Hello Nico, Very interesting subject! I attended a talk by Kurt Gramlich [2] earlier this year about it.
(I think I saw him posting on this list at some point, but I'll BCC him to this message to catch his attention - hence the full-quote below). The condensed summary of the talk how I got it was: Kurt built a low-energy house using FS and free hardware developed by an Austrian company he is working with. A representative of that company was also present. The various standards were also mentioned but my memory is quite blurry on that. I hope Kurt can shed some light on that! :) Greetings, Guido On Tue, Dec 16, 2014 at 09:20:27AM +0100, Nico Rikken wrote: > > A topic I'm interested in is the field of home automation and home > energy management, which are highly related. > > I'm curious how you conceive the developments in this field, in your > country and for your use-case. > > The availability and quality of hardware and software in this field has > increased rapidly in the last couple of years and I can only assume > adoption is increasing likewise. With smart-home targeted interfaces > being included in an increasing number of appliances, and with gateways > being offered as a gift, the barrier to home automation is being lowered > for the general consumer. > > I'm however concerned about the lack of open standards and the related > purposeful creation of a lock-in. > > In the Netherlands there are about a dozen companies developing gateways > and some home automation components, often times with a cloud-based > back-end. Some are developing in accordance to standards like Z-Wave, > Zigbee and OpenTherm, whilst others have defined their own Application > Profiles on top of the Zigbee communication stack (Plugwise) or have > developed RF-based communication (FifthPlay). > > Not using proper standards is becoming more of an issue now that in NL > energy companies are offering gateways as part of the contract, both as > a nice-to have device and as a way to help save energy. People are > however coming to find that some of these systems sold by their energy > company become pretty much useless when they cancel their contract, > since a large part of the added value is in the data-services by the > energy company. They end up with a stand-alone device which was never > intended to be used stand-alone. > This practice of lock-in also comes into play with custom communication > standards, such that replacing the gateway would require you to ditch > the additional devices as well. > > Whilst being proper standards, the specifications of Z-Wave and Zigbee > (Application Profiles) aren't as open as some other available protocols > [1]. Likewise there is a lack of standardisation in gateway interfaces > for third-party applications to tie into these systems. > > How do you conceive these developments, and is there a FSFE-angle to > this story? > > Kind regards, > Nico > > [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZigBee#License [2] http://chemnitzer.linux-tage.de/2014/en/vortraege/detail/326 >
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