More products for consumer direct home automation

[matt4gps]

As anticipated, the number of products that consumers can directly set up and program is increasing. The home automation company that can easily integrate these devices without an expensive custom integrator is going to win market share.

http://store.apple.com/us/product/HA779VC/A/philips-hue-connected-bulb-starter-pack?fnode=39

or

http://www.insteon.net/bulb.html

I'm not talking about advanced integration, just the ability to add a light or a new model tv or stereo to a project.

[GoGo Delicious]

The home automation company that can easily integrate these devices without an expensive custom integrator is going to win market share.

I don't think the above statement is correct. These are remote controlled light bulbs. There is a difference between "Remote Control" and "Automation". In fact there is a difference between "Automation" and "Whole House Integration." But I am responding to address your statement that "The home automation company that can easily integrate these devices without an expensive custom integrator is going to win market share" and not to discuss the difference between "Remote Control", "Automation" and "Whole Home Integration."

People who purchase these type of remote controlled products are not the customers that I myself would take on nor would my clients be interested in a product like this. My clients are looking for lighting solution that integrate not only with there chandeliers, art and accent lighting, in-celling lighting, etc but their whole home environment. These bulbs will only work in lamps, which our clients use very little of and the ones that do use Halogen bulbs. You MAYBE able to put them in 4" cans but they would look very UGLY. In fact 4" cans are HIDEOUS!

The people who will buy this product are those who can not afford a whole house lighting system, but want to be able to remotely control their lights. This is not a bad thing, but you have to know where a product belongs in the market. People who use the Phillips or Insteon remote controlled light bulbs are not the same people who are going to invest in a C4 or Crestron system and because of that no market share is lost.

My 2 cents.

[cdepaola]

GoGo,

I think however that what your seeing is the future of lighting, the ability to control not only the on/off state of individual bulbs but their color as well. Are these particular products the future, most likely not, but they are a sign of things to come.

I as someone who has invested in a C4 system for my home and a Crestron system for a business location I can tell you with 100% certainty that I am very interested in a solution where I can control individual bulbs and their color. I can also tell you that my families interior designer is also very interested in this product as the ability to set-up scenes has now taken on a whole new dimension that was not previously this easy.

I know friends of mine with large Crestron installations are also very interested in these bulbs and are looking forward to different styles and sizes being made available in the next several years. These are folks that could easily afford your services and fall into your client criteria you have published here before, unless you are changing your criteria because you personally don't like these products.

[Cyknight]

...But the people you describe want the capabilties built INTO there home automation/smart homes system as PART of the bigger scale no?

The product itself and it's capabilities is one thing (and a lot less innovative in what you describe as features you like then you may think), wether they represent a shift to a large scale take-over from "professional installed" smart home systems is another.

[cdepaola]

...But the people you describe want the capabilities built INTO there home automation/smart homes system as PART of the bigger scale no?

The product itself and it's capabilities is one thing (and a lot less innovative in what you describe as features you like then you may think), whether they represent a shift to a large scale take-over from "professional installed" smart home systems is another.

We absolutely want these features built into our systems, I tired of a switch controlling a group of lights. I want the ability to control each individual light in my home to create real scenes, scenes that I can easily change when ever I wish, including on/off state, brightness of each individual bulb, and color.

As for it being less innovative what other product has given the resident the ability to easily control their individual lights on/off state, brightness, and color?

[GoGo Delicious]

GoGo,

I think however that what your seeing is the future of lighting, the ability to control not only the on/off state of individual bulbs but their color as well.

This is already a feature of control systems. I can control a group of lights OR a single light with in that group as well as color, if the light source allows.

Are these particular products the future, most likely not, but they are a sign of things to come.

The technology that this lights represents is NOT "a sign of things to come." The technology is nothing new and has been around for a while now.

I as someone who has invested in a C4 system for my home and a Crestron system for a business location I can tell you with 100% certainty that I am very interested in a solution where I can control individual bulbs and their color.

Again, controlling a single light or it's color can be done already, especially if you have a Crestron system. If you cant then 1) it was not designed properly, 2) it was designed properly and you did not state you wanted individual light control as well as group light control, 3) you didn't specify you wanted the ability to change light colors so the correct lighting was not specified.

I can also tell you that my families interior designer is also very interested in this product as the ability to set-up scenes has now taken on a whole new dimension that was not previously this easy.

An interior designer who's interested in this product tells me that he/she is not familiar with lighting to begin with and should not be designing nor specifying lighting for clients.

I know friends of mine with large Crestron installations are also very interested in these bulbs and are looking forward to different styles and sizes being made available in the next several years. These are folks that could easily afford your services and fall into your client criteria you have published here before, unless you are changing your criteria because you personally don't like these products.

Why would they be? They already have a system that can do what these products claim to do, change color if supported by the light source, control a single light or a group of lights, etc. There is nothing these lights can do that their control system cant do. In fact their control system can do more with a single light than these can do.

Everything you are stating you are in favor of for these lights your system can already do.

[GoGo Delicious]

We absolutely want these features built into our systems, I tired of a switch controlling a group of lights. I want the ability to control each individual light in my home to create real scenes, scenes that I can easily change when ever I wish, including on/off state, brightness of each individual bulb, and color.

Again, if you have Crestron or C4 system you can do this.

[Cyknight]

As for it being less innovative what other product has given the resident the ability to easily control their individual lights on/off state, brightness, and color?

As per GoGo's post, this feature isn't especially new -within advanced lighting systems- which is what i meant. Once put in, the user side of this is easy. I quite specifically was NOT talking about this being done through a DIY install form.

Note that I have nothing against the mentioned two products, nor the fact that they are DIY. These or similar products mean that it is another (several?) step(s) closer for us to do all this much easier from a dealer perspective (and therefor cheaper for our clients). I agree that these solutions are great - but I'm also agreeing that I'm not expecting it to impact my client base all that much, not negatively at least. If anything, I see it increasing my work load as it opens up just one more door towards full smart home systems and becomes something existing clients want to incorporate.

[Cyknight]

One thing this DOES move towards - within C4/Creston etc or outside of it, is increased RETRO-fit options.

[cdepaola]

How are a group of lights that have been wired to a switch being controlled individually without a complete rewire of every fixture in the home?

[RyanE]

The key would be a driver for the lights. If you had a driver in Control4 (and likely Crestron, although that's obviously not my expertise), you could certainly control each color independently of each light, and could also set light color sets as scenes.

RyanE

[matt4gps]

When I wrote this post, I was thinking more along the lines of the end user being able to add devices to there project without complicated integration programming. One way would be if a device was C4 certified, but another way would be if the industry settled on a cross platform "automation protocol" standard. Much like a .xml standard. In the architectural and engineering industry, companies are building digital replicas of their components. For example, a water valve manufacturer will have a digital version of his component that can be dragged and dropped into his water line network to make a virtual model of the plan (this is called a BIM model). If the industry could settle on automation modeling standards for components, then integration would be as simple as drag and dropping stereo components, tvs, light bulbs, plugs, blind motors, hvac components, gate sensors or what ever, from a library into the room of the house. It's visual programming. C4 Composer is already halfway there.

I'm just saying that we're headed in this direction and the reason we're headed in this direction is because of industry audacity in which audacity is defined as bold or arrogant disregard of normal restraints.