I happen to still suffer from the presence of some X10 pieces in my home.

They remain mostly due to reluctance to pay for suitable replacements. All are wired in switches, relays and in one case a 240 volt X10 relay/switch.

The 240 volt switch is the most troublesome as it controls a high wattage electric floor heater and likes to turn itself on randomly, thereby costing real money until I notice it is on. I have no idea how long it was on, of course.

The remote control switches for my X10 are all in wall types.

I would actually prefer a WiFi enabled 240 volt relay that I could control from anywhere.

Suggestions for suitable replacement tech?

Well clearly I'm in the ZWave camp. (BTW, could we break this out into its own thread? I'd love to talk home automation in general)

I haven't looked at the alternatives very much, but it seems to me like the two main camps are ZWave and Insteon. Both are designed to be mesh networks, ZWave uses wireless and Insteon combines wireless with powerline. Insteon is also a little different in that all devices can also be controllers (of a sort). I'm actually not sure exactly how that works, but I guess it just means that devices can be the command issuers instead of sending a signal back to a central controller which then sends a signal back out to whatever you're looking to control. I'm still not sure how that gets programmed in Insteon's case, but that's because I've never had any hands on with that technology.

The best performance I've ever had from automation technology was when I simply had a GE remote control and ZWave switches/modules. The response time was instantaneous. The problem was that I was extremely limited in what I was able to do, and I couldn't control anything from other locations. I added in the Vera Lite and this created an occasional lag, but that could be in my head. The initial switch from X10 to ZWave was probably what made me so impressed, since it was such a significant jump in performance.

I do, however, have good news for you. The Vera Lite is capable of controlling X10 products. That means you could do a slow migration to ZWave if you like. You need some extra hardware and some additional setup, but it's possible and plenty of people have done it. There's a decent community of Vera users on their forums (that's a link to the thread about using Vera with X10).

Once you start adding ZWave to your system, you can get devices to handle those things you're mentioning. I'm a little unclear as to how your electric floor heater is powered, but it sounds like it's turned on by a wall switch to a controlled outlet? There's two solutions there. Either get a switch like this to turn the outlet on and off (make sure you're getting that on/off switch and not a dimmer in this situation), or you could replace the outlet with a ZWave outlet (I think the switch is the better option for this situation). I'm pretty sure that switch can handle the load.

Is that floor heater just for comfort or is it the primary source of heat for the room? If it's the latter, you could add a temperature sensor and create a virtual thermostat in Vera, telling it to turn on the floor heater when the sensor detects that heat dropped below a certain range.

Anyway, I'm sorry I didn't really give much comparison of technologies, but I've only had extensive dealings with X10 and ZWave. I made a clean switch from one tech to the other, so I can't speak to the process of migrating, but I'm very happy that I made the move.

The one problem is, as I've been saying in all these discussions, the price (and you clearly have the same problem). I was fortunate because at the time I was looking to switch to ZWave, Radio Shack was getting rid of all their GE automation products. This resulted in an absurd fire sale, the likes of which I hadn't seen since the empeg days I picked up dimmer switches that list for $42, and took them home for about $5 a piece. The same with lamp modules and other stuff. I swapped out all the light switches in my condo at the time for about $40, and had at least one ZWave remote in every room. If I hadn't had that sale, I never would have been able to amass the collection of ZWave devices I have now.

Also, don't get the GE ZWave remotes. They don't really work with Vera

A separate thread might be good...

My 240 load is 4Kw of electric heating cable that is installed outside. It provides ice melting and snow clearing for a stone walkway.

A lot of remote relay stuff assumes either 120 volt AC or that a neutral/white wire is available. Not the case for my load, 240 volts with no neutral at the connection box.

I do have the option of moving the control point to a new junction box next to the breaker panel, which gives me the neutral. But still must control a 240 volt load.

I would like to be able to control this load, and see the current status (on-off) from anywhere on the Internet. SInce I already have WiFi everywhere in the building, I was hoping for a device that had it all together.

I'm not aware of an all in one solution, but this appears to be the ZWave solution. There's a lot of different ZWave modules out there...

As for other devices needing a neutral wire, that's actually not always the case. The GE switches I picked up from Radio Shack needed neutral, but these days most of the ones you'll find don't. At least the cheap ones don't. You can actually find ZWave switches at Lowe's now, usually around their Iris stands.

The nicer switches/dimmers usually require neutral. You also need neutral if you want to use LED bulbs.

Nest doesn't do that (themostats that do want the voltage drop across this bleed resistor). The scheme I came up with has a high voltage buck feeding a current limited battery charger/smartpath power controller (actually, a generic Linear tech part trimmed slightly differently at the factory). This works pretty well in most cases, and can be software configured for different max current draws to accommodate different HVAC equipment.

Yeah, I meant to comment on this, because it seems like the Nest needs the C wire. So I'm still confused about Tom's story. Oh well.

No, nest doesn't need it. It has an internal battery which is recharged by trickling from the aforementioned circuit.

In my case, it works perfectly (but it should as my boiler is what it was prototyped against); I only have a two wire hookup and being in a single story concrete slab house with no attic or crawlspace, pulling new wire would have been a nightmare.

Ah, okay then, very neat. Thanks for the clarification.

Sorry...too funny, I had to share

https://nest.com/letter-from-the-ceo/

Ouch. Setback for Nest Protect, but it's good that they are responding the way they are with such a critical safety product.

Their response to this issue will likely shape the companies future.

I am impressed.

It puts me in mind of Tylenol's response decades ago with the product tampering attack. Their response was so immediate and so... draconian (they immediately pulled all Tylenol products from all the shelves in North America and redesigned the packaging before restocking) that the consensus was that their actions saved the company.

Kudos to Nest!

tanstaafl.

One of my Nest Protect thermostats had a false alarm a month ago. I was traveling and my wife, alerted to where the problem was ("smoke in the office") turned on the ceiling fan there and it got happy. Probably some dust got in there? Hard to say. I'm not sure whether I should bug Nest to replace it or not. Other such incidents seem to happen now and again, at least based on what I see on the Nest chat forums.

So, yeah, I'll still count myself happy with my Nest Protects. I hope they invent some other way to shut them up in the case of false alarms. The hand-wavy thing is pretty cool. Maybe they'll shoehorn it into their app?

There's one thing I've been wondering about the Nest Protect. I think I've asked it before but I can't remember if it's been discussed. Does the Protect have both kinds of smoke detection? I was under the impression that it was only either photoelectric or ionization, and the current recommendation was to get detectors that have both.

I filled in some contextual info with parentheses in the above quote.

Ah cool, thanks.

My cynical brain is worried: If you're not connected to our system, connect forthwith! Yeesh.

-jk

Nest and Google are in damage control mode about ads on thermostats. Glad to see Tony Fadell trying to sort it out and assure owners that ads won't be part of their experience.

http://recode.net/2014/05/21/nests-tony-fadell-no-ads-on-thermostats/

I know the first image that Nest owners have in their heads is one of ads being displayed and spoken to them from their thermostats, but isn't it more likely that Google would make use of their existing mobile ad platforms and put ads in the app, and not on the actual device?

Everyone knows I'm a Google fanatic, but I'd never want them to put ads on the actual device. On the app, however, I don't see it being the end of the world.

I have no insider knowledge of Google or Nest's plans. That said, the way they think about advertising isn't going to be about plastering ads on any surface with a screen. Instead, they want to use all sorts of sensors to learn more about you: when you're home, when you're away, etc., and feed you ads that are contextually relevant when you're somewhere that ads are acceptable (e.g., watching YouTube, doing web searches, running an app with banner ads).

That leads to the question of what they can learn from your thermostat & fire alarm that they can't learn from your phone and computer. I suspect the answer is "not very much yet" but Google is definitely keen to be a player in the "Internet of things" and Nest is a big player in that space. At the point where every light bulb, every electrical socket, every home appliance is connected to your home network, Google wants to be there. "Gosh, your dishwasher says the JetDry reservoir is empty. Buy more, click here!"

I was in a bar in Yosemite a few weeks ago and had a brief chat with a Nest employee. How did I know he worked for Nest? A t-shirt with "nest" on it Quite common for people in CA to wear company-branded clothing I've found.

For me, it would be the end of Nest in my home if they did this. (well, first I need to move back to a Nest compatible home). Up front, I paid for not just a chunk of hardware to sit on my wall, but also the services tied to it including the app.

I have a near zero tolerance for paying for something and still getting ads. It's a big reason I don't use XBox Live or the XBox 360, Hulu, or cable TV. It feels like a slimy double dip move.

Nest Protect units are back on sale at $99 now (was $129). Existing owners can log into their account for a $33 refund per unit.

The wave feature is still disabled, and no word on any progress towards it's return.

Data from the existing units has been used in a CO whitepaper (PDF link).

That sounds like nothing but good news. And certainly getting under that magical $100 price point is a significant change.

As an owner of seven Nest Protects, I'd discourage any of you from buying into the system until they acknowledge and repair their false alarm problem. Since installing mine, I've now had two false alarms. If you poke around the Nest support forums, you'll find many other unhappy customers. They'll replace or refund them without issue, but the real question is whether they'll fix them so they work reliably.

Out of curiosity, what were the false alarms for you? Fire or CO detection? I haven't heard much about the false alarm issue, but just enough to know something was going on.

Both were "smoke". There's no way to cancel it short of pulling it off the ceiling and removing the battery, or just turning on your room fan and waiting it out with the hope that whatever got clogged in there gets out again.

Nest's response to my WTF email was "we'd be happy to replace the unit, please call us" but my unanswered question remains: is there anything different between the replacement unit and the original?

Well, it looks like Nest is finally giving me the good news I've been hoping for (and complaining about incessantly) and released their API.

This is a good step towards making it usable with other systems. Naturally, the first thing I did was head to the automation forum I frequent and see what the reaction was there. The folks on those forums have been working for a while on integrating Nest with the Vera controller I use. They seem pleased that the API has been announced, though they also seem displeased about a few omissions:


I still think there's enough in the API to make this useful, though.

Seems it's a new standard called Thread.

I don't love that Samsung is involved, but I'm actually OK with this, depending on how it all shakes out. I've said all along that I just want everything to be able to talk to each other.

At some point we'll still have the problem of multiple standards. ZWave isn't going to go away just because Thread is here. I've personally spent at least a couple thousand dollars on outfitting my home with ZWave, so there's no chance I'm going to switch to Thread overnight. So I'll either need to stick with ZWave or hope that someone figures out a way to make the two work together (I don't see why not).

Mainly, I want to see how the prices shake out. I think the main problem with Zigbee is that there just aren't that many types devices supporting it. I can't get a wall switch, for example. And there aren't many popular controllers that I've seen.

The primary problem I've always had with ZWave is the cost, and I've always assumed that has a lot to do with its proprietary nature. I'll be interested in seeing if Thread devices will be cheaper, because right now none of these devices are in the price ballpark for wide adoption.