Re: [PLUG] Home automation

What are the community's thoughts on Z-Wave? I've got my opinions but I'm partial because I work for a company locally that does a lot with the protocol. :-) There seems to be a healthy community around open source and z-wave, particularly with respect to the Raspberry Pi. I haven't had the time to investigate, though, so I can't speak to how far along they are:

http://razberry.zwave.me/

More info on the z-wave protocol itself:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-Wave

And this company has lots of interesting devices:

http://aeotec.com/homeautomation

One of the "pros" of z-wave is its interoperability -- a manufacturer can't get a device certified unless it plays nicely with other devices. One potential drawback, though, is that the protocol is closed and tightly controlled by the folks who invented it. Tradeoffs ...

Coincidentally, the home control solutions by ADT and Verizon use this technology. Anyway, I think it's worth a look.

Best,

Haig

On Tue, Jul 16, 2013 at 6:58 AM, Michael Greb <michael@thegrebs.com> wrote:

> On 07/15/13, Julien Vehent<julien@linuxwall.info> wrote:

> would work with Linux, and how.
> * I couldn't find good sensors for temperature and humidity. Anyone has
> good references for that?

If you want a traditional thermostat that also has an API, the
3M-Filtrete 3M-30 and 3M-50 (corresponding to the Radio Thermostat
Company of America CT-30 and CT-50) has a nice REST API with json
responses.

They run ~$100 for the *-30 and ~$200 for the *-50. Main difference
being humidity sensors on the -50 and a section of alphanumeric
display on the LCD you can set via the API.

I have the -30 and most of my integration so far has just been data
collection. Occasionaly I change the setpoint via the iOS or Android
app. When I get around to it, I want to add auto-away mode based on
the security system and other such sexiness.

<https://twitter.com/mikegrbs_house> My house on Twitter with a daily
tweet of thermostat info.
<http://thegrebs.com/~michael/thermostat/> RRD graphs generated via
data collected from the thermostat's API.

--
Mike Greb
562-MIKEGRB
http://michael.thegrebs.com

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