, or good. Pick two.” Definitely do your research as depending on which platform you choose, you can get locked in, as not all “Smart” devices play nice with each other. The key things to consider are:

Cost

Some platforms are more expensive than others. Not only are you looking at upfront costs, you also have to consider subscription fees for things like cloud storage, application or plugins, etc. Ikea has a new offering that is supposed to be cheap and easy, but it’s not extensible. Apple has HomeKit which is on the more expensive end, but requires less “fiddling,” at the expense of extensibility and customizability. Google Home or Amazon Alexa support some native “Smart” capabilities, but they’re not true smart platforms (see protocols and efficiency below)

Support

Some platforms have more community support than others, which include both troubleshooting, device support, custom logic and device handlers.

Extensibility

It kind of goes hand-in-hand with support, but open platforms allow developers to contribute to and expand the functionality of different devices, which tends to happen faster than the vendors themselves integrate their solutions.
A good example is thermostats- EcoBee (which is what I use) has Samsung Smartthings (which is what I use) support, but there its functionality pales in comparison to a custom device handler that a community member wrote. Smartthings also includes the ability to install community-develops SmartApps, allowing for advanced orchestration and automation

Protocols and efficiency

Many devices mark themselves as “Smart,” but it’s more a marketing term than anything else. Just because something has Wifi connectivity doesn’t inherently make it “Smart,” and WIFI is definitely not an ideal protocol for smart device networks due to its power requirements and design. Below is a quick rundown of the different “Smart” protocols:

1. WIFI - many appliances, thermostats, doorbells, and cameras leverage WIFI for connectivity into a the "smart" platform. While WIFI is appropriate for some of those devices (e.g. a doorbell), it is pretty inefficient for most devices. You have to take into account what WIFI was designed to do - handle a large volume of network traffic, with emphasis on throughput and speed at the expense of power and simplicity. While a WIFI plug, bulb, switch, or camera may work for your needs, they also add significant overhead in terms of number of devices, chatter, and traffic to your home wireless network. WIFI cameras in particular can bog down a home wireless network due to the low latency, high bandwidth requirements of modern 1080p or 4k cameras. Additionally, range can be limited with WIFI and you have to take into consideration distance of devices from your wireless router/access point. Generally speaking, "Alexa-enabled" or "Google-Home" enabled devices are simply just WIFI devices, which means no smarthub is required
2. Bluetooth - Apple Homekit uses bluetooth for some devices, where you can use an iPad or AppleTV as a "smarthub" which acts a bridge between a TCP/IP network and bluetooth devices. Many "smartlocks" use bluetooth to interface directly with a phone or Homekit. While requiring less power than WIFI, bluetooth has even more range limitation, often requiring line-of-sight distance from a phone or an AppleTV to work. Additionally, Bluetooth is a relatively insecure platform. The newest implementation of it supports encryption, but few vendors are currently implementing it effectively. Needless to say, I wouldn't want my home's physical security subject to the vulnerabilities to Bluetooth (ie a door lock)
3. Zigbee - a purpose-built home automation technology, it is a low-cost, low-power protocol. It is gaining popularity but is inferior to Z-Wave (see next point) due to lack of interoperability, fewer device and manufacturer support, and lack of forward- and backwards-compatibility. You'd need a smarthub (e.g. Samsung Smartthings, Wink, Wemo, Homekit, etc) to bridge between your wireless network and zigbee devices.
4. Z-Wave - a purpose-built home automation technology, it is low-cost, low-power, and has the widest manufacturer and device support. It operates at 900MHz so it doesn't interfere with WIFI networks (2.4GHz or 5GHz), although it could interfere with a cordless phone (although who uses those anymore?). Being lower powered, z-wave is good for wireless devices (e.g. motion sensors, door sensors, etc) All Z-wave devices can talk to all other z-wave devices within a network. Additionally, Z-wave devices act as a mesh network, so the more devices you have in your house, the stronger your network. Z-wave will allow a maximum of 3-hops among devices to transmit to the hub, which is nice. So you could hit a smartswitch at one end of the house, and the signal will "hop" to another switch, to a smart outlet, to your home hub. You'd need a smarthub (e.g. Samsung Smartthings, Wink, Wemo, Homekit, etc) to bridge between your wireless network and zigbee devices. I've standardized my home on z-wave devices.
5. Thread - a relatively new wireless, low-power home automation protocol founded by manufacturers such as Google (and Google-owned Nest), Samsung, etc. I don't know much about it, but a quick search shows it's based on Zigbee technology and should mirror Z-wave in terms of functionality

General Tips

Lighting

There are lots of “smartbulbs” such as Philips Hue or LifX which change color, dim, and turn on and off with a smartapp. I initially started looking at Philips Hue as an option for lighting, but quickly found that it did not meet my needs. It’s expensive, requires its own hub device, I didn’t need the color changing features, and I had read it can be unreliable. I did a bit more research and stumbled on Z-Wave smart dimmers and switches (I use GE Z-Wave smartswitches, but there are other options such as lutron). I like using smart switches rather than smart bulbs since I can continue to use traditional light fixtures and bulbs and can control the lights via apps or via the switch itself. Also, it fully supports three-way and four-way switches (e.g. when you have two or more switches in your house that control the same light(s)). The downside is you have to be comfortable with home wiring and replacing traditional switches

Cameras

I did a ton of research into cameras and ended up choosing Ubiquiti Unifi as it suited all of my requirements. Most notably:

• Wired - I didn't want to use wireless cameras for both security reasons and because I didn't want to saturate my wireless network with camera traffic
• Power-over-ethernet (PoE) - Power-over-ethernet is as exactly as it sounds - you can both power and receive camera data via one ethernet cable (e.g. Cat5E or Cat6). This eliminates the need for finding a power source or plug nearby, or worse, having to use and recharge batteries
• No cloud storage required - I really did not want to pay a subscription service for cloud storage of my video footage since I have a perfectly good (albeit old and slow) NAS at home. Cameras such as Nest or Ring require a monthly or yearly cloud subscription. With Ubiquiti I can specify how many or for how long to store video footage. Linux support for the NVR - probably not a big consideration for you, but I really wanted full control of my NVR and the ability to install it on Linux since thats primarily what I use for my home lab and setup. Ubiquiti Video NVR also supports Windows and Mac, so you'd be okay there.
• Advanced Motion zones and detection - I can define motion zones to monitor (and not monitor) to trigger recording as well as specify the duration to record Camera NVR - if you don't want to go with Ubiquiti cameras (they are relatively expensive) take a look at Foscam PoE cameras and BlueIris NVR software

My Setup

To give you an overview of my setup, I’m using the following:

• Samsung Smartthings Hub
• Using WebCore for advanced logic and orchestration
• Ubiquiti Unifi Video Cameras (for external cameras and security)
• GE Z-wave smart switches
• GE Z-wave smart outlet
• Ecobee v3 thermostats (I deliberately chose v3 since I didn't want or need the built-in Alexa functionality in v4)
• Ring Pro Doorbell
• Foscam wireless camera (for internal monitoring and recording)
• Ecolink motion sensors (for internal and external motion detection for security and light automation)
• Ecolink rare earth magnet door sensors (for door monitoring for security and light automation)
• Google Home
• Google Chromecast

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