Alexa still not an entry level hub replacement

I was writing up a response to someone about IFTTT and Alexa / Wireless Tag integration which will probably but useful later so I'm saving it here as it reflects on Alexa's poor support for sensors. Note Alexa's home automation interface is still better than Google's almost non existent one. (See compare below.)

Why go through IFTTT when you can integrate Wireless Tags direct with Kumo? As in as in my fridge / freezer monitoring setup which updates values as they change in my Homeseer instance which then can trigger any action Homeseer can perform. Which is just about anything. Plus IFTTT was become very unreliable this year.

Alexa Wireless Tag integration sort of works. I can ask the temperature of a sensor for example, "Alexa, what is the temperature of the freezer" and it tells me the reading from my regular sensor in the freezer. Though oddly in the device list I only see motion values for the regular tags and what appears to be temperature for the soil moisture tags. (Not all my soil moisture tags are dead.) Again oddly you can't use the sensor values in routines. Though finding anything in the Alexa device list is almost impossible since it is designed for people the just have a few things. Even stranger:

• You can sort the device list in the web interface but not the android one. 
• The web interface does not let you do anything with the devices on the list other than forget the device.
• Routine management is missing from the web interface.
• The android list interface does have some groups to narrow down the list but way to few. For example, the only way to see a list of the 12 of my 348 devices Alexa sees as "sensors" is to try to create a routine with one. 
• My Homeseer sees 3137 "devices" as I write this. (Note a "device" is data stream or parent. As in a Hue Sensor would be seen as 5 "devices". A parent and 4 sensors, light level, temperature, motion and battery level.) Alexa only sees 348 of those (note some of the 348 are Alexa devices not in the Homeseer count) and only 12 of those as sensors from SmartThings, Wyze, Ring and Hue so far. Even then for example the Hue sensors report motion, temp and light gut Alexa only sees motion info.
• Lack of complex triggers. For example: if no motion has been detected and door opens, turn on light. If motion has been detected and door opens turn off light. Or if any of room motion sensors are tripped reset occupancy timer. When occupancy timer hits X minutes turn off everything in room.

When you have 348 devices (that Alexa sees) like I do, it is almost useless. Amazon REALLY needs to improve their interface so it can scale if they want people to use their routine framework for any logic. So while it would be nice to have Wireless Tags usable as sensors in Alexa to, for instance, announce the fridge is too warm, I do not really see it as big deal till Amazon makes their configuration interface more usable.

To be fair when Alexa is compared to Google's Home:

Cons:

• Google does not even have a web interface so everything must be done via phone or tablet.
• Often skills like Harmony where with Alexa you would say "Alexa, turn on Netflix". With Google that worked then it went to you had to say "Hey Google, Ask Harmony to turn on Netflix." and then often tells me it did not recognize me and would not do it. Now it seems to be back to just "turn on" BUT for instance when I say "turn on Hero" (my PC's name) to Alexa is just works. I say "turn on Hero" to Google it starts playing something from Pandora.
• It appears too that at some point Google Home lost some of the account links I had setup.

• Lately the Googles (I have a Home and 3 minis) seem to say try again in a few seconds a lot.
• To discover new devices you say "Alexa, discover devices." You say this to Google and it finds phones and asks if you want to ring them. Ask "how do I get you to discover devices", you get "I don't understand" and "I found a related how to get Alexa to discover devices"! It is also easy to do from the Alexa app with a swipe down. Instructions I found online say Google's Home should do that too but it appears to do nothing for me.
• Google appears to allow one Harmony hub to be connected while Alexa allows many. (I have 5 currently)
• Adding skills to Home is an egg hunt compared to Alexa. I just tried to add the Wyze skill for example and I had to search on line to even figure it out. Then while trying to link the account it just exited half way through me entering my login info.
• Wyze, Alexa sees all the cams, motion and contact sensors I have. Google sees on the cameras and contact sensors.
• Google routines still appear to be voice command triggered only while Alexa's allow triggering using voice, time, some sensors (see above), location, alarms, echo button presses and "Guard state".

Pros:

• The devices list in Google does seem to use the room from Homeseer. However I had to add each Wyze and Wireless Tag device to a room during the setup process manually. 

Is the cloud over? (And some related EOL issues.)

I posted the other day how IFTTT has been getting damn iffy lately and services have been changing and going under so I though maybe a list might be in order. At least the ones I know of.

Back on September 18, 2015 I started a Facebook group for the people affected by FitBit deciding to discontinue support for custom trackers and even a couple non custom ones with little notice and no way to export that data. I scrambled and built a scrapper for people to get their data off before they shut down the pages. Fitbit eventually added the custom trackers to their data export a while after they shut them down but everyone that had been using those trackers had to find a new service to use. Generally at a higher cost. 

Since then this what I've seen / dealt with:

Sleep Tracking Startup Zeo Says Goodnight

Awesome device just poorly marketed. Technically they went under in 2013 but people the app still worked and you could still buy them as late as 2016. I got mine from the bankruptcy reseller while there seems a possible comeback. There was some effort buy users to support and enhance the app and make replacement bands. Looks like there might even be a couple bands on eBay yet. Basically dead as a product not though.

Lowes' Iris vapor API and devices that never came 2014

I bought one of the v1 hubs in the home security bundle only to find most of the devices on display in the store and on the website were not actually available. IT also turned out you could not do much of anything without a monthly subscription. The company often talked about the coming API but it never appeared.

Lowes' Iris forced conversion from v1 to v2 2015

A few things that glossed over were:
You had to "upgrade"
You had to give them a credit card and sign up for a subscription to do the upgrade.
A lot of the v1 sensors and devices where not supported by the v2 hub.
And some other things pointed out by users.

Google Drive downsize sort of upgrade 2015

I bought a Chromebook Dec 2014 that came with a TB of Google Drive space. Instead of adding a year of service on they added a second TB of space. I had almost 1 TB of used space on Drive at that point so that was great. Over the next year I added about 500 GB more thinking I could just pay for both after the free year was up. But instead my option was to remove 500+ GB or pay for 10 TB which was alos 10 times the price. So I scrambled to research for the best alternative and then moving ~600 GBs to Amazon. Also about this same time they came out with a new version that you still had to switch back to the older legacy version to use some features.

Safety Recall of all Basis Peak watches 2016

Loved this. You could download temp and heart rate data at 5 minute intervals. But they had a few batteries go bad back before that was such a common thing and they panicked. At least they refunded everyone that sent it back before the service shutdown. I wore mine up about the last day I could. As I recall I kind of made out on this one as I got mine refurbed, wore it a good year before getting more than I paid for it back.

Withings to Nokia and back again. 2016-2018

Nokia acquired Withings in 2016 and then sold it back in 2018 causing ripples in service.

Charter Communications Merges with Time Warner Cable 2016-2019

Being able to log into partnered sites like AMC.com where messed up for a long time.

Crashplan deciding to ditch the home market. 2017

They suggested people either move to a business plan at a higher cost or go to Carbonite which I left for Crashplan because their app kept resetting before I could get my data up there. Fortunately they honored plans already paid for and I had about 2 years paid ahead at that point so it was not total panic but the Home plan had been unlimited for multiple PCs. The business plan wa my the TB. I had ~ 5 TB on there so my prices was going to go up about 5 times.

Amazon ends its unlimited cloud storage plan 2017

Got Drive files moved to Amazon and notified people of the new locations to find their files (house concert footage of local bands I recorded for them). Since the plan was 
unlimited I started backing up files going to Crashplan there too. Was close to getting about 4 TB up there when they announce they would be switching to 1 TB for the same price unlimited had been. So again I was looking at a 5 X jump to stay.

Google Voice half upgrade ~2017

Around this time they also "upgraded" Google Voice. Again you had to switch back to the old version to do some tasks and still need to now in 2019.

Wunderground devolution 2017-?

It seems to have started a bit after IBM acquired The Weather Channel who had acquired Wunderground in 2012.  They started redesigning the site. It seems after a while they decided to start dropping features instead of rewriting them. My first personal issue was not being able to get my Netatmo station linked to my account. Things really went downhill when they tried to shutdown webcam support. The backlash was so intense they changed their mind on that one at the last minute. Since then though they seem to be pushing nightly builds without any testing as bugs will appear, go away and then come back. And features seem to keep going away. The latest announced feature drop, as of this writing, is dropping the free tier version of API key. This really impacted the home automation communities.

G+ shutdown 2018

After jamming G+ into all their apps then ignoring it they decided to rip it back out which required creating profiles in some apps and other issues like circles going away in Voice. Not to mention needing to convert all the posts there to a new platform or lose them.

SmartThings / Samsung merger mess 2018-?

Samsung decided to merge SmartThings account with their by making them convert to Samsung accounts and new apps. This after SmartThings had already required people to start over when "upgrading" from a version 1 hub to a version 2. No migration plan like other hub.

LinkedIn did similar after buying Lynda.com merging users basically by having the Lynda users match up and link their private LinkedIn accounts to the company provided Lynda.com accounts or creating public LinkedIn profiles to use Lynda.com.

Amazon Wand 2018

While technically still alive and even for sale but these were never supported all that well and it is a rare day now they can even get a connection to a server.

Facebook stops automated posting 2018

Affected IFTTT applets made the news but it also hit other third party integrations.

Gmail / IFTTT split 2019

IFTTT being able to trigger on an email was how a lot of things worked so while it was just a subset of features in terms of usage it was major.

Beddit Cloud shutdown 2018

Mine actually died shortly before this so it was not as big a deal but still needed to scramble yet again to save what data I could. On the plus side Withings came out with a similar but better device recently that works pretty good.

Scanadu to shut down support for its Scout device per FDA regulation and customers are mad 2016

Not a great device but had promise. Unfortunately they basic just dumped it on customers then moved on to the next thing without ever collecting any feedback or anything.

Microsoft HealthVault service to end November 20, 2019

Google said it would kill its Works with Nest program 2019

Google acquired Nest back in 2014. Tried to sell it off in 2016. And now appears to be trying to boost their Google Home Hub by make it THE Nest gateway.

Near misses

Things I thought about investing time and or money in but did not really get the chance.

Nest is permanently disabling the Revolv smart home hub 2016 

Fortunately I did not add this one to the hubs I tried.

Jawbone 2017

Mine died fairly quickly so I'd already returned it for refund so dodged this one.

Lighthouse cam 2018

At least they offered refunds

Lowes' Iris v2 shutdown 2019

Since I'd already given up on Iris at this point it made little difference to me personally.

Jibo 2019

Again at least they offered refunds

Stringify shutdown 2019

Was just starting with this one to see if could replace IFTTT when they announced it was shutting down.

HealBe soon

Still sort of around though after Globe 1 shocking people and them dying left and right the company is all but dead. Surprisingly they have a third version supposedly coming out but reviews are not great for V2 and V3

And then there also is

The above of course does not include all the crowd funded things that either never shipped or shipped something late and basically non functional. Though I did originally get some of them via crowd funded projects. 

And all the price hikes. Streaming services spring to mind. Hulu dropping the free (commercial supported) tier for example.

Updates:

Dakota Alert discontinues the 2500 series Jan 19th 2019

They replaced it with a 4000 series that while having a bit more range of course will work with any older sensors and does not have a relay per channel like the 2500 receiver did. I have a whole post on this one.

5/28/2019, Automatic forcing users to get new hardware that requires $5/month or $50/year subscription service by August 31, 2019. 

Also requires new app, works with direct cell service connection instead of your phone and it appears does not support interaction with other apps quite yet. Technically you can use it up to 3 years for free but with virtually no features other than as an OBD2 reader. Reviews of the new model appear to be awful. The one bright spot is that they are cheaper and Automatic seems to be giving a discount to upgrade directly through them. Per emails going out you can get the new model for $60. $40 off the MSRP but just $20 off the Amazon price. ($26.59 if you include taxes in my case.) If you compare the subscription fee to other services like Hulu or G-Suite for example it seem a bit steep for what you get. Sadly compared to similar products it is actually on the cheap side. Of course if you live outside the city limits like me where cell service much less LTE service is spotty any of the cell connect only models may be of limited value. So I'm going to break down like I'm sure so many other will and get one at the "upgrade" to at least try before possible having to scramble in August to find something else. 

Update Just a year later Automatic shuts down all operations.

6/29/2019 Hue app splits into 2 versions along with v1 hub EOL.

I went into the Hue app last night to check something and found it not longer works with my v1 hubs. Seems last April for some reason they decided that creating a new v1 app was the best way to provide support for v1 hubs till they shutdown support April 30th 2020. So to continue to use my 3 v1 hubs with my phone I have to set them up all over again. And next April they may stop working anyway unless I upgrade them to v2s. I appears there is or was a migration option.  Though that seems to need the phone app to see both v1 and v2 hubs. Then too the v1s were only out 5 years so one has to wonder how long the v2s will be supported. I've ordered a v2 hub to try to see if it makes more sense to migrate now or relink the hubs to the new v1 app and wait for the v3s to come out seeing as how the v2 is 4 years old now. After all if it comes down to having to unpair and repair all my Hue devices to upgrade then might as well wait for the v3s. Especially in this volatile market where so much could change in a year. See more about this and follow up adventure.

9/6/2019 Best Buy is leaving smart home users in the cold, but its Wi-Fi freezer will still mostly work

Fortunately I did not get into the Insignia Connect framework. If you did, you will want to file a compensation claim.

9/20/2019 TiVo Rolling Out Skippable Pre-Roll Ads for Retail DVRs

After announcing not long ago they were going to stop making hardware they seem to be trying to make sure the brand goes away by adding adds to shows you record. Though even more oddly if autoskip is on, it is not supposed to show them. So unclear who would ever see the adds. It seems they have also announced a couple new models as well. The new feature seems to be it might stream to a Roku instead of being able to stream more channels like Roku does.

10/17/2019 Yahoo is deleting all content ever posted to Yahoo Groups

Though I have not really used recently, it use to big with the rescue groups.

10/28/2019 Leeo Smart Alert is shutting down and​ "network will stop working"

Had not heard of them before but from posts I'm seeing some are sad to see them go.

10/29/2019 Sony Interactive Entertainment to Shut Down PlayStation Vue

Heard good things and was thinking about switching my cable to them. Oh well.

12/8/2019 20 VPS providers to shut down on Monday, giving customers two days to save their data

Sounds like this one might have been more of a scam than another legit business shutting down.

12/20/2019 Some Under Armour fitness devices lose their smarts on March 31st

Not only is Under Armour effectively bricking some device it seems some of the data will be lost as well. Thankfully I did not buy any of their stuff.

01/21/2020 Sonos will stop providing software updates for its oldest products in May

Basically they are cutting loose anything made before 2016. Fortunately mine are newer though I mainly use mine for announcements and those are getting more and more errors.
Looks like they might be hearing the screams.

4/29/2020 Belkin killing their web cams. 

Yet another reason to not record to the cloud.

5/29/2020 Amazon Echo Look and Spot No More

11/1/2020 Discontinued access to Amazon Drive through Synology Cloud Sync and Hyper Backup

12/20/2020 Saying goodbye to Flash

As the article points out few sites still use Flash but some popular security camera brands use Flash in their camera web interfaces which are required to make changes to the camera configuration. Reolink for example is still saying coming soon as of 11/15/2020 Note in Reolink's case at least there are Windows and Mac apps you can use instead.

Some are even older school and require ActiveX controls so can only be setup via IE browsers.

Running lists of killed services.

Killed by Google

Dying but not quite dead yet

10/25/2019 Wink

While not announcing just yet, it sounds like Wink it about to go down too with reports of employees not getting paid and support calls going unanswered. On 5/6/2020 they announced they were going to a subscription model to cover costs and gave people one week to sign up. On 5/13/2020 they pushed that back a week. On 5/20/2020 they announced they would keep it free for now "because so many had signed up".  Can't be long now till they fold.

And then there are the breaches and accidents

All Data Breaches in 2019 – An Alarming Timeline

Thinking of moving to Homeseer? Things you should know

Don't get me wrong, I think Homeseer is a great solution just not for a first timer. 

The interface is really aimed more at installers than end users but when you get to the point you need for instance multiple Z-wave networks it makes sense to  move to the next level with Homeseer. Before you run out and buy there are a few things to keep in mind.

Coming from SmartThings:

I do find it odd no one has made a plugin to use a SmartThings as a ZigBee bridge for Homeseer. Seems like it should not be that hard to do. I might have to do it myself at some point. Just got about 300 things ahead of that in the queue. Especially seeing as how my SmartThings account is locked out right now due to all the recent Samsung conversion mess. The "temp" IFTTT linkages I setup way back seem to still be functioning for now. In case you didn't know many of the SmartThings sensors and devices will not work with most other hubs. Many are ZigBee based which Homeseer has only limited support for. This is why it is important to get devices with cross hub support as much as possible. Many ZigBee devices, like Hue, also have "hubs" (bridges/gateways) available that allow them to work with many brands of hubs and multiple systems at the same time. Being able to connect to multiple system not only give you multiple control paths should one fail but makes migration easier. For instance if you have Hue bulbs linked directly to a SmartThings hub you need to access them through SmartThings and moving to a new hub, even a replacement SmartThings requires pairing the bulbs all over again. Using the Hue "hub" you just link the Hue "hub" to the new one and you are done. They also tend to give you added features and might help avoid issues.

For anyone else thinking of moving to Homeseer:

• Get it on sale. The software is 50% off a few times a year. Their hardware is discounted frequently too.
• Try before you buy. You can download a 30 day trial and run it on any PC. Just get a Z-Stick, download the software and go. If you do not like it you can probably send the Z-Stick back and be out nothing.
• Do not get Pro. Get the standard version. Most the plugins you will want are not included in the Pro version anyway. The only real advantages to getting Pro are the HSTouch Designer and Z-Seer+ Z-Wave Diagnostics are included which at sale prices Pro might save you around $20. But odds are you will not get to using the designer till you get most of the system setup and you can spread the cost over time. You might never use it, I still primarily use the voice or web interface a couple years in now. Note the HSTouch phone apps work without designer. It just has the default interface. If you decide you want a flashy custom GUI you can always pick it up at the next sale. See my post A quick start for HSTouch Designer for an idea of what using the designer is like. Want to see how flashy you can get check out these YouTube videos.
• Get the software and a PC instead of their "hubs". Especially if you get a refurb or used PC you get a lot more power for the cost. Even though you might not need it for Homeseer it gives you power to run other things on there as well. Or if you have a PC that is always on and not maxed just use that. For example I'm running on a 4th gen i7 with 19 plugin instances, 4 Z-wave networks, 4 Hue networks, 3 Harmonies among other things. As I'm writing this mine shows 1928 connected Homeseer "devices" (data/control streams not physical things). I also have several external things hitting the Homeseer API updating values. The CPU rarely reaches 24% .
• Go Windows. I hate Windows but some plugins only work on Windows so if you go Linux you limit yourself. Windows 7 if you can, just to avoid Windows 10 things like updating at the most inconvenient times. Another reason to go refurb / used PC.
• Get a Z-Net instead of a Z-Stick. You can put the Z-Net anywhere that has WiFi or an network port letting you put it in the middle of your network to reduce mesh hops. Or in an area of high interference. Or my fav another building from the controlling server. Note Homeseer supports multiple Z-Wave networks which work as one.This is the best way to reach other buildings and problem areas. Assuming you are not just doing an eval of course. You could probably send the Z-Net back too if the eval did not live up to your expectations but the price of the Z-Stick is easier to tolerate if you end up not being able to send it back.

Interesting contrast to 4 years ago.

Funny I shared this article on Facebook 4 years ago when feeling depressed at the phone and cloud centric home automation then. Interesting to read again in light of the voice and cloud centric home automation we see now. Though SmartThings has been moving away from the cloud most have not and the voice interfaces are being marketed as "home automation" even though they are basically just remote controls.  Four years ago was also before I scrapped my Veras and upgraded to Homeseer which pretty much ticks all the boxes. The only real missing bit for Homeseer is Zigbee support. Though between Hue and SmartThings hubs that can be linked into Homeseer as well. Plus there are very few Zigbee devices that are not available in Z-wave and or WiFi versions these days.

Multiple hubs or all in one?

I've been seeing this question posted a lot lately as people have been taken in by the Echo Plus ads. I ususally reply with something like

The starter kit with a bridge and 2 bulbs + Echo 2 is actually cheaper than the Echo Plus. You can do way more with it and it leaves you open to add an Automation hub later without having to relink all your Hue stuff.  And a link to the article The Amazon Echo Plus Is a Horrible Smarthome Hub
(Note it looks like the V1 starter kit is getting hard to find. The V2 kit is $20 more making the total cost $20 more than the Echo Plus though you get an extra bulb so the "hub" is costing only about $10 really.) 

Problem is hub, like "works with Alexa", is a vague term these days. I've heard it used for anything from a bridge from something like a Z-Wave network to WiFi, like Homeseer's Z-Net, up to a PC like I use running home automation software and connected to multiple networks of multiple protocols. BTW as someone pointed out Ethernet hubs are yet another thing. Pretty no one uses them anymore but in case some misguided person mentions them you can find a good over view of Ethernet hub vs switch vs router here.

As for what you need, it depends on what you want to do. Again what people call automation is anything from an Echo controlling a WiFi device (which is really just remote control) up to systems that learn on their own. Kind of like drones that way. It is all about interoperability now. I think the best way to look at it as like your entertainment setup. If a Smart TV does everything you need that is fine. You might have wasted some money but if you are OK with that then it is still fine. If you want surround sound then you are going to need a receiver / home theater system linked in some how. Same with if you want to stream stuff your TV does not have an app for or the app sucks or you just do not trust the TV apps to be maintained then you want a streaming box like Roku. Same with DVR, Blu-ray.... So if you want full control of your Hue stuff you want their hub/bridge. Plus once you have the Hue hub you can link it to multiple things. For instance you decide later you want some Z-wave stuff and add a SmartThings hub. You can link the SmartThings hub to the Hue "hub" as well and control your lights directly from SmartThings or Alexa. You could connect the bulbs directly to an Echo Plus but then you could not control them with SmartThings. Or connect them to SmartThings and still be able to control them from the Echo but in both cases you lose features you get with the Hue "hub". Same if you add a Harmony "hub" in as another control interface.

You might also want to read "Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Hub?"

I must be missing something

Seems like the world is following in the footsteps of a Rube Goldberg comic.
For instance I've seen posted, multiple times now, people putting Echo Dots in their cars to stream music despite the fact it need to use their phone's data to stream. Why not just use the phone?
Another example is one going around of people BUYING the OLD (no longer made) IR to X10 interfaces and a Harmony hub to control X10 devices from their Alexa! I mean you can get a version 2 SmartThings hub for $50 and Z-wave switches as cheap as $25 for a single or $37 for a double outlet so why buy a Harmony hub for $75+ (more if you want it with the remote) PLUS for another $30-$50 to control up to 16 devices max? Not only more cost, unless you have many devices to control, the extra hops make it more error prone, X10 itself has serious issues with many modern things interfering with it's power line signals and if anything breaks you are probably going to have to dig up a used replacement on Ebay and hope it works.
Let me be clear, I used X10 for decades generally working fine till around 2010 when it started driving me nuts being generally being flaky. And automation is my thing so I have all the test equipment and such. I'd often spend a day back then running around with test equipment, plugging and unplugging stuff while monitoring signal levels, tracking down what device was messing my signal that day. In the end I had noise filters on almost as many devices as I controlled. Insteon tried to keep things going by adding RF connections into the X10 mix but it did not help my set up stability at all. Either because of legacy X10 stuff in the mix or something else I could not see. In 2014 I finally decided to try one of the new hubs and never looked back. So it boggles my mind people are still trying to work with X10. It is like someone trying to explain how a PDA and a flip phone are better than a cheap smart phone. BTW a nice write up on the diffs between Insteon, Z-Wave and ZigBee can be found here. Note the chart at the bottom showing what the top 10 security company support. You really want to keep what devices are going to work with your next hub since odds are you will be upgrading at some point.

I can even see stuff like this Google Home built from a Raspberry Pi as a learning project but don't tell me it is a cheap Google Home. $54 for the kit is cheaper than a Google Home but assumes you have a Pi 3 you do not need for anything else or you need to add another $50 to that and what you end up with is not near as easy to use as the $100 - $129 Google Home. Rumor is there a Dot like Home in the works that will be as cheap as the $35-$50 Dot. So if you want a Home instead of an Echo but have an issue with the cost, you might want to just wait for that.

FB October 18, 2016

just posted this response elsewhere and thought I should post it here so it is easy to find when asked again later.

A LOT of depends on what hub is right for you. So far I've BOUGHT and installed, in order, SmartThings, Vera Control, Ltd., Iris by Lowe's, Hue, 3 more Veras, Amazon Echo and HomeSeer Home Automation to replace my X10 based system first installed in the 1990s. Vera can be easier to do simple stuff like turn on a fan when it is warm cause everything is an app in SmartThings. If there is one already that does what you want, great, if not you need to write one. Vera mainly uses a wizard of if this or that happens do this. You only write code for "complex" stuff like this AND this happens do this. Both Vera and SmartThings seem to be having a lot of stability issues lately. So much so I looked into Homeseer. Homeseer can do if this and/or that happens do this which is a bit simpler than Vera but the interface is aimed at installers not end users. They assume you will create an end user interface if needed with an optional designer tool. I'm a long time developer so the basic Homeseer interface is fine for me. It is way more expensive than than SmartThings or Vera though. That said, I now have moved all my day to day stuff onto Homeseer, shutdown my all my Veras and am just using SmartThings as a backup channel to my Hue lights. Homeseer also allows you to have and control multiple z-wave networks from one hub over Ethernet. For instance I can control my house and shop from in one screen now and do things like turn off or on all the lights in both places with one command. No matter what you go with I'd suggest you try and stay with devices that work with most hubs. One of the things I really like about Hue lighting is they will connect to multiple hubs at the same time. I would avoid anything that wants a monthly fee like Lowes Iris. (Iris has a bunch of other issues too. AVOID.) Read reviews! I would try and minimize having to go to the net for stuff too. For example another selling point for Homeseer to me is local login and actions. Other than IFTTT interactions of course. (Note Vera has no IFTTT or Echo support. Homeseer and SmartThings do.) SmartThings is mostly in the cloud and even Vera wants you to log on via their web site. You also might want to think about install base. Google some of the things you want to control and see how others have done it on the hubs you are thinking about. In the end you will probably end up having to write at least some code once you get into things deep enough so you should look at those interfaces and see which make sense to you. Oh one last thing, think about how the hub / interface will handle a hundred or more devices even if you only plan to do a few things. Most of the interfaces seem to be made for a dozen or two devices at most without getting slow and/or clumsy to use beyond that. You will be amazed how many things you end up adding after you get started. My current Homeseer is monitoring and / or controlling 678 things including monitoring 17 UPSs. And I'm not close to done yet! (Note a single device like an Aeon 4in1 sensor counts as 4 to 5 things depending on the interface.)

HomeSeer Home Automation Nice write up and comparison chart! A couple comments... our systems are compatible with the Mimo product from FortrezZ and there are 2 plug-ins available for Insteon and X10 too. I would recommend replacing the "Z-Stick S2" with a SmartStick+ or Z-Wave.me UZB for performance comparable to the Z-NET. Anyway, well done! 

 Round Mountain Rescue Ranch Yeah I did hook up the FortrezZ to my Homeseer but the reaction time seems so poor no matter what hub it is on I've abandoned it for a Raspberry Pi / PiFace solution I'm trying to work the bugs out of. Fortunately that is an option with Homeseer!