Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected].
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected] or [email protected]
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
There's nothing wrong with building it yourself other than you need to acquire all the skills to do so and source all the components yourself and figure it out on your own when it doesn't work. If that works for you, that's great.
Crestron and Lutron stay out of the consumer market, in part, because you need to be a licensed electrician to install components of their systems. I can tell you from experience, even with the right training and certification, it's very easy to blow something out. And when something doesn't work, you have them for tech support and you get a great warranty. The stuff is rock solid and works for decades. I rather buy a home with a single supplier system than one that was hobbled together. Because when I then have a problem with something or want to upgrade the system, I know who to call and what the options are.
I hate battery items, and when I can I like wired. But retrofitting a 70 year old home with all that won't be easy or cheap. I've already had to redo all my outlets and run new wires.
Other disadvantages for me are:
But I am an IT director. So I know my way around networking, programming, and system/server admin. I can segment, design, and secure the networking between the devices and run whatever systems I need for automation. I've run Ethernet throughout the house and am not afraid of cutting holes.
I'm trying to tie in some professional systems like Dante audio instead of smart speakers. Even though that means I'll probably need a dedicated audio server.
And I'm tying in a lot of legacy protocols too. Like artnet and DMX for a lot of the show control systems I have. It's really great being able to use so much dissimilar stuff and be able to control it from a single dashboard.
I can also automate temporary things like holiday lights or my big Halloween displays. I end up wiring most of my cars lights to DMX controlled relays and dimmers. Add fog machines and audio cues that I can sync up together.
But I do know that I'm a nerdy edge case here.
That's pretty much what we do (including retrofitting 200+ year old farm houses). Just replace your home server with a Crestron box. For people who want to tinker on a regular basis, we could (I have) easily build them a custom interface but you certainly fit the bill of someone who should do it themselves. You've chosen this as a hobby and a life long commitment.
You know what they say about plumbers... always a leaky pipe in their house. Having been in the industry for decades, the last thing I want to do when I get home from work is futz around with networking and programming. I have wireless Ikea lighting. The battery has been dead on one of my smart buttons for a month and I'm too lazy to take two minutes to swap it.
I tinker mostly during the holidays. Show control is kind of a hobby. As are haunted houses.
Otherwise, everything just works at this point. I just have a few useful automation like turning all lights off with a button press, some lights that turn on at sunset and off at sunrise, and back door lights that turn on when the garage opens and it's after sunset.
Otherwise everything still works as a switch, well button now, without Internet or my hub. I never need to explain to someone that comes in how to use anything.
I have some shit broken, like my automation that sent one of the robot vacuums out when I leave the house doesn't work now that I've tried making sure it doesn't go if my girlfriend is still home. But low priority. The shit I care about just works. The rest is when I get to it, eventually.