The ultimate Residential/SMB Router, a note to Cisco

Someone forwarded me a link to job at Cisco responsible for defining the next generation in upscale residential router products.  I'm a little too busy to go off and get a job.  However, this category is so important the the current products out there are just awful. Anyone who knows Ken Wirt, Scott Kabat, or others that could make this actually happen, forward this to them.  

1) The network is very, very important to a number of folks.  Something that makes their network run quicker is very important. They use a $3K laptop instead of a $400 netbook, sit in a $100K car - if it's better, it can sell for a premium.

2) Since web response and key file download time is so important, a properly configured router may have more impact than spending $600/year for the next tier up in bandwidth. No residential network is has QOS set-up properly.  And if it does, it doesn't extend across the switche

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Home that work - Part Two - A new outlook

Okay, so it was a month not a week...

So, it's a given to many folks - including me - that the Ipad and IOS based devices change quite a bit about control but what exactly do they change and how does one make decisions about products and architectures?

Just getting a remote on an iOS device should not be the goal.

This is much worse than a tivo peanut or a tivo remote mapped onto a traditional hard button universal remote.

I'll say, however, that the entire remote model for the Tivo is just plain broken.

For now playing and basic transports, fine - anything that works for dvd, tivo, etc will work for all - the universal remote is not broken here.

But for content discovery, planning out multiple season passes, etc, the UI should be interactive and not take over the screen.  One should be able to go and schedule the season pass for the new HBO series you just saw a preview for while starting to watch Entourage, not instead.  Tivo has a somewhat lame webpage where some of these things can be done.  Comcast of all people, really gets where this needs to go.

But best is where you have both a machine level interface and a rich IOS gui.  Apple Remote is a case like this - the official interface is secret, unsupported and has been very stable and is widely known. Denon's control app is fairly lame but at least it is running the same interface as everything else.  Most all of the lighting systems are this way also (they have to be - need Keypads too in a lighting system.)

So, with that, I'll state my very short requirements list for iOS apps + devices to be controlled by iOS interfaces:

• iOS application should be complete if possible without requiring an on screen interface
• Device should still have interfaces for integration
• Optimized web interface is not awful at all unless it's too slow
• Putting a gateway plus a web service in between the iPad and the device seems risky unless it's just for locating the device.
• I'm wary of 3rd party apps unless the interface is extremely well known/public or the company has a strong allegiance to the supplier of the app - too much incentive in this area to create private interfaces
• 2-4 yr lifespan apps (i.e. you could be on Comcast because they had a cool iPad app but then switch to Tivo 3-years later) should/can be chosen based on the strength of the iOS features.
• 15-20 yr lifespan apps should be chosen on the strength of their infrastructure and the likely ability to support applications going forward (i.e. security panels + lighting controls.)
• If the subsystems don't have to talk, no consideration other than ease of service and ownership (which is non trivial) need be made for single vendor. I.e. if you like Crestron Lighting and Sonos Music and you don't intend for the two systems to interact (don't laugh - we do volume control on lighting keypads all the time) - then go right ahead.  

Homes that work - Part One

A Quality Gap in Mid-Sized Projects

At the low-end the systems are simplistic enough that the workings of various systems are straightforward, understandable and supportable. I also think that the purchasers of low-end systems for homes - whether Pulte or Home Depot - provide some influence that helps also.

On large commercial projects, there is, sometimes, enough engineering effort spread over enough square footage or replicated units to make true testing and engineering viable.

In the middle, I see a lot of pain.

This is caused by several things:

- General Contractors are incentivized to get it done before getting it right. Done is measurable, right is a function of time + money.

- Architects do not have the standing to drive projects forward past permitting.

- Clients are overly optimistic that things will work as designed/advertised.  

- Typically there is little to no architecture work on the systems side.

Weak Systems in Mid-Sized Projects

- Access control + locking - large residences are too small for really nice access control systems and don't have staff to manage access usually but are too big for simple keying schemes without logging. 

- HVAC - Too much variation in sun exposure, room size, air flow, need for quiet, varying heat loads - it's just a ridiculously hard problem.

- Lighting - Generally straightforward but the desire for good dimming + low power is not quite worked out.

- Distributed Audio - Getting pretty easy compared to 10 years ago. Same with Distributed Video.

- Energy costs too high.  Homes start adding convenience features but without scale or just planning to keep energy costs contained.

This pain is caused by a lack of systems expertise with a whole generation of subcontractors along with the immaturity of various systems.

I haven't ever been in a 10K-30K multi-purpose building with really effective HVAC.  They are always too hot or too cool, too tight or too loose.  

The Constraints of Integrated Systems

Sometimes without deep integration, there is nothing.  Your car breaks are part of an integrated system and are less than useful by themselves.  But other things in our life are very loosely coupled and it works fine.  One can purchase meat or chicken and cook it on a Viking or GE stove without one iota of extra work to modify it to your stove.

I spoke with someone yesterday unfamiliar with our field who talked about the future of "Smart Homes" - a picture out of the Jetsons and Popular Mechanics (turn off your lights from your phone!).  I would assert that the biggest challenge to electronic system contractors is not to integrate multiple systems but to help make subsystems work at all.

Integrated systems often move system designers and certainly users towards a use paradigm that is born from tradition - not from the innovation of a the sub-system vendor.  We've seen this widely in the thermostat systems for residences - turning systems on and off without real regard to the upcoming weather changes, compressor cycling or energy costs.  In many instances, the existing use paradigms for integration constrain the market and strangle innovation.

Next week...a new beginning - a framework for the next generation of systems

Ambleside Logic makes CE-Pro 100, #87 in country.

Each year, the top custom install firms submit their financial results to CE Pro magazine.  Companies can submit audited results or their own internal estimates.  The Top 100 are published.  Ambleside joined the list for the first time this year, joining 4 other bay area firms.  Just 2 other bay area firms besides Ambleside submitted audited financials and made the list (Ambleside and these other two firms are also the only CEDIA Lifestyle award winners in the bay area over the last 10 years..) Ambleside Logic is the leading firm on the Peninsula/SF Area (the others have their offices spread from Hawaii to Tahoe.)

First two weeks in a new home - getting the heat right

It's really, really hard to understand a heating system under construction.  Everyone keeps leaving doors open - access, fumes, often a lack of the doors themselves....Then painters come in and crank up the heat to make the paint dry quicker.  Often it's the owners who really shake down the hvac system.  And even then, it's not until the first hot or cold snap that one has any idea what the home is like. 

We are looking at over 1 million data points a day - light levels outside, inside, solar energy, network, etc.  The insight is gained by correlating data from disimilar systems - security shows doors open - maybe an open window is causing a draft, not a malfunction.

Here is a view into a home running Ambleside's systems.  What might normally take 3-4 months to understand got compressed into the first two weeks.