For some time now, I’ve contemplated the possibilities of smarter home automation. There’s a lot of focus on low level protocols for home automation– X10, ZigBee, etc. These are often called “high level” protocols, which they sort of are from the point of view of, say, an electrical engineer. But they’re not high level for a software architect point of view.
What I’m thinking about is something like DeviceNet for the PLCs used in manufacturing equipment, or SNMP for networking equipment, or JMX for application servers. These standards focus on exposing to management software various variables that are readable or configurable on each device. With SNMP, applications can post statistics to the SNMP daemon running on a network router and then an administrator can monitor the device and adjust settings– all remotely from a unified console that monitors the whole network.
What seems to be happening so far is everyone has their own interface for each device. I can see my PG&E smart meter settings if I log into the PG&E website. I can see the settings for my Linksys router, if I go into that interface. I can see how much power my server is using by walking over to the Kill-a-watt meter on the power strip and reading the display. That’s fine for 3 devices, but as the number of smart devices grows, it’s not going to cut it.
Have I missed something? Or is it time to brain storm ideas for the home automation projects I have in my head?