Amazon Has Reportedly Gained Edge Over Apple in Deals With Smart Home Builders

When I buy a new house, I want the OPTION of what platform to use. I guess I need to avoid Lennar (that's ok, though...they are overpriced and built too fast in my opinion....)

DIY is the way to go.......
 
Cesar Battistini said:
I think Apple is a much more reliable home automation platform, as soon as Apple makes Siri better Amazon will be in big trouble.
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Hmmm - that is a bit like telling Ferruccio Lamborghini that as soon as he can make their tractor engines better they will have a super car. Easily said , not so easy to do.....
 
WBRacing said:
Yet here you are, on the web, even signed up to a forum which merrily logs your email, IP addresses and all sorts of potentially revealing data etc...

If Amazon want to know when my lights and heating are on and off, good luck to them. Agree about Facebook though, Zuck can do one.
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I am more than well aware. I use anti-tracking tools, DNS Crypt etc. But this type of tracking is nothing compared to people connecting video cameras and listening devices. I am not naive enough to assume HomeKit devices are 100% secure, but I sure as hell would not even consider anything else.
 
Closed source systems like Apple's Siri (Homekit) have no place in open connected Internet of Things.
 
Now that amazon have purchased Ring I will switch over to them as HomeKit is hardly used by anyone.

I have 12 Apple devices in our household and I am slowly thinking more everyday of moving away from Apple which is sad.
 
SeminalSage said:
I have to disagree. This is completely anecdotal, but I can give a long list of reasons why these are not just minor conveniences. Just a few from my use case:

1. Kids are home alone after school for about 30-60 minutes. We can monitor the locks and security camera.
2. When going for a bike ride or run, we do not have to take our garage door opener or a house key.
3. When on vacation, we can open the door for friends who are keeping an eye on pets.
4. Controlling the thermostat from anywhere is a benefit as I live in an area where the temp changes can be drastic pretty quick.
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#1 and 4 can be done without home automation.
#2 and 3 can easily and cheaply done with a keypad GDO (garage door opener).

Home automation is one of those things people either love or hate. I'm in the old school, no home automation camp. Until it reaches the security and conveniences level of Star Trek, I ain't gonna be the guinea pig for Apple or Amazon. Besides, it looks like another BETA vs VHS, HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray, CF Card vs SD Card slobber knocker. It would suck to back the wrong horse.:oops:
 
StevieD100 said:
Until they get hacked or the power gets cut. Then what will your insurance company say? They'll say 'Sorry, you are not covered'.
None of this stuff will ever get past my front door.
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Hacked to what end? If someone is smart enough and has the resources to hack into a smart lock, they’ve certainly got far better targets than my house. And if anyone does want to break in, they’d be much better served by simply breaking a window or kicking in the door around back. Hell, my back door is 90% glass itself. Pretty sure insurance will cover a break-in, regardless of chosen methodology of the perpetrators, unless perhaps you have some cut-rate home insurer.

Not sure why power being cut matters. For the cameras? You’d be no worse off than if you didn’t have them. Plus the likelyhood of someone bothering to cut the power in the process of breaking in is highly unlikely.

It seems perhaps you envision people pulling an Oceans’s 11 style heist on my house, which is a hilariously misplaced thought. Meanwhile, my ecobee is saving me money by going into away mode whenever nobody is home. I’ll leave you to your bedwetting over smart devices though.
 
Spock said:
I only buy Alexa compatible home automation hardware because the Echo can be had for $29 and works great. I have three in my house and they control lights in those rooms, can tell me the weather and play things off my phone via Bluetooth. HomeKit and HomePod are just to expensive for me right now. I’m not saying HomePod is a bad product but Apple is far to late to the game at this point.
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Eh, no it doesn't. It works like crap. And if it fails, it's not like you can figure out why. And it is not like you can whip out your iPhone or raise your Apple Watch and perform the task manually.

The ease with which Alexa is integrated into products is alarming to me. Security must be lacking or something. I also wouldn't be surprised if Amazon discontinues it entirely in another year or so when profitability has vanished, leaving people with long-term hardware investments naked in the wind.
 
UGGHHHH this smart home crap needs to be UNIVERSAL. There needs to be an open standard. It's going to absolutely suck if most of the homes on the market at some point in the future are "Amazon" smart homes that won't work with anything else and monitor everything we do. It's going to be so expensive to rip out all of that surveillance crap and you'll never be sure you got all of it. It's one thing to have it in a car as that's an easier swap and you usually have multiple options and cars don't last as long. But a house? GAH!
 
Cmbqwerty79 said:
When smart homes start getting hacked homeowners will want to know which company provides a more secure system. Then we will see who wins out in the end.
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the best is to stay away from this fancy BS. It's not about if, but when. Some of these accessories will never be secure. I think we can expect a lot of fun in the near future :)
 
Cesar Battistini said:
I think Apple is a much more reliable home automation platform, as soon as Apple makes Siri better Amazon will be in big trouble.
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Hardly. The best does not always win. MacOS was always better than Windows, and we know how that went. Amazon has a giant lead. They also have mindshare. Apple is not focused now and it shows in their half-baked products and services.
 
nitant said:
Well duh. Homekit capable devices are double the price of just Alexa/Google compatible devices. Plus Siri is a joke. Not only does it barely works for anyone without a US accent, but it hardly has anything useful to do.
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Most best-in-class devices support both Alexa and HomeKit anyway. Ecobee, both. Hue and Lifx, both. Lutron, Hunter, Schlage, all both. If you’re looking for devices that are cheap, though not necessarily robust, Alexa probably has a leg up. If you’re wanting upper-tier, fully-featured devices though, you’ll be paying the same regardless of whether you go with HomeKit or Alexa.
 
Well we've had home automation for 20 years. There is no need for using Apple, Google or Amazon and give away your privacy.

Everybody wants everything in the Cloud, because it takes away the responsibility for understanding how it all works and its appears cheap. Sure its easier, but also allows tracking, which is why it is so inexpensive.

It just takes a little, not much, but a little bit more thought and understanding and a lot of this stuff is doable without the Cloud, at least right now. The more we resist the Cloud the more we force manufacturers to protect our privacy with peer to peer solutions. This is important and worth fighting for.

Even with Apple's supposed privacy stand, we won't ever allow any of these three (or any cloud based solution) into our home automation ecosystem. To do so, puts us on the wrong course for the future.
 
Pretty big fan of Apple devices here but they've totally dropped the ball on home automation and are worlds behind Amazon and Google. I would rather see them focus on their flagship products a little more.
 
PastaPrimav said:
This is pretty apparent, and its a shame. Way more Alexa adoption than HomeKit from what I've seen.
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Apple has lost in another area. This has now become a pattern. Apple is not the best anymore in most of these service areas.
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smulji said:
The problem is not HomeKit. HomeKit API is pretty good. Problem is Siri. That's what Apple has to fix.
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HomeKit is not that great either. They can't get simple functionality working without errors. Siri doesn't help, of course.
 
Apple’s failure to make Siri non-stupid is going to continue to hurt, and in more and more ways. The future is in AI, and Apple still thinks it’s about playing a song or setting a timer. I love Apple gadgets and have a full compliment in my home and on my person, but Siri had better get an education quickly. Right now the thing it’s best at is training someone not to bother.
 
Apple needs to get on this. They have a superior ecosystem but are losing out because of the way they're implementing HomeKit. I'd rather see them be more proactive on this front. No homebuilder is gonna come to apple because they have a superior product, they'll look at cost and experience.

Apples attempt at making things simple just makes they're products harder to use and feature deficient.
 
Spock said:
I only buy Alexa compatible home automation hardware because the Echo can be had for $29 and works great. I have three in my house and they control lights in those rooms, can tell me the weather and play things off my phone via Bluetooth. HomeKit and HomePod are just to expensive for me right now. I’m not saying HomePod is a bad product but Apple is far to late to the game at this point.
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HomePod is definitely too expensive and overkill for home automation. But Apple definitely isn't late to the game. They have a billion Siri devices in the wild that people have on them all the time.

In fact, I've found that the best home automation device isn't a bunch of speakers strewn throughout the house, but the Apple Watch. It's FAR superior to any smart speaker, including HomePod.

Not to mention, Alexa and Google data mine and store your personal data which is very ironic (and scary) for a home automation product, if you ask me.
 
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