tgauchat
(ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)
21
Great discussion!
One of the challenges / opportunities is going to be WHERE to build and execute the logic for these actions.
SmartThings is proposing that their SmartCloud is the appropriate home base for all Apps, and thus must reach goals of capability, reliability, etc.
The introduction of an Ubi into a particular environment, however, instantly provides an entirely distinct platform for intelligence (Apps) to be run in, and it is based on an open modification of Android OS. While SmartThings discusses at length the pros and cons of their Cloud-First approach, there is a large community that is, well, to put it short, anti-cloud – with many valid reasons. I repeat: The Ubi could be an attractive platform for this anti-cloud community.
Of course; we can “all get along”, as interfaces between the platforms are a given. Yet this makes standardization difficult with so many options for each possible function; particularly for complex functions as described above.
Not to mention that even Cloud-Centric approaches might rapidly evolve with the evolution of new Clouds based on OpenStack (http://www.openstack.org/); which I think would be wonderful for a truly open AND indepedant platform.
Why am I once again harping on my concerns about SmartThings being SmartCloud centric? --> Companies go bankrupt or get bought out and their platforms are discontinued, often with little or no warning. This is NOT a low risk situation. Consider Astrid (a very popular cloud-based Task Management system for web, iOS, and Android): They were just purchased by Yahoo, and there is a strong indication that the product will be killed: http://blog.astrid.com/blog/2013/05/01/yahoo-acquires-astrid/
So: Consider for a moment that you develop complex Apps for your SmartThings (either as a home owner or as a partner-developer): If SmartCloud is killed, you are … dead too.
Even aside from the tech industry, I’ve been in home automation for 15 years. The number of companies, big, established companies, that go out of business or leave the market segment is huge. I agree with Cosmic, this is not an inconsequential issue. I can’t wait for my Ubi…and I’m still waiting for my SmartThings, but I would love to get them playing together in a way that is not dependent on either of them staying in business.
“The Ubi could be an attractive platform for this anti-cloud community.”
I hate to disappoint you, but from Ubi FAQ on KS, they mention that Ubi needs a healthy internet connection, which implies it uses the cloud (probably for speech recognition and other functions ) , so probably we are “stuck” in the cloud for while …
1 Like
tgauchat
(ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)
24
Good observation regarding the use of “cloud computing” for The Ubi platform; not sure if it is solely Google voice services, or an open source cloud, or proprietary…
While I agree that it will use the Cloud for voice & speech recognition (and interpretation / responses…); it will probably have sufficient local processing power to run simple to mildly-complex Home Automation (Thing-Integration) scripts (Apps).
The Ubi & the SmartHub should be able to communicate on the LAN to read and set the state of Things (and, one or both devices can use the LAN to talk to IP based devices, either LAN/WiFi or in arbitrary Clouds (bypassing the SmartCloud if desired or if more efficient).
I thought the connection to the internet was a voice and search based thing as well. With newer versions of Android, this is not required for voice, of course it would be for search. And an internet connection is one thing, needing a connection to somebody’s cloud is another.
DDoes anyone know if they are getting the Ubi Google play certified, and access to the Google Services Framework? Imagine a lot of the app syncing capabilities google just released would be of great value to Ubi, managing app data among several devices.
It’s been a few weeks since we last posted here. We posted an update on our KS page but thought it might be good to repost these videos here. We’re still awaiting some SmartThings devices to play with but everything is lining up.
We’re fine tuning the UI, so things like the acknowledgement may change quite a bit between now and shipping:
Hi Joel - we’ve definitely been in touch. We’ve done some basic integration but are cleaning it up over the next few week. We’re also tidying out API document with the hopes of releasing it shortly.
With the announcement of Apple Home Kit and now Amazon Echo, I’m very curious to hear if anyone has had success with integrating Ubi with ST. Anyone have any custom integrations setup?
1 Like
tgauchat
(ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)
34
Hi Charlie,
I recently activated the “SmartThings” App on The Ubi Portal and was thus able to import all my Things (i.e., authorize The Ubi cloud to access them).
After a bit of a snag, I have been able to put in a couple of passive Lessons for sensors (i.e., when Garage door opens say “Garage door has been opened.”) and active (“Terry light on”).
Their “Lesson” engine allows for regular expression (regex / wildcard) processing to generate custom HTTP REST-API calls, but since SmartThings is directly integrated, it cannot take advantage of the parsing capabilities of the regex. Roughly, I can’t write one lesson for “Terry light $1” where $1 = on | off, since the SmartThings Actions are a drop down as on or off, but not parameterized.
Hate to raise an old thread from the dead, but Ubi looks like it may have some integration with the Alexa.
I still need to test to see what it really does, but in the Lessons you can Say something to Alexa to trigger a response or action in the Ubi. On the flip side some event or utterance can trigger a custom response from Alexa. Alexa show up in both drop downs in Lessons, but there is no add device option yet.
Evidently there some recent maintenance and the end of last week that may have added Alexa to Ubi.