jercra said:
With all of that said, I wish it was half the cost, standalone, easy to set up and a single open standard. Nest only works with nest software. Zwave is only compatible with zwave. It's $40 for a lightswitch.
IP is an open standard, get a WiFi thermostat instead of a Nest. It's cheaper and can be controlled from anywhere (desktop, smartphone apps, etc). Also eliminates the need for a separate hub; your normal internet hub handles networking. Ideally we'll see more devices communicating over IP in the next few years, rather than yet another dopey new standard. In the interim, you can hang a zwave and an X-10 controller off of your computer, so as long as you use a real computer instead of a dumb single-protocol proprietary hub you can still control everything from one place (and you can then make it respond easily from your phone or whatever).
I have my machines at home and at work set up to know when my cell phone is or isn't connected to my wireless router. If I leave home for more than 10 minutes, the thermostat goes into power saving settings (warmer in the summer, cooler in the winter). Conversely, the work machine tells it to go ahead and come back to comfortable temps when I leave there (I think I coded it for 15 minutes disconnected after 5:30pm, something like that), otherwise I can hit a button on my phone to let it know I'm on the way home or it'll spin up when I get home if I forgot to warn it.
The only other thing I've found semi-useful to automate is having the lights connected to the alarm clock; 15 minutes before wakeup my speakers start playing soft bird songs. At 5 minutes to go it slowly starts dimming the lights up. Then whatever wakeup song I picked comes on softly at first, the volume ratchets up over the next minute or so. It's less jarring than a sudden blaring alarm clock.
I have a Harmony remote with all the components programmed properly in the living room, but I haven't really found any use to hooking that up to the rest of the house. I don't find that I consistently want the lights in the same configuration when I'm watching things.
