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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.