[danielbarla]

Glad to see at least some companies are taking an (at least semi-) offline approach to these things. With the way things have been going these last few years, the internet-of-things irks me.

I've also often wondered why the home security industry seems to be so out of phase with the rest of the tech world; e.g. my house has a security system which seems to have been designed in the 70s (yet it was likely bought by the previous owner circa 2000). To (re-)set zones, you need to go through a 90-step setup wizard, which requires you to calculate zone inclusions as an 8-bit number and type it in on the keypad. And in a day and age when self-driving cars are fast becoming a reality, my alarm system can't tell the difference between a 3 year old walking around, a large bird coming in for landing, and a man climbing over the fence with a crowbar in their hand. I think there's a lot of room for improvement.

Another part of me wonders why devices like this have to be wireless. Sure, it sounds awesome at first, but I'm pretty sure it means weekly battery swapping (even if we discount frequent wifi use). A device that requires frequent maintenance quickly stops being used, and security devices which are off aren't much use (or worse than useless, depending on how you look at it).

[eksith]

I feel the problem is that security is often tacked on (usually by another company) and not an integral part during the design from the start.

If home automation and security are treated as merely parts of one whole solution encompassing your property, we'll have less friction between the two and you'll have far fewer instances where it feels as if just someone walked in and "installed security", which is literally what happened. I don't blame the engineers entirely for this as I'm sure there are instances where convenience and price (for the company) has scuttled many good ideas and sane practices.

A while ago, I posted my dream of what automation should look like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6357753 It seems I'll be dreaming for a bit longer.

[kristiandupont]

Our power budget gives us between one and two years of battery life. Your phone will give you a heads up when a change is required. It's a bit of a hassle, but we feel it's worth it to have the freedom from cables.

[danielbarla]

Hmmm, I'm not sure what battery we're talking about, but that sounds fairly impressive, if it's realistic. I agree with the other posters though, a simple plug for 12v power would probably not break the design / budget. Almost everyone I know that's tinkering with home automation is going all-out, and I know I'd prefer the option for permanent fixtures.

[cpwright]

I think you should consider adding a POE option, you'll have a more reliable connection + no batteries to worry about.

[VLM]

Also scalability. The designers would probably enjoy people with large houses buying 12 of these things for every room and level of the house, and if marketing says a battery will last 12 months you Know that means it'll really only last 6 months, maybe only 3 months, and six month battery life vs 12 gadgets means once the battery use randomizes I'll be tracking down and replacing a battery every two weeks which is too much peasant work. I don't mind capital improvement like running wires when I'm not busy but I do mind unscheduled peasant work when I'm busy.

If you "can't" put in a power jack (UL? EMI/EMC concerns? Cost?) then at least please manipulate the case design such that when I solder wires directly to the battery jacks then the case can still be closed, I don't have to drill extra cabling holes, etc. The easiest battery to convert is 9volts for obvious connector reasons, but they likely don't have the energy density you need.

I have 12 volts available thru the house so if you could uprate the on board caps and power circuitry to tolerate 12V in that would be nice. Likely your silicon will be fine, and you can't have a thermal issue if you think you're running for a year off any battery smaller than a forklift battery, so its just please solder in 25V caps on the input of the voltage reg instead of 6V caps. Then I can direct wire to the 12V rather than running thru a nice inefficient converter.

(edited to add, I have a marketing idea for the "runs off 12 volts" plan... RVs and boats have 12V and make the software smart enough to understand "animal noises" and send an alert.)

Then again if this is going to be one of those "$300" gadgets, I'm not buying one anyway. And I didn't see a price.

[maxerickson]

Some of it is because it's a niche market. And then a lot of the people in the market don't care how hard it is for the installer to set it up.

"Why not aim for a larger market" has a little bit of an answer in that a system isn't worth much without monitoring, and for example, for much of the US, petty property crime isn't so pervasive that $500 seems like a smart trade.