Control and Integration

Products/solutions to integrate and control different smart home devices

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CONTROL & AUTOMATION SOLUTIONS

Depending on which metaphor one chooses to apply one can say that the control system represents the foundation of the smart home or an “integration layer” on top of the individual devices. In any case, the fact is that each component, be it a light source, camera, actuator, etc., only provide so much benefits on its own. But if we connect the components together, many more opportunities open up, offering much more benefit. You might call this “smart home level 2” and it does require some more effort to set up, but it significantly increases the return on your investment. This category deals with ways to create this integration across components.

Like all the other categories, also here you have several alternatives to choose among, each entailing some different opportunities and challenges and also carry different price tags. As always, I have no ambition to present an all-encompassing overview of all the possible solutions out there, but rather to bring forward some often used alternatives, broken down based on which primary technology these utilize (although the demarkation lines are not as distinct as the list below indicates):

Ecosystems built around smart voice assistants

This category is dominated by three key competitors:

These voice assistants were not necessarily developed with control of smart homes are their primary purpose; they can answer all kinds of questions, give travel directions, play music or video, etc., but one of their abilities is to send commands to smart devices. This latter function is the one of interest to this site, and in this area, the three voice assistants are both similar and dissimilar. Let’s look at some important aspects of each of them:

If you decide to go down this main road, the choice among these three will typically depend on which ecosystem you already chose through your choice of smart phone (although the edges are blurring) and, if you already acquired some smart home devices, which platform these support. Regarding the latter, there are differences among the ecosystems concerning how many devices are supported, where Apple Home poses stricter requirements, previously even demanding specific hardware components to be approved. To many, security and privacy are key criteria when choosing a platform. While there are probably counterarguments that can be brought to the table, it is fairly generally accepted that Apple Home scores better in these areas than Amazon and Google. In other areas, one of the latter is declared the winner, e.g., Google is considered best at both understanding what you say to it and giving sensible answers to questions posed. It is also a trend that many smart devices developed are compatible with two or all three of these ecosystems.

Personally, I don’t try to conceal the fact that I am very securely anchored to the Apple Home platform, with my installed solutions utilizing many of the opportunities offered. But I will also admit that there are things I simply cannot get done in Apple Home that one of the others would allow and we do also have an Amazon Echo. You will find more detailed descriptions of my solutions under the different rooms in the menu on the right.

Ecosystems based on more generic communication protocols

Under this heading, there are also several alternatives to choose among, but the by far most common wireless smart home communication protocols are:

Let us also look at some common ecosystems/base stations (there are others) from different manufacturers (supporting Z-Wave, ZigBee, or some other protocol):

A logical question to ask when considering these systems and their base stations is whether you can do with just the base station you opt for or you will also have to get, e.g., a Philips Hue bridge for Hue light sources? The answer is not crystal clear; on the one hand, there are many recipes online how to connect both light sources and other devices from different producers without having installed the corresponding native base station. On the other hand, going down this route, you will most likely lose some functionality you would otherwise get from having the native base station, especially firmware updating typically requires having the manufacturers hub.

Ecosystems based on internet communication (and without the need for a physical base station)

Contrary to the solutions presented in the previous section, which are all based on using a hardware base unit for connection/integration, the ones presented below are ecosystems that form an integration layer “above” the smart components. These components must already be online through some means, be it through built in WiFi, a corresponding base station, or one of the generic platforms mentioned in the previous section. The big advantage of the internet-based ecosystems is that components that don’t inherently “speak the same language” still can be connected together to create more advanced solutions. You will hardly be surprised to hear that also this category offers several alternatives… I will only mentioned a couple of the most frequently used platforms, knowing all well that the one ideal to your needs might be left out:

The advantage of these platforms is that you don’t have to choose one or the other. They can be used simultaneously as supplements to other types of programming and if you are lucky, one of them can solve a problem the other cannot.

Ecosystems based on internet communication (and requiring a dedicated server)

The following platforms are similar to IFTTT and Stringify in that they are open and based on users contributing solutions. Furthermore, they don’t require a native base station from a specific manufacturer, but they distinguish themselves from the the likes of IFTTT in that they do require a server to run the software. This undoubtedly raises the bar for choosing this approach, but at the same time, they offer opportunities for integrating devices that cannot be achieved through other approaches. They will also force you to enter a little more deeply into the world of programming, which itself is a useful experience. I will mention three alternative platforms here, which are both similar and dissimilar in some ways:

All these three require installing the server software on you own suitable server drive. There are many options how to solve this; you can use a Windows PC or a Mac (preferably computers that are always running), you can go for a so-called NAS (Network Attached Storage (opens in a new window)), e.g., Synology or QNAP, or you can use a dedicated computer, where a commonly used alternative is a Raspberry PI (opens in a new window). For the latter, there is also a more complete solution, called HOOBS (opens in a new window), where one can either buy a complete package, including the Raspberry PI, or the software on a MicroSD card/for download if one already has the Raspberry Pi. I will not spend any space there explaining how you set up the Homebridge server; there are many excellent step-by-step instructions to be found elsewhere for the different platforms.

In our case, the smart home is primarily based on the Apple Home ecosystem. But partly since we already had non-Apple Home compatible devices installed before I even started on the smart home journey and partly since there are some automation areas that, at least per now, are unsolvable using only Apple Home compatible components, I have set up a Homebridge server. I already has a Synology NAS suitable for this, see pictures under office, and followed this recipe to set it up. Unless other ways of setting up the Homebridge server (where you must do more command-line work), this option gives you a web-based interface to install and configure plugins, see screenshots below. More details about specific solutions I have installed based on Homebridge are found under the various rooms in the menu on the right.

Status page for Homebridge from a web browser
Status page for Homebridge from a web browser

Apps by different manufacturers and 3rd party apps that offer more advanced possibilities

In the last section on this page, I find it useful to mention that for some manufacturers of devices, it can be useful to look into functionality offered by the native apps developed by these companies. In some case, you must install the app of the manufacturer simply to identify the component and/or to update the firmware of the component, but even where this is not the case, the native app can give you possibilities you would otherwise miss out on. Furthermore, there are third-party apps, for different ecosystems, that go beyond what native apps do, but in terms of user interfaces or functionality.

So I will list some of the most used apps I have installed, first as a result of having acquired devices from some relevant manufacturers:

Finally, there are also third-party apps, i.e., apps by independent app developers that provide additional programming options for different types of components. Some have been created for a specific products, for example Philips Hue, others for a specific platform, like Apple Home or SmartThings. I have some experience with such apps, in some cases only from basic testing (and often realizing that the app didn’t solve my needs) and in other cases from more extensive use:

This section of the page about control and automation has been added later, in 2022, since I throughout the years have accumulated some painful and important lessons learned that can be useful for others. Much has been written about this, both wireless networks in general and their role in the smart home, see for example this article about “networking (opens in a new window)”. It covers more topics and more details than what I address here, but my most important learning points are: