Resinchem Tech: Selecting a Home Automation Platform

Upping the Game

So you've decided that you'd like to move from a mishmash of individual smart devices to a true integrated and automated smart home. The first step you must take is to decide on a platform or system that will serve as the "brains" of your automated home. This is not a trivial step. You will be spending substantial time (and possibly a decent chunk of change over time) getting your home to the desired state. The last thing you want is to find that you've painted yourself into a corner and can't do some of the things you'd really like to do. So, before beginning, you need to do some planning and research.

Here's a partial list of things to consider (I'll describe each in more detail below):

Overall goals and potential future needs or wants
Current smart devices and their compatibility with other systems
WAF/FAF (Wife/Family Acceptance Factor)
Current household tech platforms (Mac vs. PC, iPhone vs. Android)
Level of comfort with "tinkering"
DIY/Building your own smart devices vs. purchasing 'plug-n-play' devices
How important is remote access and control of your smart home?
Comfort level with cloud services, security and your data
Budget

Setting Goals

What issues are you trying to solve? What do you want to be able to do? Security, convenience, automation? Before considering a platform, you need to think about what you eventually what you want your smart home to be. Be forewarned.... home automation can be a deep rabbit hole! Many enthusiasts will tell you that they started out simple, with only a handful of devices. But once they learned about what could be done, a few devices turned into dozens or even hundreds! Unless you're adamant that you will never have more than a handful of devices such as lamps and maybe a camera or thermostat, you'll want a system that can grow with your needs.

Think about other goals and desires. How important is voice control? Or do you want to avoid smart speakers in your home altogether? How will others in your house (or guests) interact with devices?

Come up with a list. First list any current issues you might want to resolve. Then add other things you might want to be able to do in the future. Think about other household members. Would it be nice to get a notification when the laundry is done or the dishwasher finishes? Add in any must or must not haves. This will come in handy as you start to evaluate different platforms.

Current Devices

Do you already have a handful (or more) smart devices in your home? Odds are, you do. If so, you'll want to gather a list of these devices, the manufacturers and the names of any apps you currently use to control them. When investigating platforms, you'll want to see if these devices are supported or can be integrated into the platform. And don't forget things like smart TVs, game consoles and other Internet-connected devices. You may not find a single platform that supports them all, but you'll likely want a platform that supports as many as possible... even if you don't integrate or automate them on day one.

Wife (or Family) Acceptance Factor

I recently attended a smart home automation conference (online of course) and listened to a speaker explain why the term Wife Acceptance (or approval) Factor should not be used anymore, as it implied that women weren't tech savvy or appreciative. The term became popular in the home audio market and was picked up by the home automation crowd. It should probably be the FAF (Family Acceptance) or SAF (Spouse acceptance). Regardless of the acronym, the concept is what is truly important here. Basically, other household members need to be accepting of the smart home and the devices in it. If it becomes more complicated to perform tasks that use to be simple, there will be resentment and likely pushback on future projects you might like to tackle. Think about how others will react and interact with the smart home. This could also help drive the decision on which platform to select.

Current Household Tech Platforms

Does everyone in your home have an iPhone? Do they all use Macs and iPads? Or is your household like mine... a mixed bag? My wife is an iPhone/iPad user, while I'm Android and PC (with a little Linux mixed in). This can have a major impact on your platform decision in at least three regards. First, is the type of devices that the platform may or may not support. For example, Homekit is an Apple product and only supports devices made by or approved by Apple. If you are a strictly Apple household, then Homekit might be on the list for consideration. For me, Homekit wasn't even a consideration. Secondly, if you opt for a software platform, it may not run on all operating systems. Finally, household members will likely need to access the platform to interact with the smart home or certain devices. Is the platform accessible or do they have an app for all your current household operating systems? This is another thing to put on the list for evaluation.

Do you like to tinker?

Are you the type of person that reads an owner's manual from start to finish before you even plug in that new smart TV because you want to know every possible feature? Or do you just want to know how to turn it on and are perfectly happy with the default factor settings and could care less about "gamma correction" just as long as the TV works? Home automation platforms run the full gamut here... from simply plug-and-play systems that will automatically find most of your devices and create a dashboard for you to ones that require you to manually do just about everything yourself. As a general rule, the more plug-and-play a system is, the less flexible and customizable it will be. This is not a hard and fast rule, but the more flexibility a system has in terms of devices, dashboards, automations, etc., the more time you will have to spend setting it up and configuring it. There are a lot of platforms in the middle of these extremes as well. But you should consider your comfort level (and willingness) to learn configurations and setup for some platforms. In some cases, you may even need to learn a little coding or a bit of a new language. This might be an opportunity to learn something new... or something you have zero interest in doing. You just want to plug it in and have it work.

Building vs. buying your devices

This is similar to the above category, but can impact your platform decision as well. Do you have interest in creating your own smart home devices? Things like LED light controllers, motion detectors, temperature and humidity sensors and a whole long list of other devices can easily be built with minimal skills.... really just the ability to follow an online tutorial (there are a plethora of blogs and videos) and maybe some basic soldering. Not only can self-built devices be customized to your exact needs, but can be created for pennies on the dollar. For example, a Philips Hue motion detector costs approximately $40. You can build your own motion detector for under $10.... without even soldering a single wire. An LED strip controller with maybe a dozen lighting effects can be had for around $10-$20, or you can build you own for around $8 that has over 100 different effects and is built for home automation platforms. If you might be building your own devices at some point, you'll want to assure your smart home platform will support these types of devices.

Controlling your home remotely

Do you want to be able to control your lights, set the thermostat or monitor devices in your home while at work or on vacation? Are you comfortable with the potential trade-off in security by opening up your home to the Internet for this convenience (or managing/monitoring that security)? Would you be willing to pay a monthly or annual subscription for the ability to remotely access your devices? Think about what, or how much, control you might want to have when away from the house.

Cloud vs. Local

How comfortable are you with your household activities being captured and stored in the cloud on someone else's server? How reliable (and fast) is your Internet connection? Or are you willing to create, maintain and manage your own server, including troubleshooting when something inevitably goes wrong? There are major trade-offs here, but is probably one of the bigger decisions you need to consider when selecting an automation platform (and the resulting smart devices). Some platforms pride themselves on being 'local' only and open-source, while others are completely cloud and Internet dependent. I'll admit to being biased here, as my system and nearly all my devices are local to my house and not Internet-dependent, but I'll list my own opinions here on the pros and cons of both options:

Cloud-based Platforms and Devices

Pros:

No need to create, manage or maintain your own server hardware
Updates and new features applied automatically (normally, but can be a con as well)
Generally no deep technology skills needed to us

Cons:

Internet-dependent. If your Internet goes out, the platform and devices simple quit working.
Devices and automations are generally slower to respond as requests have to travel from your home, to the cloud service and back again to the device (some services use a hybrid cloud/local service to address this issue).
If the manufacturer closes or shuts down the services, your platform and devices may become completely useless.
The manufacturer or service may charge a subscription or increase subscription prices at any time and failure to comply may disable your platform or devices.
Generally limited to only those devices or device types that the manufacturer's platform supports.
You have no control over your data and activities. Privacy laws exist, but your data could be stored in used in countries where the laws of your particular country do not apply. In addition, a data breach at one of these services could expose even more of your data.

Local-based Platform and Devices
Pros:

Platform and devices only dependent upon your own WiFi and network. If the Internet goes out, systems continue to function normally.
Faster response time to actions and automations.
Generally more expandable and adaptable to different devices and new technologies.
Your data and activities are yours, remain local and aren't accessible to anyone else

Cons:

Depending upon the platform, you may need to provide your own hardware or server.
You will generally be responsible for maintaining the system, including updates, security and backups.
More technical skills (and possibly even some coding) may be needed or have to be learned.

Odds are, with any system or platform you select, you will probably end up with a hybrid of local and cloud. Even with cloud systems, often the hubs will locally control some devices. And with local platforms you will probably have a device or two already (or will eventually want one) that will only work with an Internet connection. But you should probably decide whether you prefer the local or cloud approach as a general rule when considering different systems for your automated home.

Budget

Of course you need to consider how much of your money you are willing to part with to get going. This doesn't apply directly to the individual devices themselves, but the cost to obtain and get going with the central hub or platform. The cost can range from completely free (you provide the hardware, but can use an existing computer or laptop... or something as cheap as as a Raspberry Pi for around $50), all the way up to thousands of dollars for a professionally installed system such as Crestron, Vantage or Savant. And as mentioned above, some platforms may charge a monthly or annual subscription fee beyond the initial hardware/hub purpose.

How to select your platform

Once you've gathered up all the lists and information above, the real work and research begins. Now you just have to go out and investigate the various platforms and see which meets your needs and wants the best. For me, I made my decision to go with Home Assistant nearly two years ago and I couldn't be happier. But my research is two years old as well. And smart home platforms have come a very long way in two years (including Home Assistant). Heck, I'm amazed at what Google Home and Amazon Echo can do around home automation vs. where these smart speakers were two years ago. I'll just provide you with a few of the more popular systems out there (but there are many, many others) and you will need to do your own research from this point on.

Software Options