A Protocol For Home Automation 116
jfruh writes "Marshall Rose, one of the creators of the SNMP protocol, has a beef with current home automation gadgets: it's very, very difficult to get them to talk to each other, and you often end up needing a pile of remote controls to operate them. To fix these problems, he's proposed the Thing System, which will serve as an intermediary on your home automation network. The Thing System aims to help integrate gadgets already on the market, which may help it take off."
Pick an existing building automation standard. (Score:1, Informative)
Bacnet over IP or Modbus TCP take your pick.
Another home automation hub? (Score:5, Informative)
There are already a few home automation hubs (if I understand what he is suggesting correctly), such as Pytomation [pytomation.com].
The main challenge is as far as I can see there is yet a single protocol to bind them all, and even then it would be yet another protocol [xkcd.com]. For this reason, there have been attempts to create protocol exchanges (not sure the right term), that act as central system that can speak to different sensors and control systems using the specific protocols.
Its not clear what he is offering that existing solutions fail at? It doesn't help that the site doesn't sum things up in one paragraph and instead requires us to parse the whole presentation before understanding what he really is proposing.
I Fully Support This (Score:3, Informative)
I've been attempting to connect, network and control as much of my house as possible with little success. Too many companies are trying (and failing) to offer up an integrated solution, none have the ability to truly integrated across the board.
Key systems that need this:
HVAC - Nest is doing great things for automation and remote control, limited reach however
Lighting - a bunch of half baked solutions out there, each with their own app and control interface
Security - sound, video, motion detection, garage door control, etc...
Appliances - remote control certain appliances, pre-heat your stove, notification when the dryer is done, etc...
Power Monitoring - Semi decent solution out there, however needs better apps and integration
Audio\Video - Remote control
If all of these systems used a common protocol we can focus on developing great apps and home automation, as long as manufacturer dick around with their own setup we'll never move forward.
He needs to learn more.... (Score:4, Informative)
"Marshall Rose, one of the creators of the SNMP protocol, has a beef with current home automation gadgets: it's very, very difficult to get them to talk to each other, and you often end up needing a pile of remote controls to operate them."
I have 1 remote to control every gadget in the house including sonos. It's called Crestron, but AMX can do it as well (The toy stuff called Control 4 can not)
He really needs to learn more about integration because there have been solutions out there for decades.
SNMP is a model for how not to do things. (Score:5, Informative)
This is someone who was ok with ASN.1, OID's, and "walking" tables that had no business in being walked, over an unreliable UDP protocol that initially had effectively zero security.
Someone stop him from developing a home automation protocol before his being "first" relegates that industry to 30 years of pain and suffering.