Replacing Outdated X10 - Best Home Automation Hub? SmartThings?

eveares

eveares

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I have a lot of X10 gear laying around from over the years that I am going to try and sell as it is becoming to slow and unreliable for me.

Simply put, a big-ish 4 bedroom house and lots of electronic noise on the power line from various devices including LED light bulbs means that X10 will not cut it anymore. Plus it's 70's technology anyway.

I also want to get a smart hub to act as the central management point for what ever automation system I invest in and get away from a energy hungry PC running a traditional automation server 24/7.

The things I would like to control include lights (both lamps and fixed lights), On/Off type appliances, my Central Heating, etc...

From this link, the Samsung SmartThings seems like the best bet for what I want. However I can't find it new for under £99.99

What do those on here recommend.

EDIT: Some of my lights are of a single 3 gang switch and are non dimmable.
 
To let people know, I have now bought the Samsung SmartThings hub.
 
Hi, how are you getting on with the smartthings hub?

I'm trying to decide what will control my new central heating system and can't decide whether to use a home automation system (like smartthings) or a purpose built system (such as heatmister / evohome)
 
andymet87 said:
how are you getting on with the smartthings hub
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Not Bad, but not done that much with it yet due to money. Have 1 of these (Living Room Lamp) and 1 of these (Bedroom Fan & Lights) linked up with it at the moment that I can control via a number of ways including the SmartTiles dashboard. Also have my Efergy Energy monitor and my Foscam IP cams integrated with it via some smartapps/device handlers that I found.

Smart Tiles Dashboard:

[GALLERY=media, 98311]SmartTiles by eveares posted 10 Sep 2016 at 5:13 PM[/GALLERY]

75pete said:
X10, that takes me back to about 1990ish
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Well started using X10 back around 2007 and In total I have spent around £1000 on X10 over the years. Also used it to operate the interactive side of my Christmas Grotto website between 2011 and 2015.

Just got fed up with the speed, limitations, and most of all - the poor reliability of X10.

Regards: Elliott.
 
andymet87 said:
I'm trying to decide what will control my new central heating system and can't decide whether to use a home automation system (like smartthings) or a purpose built system (such as heatmister / evohome)
Click to expand...

I ended up with the evo home. It works ok, it's very closed-source and big-corp bland but does what it needs to.
There are folks who have reverse-engineered the protocol and have ways to talk to it if you wanted to extend it and tinker.

I've been eyeing the Samsung stuff for a while now.
I quite like the smart side of things but security is still an issue for me. I need a separate wifi / network for them as I don't trust them.
 
eveares said:
To let people know, I have now bought the Samsung SmartThings hub.
Click to expand...
Hi, why did you choose the smartthings hub and not the amazon hub? I understand that smartthings does both ZigBee and zwave and amazon hub only one. I also know the thread is now bit old! I am between smarthing and amazon hub. Thank you!
 
My teacher had a smart cane, well at least a cane that made you smart.

However to my mind Smart is when the item uses some maths to combine more than one input, like a thermostat which has a outside, and inside temperature with a year clock so in the summers 16°C at night will not start the central heating, but in the winter it will. That is without needing to use some on line link to work as on line links fail.

And since my phone relies on a battery so does become discharged and inactive I don't want it to rely on the phone.

The amount of cost to set up such a system means as yet I rely on my finger turning it off when not required.
 
Interesting as X10 works perfectly well for me for lighting and my projector screen. Never has a problem with it and the main advantage is that it is easily controlled by most universal remotes.
 
Smartthings is still the way to go. I bought into it last year and it is running my Hive stuff and alarm system too :)
 
Have you had a look as home assistant, or hassio. I have it running on a raspberry pi3 and can work with hue, smart things, hive, and has a ton more cool features that can allow all sorts of automations based on location, whether the wife an I are home or driving home from work etc. I’m using sonoff relays over WiFi to turn on lights and lamps. They’re £3.50 each if bought in 10’s and you don’t need to change switches or lights, just need to find space in the ceiling rose for the relay.
 
BigRobCanUFixIt said:
...They’re £3.50 each if bought in 10’s and you don’t need to change switches or lights, just need to find space in the ceiling rose for the relay.
Click to expand...

I want to go the Home Assistant way with Pi3 but it seems a long arduous project. Also coding involved with HA ?


Can I also ask where you got those fantastic prices from ? Link would be great.
 
Thanks for the Home Assistant link - I'd not come across that before. I really like the founders blog post - really sums up my feelings about most of the systems around right now.
 
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