Hubs are dying, tell me it's not so

Let em burn.
Dark houses are depressing.
To each their own.

AI would probably assume around 15 mins.
Then maybe only dim after that if it's after sunset.

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Your comment may stand, however your math fails.

There were 7 door close events for that bathroom yesterday. Drawing the simple conclusion that the bathroom is used an average of 7 times per day (not counting times when someone just quickly goes to get something), that would equate to 7 lighting events where lights would remain on for an extra 14 minutes over the current 1 minute dwell time now. That works out to 98 minutes per day of extra lighting (7 x 14). Assuming that weekend usage remains the same (it doesn't), 98 minutes x 365 days per year equals 35,770 minutes of wasted lighting, or 596 hours of wasted electrical usage.

Electricity in NY is about $0.17 with taxes and delivery. 700 watts of usage for an extra 596 hours of lighting works out to roughly 417 Kwh. 417 x $0.17 = $70.89 per year.

Smart homes have many goals, add convenience, safety and security, and energy savings, etc. I am a strong believer in all three. Having any sort of home automation carry that kind of cost is absurd to me.

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My math was fine. My # of instances was not.

Regardless, it isn't any of my business anyway. All I know is I won't annoy my wife and family for $70/yr. Not worth it to me. Your situation may be completely different, and that's fine! But to be clear - the electrical savings come versus what you would have done MANUALLY, not having the off timers at 1 min versus 15 min. I would strongly suppose that you left the lights on more than 15 min of 'wasted time' when they were manual. So even at 15 min the HE system is still saving you money.

But spending many hundreds of dollars on automation equipment to save tens of dollars per year in electricity simply does not make financial sense. Pretty much no one, not even in MA HI or CA with the highest electrical prices, can justify an automation system on energy savings alone. They justify it based on additional functionality and convenience, with a side/minor notion that they may save a few $$$ on electricity, too.

Again, though, I'm genuinely not trying to argue. You do whatever makes sense for you.

Oh it's a bathroom?
Yes turn them off.
Hide that gross place.

Although, you hate being stuck on the pot when the lights automatically turn off. That's a big problem.
Switches work in the bathroom.
Dumb timer for the fan.
Maybe auto pleasant scent dispersal? :wink:

Back to the OP... Hubs probably are dying - but so is everything depending on your time horizon.

I don't see them dying in a time frame I care about. If it is >10 years, that is an eternity for technology. By then I'll have replaced everything with zwave 700 and moved two more times. lol.

I'm on the lookout for the zigbee or zwave Poo-Pourri dispenser. https://amzn.to/2SPb8zU

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Hubs aren't going anywhere. With millions (and more like billions) of cheap wireless sensors and hardwired sensors, something has to connect them all.

This is only one part of a hub. Hubs also bridge standards and allow different standards to work together (oh the irony in that statement).

It will be a long time before (or if) their is ever one standard for all home automation. And if that ever happens it will most likely require replacing everything you own anyway.

Another huge part of a "hub" is the automation creation and processing. We all know the advantages of being local for, speed, reliability, control, security and privacy. This isn't going to change anytime soon. The same people who argue hubs are dead are buying more hubs then ever (Amazon echo is a hub, Google home is a hub).

The real challenge is interoperability. In a world we're vendor lock-in is a growing problem, we need to continue to seek and demand local apis for all to connect.

Yes, people want simple, today. But they quickly reach the limits of simple. Hubs give you more options (sometimes overwhelming) and will be around and a key part of defining, creating, managing the security, privacy and providing the speed and reliability a hub less IoT system can not simply do.

The goal is to make it seemless between the present and the possible future. Flexibility is key.

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Exactly right. And even if it is in the cloud in the future (arguable as local processing and AI capability increases at the chip level), that does not fix the standards and interoperability problem.

The real problem is there won't be one 'cloud' there will be dozens - by different vendors and technology. Some will talk laterally, some won't. Again the consumer will have to pick an ecosystem to subscribe into - which limits adoption and effectiveness.

There isn't a fix to companies competing in the short term.

After coming back from CES it is clear to me we are starting the AOL phase of IoT. Welcome to walled gardens. Don't worry, it won't last long, but they might start sending you stuff in the mail.

Give it time and keep building your hub and enjoy the automation you create while people keep pulling out their phone to show you their smart devices.

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No worries.. It's just a philosophical debate. :slight_smile:

I haven't rebuilt most of my bathroom automations after moving from SmartThings, but I plan to. I probably had one of the "smartest" bathrooms around before the migration.

There are 2 motion sensors in there. One for the shower, and another for the rest of the space. The bathroom was considered occupied if either the motion zone was active, or the door closed. If the room was occupied, and someone turned on either the exhaust fan or electric heat, they would shut off after 5 minutes unless someone was in the shower (determined by the shower motion sensor and power consumption measured on smart plug for the tankless water heater) at which case they would stay on until either motion stopped, or the hot water demand stopped, at which point a 5 minute timer would begin to shut those off.

I put a lockout on the electric heat anytime the central air is on, or the outside ambient air temperature is above 60 degrees. To keep the DW from freezing when stepping out of the shower when the air is on, I installed a Keen vent that closes automatically when the AC is on, bathroom occupied, and someone is in the shower. That last one earned me a lot of points! I also put a contact sensor on her medicine cabinet so the vanity lights turn on when she opens the door, if they're not already on. She loves that one specifically, when she's in a hurry to get something quick, like every morning when she's running late for work. lol.

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Thats huge right now. Look at all of the posts here, over on the SmartThings community, and others about devices not connecting, dropping off, losing messages, etc. Those technologies may have been around for a long time, but they're still not end-user friendly.

All of these companies want total world domination, but they don't want to open themselves up to collaboration. It didn't work in the long run for AOL, (or others at the time), and more recently in the IoT space, it's not working for Lowes Iris which struggles to gain any sort of market share. Rather than open up, Lowe's is trying to dump it instead. It's sad because I sounded that alarm years ago to their management.

Clever!!!

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I could use some more coasters!

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The company I work for (we distribute IT equipment world wide) started building out an IoT strategy a few years ago. I was recruited to their product development team for around two years. I called this the print server stage. Remember when sharing a printer, you had to buy a device called a print server that was just an Ethernet/Token Ring to par/ser printer device? Then you needed to designate a PC or server to act as a print spooler. That's where we are now with all this. After a while the print servers were modular and sloted into the printer. Now all of that comes built into the printer. In 5-10 years we could be there with HA if we can keep the walled gardens from slowing down innovation.

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Dont talk to me about printers please...
I had under my leadership the large customers projects and professional services globally (except for NA and part of Apac) for Xerox during a large couple of years.

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Ironically, those that are calling for the death of Hubs also think Print is dead... :slight_smile: I too have my history with printing.

Also ironic, paper will outlast almost all existing technology in the long run. Doesn't require power, nor need to be recharged... When done with it, can be used for heat (burn it) or recycle it and it becomes more paper... Comes from a renewable resource (trees) and is carbon neutral...

I was talking with an HP exec over the holidays about how their new consumer printers are now IoT enabled... Not hearing a bit call for Hubitat integration with a printer, but could be a fun notification device :slight_smile: or maybe print out a still from your security camera?

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