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Home automation: Accelerating innovation with open source?

Open source home automation is the concept of a fully open platform(s) for automation of controls, communications, security, entertainment, and health within a residential environment — Honestly, I particularly dislike the term “home automation” as it conjures up thoughts of gee-whiz toys for geeks. Hindered by unreliable power line communication systems and simplistic if-then loops, it is no wonder that the adoption of home automation hasnt’ quite reached beyond the early adopters or really rich. Even with improved communications technology like 802.15.4, why would anyone pay $200 to see if they left a door open (and that product does exist). There needs to be more innovation in both the technology and applications.

Can open source technologies catalyze the innovation process where proprietary efforts have struggled? Open source home automation software has been around for a while, a la MisterHouse a PERL-based program for X-10 devices. A recent podcast with Dave Winter, founder of MisterHouse, provides insight on the development of the application. But, MisterHouse still requires a programming — still not useful to the masses who want “plug-n-play.” (Dave Winter does note that MisterHouse in not intended for the masses in the podcast) More recently, LinuxMCE, a new linux media center, presents a more mainstream approach to a general home automation platform. While clearly focused on media managment and access, LinuxMCE provides a path to accelerate the development and dissemination of “home automation” applications and programs. It’s interesting that LinuxMCE is based on the code base from a commercial company, Pluto, who has open-sourced their software efforts. And finally, it’s worth noting the latest Make blog about open source hardware.. The writers at Make have put together a “layered” definition as to what it means to be open source hardware. This is a good start to “standardizing” the open source hardware movement to enable a level of quality to all the open source hardware projects that already exist.

Real Time Pricing Seminar

Severin Borenstein gave a very informative talk about real time electricity pricing during the latest CITRIS Research Exchange at UC Berkeley. Real time (we’re talking “real-time” on the order of minutes) electricity pricing should increase the market efficiency of the electricity market. Whereas today, the wholesale and retail markets are not connected in real time. One concern Severin pointed out was that real time pricing may increase bill volatility - which is a bad thing. The solution? Hedging. Severin suggests that to do real time pricing correctly the end consumer should hedge, or buy electricity at future prices — then when the time arrives either buy more at the spot market price or even sell back into the market. Severin also pointed out that Demand Response — the latest instantiation of real-time pricing — is not necessarily a “green” effort. Rather “Green” Demand Response is a regional issue depending on the base load generation. His example was Pennsylvania, a state with a large coal base. Coal also happens to be very dirty compared to peaker plants in the region. So if more people shifted load in Pennsylvania, then more coal-generated dirty electricity would be produced. The bottom-line: be sure to look at all the costs associated with Demand Response and real-time electricity pricing.