No more dedicated pc needed for home automation

For about 9 years I have been using home automation controllers to do things automatically that are typically nuisance repetitive items in our house.  Especially useful during the holidays, all the Christmas lights throughout the house and all the window candles are hooked to one channel on a controller and go an and off automatically.  Really basic things like our front lights that come on at dusk (a different time programmed each day) and off early in the morning are set and forget pervasive automations.

Well one of my timers finally expired at the front door and I’ve been in the market for a new whole house automation controller.  With most HA controllers like Crestron and others costing 10’s of thousands in hardware and programming services, I was in the market for something high power, but lower cost.

Announced earlier this month, the guys over at homeseer (a long time home automation development company) is releasing their next version of the Hometroller. 

Hometroller Series 2

Integrating with everything from the lighting, HVAC, Security, Voice Control, Phone systems, and even irrigation, it provides functionality that would normally be built into a pc (like my old one now retired).  One would be hard pressed to create this functionality for less.  I think that a nice clean piece of hardware would be less intimidating for resale than a maze of wires and a humming pc.

Incidently, I’m not paid for this plug, I’m just a fan.