Let me just add one other thing.? Using energy monitors to tell
you when an appliance is done is not as simple as it would at
first seem.? First of all, appliances all use some power 24x7.? On
top of that, a cleaning cycle is broken down into smaller sections
that each use a different amount of power.? A clothes washer is a
good example.? It fills the tub, agitates the clothes.? spins to
remove water from the clothes, etc.? In between these sections of
the cleaning cycle are gaps where power usage drops to the same
level as the machine uses while idle.? If the homeowner wants the
notification to be as close as possible to the time when the cycle
ends you need to look at energy usage as a pattern and only send a
notification when the measured power use matches that pattern.?
The simplest major appliance I've found to setup notifications
for is a clothes dryer.? The clothes and dishwashers are more
complicated.
Jay
On 6/4/2021 10:20 AM, Tony Howard
wrote:
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A bit like Jay's comment.?
One thing I tend to notice is
that in the end many clients actually just wanted to see if an
appliance is: on/off, started/finished, has been running for x
minutes. This feature set can usually be very easily realised
by monitoring the appliances energy?usage through an energy
management?system,?or even a simple CT coil into an
analog?input. Then the user interfaces can come alive with
useful?information (don't?over do it though) and the client
starts to feel like the home is actually?connected to the
system and vice versa.
Regards
Tony Howard
?
?T???|???B???|???T?
?
|??tony@...??|??+39 333 5971791?
I can throw some light on this.? However, the first
question for your client is what are the use cases for
each appliance.? The typical use case for a coffee maker
is I want the coffee maker to be triggered to start
brewing when my alarm clock goes off so by the time I get
myself out of bed, hit the bathroom, etc. the coffee is
ready.? If this is the case the only command you need for
the coffee maker is one to start brewing.? If the customer
likes their coffee maker then this might be accomplished
by plugging the coffee maker into a smart switch.? Another
alternative to making a dumb coffee maker smart is to use
a SwitchBot.? If you want to find a smart one that can be
integrated with a smart home platform then you are
probably looking at using IFTTT or Home Connect through
IFTTT for integration.?
As I said in the start the first thing to understand is
what the use cases are for each appliance.? I don't know
what the use case would be for connecting a fridge to
Crestron.? The last thing you would ever want to do is to
shut the fridge off and have all the food spoil.
I have done quite a bit with integrating robotic vacuums
to a Crestron system.? The best one for integration
(though I have other complaints about the product line)
are Roombas.? The only way to integrate Roombas is again
through IFTTT.? The Roomba IFTTT channel supports both
triggers to start a robot and events that let you know
when a robot is done.? The triggers work well but the
events leave something to be desired.? However, you can
make it work.? I personally trigger a vacuum to run once
each week when my wife and I leave the house.? When the
vacuum finishes a robotic mop runs.? When the mop finishes
we get a notification reminding us to change the mop pad
and empty the vacuum.
The only use case I have found valuable for dishwashers,
clothes washers, and clothes dryers is a notification when
the appliance finishes its cycle.? I use energy monitoring
to determine this and then simply send notifications to
smart phones and tablets.
Most of the code for integrating with the above is on my
GitHub.? For IFTTT integration I use my IFTTT module to
send triggers.? However, direct integration with IFTTT
events requires a port forward on the router; which is a
bad idea.? So, I included code in my Hubitat integration
library to utilize the Hubitat to receive event
notifications from IFTTT and then pass them to a Crestron
processor.? A little messy but it works very well and
eliminates the port forward.? I have a SwitchBot driver on
my GitHub and drivers for Shelly devices that can be used
for energy monitoring.? There is also a driver I use for a
Kasa energy monitoring smart plug but I haven't tested it
with the latest version of the Kasa smart plug.?
Hope this helps
Jay
On 6/4/2021 7:58 AM, David Chramcow wrote:
What's the scope of integration
that Crestron has with Home Appliances? we have a client
that aside from the usual stuff (lighting, shades,
climate, audio and video) he wants to integrate as much of
the home appliances as well, he mentioned:
* Coffeemakers
* Fridges
* Roombas
* Laundry Machines
* ....
Is this even possible? maybe this can be done using an IoT
hub (like the Hubitat) as an interface?
What is your experience with these kind of requests?
Thanks.
