It seems like the vast majority of the issues with the current generation of products on the market has to do with speed & reliability; thus hardwired is the only way to guarantee those 2 work all the time. Also by going the hardwired route, the sensors and controls will be vendor neutral; thus ensuring that it will be future proof.
After doing a bunch of research the conclusion I came to was Opto-isolated relays [1] are the way to go for lighting control [2]. This allows for simple logic boards to control line voltage things without the risk of the line voltage killing your logic board. Best way to do this style of home automation would be in new construction, as retrofitting it would be hard to do if the house is more than 1 story tall as you need access above and below. Would be labor intensive as well. Will also allow for manual control because you'd put a current sensor on the wire so the hardware can tell when the circuit is on/off.
I would also want to put in some thermal cameras, as motion sensors are not as useful when your sitting on the couch, to tell when you enter/exit a room for auto lighting control. Put temperature sensors in every room and have motorized dampers & air flow sensor allowing for the control of the temperature in every room. Now your lighting and hvac can be manually or automatically controlled. Wire all the sensors and controls to a hardware/software brain that can be upgraded at any time. If that hardware/software brain is disconnected, all the light switches will still work and the normal hvac system will still work; just less efficiently.
Have the thermostat be controllable from the panel when the house is occupied (thermal camera) and auto controllable when vacant.
All of the above is possible right now; it just would cost a lot of money. Every relay/current sensor is $80 bucks; every damper control is $100; every thermal camera is $500; add it all together and you got one very expensive home automation system. But it will work right now without a lot of user frustration.
After doing a bunch of research the conclusion I came to was Opto-isolated relays [1] are the way to go for lighting control [2]. This allows for simple logic boards to control line voltage things without the risk of the line voltage killing your logic board. Best way to do this style of home automation would be in new construction, as retrofitting it would be hard to do if the house is more than 1 story tall as you need access above and below. Would be labor intensive as well. Will also allow for manual control because you'd put a current sensor on the wire so the hardware can tell when the circuit is on/off.
I would also want to put in some thermal cameras, as motion sensors are not as useful when your sitting on the couch, to tell when you enter/exit a room for auto lighting control. Put temperature sensors in every room and have motorized dampers & air flow sensor allowing for the control of the temperature in every room. Now your lighting and hvac can be manually or automatically controlled. Wire all the sensors and controls to a hardware/software brain that can be upgraded at any time. If that hardware/software brain is disconnected, all the light switches will still work and the normal hvac system will still work; just less efficiently.
Have the thermostat be controllable from the panel when the house is occupied (thermal camera) and auto controllable when vacant.
All of the above is possible right now; it just would cost a lot of money. Every relay/current sensor is $80 bucks; every damper control is $100; every thermal camera is $500; add it all together and you got one very expensive home automation system. But it will work right now without a lot of user frustration.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opto-isolator [2] http://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/46601/home-light-auto...