Hello all.
I’m looking for advice about choosing a home automation controller.
A bit of background: I’ve had Rako lighting for a few years and this year I want to install heating control (most likely Evohome or Heat Genius). I also want to control some electric towel rails, probably using z-wave or similar, so I’ve been looking at the options for a home automation controller to tie everything together.
I think it's an understatement to say there’s a bewildering array of options out there so I’d appreciate any advice about which solutions best fit my requirements, which I can summarise as follows:
I've done a bit of research over the last week and so far OpenHAB and Home Genie look like possible candidates. What else would people recommend I take a closer look at?
Thanks,
Z.
I’m looking for advice about choosing a home automation controller.
A bit of background: I’ve had Rako lighting for a few years and this year I want to install heating control (most likely Evohome or Heat Genius). I also want to control some electric towel rails, probably using z-wave or similar, so I’ve been looking at the options for a home automation controller to tie everything together.
I think it's an understatement to say there’s a bewildering array of options out there so I’d appreciate any advice about which solutions best fit my requirements, which I can summarise as follows:
- An event engine that allows configuration of triggers, rules, scenes, etc. for the control of home automation devices.
- Activity logging, notifications, and charting of historical stats would also be nice to have.
- UI: Good-looking polished native iPhone/iPad apps and a web interface to enable control, and ideally also configuration.
- An 'open' solution that allows users to update their configuration (as opposed to 'closed' locked-out solutions like Control4, Crestron etc).
- Support for a broad range of the most common retro-fittable DIY technologies in the UK (e.g. Z-wave, LightwaveRF etc.).
- Allows users to develop their own system interfaces. I expect I’d need to do this for both Rako and Evohome as they don’t have openly supported APIs. (I'm no stranger to programming and scripting using the likes of C#.Net, VB.Net, VBscript, Javascript, Powershell, Perl etc.).
- Ideally, no ongoing subscription costs, although I don't mind about upfront purchase costs.
- Good support forum and active user community.
- I don't particularly mind if the system runs on proprietary hardware or requires a Windows or Linux server.
I've done a bit of research over the last week and so far OpenHAB and Home Genie look like possible candidates. What else would people recommend I take a closer look at?
Thanks,
Z.
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