Don’t get mad at me.
I AM one to embrace technology. I have current computer equipment, a wireless printer, an iPhone with a gazillion apps, an iPad, surround sound theater, a jacked Cannon digital camera, bluetooth, and a Smart House by Control 4.
The last one, though, is the one that gives me a rash.
I have been building my dream house for the last 4 years (Old Chinese Saying: House Done, Life Done) and had sales folks stopping by to convince me I needed more than I had planned for this, my hopefully last house. I hadn’t considered making the house a smart house. I was going to have state of the art lighting, nice surround sound, flat screen TV’s, a sound system, an alarm system, radiant heat and air conditioning. When the salesman told me this can all be controlled together, in conjunction with many convenient features like setting lighting scenes throughout the house with the push of a button, or have my lights shut, music go off, and garage doors close with the push of another, I began to get sucked in.
One company I was talking with proposed a comprehensive system for $120,000 all inclusive. Well, this was going to trump the cost of my plumbing, electrical, HVAC, flooring, and slate roof. No way. Can’t even consider it, thanks for stopping by.
As I was getting on with the project I began to reengage with the idea that maybe I can have the smart house. Or, better, a PART of the smart house. I knew a low voltage wiring guy who wires these houses for a living, I could install all the basic equipment (TV’s, speakers and such) and do the house over several years setting up one TV at a time, holding off on the full-on sound system, adding the alarm to the system later…just making it scalable but setting up everything behind the walls ready for the full system if I happen to win the lottery. The initial commitment I would have to make is to the lighting. The lighting uses these special $150 switches and dimmers. I know, we are used to them costing $3-$27. These are little RF devices that talk to one another and, this system eliminates all 3 way wiring in the house. No longer do switches that operate lights from more than one location need to be connected by wire. The way it works is this: All switches, dimmers, and thermostats can be hid in closets and cabinets, not visible at all. One doesn’t need to ever touch them. They are controlled through the Zigbee network that will be in the house. The lighting switch legs go directly to this hidden dimmer in the cabinet. No 3-way wiring. So, the house is easier to wire for the electrician, making that a little cheaper.
Then there are the keypads. The keypads are populated buy the “buttons” that get programmed to control the hidden light switches. These are single gang, standard electrical boxes with 110V power fed to them. The keypads come with anywhere from 1 to 6 buttons on them. The idea here is to eliminate a gang of 3 to 6 switches and/or dimmers and consolidate into a slick single package. These buttons can be programmed to do anything, and they are specially labeled. For instance, on either side of my bed is a 6 button keypad. There is a button called “GOODNIGHT”. Goodnight shuts off all the house lights both inside and out, music, TV’s, illuminates the cupola on top of the house, closes the garage doors, sets the alarm, and lowers the temperature in the house to 65 degrees in the winter, and 70 degrees in the summer. There is another button called “PATH TO BATH”. When you wake up in the middle of the night, one sees a dim blue indicator light (the color and intensity of each buttons indicator light can be programmed too), once pushed the lights slowly illuminate and provide a lit up path to a dimmed bathroom. After done, walking back to bed, the alarm motion sensors feel you walking by and shut off the lights behind you until your in bed and stop moving, then the rest of the bedroom lights go off. Pretty cool.
[[[PAGE]]]
I needed about 60 of these dimmers and keypads to do most of the house. I left as many as I could off for future installation. So the Smart House guys come out and program it any way I want, lighting scenes are set “House Bright” illuminates the whole house upon walking in, “Kitchen Cooking” maxes every light for cooking “Casual” sets the floor for entertaining. Its a big programming project and needs to be tweaked for about a year until it works exactly as you want. I would make notes for changes I would like for adjustments, and email them off, and the technician/engineer can remotely adjust the lights.
The house can be run from an iPad or an iPhone, or the several small touch screens ($980ea) scattered throughout the house. We put wires for locations on each floor including the basement, with one in the master bath and my wife’s office, but we only purchased 3 of the 6 to start. One other thing we were waiting for was the release of the new Exterior Door Phones, which are a clean stainless unit that has a lit up doorbell, an intercom, and a hidden camera so we can see who is at the door. These finally came out about 8 months after we added the Touch Screens just to find out they have been developed to be compatible with the NEW Touch Screens, not the ones that were already installed. No warning from the company Control 4 was given to the guys installing the stuff, they were just told that these new units were “coming”. They had been told at a trade show they were coming out 8 months before they actually did. So, what happens here? No Support from Control 4 – buy the new Touch Screens or pound sand. Fortunately our guys had another project and offered to buy them back at 1/2 price if we buy the new ones. At this point I’m becoming nervous since I have fully committed to this company who clearly is SALES and not CUSTOMER SUPPORT driven. So spend another $3000 recover $1500 and get everything compatible. This is bound to happen again a time or two in my lifetime I would guess if it happened within the first year.
We added a TV, then another, then the Alarm System over 2 years. As things get added there seem to be more and more problems. TV’s would stop working, speakers popping, lights wouldn’t work, touch screens get stuck, remotes don’t work. I have grown accustomed to resetting (pulling the power plug and waiting 3 minutes) the equipment, removing and reinstalling the touch screens, taking the batteries out of the remotes and reinstalling.
We installed a generator this spring. A Generac whole house generator. Once it was hooked up we had lots of light flickering, and all the transformers in the recessed lights were humming loudly. I called the Control 4 people they claimed they’ve never heard of such a problem. Mind you this is all going on when the generator is not on. When we tested it, it got way worse, so we began to work with Generac to troubleshoot. One issue we had was we had put the conduit in the ground, that carried the wires from the generator to the house before the generator purchase. Generac requires that two pipes be run – one for the large power wires that come from the generator, and one that carries the control wires from the house to let the generator know it needs help. Generac suggested the problem may be because of this, although the electrical engineer we consulted said thats not whats wrong here. Anyway, I brought the machine back to re-dig the 120′ trench to add another conduit and replaced the control wires. Honestly, it helped a little but not too much.
My wife and I were on vacation for 4 days and came home to a dead house. It was 98 degrees in the house, the AC had shut off, the lights weren’t working, no TV’s. I was able to get a few lights on by reaching into cabinets and turning them on manually- it was 9:30PM on a Sunday when we walked in. I contacted the Control 4 guys to help get it back on. Problem now, it seems, is that the brains of the system, the main controller, is in a closet on the third floor. The system will shut off if it reaches 104 degrees to protect itself. Every time I touch that thing its hot to begin with. I got it to cool down enough to go back on, and now its been suggested I install a hole and a fan in a closet packed with HVAC and A/V equipment. This will solve all my problems, all of a sudden, I’m told. But, one of the TV’s and a touch screen was bugging out as well – both hadn’t worked for a long time and I was told a NEW software REV was available and will be installed to correct that problem. The next day the REV was installed. It fixed the TV, the Touch Screen AND all the flickering, humming lights. Control 4 reported the REV “to fix some known bugs”. Hmmmm….
[[[PAGE]]]
I was showing a neighbor the system early on, when the stuff was working, before we moved in and I was describing its potential and all the things it can do. He said to me “what if the house turns on you?”, It was funny at the time.
See, I can’t program this system, I can’t fix the problems other than unplug everything and plug it back in. It is the only thing in my house I can’t fix myself. It is most frustrating to be watching a movie, and have it freeze frame, or loose sound, just after I had come accustomed to the popping noise in the Sub Woofer.
Yesterday, again, the lights all shut off while I was working at the kitchen Island. The TV wouldn’t work. After doing my plug and unplug routine, everything came back on and worked normal. A couple of months ago we had the sound system stop working right as a dinner party was beginning. It was funny to see a BOZE radio on the island playing CD’s with an enormously expensive, state of the art system with speakers everywhere dormant.
The hidden Thermostats rely on sensors in the rooms to bring the temperature information to them. 5 of the 7 have failed already. Two that are side my side, one for AC, one for heat measure about 10 degrees different. This means that the heat and AC will slug it out when we are not here – and this we don’t know until we get energy bills greater than the last 3 months combined. Those cost $30 each, and can quickly cause a silent $300 problem.
I really don’t think I would have minded walking around the house and setting individual dimmers when company comes over. I don’t mind walking downstairs to shut lights off, or put the alarm on, and probably would be better about leaving the garage doors closed. The 10’s of thousands of dollars this has cost so far could have come in handy now finishing my barn. It also appears the original estimate of what this would cost has been abandoned as much has changed, and I was being billed as I needed things – so that scaleable idea kind of backfired. The many hours I have spent talking about, being frustrated, fixing, and walking from floor to floor to troubleshoot this system has outweighed tenfold the time it would have taken to walk around adjusting lights, thermostats, and the alarm in 2 lifetimes. And, I wouldn’t have been extremely frustrated doing it.
I have no experience with this, although I work in a lot of houses that have these systems, but never really inquired about them. There always seem to be lots of people working on the stuff in the cabinets I may have just installed. So it seemed like lots of folks are using these systems. I can only speak of Control 4 as its all I know.
What I would like, is to come in from a long day in my shop and have a house that works. I have grown weary and no longer care how smart it is.
Fine Homebuilding Recommended Products
Fine Homebuilding receives a commission for items purchased through links on this site, including Amazon Associates and other affiliate advertising programs.
8067 All-Weather Flashing Tape
Reliable Crimp Connectors
Affordable IR Camera
View Comments
Michael,
I am so sorry you've been having these problems. I completely understand, it's the shared pain of those who are trying to do exactly what you're doing. You know the old saying, "You can tell the pioneers, by the arrows in their backs."
The problems inherent in smart home design are many, and literally require someone with experience in a vast number of intersecting disciplines, to handle all of the edge cases effectively. I've been doing it for over 20 years (started with my father), and have studied the problem from so many different angles, that when I started volunteering to code on Pluto Home back in 2007 (after it became LinuxMCE), I realized that the solutions to these problems would take serious engineering; this means time, which is not necessarily tied to a commercial product release cycle, and that the solution lied in developing such a large schema under free/open source software models.
I've now been one of the core LinuxMCE developers for over 8 years, and we're made up of people who have taken our time, to make this system work. We do not have any customers, nor do we want any, what we want, is a system that works, and that takes time, energy, and a complete willingness to let go of commercial pursuit for this system.
We have the most comprehensive smart home system ever designed. Full stop. But it got this way, because so much time and energy was spent getting the architecture right. (Our code base is the second version of the original software, which was rewritten after all the mistakes learned from the original were collated and assessed.)
With all this said, I won't go over a list of things that I see as concerns after reading your description of the system, if you want we can talk about that privately (I merely do not want to start an argument, or a flame war etc.)...
You mentioned not being able to program the system. This is a valid concern, and one that we've been trying to address as best we can in LMCE. We try to have pre-made devices for a wide variety of equipment, so that you can specify what you have, where, and it will configure the system appropriately. The system tries to automatically create scenarios and remotes as needed to reflect your configuration changes. A lot of time has gone into this, is it perfect? no, but it gets better every day. And here's the big difference: our source code is available, and it will always be available, the whole thing, because we WANT interested people to tweak and hack on it. We want people to make it better, we _NEED_ people to make it better.
Smart homes are new, those of us who have been studying this field for 20 years, are only now starting to truly understand the problems of hundreds of subsystems needing to interact, and trying to mitigate the faults across hardware, software, environmental, and human factor concerns. And it will take those of us willing to work through the bugs, and to publish them, and to help others, to make our overall smart homes, as easy to use ,as our consumer devices.
Remember, your BOSE radio didn't start out as bug free. I remember how buggy my first Sony CDP-101 was that I got back in 1982. I remember how tweaky the first PC hard drives were; how bad MS-DOS was, how incredibly crash-prone Windows 3.1 was...how touchy my Amiga could be... These things got ironed out over time.
I can understand your willingness to exit, but I'd like your readers to understand, that like everything new (even the first electric lighting was _very_ error prone, it took decades for reliable electric distribution to take hold!), Smart Home design by individuals takes a great deal of patience, and through this patience, an understanding of the problems that can and do occur, and more importantly, how to fix them.
This is why we are open source, because, you can't fix a black box.
Thanks for reading,
-Thom Cherryhomes / Core Developer - LinuxMCE
http://www.linuxmce.org/
Thanks for the Insight Thom Cherryhomes
I LOVE your analogy about the pioneers with the arrows in your back - I never heard that before!
Problem here is the sales folks present this technology as advanced and fool proof. More, why I appreciate your insight. Unfortunately, I'm at a point in my life where the pioneer stage is over, I don't want an arrow in my back, and I need the TV to turn on and work.
I am happy to share my experiences and field insight with the designers and the developers of Control 4, but when I do, they refer me to the distributors saying they have never had these problems before. According to your observation, I could be a useful resource - but, they lie to me and won't call back.
I went to engineering school, I understand the process of invention, but the closed off nature of communication in lieu of the dollars collected rubs me the wrong way. If I hear my distributor tell me one more time "We have many of these in the field and have absolutely no problems" I may kill someone. I am again, and again, treated like I am making up my house problems and should figure out what I did wrong.
Then I look on forums and see the world wide epidemic, sharing my same problems that don't exist.
I also understand the American business landscape where as things are developed and sales are needed to support the R&D that all will not be perfect. It is now better to ship the product, imperfect or not, and deal with the fallout after the money is collected. Tell the customer whatever while the solutions are figured out. I think I would be grateful to talk with someone who says "we have some problems with this system, we greatly appreciate your feedback, and are working on solving these problems" followed with "we made a patch that may solve your problems, will you mind sharing your experience with these changes, and work with us?"
But this will never happen.
Edison worked tirelessly to sell his wares like you mention, but Westinghouse won the battle - they were concerned more with the customer and their safety. I wish Control 4, as their stock rises, to consider those in the field who are being electrocuted.
It's unfortunate that you are having such bad issues with your home automation system.
I built my home 5 years ago, and before the walls were dry walled, I went through and pre-wired my entire house for security, audio and video.
Like you I chose to use RF switches and dimmers from Leviton (Vizia RF+). I came across a small, local home automation company who introduced me to HAI homeautomation, which is now also owned by Leviton.
Buying into this system, allowed me the flexibilty to purchase components from other manufacturers and I purchase them when I could afford to do so.
Now, things aren't always peachy, but for the most part things do work like they are supposed to. For example, there is a entrance door from my garage into our laundry room. When I enter that door it triggers the light to go on for 5 minutes and then turn off. There is no sensor to detect if there is still a person in that room or not, (like my wife doing the laundry)so the light will turn out on them.
I now need to install a floor sensor that would detect a person still standing in that room that would keep the light on for them.
Of course, if you would know how to program things on your own you would be ahead of the game.
I noticed you mentioned many negative things about your system, but never any positve ones.
If an emergency happens at home, I will know about it in an instant, from anywhere in the world. Whether it be a burglary, fire, water pipe burst, or anything else I'll know about it.
It has also help me with a landscaper who charged me for a full day's work until I proved that he was only there for less than 3 hrs by my timestamped security cameras. The possibilities are endless.
I also hear announcements throughout the house that someone or something is outside and where it is being detected ( I know if someone is coming to the front door before they even ring the door bell). I even get a text message when someone rings my doorbell or when someone disarms the security system.
Home Automation is a very power tool and a great peace of mind and I feel privelidged to have it. It also helps that I don't pay any monthly euipment or monitoring fees.
Maybe you need to find someone more knowledgable that can fix what you already invested in, but I wouldn't give up, one day it could save your life or your investments.
Cheers
Bill
Trying to future proof electronics and computer code is akin to finding a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. One can try, and all of a sudden out of the blue something new and totally unforeseen will popup.
As much as I like high tech stuff; there are times the KISS principle is best.
I used to work in the Home Theater Installation industry in the S.F. Bay Area in the mid to late '90s, and then in the consumer electronics industry selling into the same market in the mid '00s.
Many commercials are out there now for products that provide "home automation" when they are demonstrating "remote control", two completely different things. Automation is when the system either sees you doing something or predicts it. Think of it like muscle memory - you don't spend brain power doing it day-in and day-out. You put in your DVD and the entertainment system sets itself up and dims the lights, closes the curtains and puts your phone ringer on low or "flash", locks your exterior doors, and sets your alarm to home. All you did was put in a DVD, but the rest of that is true "automation". If you're sitting there fiddling with your thermostat directly on an iPad, that is remote control.
Based on my own personal experience, I see three markets that "home automation" serves:
1) The "wealthy" or "businesses" - these are those people who would be talking to the person you spoke with that quoted you $120K. This customer who doesn't want to know how it works, but just wants it to work. The installer takes care of all installation and maintenance, and the home owner never touches anything by the DVD tray, or a remote control. This is probably also the customer that doesn't always drive themselves, doesn't make all of their own meals, and never does any cleaning or laundry. Products sold into this market are intended to be installed and supported by professional installers - thus the support infrastructure and documentation is designed around that idea (they charge installers for "trainings" and give them membership grade logins to their support sites). Crestron, Control4, AMX, and others fit in this category.
2) The "realistic end-user" - this is a customer that isn't made of money, but still sees the benefits of home automation. For this customer, several vendors are trying to penetrate this market from the #1 market, with mixed success. I have heard stories like yours countless times from various customers and conversations with installers over the years. The old favorite "system" for this customer is the X-10 products, however I prefer SmartHome's Insteon products as a replacement. You will also find a large number of "smart" remote controls like the Philips Pronto and Logitech Harmony that attempt to do best efforts with the limited feedback they get from devices (if at all). Dealing with my parents remodel, we put in smart light switches and wired the house for network phone and cable all home run to a single cabinet. They are technophobes and stated that they didn't want the entertainment center to "be a shrine to electronics". I did my utmost here, but there are limitations to how well equipment plays with each other - HDMI CEC is supported only in "spotty" fashion in the CE industry, and since just about everything in the HDMI spec is optional, "nice-to-have" features are usually the first cut when the ship date looms near. This is the segment where the homeowner used to turn on the lights and clean themselves, and do their laundry (and may still do their yard work). As the homeowner gets more savvy and wants more control, they may gain enough knowledge to climb into the #3 market category:
3) "Geeks" - before any of you take offense, I work at a computer company in the Silicon Valley, I include myself here with pride. This is the "roll-your-own" category, where there is sufficient know-how and will, but no products that do things they way we want. Closed systems like Crestron, Control4, or AMX are not welcome here since the companies that run them aren't willing to "share" - however, this group is also not afraid to use parts from those companies that have been reverse engineered, or can be easily high-jacked for our own purposed (RS-232, IR, CEC, etc). Commonly in this group, you will see products from the #2 market absorbed as well, since they are usually dumber and less strictly controlled. There is also a lot of strife with the customer and the product sellers here - when a customer asks the manufacturer for their RS-232 codes, most companies I have dealt with freak out and wonder why you would want to touch that interface - "It's so complicated!" they say. They fear that there is a support nightmare lurking if they reply with a nice clean PDF containing the codes. Unfortunately even as a professional Home Theater Installer, I frequently ran into this there with component manufacturers - they would wonder why I don't want to buy their $4,000 box when I had a $300 computer that was already running everything else in the house. However, this group is usually the most friendly and helpful of all the groups. As shown by the poster tschak909 here.
When it comes to home automation, I like to make a play on Einstein's quote about scientific principals: A home automation system should be as simple as possible, but no simpler.
Since you wanted to "roll your own," you need to think about what you actually want to do with the system. Do you really need that thermostat in every room? Is it going to cost you more than $150 to do the thermostat? If so, why not get a hardware store 7-day programmable? Do you have an issue with kids coming over and leaving a window open in the summer? Take the power bill out of their allowance!!
I can understand doing all of the lights with a simple system, SmartHome's Insteon allows for scenes and pairing, and if you truly decide you want to get more advanced, you can buy parts that will add functionality without having to re-wire everything (and without a PHD).
Take a moment at realize that I am telling you that you don't usually move from market #2 to market #1, you normally move the other way to market #3. That number 1-3 indicates your level of understanding of "what you want and how it's doing it". If you're not sure what you want or how to do it and have tons a cash that you have no other use for - that's why we have market #1 ;-).
I also wanted to take a moment to pontificate about home security systems: Security is a PROCESS not a PRODUCT. anyone who is telling you otherwise is selling you something.
Reality Check
Good security design is based around the principals of:
*Detection
*Delay
*Classification
*Response
Window and door sensors just inform the alarm box that your home has already been violated. If you are lucky, your alarm company (assuming you didn't roll your own, and thus aren't in danger inside your home) can classify the alarm with audio or video on-site, and have the Police Department respond. However, I see constantly on the news hat someone got great video of the act of someone riffling through their possessions, but they left before the police came. They were missing "delay".
You hear stories on the big alarm company commercials about "not feeling safe in your home," or that they "felt violated." Adding an alarm system doesn't change this if it still takes your local Law Enforcement 5-10 minutes to get there, and assuming your department even responds to alarms any more.
You want to detect the "baddies" as soon as possible - at the outside of your fence line, or on the side-walk at the end of your driveway. You classify them based on what they are doing:
* Do they walk by?
* Do they loiter?
* Do they enter?
You want to delay them as much as possible based on the time required for classifying them, and responding to them. Think fences, barbed wire, rose bushes, or cacti - rocks and other obstructions. At the house or building, think security screens or bars, good locks on good doors. Ideally if this is a home security system you want to have had enough time to classify them as a threat, contact the Police, and have the police actually get there. This could be between 5 minutes and hours if you live in the middle of no where. If they breech one perimeter, it should be increasingly harder to get to the things you want to protect - and it should be remembered that this only adds DELAY. People who really want to get, are desperate, in or are missing some mental faculty will still get in your home if here is sign on your lawn saying "protected by..." (unless they are standing is a guard both on the property, that sign should read "monitored by...").
Now if you are home you pull your family into an "Alamo" and hold the fort. If they are trying very hard to get inside your home that is one level of threat and the Police should be told that - if they manage to kick down a door or enter through a window, the threat changes, and again the police should be told that (if every squad car in the city or county isn't rushing to your home at that point, remember that come the next election). It's best to have at least one "Alamo" in your home - it may have a mixed purpose like a master bedroom. Put a heavy duty exterior door on that room, and provide the ability to lock or barricade the door shut when you are inside. If they try to get in there, again the police should be told that you are in mortal danger, and they should be breaking every speed law on the book getting to you. I leave it up to the reader to consider what to do after that door gets breached. Different people have different ideals, and various cities counties and states have various laws.
If you are not at home, think about this. If you have an alarm, that will inform the "baddies" that they have a limited time to work with, you only need to protect the things that are most dear to you. Documents, family heirlooms, pictures, should all be stored in a safe or even TAKEN OFF-SITE when you are not around. I like digital picture frames for pictures - if someone steals them, so what. It's insured, get another one and load the pictures back on. Your data may not be that safe on site, so store it off site or keep a copy on a fire/theft resistant hard drive like an ioSafe drive. You can bolt it to the building, and it will last through a fire - so even if the computer is stolen, your data will stay with you.
Who cares if someone breaks into your home while you're not there? Okay, so your personal space was violated, but don't think that's the same thing as having a crime committed against your person.
So I mentioned several "products", but note that is was an example of fitting part of a larger process, you need to stop, sit down and really think about what you are trying to do with everything you have. Is it so easy to use that you can't imagine doing it another way? Does it work together seamlessly? Does it ruin your home's esthetic like the HGTV show Million Dollar Rooms, is there a kludge of various controllers (temperature, lights, curtains, security, music, door-phone, beer dispenser...) on the wall where there should just be a light switch or a single touch panel?
My $0.02
Wow, you had some 'fun' there (for certain unusual definitions of the word 'fun') and I'm glad I had an easier time of it.
I went for Insteon switches because at the time they seemed the best deal overall; right now I'd say some of the wave stuff is perhaps overtaking them on value but I can't comment about quality. Insteon is certainly not as high quality as control 4 but my entire house needed ~$2500 of modem, switches, dimmers, whatever. I could certainly have gone a lot further but pushing $5k would be quite hard. I run Indigo control software on an old mac mini and programmed it all myself reasonably easily. It talks to a *lot* of devices and has pretty good support and help on their forums.
The weirdest issue I had was that my UPS boxes ) for the work computers & backups) tend to 'swallow' commands and I had to invest in filter units - a whole $70 or so.
Thanks for all the notes on this subject -
I wanted to update all that might be interested.
I have since fired NexSence, the uninterested company who couldn't solve the problems, and took a lot of money for the trouble. As I suspected it was the money they were looking for as we were left for a while to flounder in tv's sometimes not working, a confused heating system which began to cost a pile in heating, and lights that are still misbehaving.
I lost it on one of the owners of the company - as he kept saying for 2 years - "We've never seen this before" or "We have 100's of these units in the field and this never happens". Well, at the end, it was coming down to me seeing these problems online, a worldwide epidemic. I was able to find another Control 4 dealer (one can not call Control 4 directly for service or help, all goes through the dealers) who actually walked in our house and said "Well, we see this all the time with these products and have some solutions to fix a lot of these problems"
This is the only thing I was looking for someone to say - and after a long day of work with the guy with experience, we worked through some of the major problems. Somes parts had failed, some programmed a little off, some wiring and plumbing issues too. I have since learned that Control 4 has also developed new switches that deal with some of the lighting loads I'm having problems with. Funny how these improved things all of a sudden hit the market after no one has ever had problems! But this is the business landscape of our country, unfortunately. We are of course going to need to invest several thousand $$ more to get everything working properly with no Control 4 support, or Nexsence who we should have run from as they did from us once it started getting complicated. We are still slated to add 2 TV's (2 are in place now) and more sound zones to the system as time goes on. Before Simple Home came to the rescue we had bids to re-wire and remove all the systems and were gonna deal with it in the courts - getting back to KISS as was suggested.
A good point was made by a commenter as I have said nothing good about the system. I wanted to add that when this system is working it is incredibly convenient, efficient, and very impressive. The security features have always been flawless and seamlessly tied into our alarm system. One day working in my shop which is in the barn on the property, I got a call from the alarm company that my water detector was going off on the 3rd floor of the house. When I got up there the pan under the air handler was almost full and ready to flood the floors below. Had I been away I would have had means to let a neighbor in to help stop the potential damage. Also, when my wife pulls up to the house and uses here garage opener to open the garage the lights go on in the garage as well as all the lights in the house which makes her feel safe. We can push a tiny button next to the bed that illuminates a dim path to the bathroom, and lights the bathroom up in the middle of the night. As you come back to bed, as you walk past the motion detectors, the lights go off behind you and then shut off all together when there is no longer motion when you get back in bed. These are great qualities of the system. As problems get solved we enjoy it more and more and consider expansion. I hope to report improvements, but am still on the fence as to wether it is worth the money and effort. Another good point was made about this being geared for the wealthy which might be more accurate than I was led to believe.
Thank you for all the comments
Mike Fitzpatrick
Hi I work for a Texas based home automation comoany that installs Control4 I'll keelp this short but everything youve described sounds more like a really frankly shitty Control4 dealer, first off that rack looks like absolute crap. Second, we have installed close to 200 control4 systems and that HC-300 is not nearly powerful enough for that size of a system. When HC-300s were still out we wouldn't use one for anything more than a 2 room system, anything bigger and we'd suggest a much bigger controller. That's probably why your system was overheating and having so many problems. Feel free to email me at [email protected] id love to talk Control4 tech and answer any questions you might have as to what probably should have been installed.
-Tyler Dunn
-Control4 Tech2 certified
-Control4 platinum dealer
Great article. I guess it's another of case of 'just because you can doesn't mean you should'.
http://www.focalpointrenovations.com
Nice work.. Impressive
I think that the first thing you should to do is to find good development company
Recommend you also look at the article called "How can smartthings developer help you in a smart home development"
https://www.cleveroad.com/blog/how-can-smartthings-developer-help-you-in-a-smart-home-development
Thanks again everyone for all these comments - I wanted to give a brief update as the smart house project is still ongoing....
I have yet to use this technology in any of the houses I have built since this one.
After dealing with control 4 directly and the team they sent here for a few days to replace all the controllers, improving the networking equipment, and re-programming most of the problems we were still left with issues that kept not working. We were fortunate enough to find a partner - Boissonneault Electric, who took over the project and was supported by Control 4 to straighten out the absolute mess that Nexsense had left here. Even to a point where every switch and keypad was replaced (80?) in the house. For the most part everything worked pretty well. As time went on things started to not work - the TV's, the lights were acting a little weird, but all the heating/cooling, alarm, and sound features were problem free.
Recently since all the controllers were somewhat outdated and the cause of our failures we replaced them all again, and added the last of the sound zones we never installed. As of today 90% of the house is working well and it feels like a new house. Although the cost of these upgrades every few years, and the maintenance of this system is way above my pay grade, I still admit I had no idea what I was getting into and as I mentioned earlier haven't used this technology in any of the houses I have built since this one.
One thing I didn't expect from this system I wanted to note, it the short life the bulbs seem to have with a constant power system like Control 4. I was hoping to change over all the bulbs in the house to LED as all the switched were now supposedly LED friendly with the adaptive phase switches. I am changing light bulbs way too often. The low voltage LED's typically last l 1 year or less (some last longer) in some configurations and I am changing the house back to standard bulbs.
But even these don't last too long. On average I change about 25-40 of 200 bulbs each year.
I think maybe the smart house world was thrown a curve when the LED's hit the market - the switches were not comparable with dimming LED's and each manufacturer (We used mostly lightolier) was a moving target for Control 4. Different transformers in the low voltage lights, different bulb types, and the smart house systems were are struggling for compatibility.
I would recommend the system to those who want these cool features that will take some time to dial in who have the money to spend, but also be prepared for $2000-$6000 every 3-5 years to upgrade the system and maintain it (or expand it). Its not an expenditure I would have engaged (not to mention my time and effort) had I known from the start. But, the system sure is impressive when it is firing on all cylinders and everything is working.
The problem is in your AC wiring, most likely with the AC neutral wire. Give me a call - I am happy to help.
Sunny Regards, Brandon Williams CEO Iron Edison Solar & Battery. 720-432-6433 x 120 is my direct line.