Looking at Controllers / Hubs

SachaJ

I'm dipping my feet into home automation and starting to think I could do with some sort of hub controller.....

So this is what I have at the minute:

Philips Hue 1st generation bridge, 6 x colour GU10, 12 x White Ambiance E27. The GU10's are currently just be used like normal bulbs in the sitting room while 5 of the E27's are going into the spare bedroom/office so I can work (energise scene) and when a guest is staying a more mellow scene.

An Echo dot

Windows 10 PC for CCTV recording running Blue Iris and 7 cameras outside the house and Plex Server

Myself and the wife have iPhones, I use an iPad Pro for mobile work and a Mac at home.

3 x Amazon Fire 7" tablets running a vanilla Nexus ROM. (I have Imperihome installed and playing with it)

Harmony Ultimate with Hub for controlling the TV setup, Nvidia Shield, processor, projector etc

So in my head this is what I'd like to do.

1. Use the Amazon Fire tablets as wall mounted dashboards. Here I'd like to switch on/off lights, set scenes for that room only (that the table is mounted in), show temperature maybe.

I installed Imperihome and it looked good but found some things I can't do (or at least haven't figured out how to do). Example - have a button that sets a scene on the Hue bulbs with 1 press. I can have a scene widget which I press and then it pops up a list of scenes to select from. So it kind of works, but I don't want that second press. From what I've read, I can do this with a Homey and then in Imperihome call a URL to execute the Homey task

2. I can see absolute value in the Nest Protects so I'd like to integrate them. Have those trigger the Hue bulbs and so on.

3. Down the line perhaps look at the Nest thermostats. We have a fairly basic heating system - 3 zones (upstairs, downstairs and water). So it might be useful to switch on the upstairs heating from one of the wall mounted dashboards/tablets. Do something with the immersion maybe (one of those on/off, sink/bath switches but we always leave it on "bath")

4. I'm thinking about getting a Google Home. The Dot got banned by the wife as the kids figured out how to ask commands. She would be listening to Spotify and one of the kids would walk in and say "Alexa, play Frozen" and then walk off again. The Dot would oblige and herself would get annoyed. I had the Dot connected to a Denon DM39 stereo in the kitchen using the 3.5mm jack.

So I think a Google Home might work better mainly as it has good support for radio. I think it has Spotify Connect so we can connect from the phones but I'll also link it to a spare Spotify account I have. I'll perhaps get a Chromecast Audio and connect that to the stereo. If it gets past the wife then try some voice integrations like switching on the lights, heating etc.

5. I like the idea of smart plugs to switch off devices at night like the washing machine, TV, dishwasher and so on.

6. I like the idea of automated roller blinds as herself doesn't bother closing them sometimes going to bed.

Controllers. I mentioned the Homey above as in theory it does a lot. Quite a few people believe it's an immature product but hopefully it should get better as long as the company exists. I tend to doubt they will unless they come up with some sort of subscription revenue model or start designing their own peripherals besides the controller itself (or get bought out by a bigger company). Still I like the Homey and it seems a nice bit of kit.

The other option is to perhaps look at Home Assistant on an RPi. Not afraid to give it a go and seems powerful but not sure how I'd create dashboards for the wall mounted tablets (note - I've not researched it too much at this point).

While I'm sure we'd use phones occasionally, I can see the main control points being the wall mounted tablets and perhaps voice down the line.

So what would you guys recommend?