Alternatives to Smartthings hub

[chris_ha]

Hi all,

I'm fairly new to the home automation game, but I have a few items dotted around the house now.

Currently I have:

• Sonos equipment
• XBMC (running on a pi with a synology nas for media storage)
• Multiple Belkin Wemo switches
• Belkin motion detector

I plan on adding many more items and don't want to limit myself to 1 particular brand or technology.

What I am starting to realise is that I am forever in and out of different iphone apps to control them all. What I need is "a home hub" or a software equivalent that allows me to control everything from 1 app or web page. The problem so far is that I have struggled to find anything that is reasonably up to date and available in the UK.

I found the smartthings hub would do everything I need it to do and has lots of future scalability for different technologies, but it's not available in the UK yet. Does anyone know of a similar device or a software equivalent that would help me?

I did look at the openhab software and started playing around with it, but firstly it seems a little overcomplicated and secondly the iphone app seems to be pre-ios8 which will look terible on an iphone 6+.

I may be asking for the moon on a stick here, but I'm sure there must be something available...

Any suggestions are welcome!

Thanks
Chris

[Otto-Mate]

Welcome Chris.

The App switching mess is a metaphor for the entire smart home world. It doesn't appear particularly 'smart' at all sometimes.

Have a look at Roomie Remote - they support a lot of IP stuff including XBMC, Sonos and WeMo and the list is growing all the time...

http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/remot...-hardware.html

M.

[chris_ha]

Thanks! That is exactly what I need. I've spent the day setting up a custom control panel with all of the controls I need on 1 page all neatly laid out.

It also gives me some guidance for what future technologies I should purchase given its compatibility list.

Thanks for such an awesome suggestion.

[Otto-Mate]

That's great to hear Chris. Thanks.

M.

[back_ache]

What I need is "a home hub" software equivalent

A free app to try (currently only on android) is Http://yonomi.co