paulbates Posted June 13, 2015 Posted June 13, 2015 The big tell, in my mind, is the "Kit" part. HomeKit, HealthKit, WatchKit, these are not things for consumers. They are not apps. They are frameworks for developers to use in creating apps. If Apple didn't want people to have access to those things, they wouldn't provide such frameworks, which leads me to believe Apple expects development of HA apps. Agreed, logic delivered via apps will not address the "infrastructure" related automation in my home. Control of HVAC, Sprinklers, automated security lighting,etc. I can not imagine relying on my phone or tablet to be on and 4GLTE to be working so that these things work as expected. Or hope that someone creates an app that can do what I want. Apps that are useful for HA, for me, include dashboards and geofencing. I've been watching the recent events of the TV part of AppleTV with interest. The 5000lb gorilla aspect of Apple is very useful in busting cable specific channels away from cable broadcasters and crack the door open for internet content streaming of them in AppleTV, as well as other places. I hear what you are saying about the difference from the music industry, but apple will have something very important to the discussion... money. So it costs them a little more than music labels? America has provided apple with a lot of its disposable income. Its a great resource, it will be used. Once Apple cracks that door open, other internet/cloud broadcasters will follow, or some channels will sell directly. I am awaiting this day would love to shift comcast or woway to a literal ISP only.
builderb Posted June 13, 2015 Posted June 13, 2015 Agreed, logic delivered via apps will not address the "infrastructure" related automation in my home. Control of HVAC, Sprinklers, automated security lighting,etc. I can not imagine relying on my phone or tablet to be on and 4GLTE to be working so that these things work as expected. Or hope that someone creates an app that can do what I want. Apps that are useful for HA, for me, include dashboards and geofencing.The brains for HomeKit won't be on your tablet or phone. They'll be on your ATV, which is no different than UDI's software residing on a small, power-efficient, always-on Linux box in your house. So in that respect, I can see competition eventually rising to the level of the ISY, down the road a ways, including security, sprinklers, etc. I heartily agree with the idea that it's not called "automation" for nothing. If I have to tell Siri to turn my lights on or off, my automation-fu has failed me! I mean maybe for goodnight or something, it would be fine. But for the most part, I want things to happen without my involvement. I've been watching the recent events of the TV part of AppleTV with interest. The 5000lb gorilla aspect of Apple is very useful in busting cable specific channels away from cable broadcasters and crack the door open for internet content streaming of them in AppleTV, as well as other places. I hear what you are saying about the difference from the music industry, but apple will have something very important to the discussion... money. So it costs them a little more than music labels? America has provided apple with a lot of its disposable income. Its a great resource, it will be used. Once Apple cracks that door open, other internet/cloud broadcasters will follow, or some channels will sell directly. I am awaiting this day would love to shift comcast or woway to a literal ISP only. Money talks, and I've little doubt Apple will get there eventually, and on terms friendly to them. That's the beauty of a corporate policy of secrecy of product roadmap combined with ungodly sums of money. Apple will release it when it's ready, and not a moment sooner. And if anyone so much as breathes a word of it before then, you're so sued! My fear is that by the time I get the ala carte stuff that I want, I'm right back up to cable bill territory in cost. But at least I won't be scrolling through a huge list of crap channels in an '80s era UI. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
paulbates Posted June 13, 2015 Posted June 13, 2015 If I have to tell Siri to turn my lights on or off, my automation-fu has failed me! My fear is that by the time I get the ala carte stuff that I want, I'm right back up to cable bill territory in cost. But at least I won't be scrolling through a huge list of crap channels in an '80s era UI. Two very good bust out laughings in one post. Thank you (And agreed)
mwester Posted June 13, 2015 Posted June 13, 2015 Interesting debate/discussion in this thread. It is indeed interesting to try to predict what will happen when gigantic companies like Apple (and Google, and even the clownish Microsoft) try to enter a new space. But there's something that hobbyists need to keep in mind -- no company, and certainly not Apple -- does this with any interest in mind other than enriching themselves and their shareholders. In other words, Apple has NO interest - not a whit - in having anybody but themselves sell product or services for Homekit. They may tolerate devices like bulbs, switches, keypads being made by GE, Lutron, and even Insteon because of the relatively low profit margins on devices like that. But when it comes to the ISY -- UDI and that product are in Apples long-term gun-sights as a competitor. Sounds good on paper, right -- after all competition is good, supposedly. But when a multi-bazzilion dollar company with a doting press following, and an entire army of iZealots as customers decides that UDI is an annoyance, what do you think will happen? I predict that in 10 years, given that I demand that my home be automated by an in-house stand-alone independent controller that I can program, tweak, and extend myself, I'll be one of the very few (along with some others on this forum) who'll be running an ancient (by that time) UDI ISY controller with a set of antique (by that time) Insteon and Z-Wave devices... It is my fervent hope that apple fails in this takeover attempt, and home automation remains open for hobbyists to pursue.
lezone Posted June 14, 2015 Posted June 14, 2015 Interesting debate/discussion in this thread. It is indeed interesting to try to predict what will happen when gigantic companies like Apple (and Google, and even the clownish Microsoft) try to enter a new space. But there's something that hobbyists need to keep in mind -- no company, and certainly not Apple -- does this with any interest in mind other than enriching themselves and their shareholders. In other words, Apple has NO interest - not a whit - in having anybody but themselves sell product or services for Homekit. They may tolerate devices like bulbs, switches, keypads being made by GE, Lutron, and even Insteon because of the relatively low profit margins on devices like that. But when it comes to the ISY -- UDI and that product are in Apples long-term gun-sights as a competitor. Sounds good on paper, right -- after all competition is good, supposedly. But when a multi-bazzilion dollar company with a doting press following, and an entire army of iZealots as customers decides that UDI is an annoyance, what do you think will happen? I predict that in 10 years, given that I demand that my home be automated by an in-house stand-alone independent controller that I can program, tweak, and extend myself, I'll be one of the very few (along with some others on this forum) who'll be running an ancient (by that time) UDI ISY controller with a set of antique (by that time) Insteon and Z-Wave devices... It is my fervent hope that apple fails in this takeover attempt, and home automation remains open for hobbyists to pursue. Your fears are way overblown. If Apple is wildly successful, lets call it iPhone successful which is legendary in its successfulness, does the smart phone market look like one where Apple is the only player? Of course not. The HA market is not likely to become even a shadow of the smart phone market. This is not a takeover attempt and the market is going to remain open to hobbyists for many years to come. Though 10 years from now wanting that level of control will likely be viewed in the same way we view manual transmission cars: you can get them but they're something most consumers don't want to mess with and are not the norm. Some general thoughts about all this: Apple's business model is to enter markets where it can use its design prowess to differentiate themselves from the competition in a difficult to copy manner and make complex devices accessible to the largest number of consumers. This is usually through a combination of hardware (where the profits are and their industrial design chops lie) and software (where they excel at user interface simplicity). The question is does is look like the HA market presents that kind of opportunity? Obviously I don't know if Apple has some killer feature hiding in their design labs but here's what I see: The hardware is not likely to be the differentiator. They don't appear to be interested in the appliance side of things (thermostats, light bulbs, switches, ect.) probably because its too broad and commoditized (same reason they got out of the printer business years ago). The discussion here is will the AppleTV replace the controller boxes? By getting the manufacturers to embrace HomeKit they are setting up an infrastructure where the AppleTV could fulfill that role. But hardware wise there's nothing to differentiate the AppleTV from any other controller, the same reason Apple sells the AppleTV but no Apple branded receiver or speakers or actual TVs for that matter. To just release the AppleTV as a hub competing against other hubs will not make them billions and dominate the market. Hardware does not appear to be their in. They could have a killer feature on the software side in Siri (or more specifically, the back end for Siri). They are making a push (like Google) into the context aware assistant with a natural language interface (as a side note this means that we actually have a below the radar AI arms race in full effect. Exciting times). HA may not be a direct goal of their work with Siri's context awareness but it will clearly be a peripheral use case. If people turn to the AppleTV as a HA control center it will be because Siri provides a better interface for you home (and I don't mean voice control, I mean context awareness and pattern recognition). This is a ways off. Siri is still a child and AppleTV may provide that functionality but until Siri is a lot more like HAL it isn't much of a threat to the HA control box market and particularly the prosumer control box market that UDI is in. And even as this functionality grows it will likely be drawing in new, unsophisticated costumers rather than canniblizing the existing HA prosumer market who will want more control. There will always be users who want more control so I think there will always be a market for products that serve the prosumer HA market. If Apple won't losses up their restrictions on software for interacting with HomeKit and by extension future AppleTV apps and hardware, then there will be plenty of opportunity for UDI to fill that niche market and maybe even grow from new consumers who find that the AppleTV doesn't give them enough control. If Apple does loosen their restrictions then the hardware market may shift towards the AppleTV as prosumers turn to a single device to fulfill their needs. But even in that world there will still be opportunities on the software side for prosumer apps just like there currently is on iOS. I think that UDI should keep an eye out for opportunities in the short and medium term to get connected to HomeKit for the simple reason that Siri is going to grow as an interface and his/her backend is going to have more and more influence on context aware actions while the watch become more of an actual interface. If Siri and the watch take off like that UDI risks being left behind as new consumers and newly minted prosumers ask about compatibility. I understand that Homekit's limitations and restrictions may be a liability for them at the moment but if a solution isn't found that's the danger they risk. In the long term I fear their hardware is doomed, not because Apple is a mean old company that allows no competition, but because they can't compete with the AI side of the technology that will come to dominate this space. The extra functionality and programming hooks provided by the UDI will become less and less of a necessary and differentiating feature and people will turn to the hardware that supports the software features they want, in this case, sophisticated AI contextual awareness. In the end that will be AppleTV or whatever Google or Microsoft offer. Dan P.S.: Are we still doing the iZealot thing? Seriously?
Michel Kohanim Posted June 14, 2015 Posted June 14, 2015 Hello everyone, Excellent discussions/debates! Quite enlightening and extremely helpful for us to know how each and everyone of you feels about this realm. I must stress again that we do very much believe in liberty,free market, and competition even if it comes from big companies: people are free to choose and purchase whatever they feel provides value to them. UDI cannot change these feelings. If we cannot provide value, enhance our offering(s), and make worthy products then sooner or later we'll die with/without HomeKit, AllJoyn, or 5.0 or anything else for that matter: we cannot base our business model on pity; it has to be based on worthiness. With the disclaimer out of the way, from a business perspective - and as a small company - we have to be extremely cognizant of our overhead and the ROI. Again, as much as we want to integrate with HomeKit, from an engineering perspective, it's extremely difficult for us to meet Apple's hardware requirements without sacrificing such things as Multi Channel Support and 5.0. As such - and at the moment - we are following our existing project plan while keeping an eye out for possible opportunities for integration with HomeKit. Thanks again for the lively debate. It's indeed appreciated. With kind regards, Michel
lilyoyo1 Posted June 16, 2015 Posted June 16, 2015 As someone who has the insteon hubpro and lutron compatible hub, homekit as it is designed at this time is not a market I want to see UDI in. This paragraph from Jay Martin (indigo) best describes how homekit works. With that said, if a user has never used Insteon before, homekit will be great. Those however that have grown accustomed to the speed and setup of Insteon "scenes" (whether manually or from software) will be sorely disappointed in how it works in the homekit world. HomeKit is a couple of things: first, it’s an iOS Framework that apps can use to manipulate HomeKit compatible devices (they call them accessories). HomeKit accessories are stored in a central/shared iOS database that is managed through any client app that uses the HomeKit Framework. So for example, you can use client app A to discover an accessory and add it to the HomeKit database, and then client app B can tell that accessory what to do. Or vice versa. This leads us to Siri integration – we believe, under-the-hood, Siri acts as a special HomeKit client app, so it can directly tell HomeKit accessories what to do. This is an important distinction because it means that neither client app A nor client app B is “using Siri to control the device”. Rather, Siri is using knowledge of the central/shared HomeKit database to control accessories. http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/apple/indigo-rule-out-homekit-integration-for-now.html
xKing Posted July 7, 2015 Posted July 7, 2015 Sorry for duplicating the link, but this works Software "HomeKit"
Cwr5033 Posted June 13, 2016 Posted June 13, 2016 Pretty neat developments today with HomeKit! I for one and very excited for a polished app. No offense, but Mobilin is just offensive looking by modern terms. I'm going to get HomeBridge up and running before iOS 10 drops.
dsstrainer Posted June 14, 2016 Posted June 14, 2016 Remember, ISY is a protocol bridge as well as a hub... it bridges the gap between x10, insteon, and Zwave (if you got that model) and does it well. You can possibly use the network module and a simple few lines to bridge the gap with something like a smartthings with different devices. Also you don't need to have all devices on a single hub or protocol. I have a great system with my outside lights and garage door opening using ISY and insteon. I actually use x10 motion sensors outdoor (because they are friggin weatherproof!) to trigger Insteon switchlinc and IOLincs for garage door openers. I have no interest in HomeKit as it is yet another limited design that will be Apple only But I may expand into an obvious winner like Smartthings with Z-wave modules for theater room control or geo tracking. These are 2 asynchronous setups for the most part and can co-exist on 2 networks just fine without me having to throw out all my insteon stuff and start over. You can also tie into things like IFTTT for things passing variables between hub/protocol systems.
fitzpatri8 Posted June 14, 2016 Posted June 14, 2016 I'm still interested in HomeKit for several reasons, especially because Siri and HomeKit seems to have a better approach to security and privacy than the alternative voice assistants. That's half the puzzle. But the current implementation of HomeKit doesn't have any of the scheduling or conditional logic intelligence available through an ISY. Rather than have people hack together an external server to act as a go-between, how difficult would it be to bake Siri into the ISY portal, so we'd have the best of both worlds?
stusviews Posted June 14, 2016 Posted June 14, 2016 Now that Apple has opened Siri for developers, that may be a possibility.
Michel Kohanim Posted June 15, 2016 Posted June 15, 2016 Hello all, Unfortunately as long as Apple requires a hardware modification, it would be very difficult for us to support it without spending massive amount of resource/money and change our hardware. With kind regards, Michel
Jamison_IO Posted June 15, 2016 Posted June 15, 2016 Remember, ISY is a protocol bridge as well as a hub... it bridges the gap between x10, insteon, and Zwave (if you got that model) and does it well. You can possibly use the network module and a simple few lines to bridge the gap with something like a smartthings with different devices. Also you don't need to have all devices on a single hub or protocol. I have a great system with my outside lights and garage door opening using ISY and insteon. I actually use x10 motion sensors outdoor (because they are friggin weatherproof!) to trigger Insteon switchlinc and IOLincs for garage door openers. I have no interest in HomeKit as it is yet another limited design that will be Apple only But I may expand into an obvious winner like Smartthings with Z-wave modules for theater room control or geo tracking. These are 2 asynchronous setups for the most part and can co-exist on 2 networks just fine without me having to throw out all my insteon stuff and start over. You can also tie into things like IFTTT for things passing variables between hub/protocol systems. Are you by chance using a chamberlain myq garage door opener?
JeremyLaurenson Posted June 18, 2016 Posted June 18, 2016 Hello all,Unfortunately as long as Apple requires a hardware modification, it would be very difficult for us to support it without spending massive amount of resource/money and change our hardware.With kind regards,MichelI suggest you guys seriously start looking at addon hardware modules and software modules to enable a bridge. HomeKit this time around is starting to look very good, and specifically very user friendly. After fall, with the integration of a real app and 'home' into their lock screens on iOS, ISY's customers will be asking more and more for support. I'll bet the people who brought us the disasters that were the insteon and other hubs haven't been sitting still for the last year. We've seen this movie before... The flip side is that ISY will not go out of business, but your addressable market would skyrocket if you built a bridge from the ease of use of HomeKit to the flexibility of ISY. You can either own the control point (since Apple would do the UI for you essentially) and ISY is one of the few folks out there doing a decent job of aggregating "legacy control". Now is the time. Or... get disrupted like the music players, cameras, travel clocks, gps devices, pay phones, pedometers, travel compasses, handy-cams, portable DVD players, address books etc It'll just take one viral Kickstarter and it's all over. YOU should run that Kickstarter. Apple buyers spend hundreds of dollars of products - they're a great market to go after For myself, as soon as a decent hub is out (either someone will make a physical thing or create a great app to use with an old iPod touch/iPad/iPhone) I will be switching. </soapbox>
MWareman Posted June 18, 2016 Posted June 18, 2016 <soapbox>When will Home kit support be available on my Android devices. I want in as well</soapbox> Oh, right. I'll posit frustration needs to be aimed at Apple, and have them work to integrate with others, rather than expecting the world to work with them. Convince Apple to add a local API to their device, then all kinds of integration will be possible!
paulbates Posted June 19, 2016 Posted June 19, 2016 Products are differentiated. Everyone needs to pick the product that best fits their requirements. If the requirement is a hub that supports Insteon and Homekit integration, above all else, Then this would be the best thing to switch to. Its available from Smarthome right now. For myself, as soon as a decent hub is out (either someone will make a physical thing or create a great app to use with an old iPod touch/iPad/iPhone) I will be switching.</soapbox>
stusviews Posted June 19, 2016 Posted June 19, 2016 A flyable Formula One SUV that can be used as a yacht
paulbates Posted June 19, 2016 Posted June 19, 2016 A flyable Formula One SUV that can be used as a yacht ....gets 487 MPG and is a spaceX landing pad
Michel Kohanim Posted June 19, 2016 Posted June 19, 2016 Hi JeremyLaurenson, Thanks so very much for the feedback. I am thinking that if the HUB can support it (and I very much doubt they have the encryption hardware), perhaps the integration is done in the cloud? If so, having a cloud bridge might be much easier and not hardware dependent BUT cloud dependent. But, then again, HomeKit is already cloud dependent as is Echo. Does anyone know? With kind regards, Michel
cwintermeyer Posted June 24, 2016 Posted June 24, 2016 HomeKit integration with ISY is critical, IMHO. While I love the flexibility of programming the ISY-994i units in both of my homes to do what I want based on Insteon remote buttons pressed, sensor response, time of day, program variables, etc., the convenience of a HomeKit interface on my iOS and MacOS devices will ultimately sway my future home automation purchase decisions, as will the ability to control other systems I use like Sonos and Nest. Integration with the devices I use every day matters to me. Ease of use matters to me. End-user UI/UX design matters to me (an area where ISY is severely lacking, by the way). Here are just a couple of recent articles that already have me contemplating a move away from ISY and Insteon if there are no plans for HomeKit integration: http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/06/22/apples-homekit-smarthome-platform-picks-up-new-device-types-controls http://www.macrumors.com/2016/06/23/home-app-in-ios-10
Michel Kohanim Posted June 24, 2016 Posted June 24, 2016 Hi cwintermeyer, Thanks so very much for the feedback. Currently we have absolutely no plans to support HomeKit unless it can be done in the cloud. At the moment, that does not seem feasible. As such, you are welcome to look for other solutions. Sorry. With kind regards, Michel
Razemania Posted June 24, 2016 Posted June 24, 2016 Hi cwintermeyer,Thanks so very much for the feedback. Currently we have absolutely no plans to support HomeKit unless it can be done in the cloud. At the moment, that does not seem feasible. As such, you are welcome to look for other solutions. Sorry.With kind regards,Michel That is a very unfortunate response. I am interested in any alternatives someone may come across. Please share via PM if possible.
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