Patrick Smith software / business / design / social good

Survey of Home Monitoring & Control Systems at the Solar Decathlon 2009

October 22, 2009

I’d like to be able to program my house, using common web development languages and techniques (e.g. REST-based API’s).

If the 2009 Solar Decathlon is any indication, that’s a long way from happening.

I surveyed eleven of the twenty teams about their monitoring and control systems, focusing in particular the software design of their systems.

After talking with them, it looks like home monitoring and automation is a very fractured market with virtually no prevailing system or software development standards.

There were hints of what I was hoping for, but just hints.

Here are summaries of my interviews:

• VA Tech: Siemen’s controller (SIMATIC?); custom server-side java to interface with the controller via telnet; iphone app that can utilize all the control functions via the java server
• Penn St: stock monitoring system from Noveda
• Univ. of Illinois: National Instruments Controller (not sure which one it is), LabView code written for the NI controller
• Germany: stock Crestron controller (this team was the eventual winner; the competition values this part of the house just a little differently than me)
• University of Kentucky: Crestron controller with custom VB code
• Rice: stock enphaseenergy.com monitoring system
• Boston: system designed by Internet-Zero (a Boston-based web development shop); each sensor/relay has an IP address; controlled via a server with Python custom code with a flash interface
• Team Ontario: Embedded Automation’s mcontrol; custom ruby on rails code interfacing to mcontrol via SOAP API’s. They did several cool things (e.g. an ambient feedback light that reflects the “health” of the house), and the team had several promising ideas (e.g. a social network of homeowners to compare monitoring data and compete based on lowering consumption)
• Arizona: stock Fronius and Trendpoint data loggers
• Cornell: mcontrol server from Embedded Automation with standard xml config files; stock mcontrol MS Media Server app
• Minnesota: Campbell Scientific controller, customized using a Campbell Scientific-proprietary language

A bit of cursory analysis:

• Yes, telnet, LabView and custom development languages seem to be the order of the day with current solutions in this space. It seems like legacy building management systems are being retrofitted for this market, with the notable possible exceptions of Embedded Automation on the product side and Internet Zero on the services side.
• Some of these systems allow for custom user interfaces — and there were some nice ones on display at the competition (including several iphone apps). But very few of the systems allow for programmatic access to control functions.
• There are two distinct philosophies at work, call them the passive monitoring and active control. The passive monitoring approach collects and displays information about the state of the environment and systems in the home. The active control approach, aka “smart home,” is, in its ideal incarnation, fully automated.

The house that stands out for me is Team Ontario’s North House for three reasons:

1. Wrapping the controller with a rails layer could expose standard REST api (not sure if it does)
2. Love the ambient feedback indicator
3. They’ve obviously thought about some product implications, in particular around social networks and games

I’d welcome any corrections or additions from the Solar Decathlon teams.

Tags: homeautomation, solardecathlon2009