I am building my own home and wanted to do smart home automation for integration of lights, shades, cameras. My electrician is selling me a $50K+ Control4 system that can do many many things. However, this is after I buy all the equipments and do the wiring. Came across Home Assistant and don’t know where to start if I seriously consider this inplace of Control4. Any suggestions / ideas? Are there any local experts in Seattle area who can help with this?
Thanks?
Sai
Home Assistant will cost substantially less in hardware (~$5k). However it is free hobbyist software. It is constantly changing. If you don’t want set aside time to constantly tinker and and update then this is not for you. It is not a “set and forget” system, it is a hobby.
I was in the process of replying, and then your post popped up that said it better than I was. This is the way.
Control4 works very well and primarily is for luxury homes, with the features set by a professional installer. HA is for the home automation enthusiast who enjoys arrange the setting him(her) self.
If money is not the issue and you want someone else to do the settings, then Control4 is the way to go.
One issue with Control4 is that you won’t be given the “keys to the kingdom”. Want to install a new device? Call the installer. Want to change something about how the system works? Call the installer.
If you want a great (but expensive) system that you’re rarely going to change, Control4 is nice. If you want to tinker, want a hobby, and want to grow how/when you want, stick with HA.
Just reinforcing this. For many people, this is a key parameter for decision making.
HA is a ‘hobby’ but you can fairly easily get some pretty slick automation happening, after the learning curve.
You can also choose to stay away from the cheaper ‘Ali Express’ devices and stick with brands like Philips Hue for lighting and Clipsal Wiser for switching/temperature/blinds/etc but obviously these come at a cost premium.
A few things from my point of view.
If you are comfortable with installing operating systems on a PC, you will be OK with HAOS on something.
If installing an OS is daunting then its not going to be for you.
With little knowledge you can get HA up and running with your choice of device, but read the docs first to make sure it will work easily with your chosen hardware before buying.
If the idea of playing around with computers and other hardware is something you have no interest in then don’t automate your house. Whether using professionals or not.
£50 will buy you half a house in some parts of the UK, I can’t see the value in control 4, which I guess also has ongoing costs as well.
Agree with all the above. I’m going to look at this from a slightly different perspective. Resale value.
On the one hand, having a third party install, maintain and update a turn-key (to you) system makes it easy to hand over to a new owner. On the other, it’s quite an investment, and prospective buyers may or may not like this idea (or the price tag on the maintenance.) Remember that, these days, technology goes obsolete pretty quickly. No-one wants to buy a house full of old systems they have to rip out and replace.
One of the things you can do with HA is buy devices which work normally, even without the system. Smart switches or plug-in devices which can easily be left in place and/or removed without impacting the ability to turn things off and on manually.
If the buyer isn’t interested in your setup or if something new has come along, this could turn into a negative rather than positive selling point. A lot of that might depend on how much effort (or money) you put into keeping a cutting-edge system. And whether or not Control4 (no idea what that is) is still in business, and in fashion, when you go to sell.
Indeed ‘smart home’ scares off as many buyers as it brings at the moment. It does not add value to a home any more than a hot tub would.
What other Tom said. If you want to maintain and have a hobby HA. But it’s lots of labor and you will have a hard time finding someone to so it for you.
Orrr… you let control4 do that for you (caveat you have to call them for everything)
…that part would drive me bat **** crazy so that alone would waive me off of spending 50k… Some people’s would pick the exact opposite based on that.
HA is better choice. When you sell the house no-one pays 50k for your automations if anything at all. With HA you likely loose less and maybe learn something.
Never Control4. Maybe crestron or extron and only if you are a millionare building home over 5000sqft and can pay for continued support. I mention home size only because at some point you need professional or prosumer help. Large home. Go to a real integrator if you want to go this direction and get multiple quotes.
NEVER USE ELECTRICIAN TO DO WIRING OR INSTALL OF IOT / AUTOMATION
I have seen this for years and while many have a basic concept of electricity they do not all have a good understanding of the technology requirements or needs. Cant tell you how many times I have seen electrician series run speakers in a home.
You should tell home size, wants (audio,camera,etc).
Are you willing to do any yourself or you want someone do for you?
Will you be able to maintain yourself or will you need someone do for you?
EDIT
Smart home is generally alarm, thermostat, camera, lights, door lock, garage/gate control.
zwave light switches
reolink or amcrest poe cameras
zwave door lock
RatGdo garage door
RatGDO or esp device for gate
zwave thermostat
These products can be easily installed and work without need for maintenance or updates. HA in this sense will be a PC that will need updates but it will be fairly minor. If you sell home new owner can easily utilize these items, ignore them or replace. All items will work even if HA breaks.
Thanks for all your feedback everyone. I don’t mind putting some effort and learning the system and doing the automation myself. In fact I would love it. Hence I am inclined towards HA. However, I am new to the world of home automation. I know that there are separate apps for each of the smart things that I will install e.g., switches, thermostat, cameras, window shades etc. Now, someone please educate me:
Am I missing anything?
Now, please tell me, the advantages of HA Green hardware vs installing my own hardware. How and what will be beneficial?
C4 has some serious licensing requirements and you will not be able to do anything yourself. You must be “certified installer” and so on.
C4 user here. I also use HA and Hubitat as part of my setup. If you have a lot of AV stuff wired into a central rack and/or distributed audio C4 is a good choice. There’s really no comparable DIY AV control system. I assume your quote includes C4 lighting. It’s a good product, especially the keypads if you have a complete C4 system. But I’d also suggest looking at Lutron RadioRA 3. It’s compatible with systems other than C4. One thing not to buy is T4 tablets. They’re overpriced and slow. Newer T5s are likely soon to be announced. They’ll still be overpriced, but they won’t be slow. And you should really determine if you need tablets in any case. IPads and Android will still work fine with the system. The quote possibly includes network equipment. C4 dealers like to sell the Snap owned Araknis network equipment. I’d suggest staying away from it and choosing Unifi. These installs have high equipment margin, especially on Snap brands. I’d suggest getting multiple quotes. While you do need a dealer for some stuff, there is still a DIY programming ability.
music assistant has changed this.
Between that and esp devices you can easily build a comparable audio system. Put the money into amps.
Video is more about distribution and thats really a hardware thing. Thats gotten pretty easy as well.
The largest thing to know is that none of these systems are perfect. You will have scenarios that require work-arounds. That’s why I use 3 different systems, all integrated. You will still probably use multiple apps, even if not regularly.
For example, one thing about C4 to know is that device compatibility is much lower than HA or Hubitat. But there are C4 drivers that let you access devices from those systems.
It’s as much about control as hardware. C4 has this stuff down cold. The DIY world still doesn’t even have a good Harmony replacement. I imagine it will at some point, some day. A C4 Core 5 controller can be had for about $2k. If you have a serious AV system the amps, speakers, and switches will far exceed the C4 equipment costs.
Starting from scratch you dont deal with legacy technologies/devices/equipment. You can design to fully avoid this.
If you find yourself using 3 apps. maybe there is a better way.
Why do you have C4 and HA running side by side?
Would you recommend your exact setup to someone else?
If you could start over, would you do same? what keep/what change?
This info would be helpful to OP.
No. There are separate apps for each brand of devices you will install. Usually (especially for WiFi-connected devices) this means that you’re locked into the manufacturer’s “walled garden” which requires everything to be controlled through their servers, using their app. Sometimes there is a subscription fee. Other times the manufacturer goes out of business or just drops support for your hardware.
Yes, that’s sort of the point. The difference is that a proprietary system like I assume C4 is will lock you into using their hardware, their protocols, and if what others have said is true, their technicians to do all the installations, changes and maintenance.
HA, on the other hand, is designed to work with many different device types, protocols and manufacturers’ products. What isn’t natively supported often has a custom “integration” some other user created. You still want to minimize the number of different integrations you have to install and maintain.
No, you’re hitting all the right questions.
Yes, you can automate control of your devices to your heart’s content. This tremendous flexibility comes with a bit of a learning curve. It’s not just clicking on a few options on a one-size-fits-all screen.
Yes, you are right to want local-only devices with no internet dependencies. This is the core design philosophy of HA. Most other systems out there are the exact opposite; they are designed around the manufacturer having ultimate control, and you just having a web-based or app-based portal into their servers.
Since most off-the-shelf WiFi devices are dependent on an internet connection to the manufacturer’s cloud, you’ll probably want to pick a local-only protocol like Zigbee or Z-Wave. There are a few local-only WiFi devices out there which might work, too, and you can build your own using ESPHome.
Controllers
Hubitat - the main controller. Hubitat has good device coverage and is the easiest and fastest environment for advanced users to create complex automations without coding. (If one wants to code they can.) Lighting is Lutron, some Hue, some Z-Wave. Lots of sensors. I bring a few devices in via HA, including some C4 activities.
Control4 - AV stuff. As said, for a complex AV system it’s about as good as it gets. If one has a simpler AV setup then it would not be needed. I have most of my other devices in the system too, whether directly attached or through Hubitat or HA.
Home Assistant - a way of accessing devices that aren’t available on the other 2 systems. A few ESPHome devices, Apple TVs, Yale. Even use it to pass Control4 stuff to Hubitat. I don’t use custom dashboards, but if I did I’d make them in HA.
How I interact with the systems
Automation - sensor-based (motion, contact, moisture), time based
AV Remote - Control4 remotes
Manual control - Lutron keypad button pushes for mostly lighting. Control4 remotes
App/dashboard control - Apple Home. Control4 if a remote is not around
Voice - Alexa and Siri
All the systems are useful. They all have some overlaps. None are perfect. All have some drawbacks. Control4 can generally stand on its own - it’s the most complete scope of any of them. But it comes with all the dealer interaction (that can be minimized for DIYers). On the pure DIY side Hubitat is great but is limited by its small development team. Home Assistant has a lot of development but the whole entity system and YAML/Jinja complexity that is required for advanced automation limits its audience.