CES 2015 New Stuff

General Discussion
165

Great post and I agree with everything you say @scottinpollock. We need a good blend that allows us to have control locally, but have access where needed. Prior to the slew of DIY HA units I was set to go with Control4, but due to the closed nature of it, I am very glad I didn’t. I just hope as you say, they don’t over rotate on the IOT and pose the risks (Especially Privacy and in-home Security) as you previously stated. That is a whole other topic in iteself. I still wonder where my Foscam snapshots are, in the AWS Cloud, and why I can’t delete them.

Time will tell…

With that said…

A few products that I found would be nice to have integrated into ST are:

Sengled Snap, Pulse, and Boot light bulbs: http://www.sengled.com/content/products

  • BT connected, so hopefully this can be interested into Hub v2
  • The integrated Camera and light bulb seems great for the front door.

MIsfit Bolt light bulbs: http://misfit.com/products/bolt?__hstc=32400481.703d4abf535e9e9007be67fba37fa231.1420562709535.1420562709535.1420835175027.2&__hssc=32400481.2.1420835175027&__hsfp=687597994

  • Like the GE Link or TCP Connected, we hopefully can have hub v2 connect to these, via BTLE, and have HUE like colors.

Big Ass Fans- Haiku with SenseMe: http://www.bigassfans.com/senseme/

  • Another Innovative way to keep us warm
166

IoT devices talking through the cloud is not really about being able to turn them on and off. That’s just today. To really get to to Jetson levels of automation you need enough compute power and enough data to analyze. I am happy to see that some actions won’t need to take a round trip to execute in hub v2, but at the same time I don’t want it all local only. I want my data available to integrate with other systems and that means having it in the cloud.

Some of the most innovative things happening with SmartThings are only possible because the data is in the cloud.

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167

I’d like to shine a different view into this conversation as I don’t think that it has been truly explored by anyone.

If you look at Samsung’s business problem from a different side, there is another very specific reason they purchased SmartThings and are now pushing Tizen.

And that is that they want a pervasive home automation ecosystem. Samsung has made a deliberate effort to shift all their consumer electronics to a single OS. Looking at it from a pure business perspective, that is to get synergies and save costs. Having one development team responsible for building out the entire eco-system, and having a KNOWN, DEFINED and CONTROLLED endpoint device subset gives them incredible power to fully integrate.

Look at the control interface mess we have now.

  • TV/DVD/BlueRay… IR wireless, WiFi (upnp, tcp, udp…1000’s others), proprietary os’s, limited communications, communicate only when on… not a great interface to run the system from.
  • Appliances (Fridge, dishwashers, stoves, microwaves, laundry),… android (maybe), maybe a screen, probably not (LG uses sound to communicate!), no interface to report with, no central control capability
  • Phone (Android), great wireless, great interface, portable… not always home, not pervasive, no IR… blah blah blah…

Now you buy something like SmartThings. They are hot, the have a very young, but strong team, a VERY customizable interface and the device sits… centrally in the home. It brings EVERYTHING else together.

Samsung could have tried to go with a home router (DLink style), but the average consumer doesn’t replace those, (heck they don’t even buy them with most carriers) and don’t care about any form of integration except IP. Worst, everyone complains if it can’t run DD-WRT or something else that is open on them.

But the HA crowd, we know after 30 years of trying that OPEN PROTOCOLS and INTEGRATION are key. So leverage the open standards (z-wave, zigbee, IP) where you can. Choose a “standard” protocol for ALL your NEW devices (z-wave… please say z-wave!).

For most of us, nothing will change except we will invest in another controller (2.0 or another brand). For the average individual however, having a 2.0 controller tossed in for free when you buy 5 new Samsung appliances… well that’s a deal. Having that same controller report a water leak (fridge, dishwasher, laundry), tell me when my freezer or fridge is out of the defined temperature zones, integrate into or replace my $30-80/month alarm system monitoring, automatically report what’s wrong when it breaks. Now a I have very STRONG reason to buy that 5-10 new appliances as a unit. I also see VALUE in that premium SMS, “I’ve fallen but can’t get up” alert button for my parents etc.

And look at it this way. A call center for alarm monitoring… is the same call center for helpdesk… is the same call center for plumber referrals… That is how you make money on these things. People will pay for that alarm call center, but what they are really paying for is the other call center people.

Analytics, big data, dashboards… all nice but we are at least 10 years from the average consumer having any reason to care. Hell, just because I can track my temperature variations, power consumption etc… hasn’t given me a single reason to change what I do… so where’s the value?

With this announcement, and what has been confirmed in Hub 2.0, Samsung now can take all their other portfolio of hardware and have a pervasive IoT eco-system, without the need to worry about IP hacks or any of the other issues associated with IP natively in all their devices, or even having to be tied to an android eco-system that is being pushed to upgrade faster and faster by Google.

At a foundational business level… it makes sense, and that is why it is being done.

Truly folks, this is not about SmartThings as a company, or a product. But how Samsung can leverage SmartThing’s technical architecture (cloud, hardware and product integration expertise) to sell more what they actually make money on… consumer electronics.

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168

Yup, Michel, I think you are bang on! Note that if SmartThings had remained stand-alone or been acquired by companies in numerous other industries (e.g., Best Buy, Amazon, Google, Apple, …), then the gist of your post would still apply, but substituting other business goals other than integrating the suite of Samsung appliances and devices.

What is downplayed about nearly all vendor conferences (consumer like CES, or B2B like Oracle World, Salesforce, pharmaceutical and medical devices, etc., …), is the business (i.e., profit) drivers for the products being introduced. These conventions are not “science fairs”: They are marketing events.

Acquisitions by very large companies sometimes have transparent and obvious motives (Facebook buying Instagram, …), even if the cost of the merger is ludicrous. In other cases, it takes some speculation as to the strategy and the conclusions vary as time moves on (Google buying NEST … ok, but why buy Revolve and shut it down – just for the expertise?). Yahoo bought out Astrid and killed it nearly immediately…

Samsung is one of the more cryptic ones, partially because they have a very diverse consumer product line. We would “never” expect to see an Apple washer/dryer/refrigerator, but a TV is not out of the question, and a watch makes sense too. Yet Samsung is is in both durable and non-durable goods (fans, vacuum cleaners, …).

Relatively speaking, DIY Home Automation is a very new consumer product category with a lot of unknown factors in play. Most vendors seem to be floundering (Vera, Iris, Wink, Revolv) or specialized (Control4, Lutron, security vendors – not really DIY). Others are clearly fortifying their troops (NEST, SmartThings), and the rest are not on the market yet, or barely, (WigWag, ALYT, Ubi, NinjaSphere, endless Kickstarter and IndieGogo Projects).

My basic speculation, and it is based on nothing but a guess, is that Samsung wants to see what happens if they feed and incubate SmartThings. They say they won’t be overbearing micro-managing parents, but it will be very hard for such a large company to resist interfering with this baby. That could very well “mess up” this experiment, as we’ve seen happen to very many acquired products and services in history. But there’s still a very good chance that SmartThings could grow up to be the prodigy that was presented at CES and that we are hoping for.

Just imho, imho, imho.
…CP / Terry.

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169

The use of OTS (Off-The-Shelf) operating systems as a baseline isn’t as crazy as it used to be. Processing and memory is cheap, and the new OTS are open and can be highly tailored.

Perhaps startups should try to limit their use of OTS after prototyping phases are over, but I think there are strong arguments for using OTS for speed-to-market.

At the very least, there are plenty of vendors that are going this way:

  1. ALYT (out of the gate, it’s hub has a strong stand-alone “app” mode, all based on Android): http://www.alyt.com

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  2. The Ubi – contains an Android-stick computer + a custom DSP computer. http://www.theubi.com

  3. NinajSphere is based on Linux (like the Ninja Block which was built on a Beagle Bone I think). http://www.ninjablocks.com

  4. Webee is also based on Android http://webeeuniverse.com/en/gateway/smartee

  5. Well… too many to list; but I think there is quite a bit of speculation if Apple will build hardware to go along with HomeKit, and that hardware is likely to be … iOS, or ?

I think a lot of this Community would like the SmartThings Hub to be built on an open-off-the-shelf OS and be completely hackable; though the two are not mutually exclusive.

…CP / Terry.

170

Other than voice recognition, there really isn’t anything that requires significant computing power and even that can be handled locally in the near future.

I want my data available to integrate with other systems and that means having it in the cloud.

A well designed automation system can easily process all business logic locally and still integrate with ‘other systems’, through event notifications, data reflection, etc. There’s fundamentally nothing in the home automation logic that must live in the cloud.

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171

When I think of automation, I am thinking bigger than even voice commands. Take for example power consumption; currently my setup is generating thousands of data points every day. In and of itself this data is useless. A local hub might be able to do something with it, but not much. To obtain real utility from my data I, need to keep all of it, and now that means storage. My local hub just became a server. Most people don’t have servers laying around the house. Most people don’t tinker with machine learning algorithms either.

Today home automation is reactionary, but it could be proactive. The kind of compute power and storage space required for a home automation system to become predictive is not yet available in a little box that sits on a shelf. We also cannot build and model these complex predictive systems without a large data set to analyze.

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172

Within the context of SmartThings, they’re not gonna host this data for you, so you’ll need another host for this, be it local or remote. If the data is important, I’d prefer local control of it.

173

You’re talking about telemetry and data acquisition. This is easily accomplished with exporting data to external systems. No local servers required. That’s exactly how smart meters work. I’m talking about local control loops which do not benefit in any way from routing them through the cloud.

Taking it to the extreme, it’s like connecting accelerator pedal in your car to the engine’s throttle through Amazon cloud server. I bet not many drivers would like this kind of “smart car” :smile:

174

I am not saying that all data should have to go to the cloud first. I am in complete agreement that if I push a button the signal should not have to travel out to the internet and back to my light bulb. In my earlier comments I echoed the sentiment that others expressed about local control, I am happy that the new hub will have it.

175

There is, indeed, a third-party company that focuses on collecting the data from all of your devices and services and using that for pattern recognition, predictive, proactive functionality…

Actually: Just noticed that their website has just had a RADICAL overhaul. Looks like this start-up is going through a bit of a pivot.

http://web.theneura.com/

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…CP / Terry.

176

You guys have some really interesting points, But what does it all have to do with the title of this thread.

177

Ty…this thread has drifted so far off point…

178

Meh… drift is in the eye of the beholder.

One way to think of this Topic could be along these lines:

  1. What’s SmartThings doing / building / selling next? Does that exceed or miss our expectations and hopes?

  2. How exciting are the new competitive and complementary products and services from companies large and small?

  • Could these dethrone SmartThings anytime soon?
  1. Do they have open API’s for integration? Do their integration paths fit into the SmartThings platform (i.e., thus increasing our confidence that ST’s platform is proving itself flexible and robust as an open platform)?
  • Can we chat about new products and services that have nothing to do with IoT, and Home Automation/Integration? Or, just as well, can/should anything be connectable and integrate?
  1. Two divergent threads (both views are completely valid and does not need to split the Community into fighting camps!):

  • Supportive / Optimistic: What is SmartThings doing right? The new hub, services, and Samsung partnership is great … take our money already! Grow your team and keep listening to our ideas. What can we do to encourage ST to share more information, more quickly, and ask for feedback sooner?

  • Competitive / Pessimistic: What is SmartThings doing wrong? Are they hiding plans from us? Not enough information on the new hub (cost, incomplete fulfillment of our expectations)! Service fees are suspicious (but we don’t know how bad yet). Is 2015 finally the year that serious alternatives become available? (Consumer choice and market competitiveness is a good thing – comparing to Vera or Wink and saying “SmartThings is the best of the worst” is a sad state of affairs … what signs are there that the landscape will stop being a competition among “worst players”, and rather among very good choices?). Might a home use multiple base systems concurrently so as not to be dependent on a single vendor?

…CP / Terry.

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179

Replying to my own post … typical CosmicPuppy…

I thought of a major “discussion” points that seem prevalent, and I invite more:

  1. Open vs. Closed: For us that are developers / hackers / tinkerers, the benefits and mandate of open is critical; but we are painfully aware that open comes in degrees, and that most for-profit corporations have very strong limits on what they put out as open and what is proprietary and restricted. Key question: From a marketing perspective, does the majority of the consumer market even know or care what “open” means? In fact, perhaps a large number of consumers prefer “closed” systems for ease of use, security, etc.!

  2. Cloud vs Local: Out of the gate, SmartThings never misled us that they are and forever would be cloud-centric (and even, cloud-dependent). Local processing advocates hope too much for SmartHub 2.0 to change this radically: I think it will have limited localized processing to cut down on latency and add some offline robustness, but undeniably limited. Is this the new prevalent paradigm? Do average consumers care? Should they? Do we? Will this forever hold SmartThings back in our eyes if “more local” competitors enter the industry? Is the prevalence of non-local due to the cost of local processing & storage hardware, interconnections with third-party services; or is there a more, ummm… nefarious? … motive: subscription fees, data sales, etc.? Do the benefits outweigh the risks and complications (there are risks and complications in both local and cloud models)?

180

Back to new stuff. Is this the netgear camera that will be supported soon?

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181

Oddly, these two views aren’t mutually exclusive. I’m extremely pessimistic, having experience with Samsung in the past. Yet, I’m also hopeful that I’m wrong this time. Prepare for the worst while hoping for the best. (In my case, that means buy only z-wave compliant devices in case I need to find another HA solution, but don’t replace the hub just yet.)

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182

Wire-free and weatherproof? Now you’ve got my attention! I’m happy with the couple of Foscam’s I have inside my house, but figuring out how to get power (even 5v or 12v) to the far back of our hillside yard has been keeping me from considering outdoor options. I’ve heard of “POE (Power Over Ethernet)”, but “POW (Power Over WiFi)” would be better. :wink:

Worth noting: This camera comes with 7-Days of free Cloud storage; SmartThings’s DVR service not essential.

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But why does it need a “base station”… gosh, darnit, yet another hub? Or will the SmartHub v2.0 support the same protocol function as an Arlo base?

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Ah… it is called a smart home base station → does this imply Netgear will be selling other “smart home” products compatible with that base, or just cameras?

183

I didn’t see battery life listed anywhere. Was it mentioned?

184

Hmm… Looks very nice. But I doubt that’s the one.

Free App & Cloud Storage

Why would anyone want to sign up for SmartThings premium service if Arlo offers it for free?

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