[HH] Home remote control - not exactly hardware hacking.

Wed Dec 7 22:50:48 EST 2011

Any experience on this list with the following?

Z-Wave USB devices:
http://www.z-wave.com/modules/Products/?id=54&chk=0f048a0c1b1b9bfc5a733ca6d53fb254

Z-Wave Commander:
http://melloware.com/products/zwave/

-Nilanjan

From: Kurt Keville
Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2011 4:44 PM
Subject: Re: [HH] Home remote control - not exactly hardware hacking.

I saw a bunch of Home Automation products built around PlugComputers at the Marvell PlugIN a year or so ago... http://www.amahi.org/ was one of them... I think you need a halfway decent wireless system in your house for this class of products...

On Dec 7, 2011, at 2:21 PM, Tom Metro wrote:

Jerry Feldman wrote:

Tom Metro wrote:
I recommend starting small and simple. If you go Z-Wave start with one
of these:
http://www.amazon.com/Intermatic-HA07C-Settings-Wireless-Control/dp/B000BRGU2E/

...it is a pain to change the setting on the time change as well as
adjust for sundown.

The above timer actually supports a sunrise and sunset timer setting,
which theoretically further eliminates the need to make timer
adjustments. I found the feature a bit unpredictable, and limiting
because it didn't support setting an offset. (Maybe you want it to turn
on later, because the sun sets later at your lat/lon. Or maybe you want
it to turn on a bit earlier because it is an indoor light on a shaded
side of your house that gets darker before sunset.)

So I ended up just programming in fixed times, which I adjust a few
times a year.

Ultimately I want it to be driven by light sensors, so when you have a
dark rainy day like today, the lights come on earlier.

What I would like to do more long term is to control the thermostat.
My current thermostat is good, but very few compensate for holidays.
Additionally, if I am away from home and I forget to set it for
vacation, with home automation I would be able to.

Check out this thermostat:
http://www.nest.com/

It costs $250 (currently sold out). Has an iPhone inspired UI (and 320 x
320 pixel color display). It learns your usage patterns so you don't
have to manually program a setback schedule.

The site says it has an "activity sensor" to tell when people are
around, but they don't specify the technology. There's no visible PIR
sensor on the face. (Specs say it has proximity, near-field, and
far-field sensors, plus ambient light sensor.)

It is WiFi connected and will use weather data to adjust its settings.
As you'd expect it also lets you remotely control the thermostat via an
account on the manufacturer's web site (and via mobile apps.). (And that
likely means the feature will become useless if the manufacturer goes
out of business. I understand why companies favor this approach, but I
hate it. No mention of an API or hacker community, but they may exist.)

Specs say it supports Zigbee wireless networking in addition to WiFi.
(Zigbee is structurally similar to Zwave, and is sometimes used for home
automation, but it is a general purpose communication protocol, and
lacks a home automation specification, so random devices from different
manufacturers don't work together. They probably use it for
inter-thermostat communication so that functionality would work
independent of the availability of WiFi.)

While it may be the most stylish thermostat you can find, and even comes
with its own stylish screwdriver, $250 is pretty pricey. And it
supposedly works best when you link multiple of them together (up to
10). I imagine you'd need to spread a few around your house in order for
the automatic away detection to work well, unless you happen to walk by
your thermostat a lot when you are home.

On the more practical side of things, you can get a GE Zwave thermostat
for $60:
http://www.safemart.com/GE-Security-Wireless/GE-Z-Wave-Wireless-Thermostat-IS-ZW-TSTAT-100.htm

2Gig (an alarm panel mfgr) Z-STAT Z-Wave Programmable Thermostat for $88
http://www.amazon.com/2Gig-Z-STAT-Z-Wave-Programmable-Thermostat/dp/B004MM4800/

Trane for $126:
http://www.amazon.com/TZEMT400BB3-Remote-Energy-Management-Thermostat/dp/B0052MHPP4/

Honeywell for $159:
http://www.amazon.com/Honeywell-TH8320ZW1007-Enabled-Programmable-Thermostat/dp/B005EJ7YO2/

When I last looked into Zwave thermostats a few years ago, the
Wayne-Dalton model was the most popular choice (due to selling for under
$100), but got complaints about a cheap plastic enclosure that broke
easily. Looks like it has since been discontinued.

The Trane was the next option, but that the time sold for over $200.
They've come out with a new model and dropped the price (reviews seem
positive).

The others are newer to the market. The GE one is made to work with
their alarm panels and I don't see any reviews indicating whether it is
generally compatible with other Zwave controllers. (I happen to own some
GE alarm equipment, but don't use the Zwave functionality as they
stupidly made it dependent on you subscribing to a 3rd party alarm
monitoring service.)

The 2Gig is also meant to work with an alarm panel, but the manufacturer
explicitly says it is compatible with other controllers, such as the
(Linux running) MiCasaVerde Vera controller. The reviews on it sound
promising.

Looks like there are a bunch of WiFi thermostats on the market now too,
like:
http://www.amazon.com/Homewerks-Thermostat-CT-30-H-K2-Wireless-Module/dp/B004YZFU1Q/

Probably a good bet if you just want to be able to remotely control a
single thermostat and not integrate it with a home automation setup. I
imagine each one has its own proprietary interface, and requires use of
a manufacturer's web site to communicate with it.

If you are an industrious hacker you can pair one of these Zwave
thermostats with several Zwave temperature sensors, or temp/light/motion
sensors:
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=HomeSeer+HSM100&tbm=shop&cid=6168500570220552410&os=sellers

and create the equivalent of the multi-thermostat Nest thermostat setup.

For me, the most interesting aspect of a home automation connected
thermostats would be heating efficiency tracking. The thermostat can
report the amount of time your furnace was running (my old programmable
thermostat does this, but not convenient to record that info
daily/weekly), from which you can calculate fuel consumption (unless you
have the latest variable-burn rate technology). Correlate that with the
"degree days" statistics for the period, and you can see how efficiently
your heating system is working. Then when you make adjustments to your
insulation, you can pretty quickly see if that is reflected in improved
efficiency.

-Tom
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