Government mandating home automation? What are you nuts!
Smarthouse (Australia) has a rather interesting article titled: Should Automation Systems Be Compulsory?. Actually it's meant for Australia but I can easily see someone trying to push this here (the USA) or elsewhere in the world. Yes I'm not a big fan of government intervention (except under extreme conditions). I tried to post my comments to their article but that failed. First let me say that I need to keep this short so I'll skip over bits and pieces. Yes I gave it some thought but with each added comment, rebuttal and defense this entry grew to be quite unreadable.
While I agree with the premise of the article (better control, better efficiency/conservation) I have my doubts on the outcome. Just take a look at the Energy Star program for the programmable thermostats that the government helped establish. In the last year the US government pulled the Energy Star rating from programmable thermostats. Turns out they're difficult to use and not flexible enough for the end user. Yes HA can help if the HA is flexible enough! The problems with a government mandated HA program are enormous! First is that I have my doubts about anything put forth by the industry that is about to be served (can you say lobby?). This sounds a lot like a self interest article by a member of the industry. Of course I'm posting this as a self interest piece. I don't want to suddenly be locked out of the HA market. After all I am working with the OpenRemote folks on brings the disparate systems together under the central control of OpenRemote. The next problem is open and compatible standards, really the industry has none. Company A's equipment can't be use with Company B's. And neither will share an interface so something like OpenRemote can connect the two. Next is cost, while a wall switch costs a dollar or two the automated version costs 50 to 100 times that. I'm sure that there would be a provision for loans, maybe grants. But what limitations will be attached to those grants. Will I be able to only purchase from certain vendors (those who probably lobbied the hardest)?
Like our autos, it seems obvious that we are heading towards more computer control. But at this time being locked into a single vendor solution is not a good option and political solutions (i.e. government setting automation standards) never works. In addition there are problems with the HA industry that need to be resolved. IMO, mandating home automation would be a very bad idea. The efficiencies and conservation just don't justify the initial cost and the return on investment at this time. Hopefully soon it will. I'm very much pro-home automation I'm just not thrilled about government mandates forcing it down my throat. Such measures are in the interest of the industry and not of the consumer. The HA industry is not mature enough, flexible enough or open enough.
posted by Neil Cherry @ 11:26 AM
9 comments
9 Comments:
Yes automate your system is compulsory now a days if you want to give competition to your competitor..........
I haven't taken a look at homes recently (might not be a bad idea to do so though) but home automation doesn't seem to be that important in sales (yet). In the high end area near by home automation is just another system and a small part of the cost ($100k, in a $7M home). For the rest of the market it's home entertainment: yes, home automation: no. Besides competing with your competitor (market forces) vs. mandated by the government is an obvious no brainer. With the market, the customer gets to choose. With the mandate I can only see few options to meet loose requirements. Government doesn't know diddly about such requirements but they are never too arrogant to make such laws (they let the industrial representatives write it for them). It's often how we get laws that have holes so big that you could drive a bus through or side effects that permit malicious prosecution and were not in the spirit of the original law.
Hi Neil,
Your email seems to be bouncing...
-Brandt
Home automation has become one of the most important topic in home renovation and home installation,As one of the factor in using home automation is that it reduces power consumption therefore saving money and energy bills without effecting quality of life.So because of this many are now opting for home automation.
Brandt, are you sending it to the linuxha.com address? Can you post here the bound message (hide your email and ip address). I'm not noticing any bounces on the linuxha.com addresses. I am on the comcast.net addresses, sorry.
Peter, I agree with you on HA being important for resource management. I just don't want to see a government requiring certain systems be used. It's one thing to mandate that a home must meet certain standards it's another that it must use certain systems. At this time there are only a large few players in the market and none of their systems are compatible. And the large vendors who have complete systems are very expensive. That's nice for the vendor but not the consumer. Too much lock-in for my liking.
One other thing, so far I see HA being touted as a great energy saver but I'm not really seeing it. It's like the set-back thermostats. They can be used to save energy but the interfaces are difficult to use. The current systems leave a lot to be desired.
Some governement support - for example tax reduction for Home Automation investment - would really help the HA market!
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Crazy about Home Automation
I agree that incentives would not be a bad thing. Encouraging technologies that allow the end user to decided when and how to manage resources would be excellent. At the moment a lot of the HA in the US seems to be geared towards entertainment or security.
Now having said that it would also be nice if there were established standards so that, at least at the physical level, equipment would play nice. Oddly enough that almost sounds like a manadate (such as the NEC code in the US). This is going to be a tough nut to crack. But we need to managed our resources much better and I'm not sure it can be done without some form of automation.
Great piece Neil. However I did not quite understand whether the government was considering imposing certain technologies or certain efficiency standards. If the latter, then I think everybody stands to win.
During the oil shocks of the 70's, the government pushed through a series of mileage efficiency standards, which car manufacturers were free to implement as they saw fit. Today's cars are so efficient partly thanks to government-pushed efficiency standards.
That's why I submit that governments should also push for energy efficiency standards for homes. Of course they should not promote this or that particular technology, let the market figure it out. In Switzerland, many banks give you significantly lower mortgage rates if your home conforms to certain efficiency ratings (such as Minergie). And I think that's a brilliant idea.
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