They are touting the “ability to grow ‘Works with Iris’ ecosystem more quickly” and “There’s a new, improved app experience.” Does anyone have experience with the "Works with Iris eco system? Is it going to be open like SmartThings? They have a new SHaaS (smart home as a service) platform they have written in-house that runs on Microsoft Azure.
Lowes joined the Zigbee alliance recently as a low level member and has committed to using the ZHA standard going forward. (They had been using a proprietary Zigbee version.) The new devices are made by centralite and seem to be working pretty well with SmartThings. Lots of people using them and much discussion in the forums.
ST staff has confirmed in the forums that the line is being officially reviewed for ST compatibility.
Lowes also revamped their business model for rules engine support a little bit, making it only two tiers rather than three and an add-on. So essentially “basic” which doesn’t do much, and “premium” which does everything they offer.
This implies to me that their $10 month business model was working pretty well for them even with the advanced features.
We’ll just have to see how it goes, but I think they’re trying to position themselves as the DIY alternative to the new Xfinity home automation offering which will be in the “do it for me” category.
I don’t think they’re intending to open it as a developer platform of any kind, though. This really will just standardize the devices that can be used.
(BTW if you see a lot of complaints from existing customers about the new version, most of those seem to be related to the fact that they don’t understand they have to exclude their Zwave devices from their old system before moving into the new hub. That part of the migration education was not really spelled out. )f
However, I wasn’t aware they completely rewrote the back-end and have a new hub. I’m curious how open it is going to be. From what I have read so far it doesn’t sound too open so my initial excitement is weaning.
I have not really explored the Iris stuff but is there anything exciting in their product line that might be of interest if (when) it becomes compatible with ST?
Most of their product line is already compatible or mostly compatible with community created device types and some with existing Centrallite/SmartSense device types.
Of the new line, people seem most excited by the security wall-mounted keypad, and the single pushbutton. But the contact and motion sensors are a good price and a nice small form factor, they are proving popular as well.
Again, as Matt says, people are already using many of these things via community-built device types, so you can find much discussion in the forums. If you start at the sensor topic I linked to above, that’s a good place to find people using them.
