I think the safest way to go is to purchase products with open standards, namely Z-Wave and Zigbee. They're open protocols that can be used with any number of HA products; SmartThings, Wink, Vera, etc.
You can purchase Z-Wave thermostats from Honeywell, switches from Leviton, locks from Schlage and so on. I use OpenHAB in my home, which is an open-source home automation server. It can run on anything from a RPi to a blade with just a few necessary additions (namely a Z-Wave dongle and some sort of network connection.)
OpenHAB requires a fair bit of programming knowledge and the learning curve can be steep for some, but overall it's very functional. A few things I do in my house:
- When the garage door opens and it's after sunset, the hallway lights turn on and set themselves to 50% brightness.
- When I start watching a show on PleX, the living room lights fade out. If the show is paused, they'll come up enough for me to navigate around and refill my drink.
- When both my girlfriend and I are gone from the house, the A/C shuts off. When it detects we're within 1/2 mile of the house, it'll come back on so it's comfortable when we arrive.
There's a million other things you can do with OpenHAB. It has hundreds of "bindings" to different HA products and supports HTTP endpoints, etc. Proprietary standards are bound to go away eventually, but open standards with open-source software will always be around.
Event based code, or even webservice callouts would be a killer feature. It was the first thing I started looking for on the page. With just a few more features this could easily capture a portion of the SMB market who's interested in something as flexible as Salesforce, but can't swallow the $85+ monthly cost per user.
Pilots have a panic button. It's called squawking code 7500. Alerts ATC that there is a hijacking situation (7700 is general emergency.) Guns in airplanes are a bad idea for, well, quite a few reasons.
Disneyland in Anaheim still does. They use it to update the wait time signs at the entrance to each ride and, just recently, their official wait time mobile app.
I feel Airbnb offers a value-added service and, in my personal experience, that has justified the extra price. Also keep in mind that the spirit of Airbnb was short-term vacation rentals; not long-term tenancies.
With Airbnb I can evaluate the host's social "credit" to some degree (have they connected with LinkedIn? What references have they provided?) and transparent straight-up reviews from past guests. Having Airbnb act as an arbitrator when things go wrong is priceless.
You can purchase Z-Wave thermostats from Honeywell, switches from Leviton, locks from Schlage and so on. I use OpenHAB in my home, which is an open-source home automation server. It can run on anything from a RPi to a blade with just a few necessary additions (namely a Z-Wave dongle and some sort of network connection.)
OpenHAB requires a fair bit of programming knowledge and the learning curve can be steep for some, but overall it's very functional. A few things I do in my house:
- When the garage door opens and it's after sunset, the hallway lights turn on and set themselves to 50% brightness.
- When I start watching a show on PleX, the living room lights fade out. If the show is paused, they'll come up enough for me to navigate around and refill my drink.
- When both my girlfriend and I are gone from the house, the A/C shuts off. When it detects we're within 1/2 mile of the house, it'll come back on so it's comfortable when we arrive.
There's a million other things you can do with OpenHAB. It has hundreds of "bindings" to different HA products and supports HTTP endpoints, etc. Proprietary standards are bound to go away eventually, but open standards with open-source software will always be around.