As software eats even more industries and digital fabrication (digitizing design, manufacturing and delivery/assembly and facilities management) impacts even the change-resistant architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry, it will be interesting indeed to observe how “systems integrators” use complementary technologies to rebuild the industry. And how will open smart home systems compete against more closed and proprietary systems from companies like Control4?
As a builder and cad/cam fabricator of high-performance buildings, I am very interested in this massive mashup and open versus closed ecosystem competition.
As a “systems integrator” that is exactly why I’m here. To determine how to compliment, integrate with, and expand the systems I use and have programmed and installed. I can’t wait to get my package!
Couldn’t agree more. Some of the applications we’ve heard people are building for SmartThings are inspiring and demonstrate that the open and connected strategy we’re pursuing couldn’t be more right.
An example: The smarter smoke alarm that not only lets you snooze it (let’s be honest, I can’t cook a Holiday roast to save my life and there will be smoke), but in a real event automatically turns on all the lights, opens the deadbolts on the doors, flashes the lights outside, turns all the motion sensors in the house into ‘hyper’ mode and publishes that information to a temporary public page so first responders can find anyone in the home, and knows presence to alert any family members that are away about what’s happening and who is in / not in the house. What would be cross-system or gazillion dollar magic a few years ago becomes a simple SmartApp that bridges across devices.
Did you guys try to integrate Control4 kit into the ST hub? Have some dimmer switches that it would be great to be able to control via ST (also have Z-Wave switches running)…