C-Bus futures

I?m wondering if anyone can shed some light on the future of c-bus and the Clipsal products. Things appear to have gone very quiet in terms of innovation around the home automation space since the launch of the Wiser products.

After retrofitting c-bus into my current home (mainly for lighting) I?m considering what I?d use in my next self-build but at the moment I don?t have confidence that Clipsal will have the solutions to meet my needs.

Specifically I?m talking about how people want to interact with the systems in their home and how this can be simplified. If you look at where some new entrants to the market are starting such as Nest, Belkin and some Kickstarter projects such as LIFX you will see how easy it is now for anyone to deliver basic control in their home for a relatively low cot directly from their smartphones.

Control and automation around the home is becoming more readily accessible, cheaper and has expanded to be far more intelligent through the use of the multitude of sensors and devices that everyone has these days. This can range from your phone?s wifi connection, NFC radio, camera and GPS to determine behaviours.

For example, the following platforms provide the ability to build ?recipes? around your personal needs, some of which relate to controlling your environment.

On{X} (only on Android just now) is a project by a Microsoft team to provide scriptable activities based on events from your Android phone.

IFTTT (which works with the Belkin WeMo products) lets you configure recipes around a number of different channels to automate your life.

Google Now (added to Android 4.1) intelligently provides you with information before you need it.

I?m not saying Clipsal need to do all this work themselves but if an improved developer platform could be provided that would make it easier for someone to write interface behaviours around these frameworks we could end up with some very powerful solutions.

For me personally, as a software engineer I?d love to do some work creating solutions but having looked into how I would interface with c-bus to deliver this capability I have concerns about the amount of effort it would require to do so and whether Clipsal would make fundamental breaking changes in the future. A supported and documented developer platform is what is needed. What are our chances of getting one?

 

Daniel, thanks for your comments. I had seen some of this documentation before but not all so I'll have another look through. At first glance however when I look at when they were last updated, 2007 and 2009, it doesn't appear to be well "supported" in terms of on-going improvements.

I guess the main thrust of my question is that to do any form of integration with the types of service I mentioned involves a fairly steep learning curve to build a solution that operates at a fairly low level (serial interface), even when using C-Gate.

The availability of an official abstraction layer, say in the form of a web service (RESTful would be ideal for mobile device scenarios), would make things accessible to many more people. That way you know that you are working with correctly implemented core functionality such as error handling, logging, etc.

I for one don't want to have to run a Windows machine in order to interact with my devices therefore a low power, always on device such as the Wiser controller itself or a RaspberryPi for example would be where I'd expect to run this web server. I've still to find out if C-Gate can be run on a Pi but being Java based would suggest it is a possibility.

When you say your development efforts are driven by Marketing, where is this feedback coming from? In my opinion the need is coming from mobile devices, not Windows. If Windows is your focus, what has been developed for this platform recently and what can we hope to see in the near future? Do you have a way for the community to raise, discuss and ideally vote on what they'd like to see? Solutions such as UserVoice can be very useful in facilitating this.

My intention is to build a Node.js based web service from which I can build various mobile or browser based solutions but at this stage I'm not looking forward to the amount of time I suspect this is going to take me!

 

Ok so the real gem in your post is the LIFX.. Oh my, i have not been that technologically impressed since the samsung smart window..

Cheers..

 

Thanks to everyone for your feedback.

I totally agree that much of the information flying around at the moment is just hype and I'm not really interested in coloured lights, etc but more in how I can extend the control interfaces to new and interesting scenarios that are available now using the multitude of devices and sensors we all have around us today.

As well as operating lighting groups and scenes this would ideally extend to logic conditions which currently are out-with the reach of most people. Why should it be so difficult to say for example, when I go to the toilet in the middle of the night only turn on some tracer lights via PIR or limit the brightness to 35% when I press the button? But, when I have visitors staying make a quick change to 80% because they're not as familiar with the environment.

I know C-bus can operate at the scale of large buildings or stadiums but that is not an area of interest to me, only my home. This may not be the main market right now but I'm interested in whether it will be in the future before I invest again in any specific technology or vendor.

Just because other vendors (competitors) don't have free support for controlling their systems is no justification for Clipsal not having either! You never know, you could actually drive further investment (or make the justification easier for many) if you can get more people to buy due to the fact they can make a certain level of adjustments without too much knowledge. The Recipe concept is a great example of how technical solutions can be pieced together without needing knowing what is involve din doing so.

Open, web technology APIs are the future Take the lead and show others how forward thinking you are!

On a side note, was it ever considered running C-Gate (or similar interface) on the Wiser controller itself rather than relying on yet another network device?

 

Sure, I know the scenario can be met but certainly not very easily for typical end users. PICED and the Logic Engine are certainly not end user friendly unless I'm not aware of another approach you can suggest?

I didn't miss your point, the theme of my original post was related to the on-going innovation and progression of the developer and end user capabilities supported by the Clipsal systems.

Creating a modern, higher level abstraction developer platform would open up the possibilities for 3rd party developers to build solutions to compliment the existing iPhone app(s) with Android, WinRT, etc. There doesn't appear to be much focus on continuous improvement of the iOS app which is currently not straightforward for end users to modify and maintain.

 

C-Bus still head of the pack

Interesting thread. I think what we are seeing now is a new entry path to C-Bus integration, which was traditionally for electricians and automation engineers only, now we have a whole new generation of more traditional IT programmers picking up the product. Bringing with them new visions of where the product should go from here. While automation background and traditional IT background programmers have much in common with their grasp of 1's and 0's, there are also subtle differences in the approaches and background knowledge sets of both worker types. I think home automation still remains largely a premium end of market product and as such it is built largely for an expert to set up on behalf of a usually wealthy end use client, and it is this end use clients needs that the majority of C-Bus installs must meet. With commercial installs being the same but different, still a system that is generally set up by an expert with the end users not expected to have much in the way of high level configuration interaction. As such, things like PICED etc were never intended for mainstream market C-Bus users to work with. The fact that increasingly many can is a credit to the product as quite sophisticated programming and technology can be set up by those with the technical inclination to do so. People in the world of C-Bus have for a long time questioned its limits and where it falls short, but I still believe it remains well ahead of the pack in terms of competitor offerings. It is a bit like lego really, which as a product has not changed radically over the years in the way it all plugs together, yet still is top of the wish list for today's kids. Looking at the technology man used to fly to the moon, a lot of these things really are what you make of them. And yes that Lifx thing does look pretty swish, but as some of the other posters have suggested there is a long path ahead of them addressing some of the technicalities. Just how many WiFi devices you can fit on a standard WiFi network I don't know of the top of my head, but a typical building with 5,000 plus lights might be a bit out of its league. For a general all around system C-Bus is still I believe head of the pack.

 

Well Said

Well said Ashleigh. I was still applauding your first post while reading your second.
Good to see there are dreamers out there and good to see those with considerable experience levelling.
With regards to some of the items Craggen mentioned in the original post, It appears they are stand alone gadgets or as LiFX still a concept.... not really anything in C-Bus's league.

LED euphoria has not plateaued yet the efficacy of LED products is only just equalling that of Fluorescent! with some products that have only recently (last 3 months) become commercially available. (and reliably independently tested)

It'll still be many years before one can reliably and economically fit out their house with LED products that actually use less power while providing suitable lighting. Actually adding purposeful value to ones life......not just a gadget to fascinate you this week.

Maybe a little of track, but my 2 cents!

 

Thanks to everyone who's taken the time to read and comment, it's been really interesting, especially for me as a newcomer to c-bus, to hear other opinions and some history.

My point is not trying to compare c-bus to any of the new emerging technologies but simply discuss how we interact with the product. The product is great, I love it, I just know I can get more from it.

I completely understand the business viewpoint. If it isn't directly related to driving revenue then why invest in it. The only thing is, I think it could actually drive revenue if it were to become more accessible for home owners to configure and control their systems without the need for expensive 3rd parties to get involved beyond initial commissioning. Maybe an extension of the Wiser platform for homes would be an option which would keep it separate from the commercial solutions?

As was pointed out in an earlier post from SBL, I am certainly what was referred to as a new breed of IT user. One with higher level IT knowledge, not hardware or control based but more applications and internet programming. All I want is to be able to use my technology investment in new and interesting ways.

Rather than jump straight in and re-invent the wheel I thought I'd find out if it had been done before or there were like minded people on the forums with similar ideas.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the challenge and will be getting started on my own project to make my system accessible to the likes of IFTTT and On{X}. I'll be basing it on the Java version of C-Gate along with Node.js for the web server and service/API. My first challenge is to overcome the issues getting C-Gate to run on my RaspberryPi (using Debian) which I know others are also looking for the solution to.

Although time on this project will be limited I'll report progress on how it goes if anyone is interested.

 

ashleigh,

i stumbled across this old post. a good read, and as someone who has developed control and automation software elsewhere, and had a handful of customers who wanted a lot of esoteric but sadly uncommercial things, your post resonated.

i hope you've come across the homebridge-cbus project. it couldn't have been built without the wonderful job that clipsal did with CGate -- a really nicely engineered solution.

well done for opening things up, and for the great support community (internal and external) that you've built with this forum. hopefully homebridge-cbus gives you more confidence in the open source community than you perhaps had when you wrote that post almost 5 years ago.

i'm looking forward to doing a bunch more with the ecosystem that you guys have put together.

cheers,
simon

 

points well missed

"An Interesting point" wrong! a point well missed I would say.

Years ago, when we first started in commercial lighting control (as a C-Bus approved integrator) C-Bus was the greatest thing since sliced bread, we loved it! But that was then and this is now, C-Bus is now way, way, way behind the market leader, and if all you can say is its open source, and you can write JS for this, write wrappers for TCP comms or write some low level code to do this or that, then you've got your head in the sand!

This is after all the tale of the the two Australian lighting controls; C-Bus and Dynalite. Schneider buy C-Bus and add it to their massive portfolio of other electrical products from insulation tape to HV switchgear, including other lighting control products such as Merton, as such it just disappears into their product fog it suffers from lack of market focus and under investment.

Dynalite is purchased by Philips, a global lighting developer and manufacturer, they pump in millions developing the system to make it their most advanced and singular lighting control, with interfaces to every conceivable lighting technology.

Home automation, although an important market, is no where near that the of the commercial lighting control market. Its here that Dynalite wins hands down, yes they have the Hue product for the home market, and very neat it is too, but commercially Dynalite has all the important stuff; control protocol running over Ethernet, full 512 channel DMX controllers, colour tuneable DALI drivers, direct LED drivers, interfaces for KNX, LON and BACNET, solid, graphical based 'drag and drop' programming tools with integrated DALI programming, support for other technologies such as luminous textiles and PowerCore all which can share dynalite as their common control.

No one I know in the industry puts open source and the ability to write your own bespoke code at the top of their requirement list, if fact no one I know wants this at all! We want a lighting control that meets the current markets needs, works with all the current lighting technologies, can be installed quickly, simply, efficiently and most importantly, cost effectively.

Unfortunately, and from a lot of the posts on this site, C-Bus is now seems to be viewed as a good hobby system, one which you can adapt and build your own home automation system with, build interfaces to smart devices, although very inspiring it will not encourage Schneider to invest in the product.

As a result they will never make it a lighting control that can compete in todays technically advanced commercial lighting arena. So I conclude by saying C-Bus is dead! get over it! need proof? Question: what plans do Schneider/C-bus have for developing LIFI .... we all really know the answer to that.. don't we?, ask the same question of Philips.....I rest my case.

I guess my ramblings and observations as lighting control consultant and lighting designer of many years standing will get me banned from this site, but hey hoe, the truth often hurts.

Regards,