
Show HN: The home automation system with an API - schappim
http://new.ninjablocks.com/hn
======
jwatte
1) I don't want wireless at all. Too easily hacked without detection. Wired
Ethernet is pretty cheap these days, and power line signaling is also
available.

2) Like Twine, another HA startup, and all of the incumbents, it's too
expensive.

------
windexh8er
So... A problem here - there's a lot of startup in the home automation space
right now. I've been using MiCasaVerde for over a year now and it's awesome.
Fully controllable and configurable via the MiOS GUI, or hack it to your
heart's content via Lua scripts. The awesome thing is there's plenty of
devices you can buy OTS right now whether Z-Wave (built-in) or Insteon (add-on
USB adapter). What confuses me about what NinjaBlocks is trying to do is -
they don't cater to anyone who already HAS home automation... Meaning: I'd buy
it for $200, but they don't say what I can integrate with. I'm not going to
spend another grand on switches, dimmers, motion detectors, locks, etc. if I
don't know I can reuse my investment. That's a big part of why Spark is not a
good option IMHO (<http://www.sparkdevices.com/>) - because they're using
802.11 WiFi (I don't want my home automation components on Wifi for a variety
of reasons, but the first two are: 1) WiFi doesn't have a low-power advantage
like ZigBee, Z-Wave, Insteon, etc. and 2) WiFi doesn't automagically create a
mesh network for auto-routing and network extension).

Then you have a startup like SmartThings (<http://smartthings.com/>) that's
just reinventing the wheel, creating a pretty iOS interface, and then trying
to charge an outrageous amount for a monthly service - something MiCasaVerde
doesn't do. So, at the end of the day would I use SmartThings? I'd like to -
but I won't because I don't want to pay $120 a year for something I can run
better in my own infrastructure. I don't want you selling my energy usage data
or knowing if I'm home, with something like MiCasaVerde - I can choose not to
use their cloud proxy to control my home.

If anyone is listening who's designing home automation and wants to cater to
people who are looking at building a service to deploy these types of
automation to the masses you need to do it right. Baby Boomers, at least the
majority of them, will think all of the above are too complicated, so they're
going to want someone to install and maintain this for them. There's a huge
middleground that needs to be solved here and unless SmartThings and others
are going to provide a service, that $10/month is not going to be justified.

Back to NinjaBlocks, please answer the following: 1) Monthly fee if I use your
cloud proxy to hit the controller? If so - how much? 2) If #1 is true - is the
API directly accessible on the controller - or are you locking me in? 3) Low
power integration (i.e. ZigBee, Z-Wave, Insteon, etc.)? Answered my own Q:
No... From
([http://help.ninjablocks.com/customer/portal/articles/692139-...](http://help.ninjablocks.com/customer/portal/articles/692139-what-
rf-devices-can-my-ninja-block-talk-to-)): "The original Ninja Block comes with
a RF 433.92 Mhz (433) dongle and future Ninja Blocks will have this baked in.
433 is awesome because you will find it in all sorts of low-cost battery
powered devices, its range is pretty good too. That said, its not all sunshine
and lollipops - there are good reasons its considered "low-tech" - only one
device can "talk" at a time, labelling is appalling, all protocols are
proprietary. So not everything will work out of the box, but a lot of stuff
will. " <<<<<\----- Sorry, but this sucks, I'm out. You need to have a _real_
and baked solution besides this 433Mhz junk that's not mesh, and has zero
security baked in. There's no way I'll pay $200 for this with zero long term
scalability or security in mind.

Again, another pretty solution that's just a toy. For my money I'd go with
SmartThings - but for the long term I'm sticking with my MiCasaVerde
(<http://micasaverde.com>) setup - cost feasible and fully in my control and
no monthly costs. Until someone can come to the table with that I'm better off
building my own interface.

~~~
schappim
Hi Windexh8er,

(Ninja Marcus here) Thanks for your feedback and questions!

1) Nope, no monthly fee. 2) We don't support this today. We think most of the
value actually occurs in the cloud. Having said that all our APIs, hardware
and code are open source, if you want to implement this you can. 3) The
question of protocols (433Mhz or otherwise seems to miss the point of Ninja
Blocks (& the Ninja Platform). We want to integrate with ALL connected
hardware. We've been working on adding other protocols like ZigBee, Z-Wave,
Insteon but they're not ready yet. I personally believe the future is IP.

We've included 433Mhz because it gets people started very cheaply!

Cheers,

Marcus

~~~
windexh8er
Marcus,

Thanks for your response. I'd, kindly, disagree with you on #2. I'm a serious
home automation user - and have it deployed in multiple locations for myself
and family. I won't buy a controller that banks it's existence on Internet
connectivity - there are use cases for having controllers air-gapped, and in
my book forcing an API in the cloud is a big miss. Hope you'll reconsider,
until then - you won't find me as a customer.

~~~
wallywax
Totally agree. My home automation system (a pretty extensive Control4
installation) works completely fine when my internet connection is down
(except remote access of course), and that would be an absolute requirement
for anything I'd install in the future.

------
cubicle67
PayPal are bastards. I cancelled my account with them a few years ago and
they've since refused to process any payment using my cc. This has caused me
much frustration over time and I'm not alone

Not sure if people who use PayPay for credit card processing are aware of
this. I'd love to buy this - and I attempted to - but can't.

~~~
schappim
Unfortunately they're our only option in Australia ( at least until these guys
come out of beta <https://pin.net.au/> ).

~~~
jzwinck
Could you accept Bitcoins?

~~~
nwh
Have you ever tried to buy bitcoins?

~~~
jzwinck
I haven't, but I know there are services that let you get Bitcoins by
depositing money by credit card or in a brick-and-mortar bank. It's an extra
step, but some people seem capable of doing it already.

~~~
nwh
There's no services that allow you to buy bitcoins with a credit card, or at
least, they don't stay around for very long after they start. I was going to
mess around with making a trading bot, but I could find no reputable sounding
services that actually allowed me to buy the initial coin.

------
DanBlake
Just bought one- Will be replacing my Lowes Iris system if it works decent
enough. Will this work with the existing lowes iris sensors?

edit- It does not support the sensors :(

Also, will it work with standard security/video cameras (RTSP/RTMP)?

edit- no, it does not look like that works now either :/

~~~
windexh8er
If you want something that works with what you have today your best bet is
MiCasaVerde (I've mentioned them a lot in posts - have no tie to them, but am
a mostly-satisifed customer at this point):

<http://micasaverde.com/vera-lite.php>

The Vera Lite is probably what you want... It can handle your existing sensors
and do video (although the video isn't anything spectacular - I use a
different system for that, but it does work).

The Vera has "app" concept - so from the controller you can install
MiCasaVerde or community provided applications to do certain things (i.e
something like a countdown timer for a scene, or an app to control an OTS yard
watering system for example). But the best part is you can write your own apps
(LUA). The system is entirely hackable (SSH access). So it's basically an open
slate to most extent. But, the key thing is there's no monthly fee if you want
to use their cloud service - you just need an account and controller (I'm
guessing they collect stats on you events - but that's just a guess on my
part).

The UI leaves something to be desired - and again, that's where startups like
SmartThings will capitalize (pretty).

------
huhtenberg
You are over-thinking it.

I am as convinced as ever that almost all home automation needs,
_realistically_ , are covered by a WiFi-enabled drop-in replacements for
conventional wall switches, junction boxes and sockets. Everything else is
nice, but you _must_ get the basics right before moving on to the fluff. And
nobody still has got it. I want to be able to switch off a floor lamp 5 feet
away and turn up the heat in the bedroom without lifting my precious behind
from the couch. Whether there's a motion in a garage is really secondary.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3957590>

~~~
askpete
Well said @huhtenberg we certainly hope to serve your lazy ass ;)

We do remote control sockets today. Not elegant but at $10-15 a piece best
priced laziness available.

We are cooking up something for IR controlled heating/cooling.

~~~
huhtenberg
Do show them sockets. A photo/render and a spec if you have them.

The _IR_ controlled heating/cooling ... IR? How is that supposed to work?

~~~
askpete
We will be shipping these [http://www.shop.wattsclever.com/european-socket-
type/47-ea.h...](http://www.shop.wattsclever.com/european-socket-
type/47-ea.html) in a couple of weeks. They don't have UL/ETL unfortunately so
we won't be selling them in the US. You can get these from amazon
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005OH2EUS/ref=oh_details_o...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005OH2EUS/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i01)
which work alright.

In Australia, central heating/cooling is rare and high-end - in most places
cooling matters much more than heating. The most common climate control method
by far are split system airconditioners. We are working on a retrofit device
specifically for these, though it will work on any IR controlled appliance.

------
mcartyem
The best solution to home automation is to have such a small home that there's
no need to automate.

That's a special case of a more general solution. The best way to solve a
problem is to not have to solve it.

~~~
jzwinck
This is insightful. I wonder if someone from Ninja or another HA user can
comment on what value these systems can offer to someone in a one-bedroom
apartment.

Living small also reduces the need for fancy power usage monitoring, WiFi
repeaters, etc.

~~~
nitrogen
I'm not affiliated with Ninja Blocks, but here's what I did in my previous
zero-bedroom apartment with a Kinect: [http://nitrogen.posterous.com/home-
automation-and-lighting-c...](http://nitrogen.posterous.com/home-automation-
and-lighting-control-with-kin)

------
Aqua_Geek
This looks really interesting. Some random thoughts:

Your homepage says the Ninja Block contains an Arduino-compatible µC and a
BeagleBone. It took me a while to understand that the former is for
communicating with sensors and the latter is for communicating with your API.
I didn't realize they worked together at first - I thought it was some sort of
"we used Arduino initially but then had to upgrade to something else in later
versions" thing.

Interesting use of USB connectors to pass power and IO to accessory boards.

~~~
schappim
Hi Aqua_Geek,

Thanks for the feedback, we should make that more clear. Actually both the
Arduino-compatible µC and a BeagleBone will be used to talk to sensors.

Having a tiny linux computer on board buys us a heap of flexibility!

Cheers,

Marcus

------
davidw
Here's a home automation-ish problem I've got right now:

We live in an on older (70ies) apartment building, with a wonky central
heater, and people with varying levels of tolerance for heat and cold. Some of
us suspect the heater is kind of broken, because it's hot when it's warmer
out, and sometimes seems to pump out less heat when it's cold.

So... it'd be interesting to collect data: interior temperature for all 6
apartments, and exterior temperature in the shade. And do so cheaply. Ideas?

~~~
askpete
A Ninja Block might be a good match.

pros \- You can retrieve folded historical data for sensors from the api
(min/max/avg/interval etc) \- You can set a callback that POSTs every reading
(every 45s) \- cheap, additional temp/humidity sensors are $15

cons \- range could be a real problem. Manufacturer states 100m open air 30
inside, which is inline with our experience (with a fully extended antena).
Apartment walls could be a showstopper.

~~~
linker3000
How about a raspberry pi with a bunch of DS18B20 1-wire temp sensors -
stupidly cheap if you can handle the wiring.

I'm sketching out the design for a raspberry pi-based central heating
controller with a web interface, mix of sensors and an lcd display - should
cost around 75-85UK pounds, including the pi

------
Frozenlock
Any plan to use industry standard protocols?

I work in HVAC controls and I'm always surprised by how the 'home automation'
folks seem to just ignore what's already out there.

My favorite standard is BACnet (standard for ASHRAE, ANSI and ISO), but
there's also Modbus, Lontalk...

There's a bunch of people who have _already_ worked very hard to make sure
there's some usable protocols for lighting, air conditioning and even security
access.

IMO you could leverage a strong position and use existing codes by using them.

~~~
elbear
Hi, Frozenlock. I'm interested in the topic of home automation, but I know
very little. Can you recommend any extra reading besides the standards that
you mentioned?

~~~
Frozenlock
Unfortunately, not really.

You see, home automation seems to always do "it's own thing" in regards to
industry standards, which is why I manifested myself here.

If you want to know more about building control however, you can just type
"hvac control" in google and you should be in the right spot.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_Automation>

------
jdotjdot
I'm not really clear on how much hardware experience you need to extend this.
For example, let's say I wanted to hook this up to my thermostat as you
suggested, or to my espresso machine as you did. What would that actually
require? Would I need those breakout boards? I can't even find any; how would
I get one?

~~~
schappim
This kit includes a wireless temperature and humidity sensor. If you want to
hack your expresso machine you can use the breakout kit to do this (of course
you'll need basic electronics skills to do this).

Cheers,

Marcus (Ninja Blocks)

------
hingisundhorsa
I've used Wiser Home Control, <http://www.wiserhomeautomation.com/> . There
isn't an API per say but I figured out that they're using XML for all their
commands/events for lighting, heating, air-conditioning, security, etc.

------
sauteedbiscuits
The "Only x remaining" part is sleazeball bullshit.

It was 5 a few hours ago, then 12, now 19.

Pretty sure it is supposed to go the other way.

------
lunetics
For some advanced use take a look at <http://www.ip-symcon.de/>

It uses KNX / EIB Bus industrial standards for Home automation, as well as
enocean and other 3rd party automation tools.

And it's fully customizable / programmable with php.

------
notum
The hardware package alone makes this look like a really good deal.

Why isn't the "remaining" number going down?

~~~
schappim
Q. >> why isn't the "remaining" number going down

A. Slow web hooks. The page is written in Sinatra. The sinatra app stores an
inventory value in MongoDB.

When there is a new order, our commerce engine Shopify (is meant to) send a
web hook POST to the sinatra app to get it to pull the current inventory via
Shopify's API. This hasn't been happening!

Cheers,

Marcus

------
Shaun_Springer
As a former employee if Crestron, and a big advocate of change and disruption
in this industry, I am xcoted to see this product coming to life.

I'd love to talk to you guys about what your doing and how maybe I can
integrate some high end gear with it.

~~~
askpete
please ping us help@ninjablocks.com

------
tsumnia
Like windexh8r, I'm starting to see the rise of home automation systems as
well. This is actually an area I'm currently looking into working on some
projects in.

With that, what are some some features users would like to see?

------
sprobertson
And with SiriProxy [<https://github.com/plamoni/SiriProxy>] you could control
it all by voice! The future is near!

~~~
schappim
We want to do this but fear the wrath of Apple.

(Ninja) Marcus

~~~
iamdave
I am really sad you guys have that stance.

------
huhtenberg
You realize that these are dead-locked, right?

<https://s3.amazonaws.com/ninja-assets/gears.svg>

:)

~~~
ww520
Not if they are in different planes of depth. :)

------
nepsilon
At the bottom it still reads "First batch ships January 2012". I guess there
too you mean 2013.

On the other hand, your copyright year is already in 2013.

------
mikegioia
I've never wanted $200 more than I do right now :(

------
pstuart
Very impressive. One thing that would be nice would be a low cost light switch
replacement.

~~~
schappim
Mate this keeps on popping up internally, what exactly did you have in mind?

Cheers,

Marcus (Ninja Blocks)

~~~
pstuart
A light switch that fits in a normal plate that can be remotely "switched".
One can pick up a SPST switch for a buck at the local home improvement center
-- $10 for this feature would make it easier to buy without hesitation.

------
8ig8
Still soaking it all in, but one inconsistency jumped out at me:

"Shipping Mid January 2013"

"First batch ships December 2012"

~~~
schappim
Hi Big8 (Marcus from Ninja Blocks here). Thanks for the heads up, I've put in
the fix.

Cheers,

Marcus

~~~
muellerwolfram
ninja fix... but probably to quick, now it says january 2012

------
drsim
I backed the 'wireless sensor readings to internet' device Twine
([http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/supermechanical/twine-
li...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/supermechanical/twine-listen-to-
your-world-talk-to-the-internet)) so I'm going to put down a couple things
about my experience.

\-- Production delays -- I waited almost a year longer than expected to get my
unit. Because I just wanted to tinker I wasn't bothered. Ninja Blocks say
their units are manufactured, just waiting for the enclosures. This might not
be a problem for them.

\-- Battery eaters -- Twine eats batteries like nobodies business. Two AA
batteries last about two weeks. On the forums this seems like the typical
experience. Ninja Blocks looks as if the central 'Ninja Block' can be mains
powered. But will the wireless sensors have a short battery life?

\-- Web app -- Twine has a website that the device must communicate with to
report data and push rules to it. There's no (out-of-the-box) way to get it to
talk to a local server via a clean API.

This was a big disappointment for me mainly because their web app is very
limited: \- No data logging (just reports the latest figure) \- Rules can just
be triggered over thresholds (ie when temperature reaches 20c then X) not when
temperature changes \- For moisture the actual resistance isn't reported, just
a wet or dry condition. This renders it useless for plant watering.

Twine can make a HTTP request when a rule is tripped. I plan to play with this
but it's not that useful if it can't just HTTP request every time a value
changes as I wanted to log temperature (plus it's a GET!).

The Ninja Blocks apps look better and appear to fill the gap between reading
something then doing something. Twine can really only report something
(twitter/sms/email/HTTP supported). But I'd caution that until you get your
hands a device like this you don't know of its true limitations.

\-- Sensors -- I didn't up my kickstarter amount when they announced new
sensors. I wish I had, as only the temperature sensor is nearly useful. The
other built in sensor is orientation... ? IMHO they should've thrown in the
other sensors and maybe upped the price to increase satisfaction.

I prefer the sensor pack that ships by default with Ninja Blocks.

In spite of the above I'm optimistic about Twine as it really is early days.
This space has massive potential if it can break out of communities like ours
into the mainstream. I just hope Supermechanical doesn't get distracted and
focusses squarely on their flagship product.

Ninja Blocks? I won't be ordering but will keep a close eye on what those who
receive the first units think. Their approach so far seems to be a better path
to market than Twine's crowdfunding and their presentation superior.

~~~
askpete
hey @drism - we are still waiting for our twines here in Aus. You make some
excellent points.

\-- Production delays -- this is our second go around, we had a kickstarter
back in March and it was late (and not a great product to be honest). We
learnt a lot this time around and ponied up for a small run. We were "sure" we
would ship in December when started taking orders on the 11th (of Dec). Alas,
Murphy hates us. Final assembly <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQKQw-YXyjA>
is happening now. Bleeding into the holidays has cost us a couple of weeks,
15th Jan is about as iron clad as anything can ever be thats outsourced to
Shenzhen.

\-- Battery eaters -- the block (a beagle bone + arduino cape) ships with a 3A
switching power supply - no messing around. The 433 sensors are off the shelf
items you find in low end security systems. They use most of their power when
they transmit (which isn't that often) and (whilst not tested) we estimate the
batteries will last a long time.

\-- Web app -- We have a web app that lets you see live data and make simple
rules. As you have probably figured out with Twine. Whilst that is fun and
sometimes useful but pretty limiting. We think making your devices available
to third party apps via OAuth is going to make things much more interesting!

We have mountains left to do, but we already have:

\- inbound and outbound webhooks, which enable simple integrations with stuff
like Zapier or Tasker no code affairs. \- a fully featured API that we use for
everything, i.e. not an afterthought- see <http://docs.ninja.is> \- separate
interfaces for creating user land apps and devices \- OAuth2 \- Open source
client (currently being refactored to support third-party modules a la
npm/gems/etc) - see the "release-two" branch
<https://github.com/ninjablocks/client>

\-- Sensors - lol re-orientation, we had an accelerometer in our kickstarter
block which was removed precisely because no one used it. Pretty much the
first time I found an real world use was for our friday afternoon rube
goldberg machine <http://youtu.be/jPE_M0ciCYI> (beware shaky cam, but we
weren't doing another take)

We really wanted to support remote controlling power sockets as soon as
possible, but at a reasonable price. That eventually led us down the path of
433 as the only globally available option. Insteon, Z-wave, even Zigbee are
"better" technically - but they are 50-100 per socket vs 10-20. We've secured
a CE certified supplier for Europe and Australia and will be reselling soon
for $12 a piece. There are ok options on Amazon for the US and we are lining
up something for the UK - we can't justify the MOQ just yet.

We opted for off the shelf sensors the second time around for a whole bunch of
reasons (see above). Cost, availability, but mostly because hardware is hard
and oh so slow - especially for software guys. Note that we think the value is
in wrapping _everything_ , especially all these awesome kickstarter/indiegogo
wifi devices that will probably have average APIs (no offense, but hardware
guys just don't seem to grok APIs or auth - think wemo ... LAN only
undocumented SOAP, really?)

There are important things we need to tick off - the huge one being severing
the link to the mother ship. Currently all logic lives in AWS, thats not
acceptable long term. Unlike some of the people in this space, we want our
users to connect to our service because it adds awesome value through an
ecosystem, not because you dropped a bundle on their hardware which requires
it.

Important note - you can already make your own devices. We've got an Arduino
Ethernet library that runs on a 328p (that's 2k of memory for the uninitiated)
<https://github.com/ninjablocks/arduino-ninja-blocks>. There is even a browser
implementation that uses cors <https://github.com/ninjablocks/browser-ninja-
blocks>. Of courese you can run our official client (git link above) on
anything that supports Node.js or just use the REST interface to make anything
with http a device.

Sorry about the verbal diarrhoea - midnight Saturday in Sydney :/. I certainly
don't want to suggest that the Ninja platform is all sunshine and lollipops
today. However, if you a software hacker and want a real API for things.
That's where we are going and we'd love for you to come along for the ride ;)

~~~
windexh8er
" Zigbee are "better" technically - but they are 50-100 per socket vs 10-20. "

Again - way off base here - please do your homework. A plug-in on-off socket
can be had for under $30 ([http://www.ebay.com/itm/Wayne-Dalton-HA-02WD-
Wireless-Small-...](http://www.ebay.com/itm/Wayne-Dalton-HA-02WD-Wireless-
Small-Appliance-Module-NEW-/190772559745#vi-content)). The cheap 433MHz
argument goes out the window very quickly if you know what you're doing.

~~~
schappim
The cheap argument is totally valid, 433Mhz plugs are an order of magnitude
cheaper! I've seen some on on-off sockets as low as $3.

Even the more expensive models are half the price of the Zigbee devices!

~~~
windexh8er
Actually - it's not.

I've said it multiple times in this thread - you get what you pay for. The
433MHz (not Mhz) gear is non-mesh. If you don't currently have home automation
I wouldn't expect someone to realize how much of a key this is to a reliable
and useful system. But, go ahead - try running more than a dozen 433MHz
devices on a controller - it's going to be unreliable and have restrictions
based on proximity to the controller which will depend on the NinjaBlocks RF
design as well of each of the individual plugs RF design. For $3, I bet it's
stellar!

#dontsayididnttellyou

------
hayksaakian
I remember seeing you guys at TC Disrupt. Looking good!

~~~
schappim
Thanks mate! We're slowly getting there :)

------
level09
how does the central computer connect to the internet ? can it use a 3G sim
card for example ?

~~~
schappim
Hi level09,

Our hardware engineer did get it working on Telstra 3G using a USB 3G adapter.
It does require you to jump into linux land to set this up.

Cheers,

Marcus

~~~
level09
Cool, Thanks Marcus. Can't wait til mid jan !

------
pdufour
Is this related to Lockitron?

~~~
schappim
Nope (but we hope to integrate with them in the future). I should also give
them a shout out for making <http://selfstarter.us/> available. We used
components from it and shoved them onto Sinatra instead of Rails.

Cheers,

Marcus

~~~
pdufour
Ah, that explains it. I was definitely noticing some similarities. Thanks for
clearing that up.

