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This is a short story but a severe warning.
Have you heard about Insteon ???
No shame if you haven't. Neither did I until I stumbled upon this news. You ought to know about it because it is of importance to all of us.
Insteon was a company that offered a complete home automation system. They sold switches, door-sensors, wall-keypads, thermostats etc. etc. etc. A bit like the famous Dutch KlikAanKlikUit, Philips Hue and Tuya do. So it is something we all could have in our homes.
But then distaster struck. They went belly-up this week. And pulled the plug out of their servers.
This affected (hearsay) about a hundred thousand (yes 100.000) users.
And as usual with these systems, most users had multiple devices. Some invested hundreds of dollars into the system to automate their complete home.
And basically the lights went out for all those users.
If the servers plugs are pulled nothing works anymore. If you had bought a hub from them you would have some local functionality but even the hub connected to the cloud for a complete experience.
The Philips Hue system does the same. And so does Tuya.
Imagine having your complete house automated with products that rely on a cloud server and then suddenly nothing works anymore. This demonstrates that depending on an external company or service proves to be extremely dangerous.
I am using the former mentioned KlikAanKlikUit system. But I am using it in a different way. I am using it with my Domoticz home automation system which comfortabely runs on my own Raspberry Pi in my own Local network. Next to that I am using several ESP's (ESP8266 and ESP32's) as sensors and actuators. All controlled locally.
This is a plea for you to do the same.
Before you think about investing in a complete Home Automation system: for your own good do not turn to a cloud based service. Take some time to look into a local Home Automation System. There are plenty around like: Domoticz, eGeoffrey ,FHEM, Home Assistant, HomeGenie, Homeseer, Homey, Hoobs, Indigo Domotics, ioBroker, Jeedom, MajorDoMo, Misterhouse, MyController.org, OpenHAB, openLuup, PiDome, pimatic, Vera, WebThings Gateway and XTension to name a few. Most of these use a local hub/server so they keep working even if your internet connection is down.
All have their advantages and disadvantages. The looks is one aspect, ease of use another and open source and Raspberry installable are in my opinion very important. Another very important aspect is wether your home automation can connect to microcontrollers like the ESP to build your own devices. So do a bit of research. Also look if they have a forum, see how active that is and check what is happening there.
Better investing some time now then regretting it later.
The most important part is: DO NOT MAKE YOURSELF DEPENDEND ON A SINGLE MANUFACTURER AND/OR A CLOUD SERVICE. That is the lesson Insteon tought us.
Till next time
have fun
Luc Volders