New Alexa-enabled devices

[Rob]

Amazon introduced several new devices today. I've already pre-ordered the Echo Spot to replace a Dot in the bedroom. It'll make a perfect alarm clock.

[stusviews]

That's a costly alarm clock

[lilyoyo1]

Amazon introduced several new devices today. I've already pre-ordered the Echo Spot to replace a Dot in the bedroom. It'll make a perfect alarm clock.

I like the look of the spot as well. I'm thinking about ordering one as well. Depending on some things, I may order the new fire sticks too.

[ScottAvery]

They appear to have chosen ZigBee for their built-in smart hub radio.  Can't be good for Insteon in the long run.

[Teken]

They appear to have chosen ZigBee for their built-in smart hub radio.  Can't be good for Insteon in the long run.

 

I was reviewing the specs and it appears ZigBee is the HA protocol of choice in the new Echo Plus. I am truly not a fan of ZigBee given its mish mash of standards. Never mind the dollar store look and feel of some of the products that use said protocol. 

 

I was happy to see all of the new products now incorporate a 3.5 mm output jack. The smaller (cheaper) version of Echo seems to be a knee jerk reaction to Googles Home and Apples what ever its called. The colored buttons are a clone of other products already on the market and the *Lets play games* concept is so gay. What they should have done is made it similar to that failed Kickstarter product called Dot.

 

Which of course was changed to be called something else due to trade mark violations.

 

If they came out with small form factor multi-colored button that offered similar attributes it would be a huge game changer. For now I personally don't see any value in this huge honking toy button. 

[Outlander]

They appear to have chosen ZigBee for their built-in smart hub radio.  Can't be good for Insteon in the long run.

 

I think we are dreaming of any sort of Insteon support but I would've taken built in Z-Wave.

The choice of Zigbee was surprising.

[Teken]

I think we are dreaming of any sort of Insteon support but I would've taken built in Z-Wave.

The choice of Zigbee was surprising.

 

This was primarily driven by the best selling smart bulb *Phillips* which uses ZigBee. People have to be realistic none of these companies go into this saying lets support the most used protocol.

 

Insteon was never on anyone's radar . . .

[lilyoyo1]

I must have missed something. New Firestick? All I saw was a new 4k and lower priced Amazon Fire TV.

 

Edit: There is no new Firestick. They made a 4K Box now.

It's not a replacement but I didn't feel like going through details

[lilyoyo1]

They appear to have chosen ZigBee for their built-in smart hub radio. Can't be good for Insteon in the long run.

I think that was for simplicity not in ndicative of their thoughts on any specific technology. Many of the most popular bulbs use zigbee such as hue and lightify. Those same customers are using their echos to control them so they went with their base

[G W]

It's not a replacement but I didn't feel like going through details

Now you sound like a Facebook user.

 

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[ScottAvery]

I think we are dreaming of any sort of Insteon support but I would've taken built in Z-Wave.

The choice of Zigbee was surprising.

 

Were there going to be a future for Insteon, they would have commited to giving Amazon free chips to put in the Echo's just to get the protocol out among the masses.  Amazon is going to sell a lot of Zigbee simply by having the devices linked on the Echo page.  Zwave will also suffer.

 

I only have Zwave and Insteon control in my network, since i can only have one add-on in my ISY.  Not sure if having access to Zigbee through an Echo would be useful.

[larryllix]

The way I understand it ZigBee, is only a very low level protocol anyway and having ZigBee makes you compatible with just your own protocol at the higher level layers in the OSI model.  ZigBee devices are only compatible with their own brands, and not between brands at all.

 

Of course, providing that is all true, it means Echo is hardware prepared for software licencing to anybody that will jump on-board later. Software is downloaded every day into so many things these days, without our knowledge sometimes.

 

I know Hue professes to use ZigBee but my other bulbs and controllers use Ethernet and proprietary 2.4 GHz.

[Razemania]

I have a lot of Insteon devices die over the past few years.  I've replaced very few of them.  Is there any value in purchasing the Echo with Zigbee and an upgrade for the ISY that also allows control of ZigBee?  From what I'm reading on the UD website, it appears this upgrade is available for my ISY.  

 

I think I would replace my now dead and removed keypadlincs and switchlincs with something compatible with the Zigbee in Echo.

 

I suspect this would be a waste to go this route, but thought I would ask.   I am very hesitant to reinvest in insteon switches. 

 

Brian

[larryllix]

I have a lot of Insteon devices die over the past few years.  I've replaced very few of them.  Is there any value in purchasing the Echo with Zigbee and an upgrade for the ISY that also allows control of ZigBee?  From what I'm reading on the UD website, it appears this upgrade is available for my ISY.  

 

I think I would replace my now dead and removed keypadlincs and switchlincs with something compatible with the Zigbee in Echo.

 

I suspect this would be a waste to go this route, but thought I would ask.   I am very hesitant to reinvest in insteon switches. 

 

Brian

No. Read my  post #14.

The ISY board is only for interfacing with specific brands of utility meters supporting user interrogation.

[sandryseibert]

I have a lot of Insteon devices die over the past few years.  I've replaced very few of them.  Is there any value in purchasing the Echo with Zigbee and an upgrade for the ISY that also allows control of ZigBee?  From what I'm reading on the UD website, it appears this upgrade is available for my ISY.

You may talk to Teken about your dead Insteon devices, he shows how to recover a PLM which died due to some capacitor failures and I figure that many other of my devices had the exactly same issue. So, basically I've replaced caps on at least six devices and they are now back to life!

[Teken]

I have a lot of Insteon devices die over the past few years. I've replaced very few of them. Is there any value in purchasing the Echo with Zigbee and an upgrade for the ISY that also allows control of ZigBee? From what I'm reading on the UD website, it appears this upgrade is available for my ISY.

 

I think I would replace my now dead and removed keypadlincs and switchlincs with something compatible with the Zigbee in Echo.

 

I suspect this would be a waste to go this route, but thought I would ask. I am very hesitant to reinvest in insteon switches.

 

Brian

Hello Brian,

 

To be more specific there are multiple ZigBee profiles. At the moment none of them are compatible at a high level. The ISY Series Controller supports the energy profile which is intended to allow integration to smart utility meters and third party energy monitors from the likes of Brultech.

 

Brultech makes three different models of energy monitors which are ECM-1220, 1240, and the Green Eye Monitor (GEM).

 

The ZigBee energy profile also includes thermostats and related HVAC appliances.

 

The Amazon Echo Plus supports the ZigBee home automation profile.

 

Lastly, the ZigBee consortium has been working on a new combined profile 3 which is supposed to unify all profiles into one.

 

It's safe to say by the time they do so most of us will be long dead. The ZigBee industry has been a complete cluster f^ck since inception.

 

 

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[Goose66]

I "HAD" Amazon Echos and DOTs in my home, however due to privacy concerns with them "always listening" I returned them.

 

Amazon Alexa devices don't send anything to the cloud service until you say the "Alexa" or wakeup keyword.

[Teken]

Amazon Alexa devices don't send anything to the cloud service until you say the "Alexa" or wakeup keyword.

 

I can tell you from personal experience the wake up phrase is often times mistaken and the hardware does indeed *Listen* when it happens. Also, one can not count on the electronic button because its software driven. Meaning it can be over ridden which was proven in no less than two hack conferences. This is why a cover or powering down the device is the only true method to eliminate that threat vector.

 

My Echo is powered down everyday in the evening and during lock down.

 

During conferences or meetings a silent cover is placed on top with the button enabled.   

[paulbates]

Amazon Alexa devices don't send anything to the cloud service until you say the "Alexa" or wakeup keyword.

Agreed. I've watched min with my router - with and without prompting.  I've even tried the "yelling at it" method.

 

Paul

[Goose66]

I'm not sure native integration into Alexa is such a great thing, anyway. Especially for things like individual light bulbs. What am I going to do - every time it's time to go to bed, do I say "Alexa, turn off the Hall Ceiling Can 1," "Alexa, turn off Hall Ceiling Can 2," "Alexa, turn off Hall Ceiling Can Thre...," well you get it. Voice control of individual devices is a cool trick to show your friends and all (and, yes, I know about Groups), but in practicality there is a limited number of things regarding home automation that I want to do with voice. The majority of these are multi-step, composite functions that may involve lights, security, AV settings, etc.

 

Having the ISY accessible to the Alexa through the Smarthome 2.0 API and ISY Portal is ideal for me, because I can setup the scenes, programs, conditions, etc. I want to control on the ISY and make them accessible to both buttons on KPLs and specific voice commands that I determine. So I can say "Alexa, turn on the Spa" or press the "Spa Mode" keypad button and I get the same complex mixture of pool equipment control (now through my new node server), outdoor lighting, audio output to outdoor speakers, and the like. Try doing that with some of the items being native to Alexa and some not - it's too hard. And once Amazon releases multi-step programming in October, "Alexa, goodnight" and "Alexa, good morning" will allow me to link a goodnight and goodmorning ISY program to set conditions the way I want while Alexa reads me my calendar entries or the news. Again, try that with some things being controlled natively and some not - it's just too much to maintain!

[Teken]

I'm not sure native integration into Alexa is such a great thing, anyway. Especially for things like individual light bulbs. What am I going to do - every time it's time to go to bed, do I say "Alexa, turn off the Hall Ceiling Can 1," "Alexa, turn off Hall Ceiling Can 2," "Alexa, turn off Hall Ceiling Can Thre...," well you get it. Voice control of individual devices is a cool trick to show your friends and all (and, yes, I know about Groups), but in practicality there is a limited number of things regarding home automation that I want to do with voice. The majority of these are multi-step, composite functions that may involve lights, security, AV settings, etc.

 

Having the ISY accessible to the Alexa through the Smarthome 2.0 API and ISY Portal is ideal for me, because I can setup the scenes, programs, conditions, etc. I want to control on the ISY and make them accessible to both buttons on KPLs and specific voice commands that I determine. So I can say "Alexa, turn on the Spa" or press the "Spa Mode" keypad button and I get the same complex mixture of pool equipment control (now through my new node server), outdoor lighting, audio output to outdoor speakers, and the like. Try doing that with some of the items being native to Alexa and some not - it's too hard. And once Amazon releases multi-step programming in October, "Alexa, goodnight" and "Alexa, good morning" will allow me to link a goodnight and goodmorning ISY program to set conditions the way I want while Alexa reads me my calendar entries or the news. Again, try that with some things being controlled natively and some not - it's just too much to maintain!

 

I would offer the true break through is when the system is able to offer two way interactive feedback. Right now there is no method to have Alexa speak unprompted. This is why I deployed Julie U.S. for reactive announcements vs Alexa's proactive announcements.

 

The benefits of Alexa is it provides me *Real Time* values vs Julie U.S. offers canned defined information.

[paulbates]

And quite honestly mine was an "icing on the cake" thing. I got the Dot at ReInvent last year. Hooked it up for fun. Because I had the ISY, Venstars and Harmony already, hooking it up was a no brainer. Its handy to turn on far away things like the attic fan and room lights on in the morning. But if I didn't have it. I've pretty much stopped using flash briefing, etc. We play jeopardy every now and then.

 

I played with Alexa smart home groups with the ISY and it comes across to linear / kludgy when mixing. 

 

Paul

[Goose66]

My Echo is powered down everyday in the evening and during lock down.

 

Lucky for me my lifestyle doesn't include the need for a "lock down."

 

Seriously, if someone wanted to listen in on my conversations, it would be a heck of a lot easier to stick a suction cup microphone to a window than it would be to hack my Alexa. Plus I don't often blurt out passwords to my financial accounts or anything in the house, anyway. I am certain far more personal information about me was obtained in the recent Equifax hack than could be obtained from listening to me watch The Tick on Amazon Video in my living room.

[Teken]

Lucky for me my lifestyle doesn't include the need for a "lock down."

 

Seriously, if someone wanted to listen in on my conversations, it would be a heck of a lot easier to stick a suction cup microphone to a window than it would be to hack my Alexa. Plus I don't often blurt out passwords to my financial accounts or anything in the house, anyway.

 

My reply was more to expand on what had been discussed. When I was growing up its safe to say when you pressed a button you knew it would do what you intended from On vs Off. Now, fast forward to 2017 even the so called dumb button isn't safe and the consumer simply can't count on it being On vs Off.

 

That was my driving point  . . .

 

Lastly, the idea of people thinking they have nothing to hide isn't the problem. Its the fact everything you say is recorded, held off site, and can be used by anyone if and when needed. For me voice control was just a stepping stone and a proof of concept for other larger projects. The primary goal for me was to use this technology where it could help the disabled / handicapped.

 

You can't see ~ No worries, let Alexa do that for you . . . You can't walk or stand ~ No worries, let Alexa do that for you . . .

 

In my mind there is a place for voice announcements / voice control but it needs to used in a common sense manner. Almost two years ago the infamous *Lets automate a table saw* was done. This was pushed to the Nth degree of stupid by adding voice control.

 

Anyone want to guess how that turned out??

[TrojanHorse]

Anyone want to guess how that turned out??

I'll venture a guess - "Insteon ALL ON event resulting in user pinned between garage door and table saw?" Maybe table saw legs straddled the garage automatic stop sensors?

 

 

 

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