Aargh! Yet another Raised Bed/Silo in my Walled Gardens

The Internet of Things will hold far less promise if everyone follows the Hive path that British Gas have chosen.

For those that do not know "Hive" is a means of controlling your home heating, and hot water if you have an old fashioned water tank! It comes with a very nifty and useable App, and it can be controlled via the HiveHome website. A word of warning don't forget that you are in Demo mode, I can vouch for the fact that it is very annoying to find you have programmed your whole system in Demo Mode!

The Bottom Line...

British Gas have apparently licensed the AlertMe hub, but taken the Zigbee protocol and made it their own (ie Proprietary Protocol!)

Grrr,  my Home Automation Agency is already under attack! I started looking up "Hive API" as soon as it was installed, by a very kind British Gas engineer named Josh who explained that I could get it done for £179, as he was already here servicing the boiler. I was hooked. I failed to do my normal due diligence!

No APIs currently available or planned. (Though they have been hinted at) :-(

I checked IfThenThat.... nope Hive is not present? :-(

Apparently I can use SMS as an API interface, thanks for that British Gas!

So now to follow my own advice, after the fact, what data/control have I just given up, and can I get it back?

Watch this space... I am still pondering that question. 

We are likely to see many more examples of Walled "Internet of Thing"s Gardens

In fact my Internet of Things garden is starting took like my own garden, a hodge pudge of poorly connected raised beds, think silos of things. 

The X10 System 

The Withings Scales

The Weather Station

The Blood Pressure Monitor

The Heart Rate Monitor

The Mac based Indigo Home Automation System

The Hive

The Solar Panels

The OWL Electricity usage Monitor

The Electric-Save Electricity usage monitor (Don't ask!)

The X10 Secure Alarm System

The Phillips Multifunction Remote

The Apple TV

The TiVo

The PS3

The Samsung Smart TV

The Airport Expresses (iTunes)

My iPad Mini with

   Withings App

   Hive App

   Apple Remote

   Indigo X10 App

No prizes for guessing that they are NOT fully integrated! Yes all of them can connect to the Internet!

I want my IoT Agency to be simple to manage and easy to integrate!

Some Hope!

Dear British Gas,

 You do not understand the power of co-creation. You have treated me just like the crab in my prior blog post. Please reconsider your stance!

Adrian

PS I am off to read the Terms and Conditions, I really was badly hooked !!