Re: Need help for Engineering Management project

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

<clay.maffett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

> Usenet was born before I was; I know what it is and just
> didn't realize what Google Groups actually did.  Sorry, Bill.

While some pedants and purists prefer that people use newsreaders to access
the net and persecute those that don't, I'm not sure that's a pressing
requirement anymore. A while back old-timers used to scoff at those with an
AOL email addresses as clueless newbies.  That dubious torch has passed the
Google Groups.  (-:  Google doesn't make the distinction very clear between
the groups they sponsor and the Usenet groups they index.  Your mistake is
one that thousands of others have made because Google likes it that way!  It
makes it seems as if they own Usenet.

> 3) We have modified our initial plan according to much of the advice
> you have all given.

Good.  I'm glad that folks here could be helpful.  And you even got your
skin thickened, free of charge.  People that hang around long enough
eventually turn into a single, crusty callus.

> a) Apple is still our company, and iBode is still the product.  We
> have abandoned the notion of using a currently available protocol but
> are still entertaining the idea of buying out or hiring software and/
> or electrical engineers with experience in home automation from other
> companies because Apple obviously doesn't have them.

I like that.  Raiding the best in the business has often propelled startups
way up the ladder.  That's why so many people in those positions have to
sign non-disclosure and non-compete agreements.  Their current employers
know how much they would hate to see those sharp employees working for the
competition.

> Apple could
> develop their own communications protocol within OSX to operate the
> system (and take note from Zigbee/Z-wave).  We are assuming it would
> be a combination of both wireless and wired data transmission.
> b) Although Apple hates partnering up, they have recently developed
> partnerships with Intel and Cingular (not too shabby) and it is
> absolutely feasible for them to buddy up with Home Depot and GE and
> Brinks to create peripherals (from lights to faucets to alarms, etc)
> for the iBode system.

That's an interesting observation.  Apple's success with the Ipod will make
them look very attractive to someone like Brinks or Slomin who want to
increase their market share.  Cross-marketing can really expand the customer
bases of both entities.

> Where there is money, there is motivation.  Go
> to http://www.smarthome.duke.edu/ if you haven't yet and check out who
> is running the show.

Where's the Vanderbilt page?  (-:  I found this section very interesting:

<<Monitoring and reporting is central to The Home Depot Smart Home. The
sensors that drive this process must be placed on an extensible and
comprehensive network that can report readings from multiple sensor types
and provide relevant data to all other systems for processing.
Interconnectivity is vital in order to implement a decentralized network
where devices can talk to each other and share information. Flexibility is
also vital to The Home Depot Smart Home for research purposes. Logging takes
place as 1-wire data is imported into an SQL database, and PHP web-based
reports can be generated to alert occupants based on pre-set alarm levels.>>

Interestingly enough, Apple has their on television with AppleTV.  There
should be a lot of interesting information for you to analyze by tracking
that roll out.

> c) All of the regulatory issues you have noted have already been
> considered by my group.  If anything, energy management will be
> improved by home automation.  What if you could set energy quotas for
> your family's expenditures?

Dr. Ed Cheung, I believe, already has such a system, as do a number of other
people here using sensors that can read the home's power meter.  I recall
one gentlemen who told his kids they could share in the money they saved
each month compared to the same month in the previous year.  IIRC, lights
didn't stay on a second longer than they had to once the kids understood
that they could profit directly from conservation.  As you've guessed, these
are things that people *want* to do.  If I were designing Ibode I'd research
how they did what they did and how it worked out.  Folks like Dr. Cheung
meticulously documents his ideas, designs and fixes at his website here:

www.edcheung.com/automa/ha.htm

> And then pay the bills online rather than
> through the mail?  Construction codes and the like would be met
> because the iBode is a system that is installed when the house in
> being built, not after.  As I'm sure everyone in this newsgroup knows,
> it's hard to teach an old house new tricks.

Teaching a dumb old house new tricks is a lot easier than teaching a dumb
old dog.  My wife's workmate has left her 10 year old Samoyed with us for a
few days.  A sweet dog without a mean bone in her body.  Or a brain!  She's
never learned to sit or lie down or anything on command, and probably never
will.  But I digress. The key to HA's general acceptance may be exactly what
you've postulated.  If the technology is installed in enough new homes, it
will eventually become a standard.  It's the same technique MS used to make
Windows popular.  Instead of bundling HA HW with a new home, they bundled OS
SW with new computers.  The effect is likely to be the same.

> If iBode is integrated
> into society to the degree that we would like, regulatory codes would
> have to be rewritten to compensate.  If you make a product that people
> want, they will have it.  Whatever bridges that must be crossed will
> be crossed.

I want a tactical nuclear missile to keep my rowdy neighbors honest.  All
the want in the world isn't going to make one appear.  (just kidding)  I've
never thought that HA was heavily hindered by building codes.  Certainly,
some HA gear raises eyebrows of inspectors across the country, but most of
the equipment is slowly becoming UL certified, which really helps inspectors
"pass" an installation without quibbling.  IIRC, there have been a number of
popular HA devices that caused some people grief because of the absence of a
UL listing.

> 4) iBode is not impossible, impractical, or any of the other
> adjectives some of you nay-sayers have been throwing out.  If
> anything, my naivety is exactly what the home automation needs a
> larger dose of.  Some of you guys are so jaded by watching the HA
> market flounder year after year among a community of talented
> engineers and do-it-yourselfers.  Like some of you have said, home
> automation is the opposite of a frontier technology.  It has been
> around FOR THIRTY YEARS.  The only problem is that no one has done it
> right yet.

I suppose that it really is still frontier technology if it's been around so
long without really "catching on" in a big way.  If there's only 1.5 dimmers
per household in the US, as I believe someone stated here recently, there's
not much penetration of the general consumer market by HA.

> Apple invented a PDA years before the palm, but they
> didn't go about it in the right way and it never caught on.

I think that particular failure mode was far more complex, and akin to
DaVinci trying to design a flying machine or Turing a practical digital
computer when the material and engineering technology of the time was not
quite up to the task.  Doing it right often means doing it at the right
time, when the technology and the demand coincide.

> Home
> automation has three decades of trial-and-error data that can be
> analyzed, learned from, and incorporated into a final product.  For HA
> to really fall into the mainstream, a BIG company, like Apple or
> whatever company you think has the money and know-how, needs to build
> a system from the ground up that is simply too practical and desirable
> to pass up.

There may be a lesson to be learned from how nature created "smart beings."
I find it fascinating that many of the protein and enzyme synthesis
processes of very diverse beings are quite similar at a basic level.  Nature
had perfected the smaller components and reused them over and over again in
new and better models of creature.  Apple's working on some of the basic
components of HA and home theater HT.  The AppleTV, the Ipod, the Iphone,
the Mac are all items that people tend to automate in their own homes.  I'm
sure that Apple is building these devices with an eye towards future
interoperability.

> Are my kids really going to own houses with metal keys, dozens of
> light switches, multiple remote controls, separated TV/Computer/Home
> Entertainment system, etc etc etc etc etc.  There are so many facets
> of our household lives that can, and will, change as soon as someone
> comes along who is able to do it, do it well, and do it for a decent
> price.

It's good that you're price sensitive.  While you've landed in HA at a time
of great flux, there are people who believe that X-10 filled that bill, at
least for the first wave.  There are some that still believe that is one of
the few realistic price points in the HA arena.  That argument is one of the
great ongoing debates here.  Now that it's time for the next wave of HA
gear, the question is which technology will replace it?  I'm afraid that the
company with the biggest treasure chest and the best position to prevail in
the HA market is Microsoft.  Ugh!

> Maybe Apple won't be that company, but someone will.
> Fifteen or twenty years ago, what would all of you have said about On-
> Demand television?  There are myriad logistical issues to tackle
> there, but Comcast and DirecTV and whoever else was involved spend
> years of R&D and pulled it off.  And they're doing quite well now as a
result.

Comcast is doing so well because they are as close to an unregulated
monopoly as you will find in America.  The CATV service they provide me and
the internet service they provide for my friends is pretty abysmal.

> Nothing at all is impossible,

How about time travel?  (-:  Sorry, I couldn't resist.

> but some things are really
> really hard to do and even more difficult to do right.
> So my imaginary product, iBode, is my dream of doing something that
> already has been done, but this time doing it right.  Maybe when I
> finish this project and draft the 40+ page business proposal, I could
> send a copy to any of you who are interested.  It might spark that
> little bit of optimism that all of you had the first day you read a
> post on comp.home.automation.

I didn't think we (I?) came across as so negative about the future of HA.
It may that the current state of affairs, with so many different protocols
vying for supremacy, has jaded some of us.  As we discussed offline, I think
it's incredibly important to encourage new members to participate here in
CHA just to maintain its vitality.  You've made it clear that we need a
little extra optimism, too.  It may also be that real progress in HA
improvements can't be made until the various patent battles are sorted out
in the courts.

> I would gladly let you see the finished
> product, and send it to you right after I stamp the envelope addressed
> to 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino.  Cheers.

Please send me one.  Just not in PDF format!  (-:

--
Bobby G.