[natethomas]

I am wondering when we're going to realize that pretty much this entire home automation conversation has virtually nothing to do with the topic.

[Mudislander]

So I came to read about "Kodi accepted as GSOC 2015 Mentor Organization" and where does this thread go? No problems just chuckling at a Team Kodi Hijack.

[Ned Scott]

I am wondering when we're going to realize that pretty much this entire home automation conversation has virtually nothing to do with the topic.

I was under the impression we were debating if it would be a good project idea or not. My own points were that there's enough of a relationship between media center and home automation to see such a project going forward. But then I found out that the API-end of things is really easy (easy enough for me to understand), so it's probably not a good GSoC idea after all.

[RockerC]

I agree in essence with Ned Scott, I really do think that Home Automation and "Smart Home" control to a certain extent belong in Kodi as the main unified frontend interface for all your entertainment systems at home. However da-anda could be right though that it might be more about extending the APIs/protocols in Kodi to send all events which can trigger actions.

Trouble with this is not having a shared common framework and unified GUI with advanced rules configuration Kodi for Home Automation that can be reused for actions based on events.

This means that you more likely to end up having different developers making separate addons for each device manufacturer, and with each of them having their own interface. This would be a pain if you have several "Smart Home" devices from multiple manufacturers at home, which many of us probably will as development in their area is moving so fast and the protocols used are extremely fragmented.

suggested project idea could be to copy the PVR concept and design a similar common frontend GUI interface and extend the addons API in Kodi, and make a reference client addon.

If above is true then perhaps the core concepts from Ninja Sphere or Ninja Blocks could be used as a reference for a project to extent Kodi's addon APIs and the JSON-RPC protocols:

https://developers.ninja/apireference/index.html
https://developers.ninja

the problem will all home automation currently is there's not a single (opensource) API that can be used to rule them all. Maybe open source AllJoyn SDK could bring some difference in that.

I haven't used it but isn't OpenHAB something that unifies different automation technologies?

Java.... Ugh

Unfortunately it does look like today many if not most open source software clients for the Internet of Things looks to are written in JavaScript or Java, however fortunately more are written in either JavaScript than Java so should be more portable.

Again, maybe it would be a good idea to only use their core concepts of their APIs and protocols can be replicated or used as ideas to extend the JSON Schema and protocol for the JSON-RPC API in Kodi to better trigger events for home automation?

https://developers.ninja/apireference/index.html
https://developers.ninja

Benefits with using Ninja Blocks as reference is that they have both open source software and open source hardware, any you can use Arduino or Raspberry Pi as a Ninja Block.

I found out that the API-end of things is really easy (easy enough for me to understand), so it's probably not a good GSoC idea after all.

If the above will not happen as an one-for-all concept then maybe worth checking out Home Assistant's scripts for reusable code as reference home automation platform addon for Kodi.

Home Assistant is an open source Python (Python 3.x) based home automation hub.

https://github.com/balloob/home-assistant
https://home-assistant.io

Home Assistant scans your network for connected devices and will track the state of all compatible devices in your home, which today include:
- Tellstick devices & sensors
- Philips Hue
- Belkin WeMo
- Google Chromecast
- Nest Thermostat
- Wink Hub
- PushBullet
- Netgear, Tomato and OpenWRT routers

[da-anda]

IMO home-automatation could also be handled via a python addon providing a interface for connector addons that forward events to devices. The python addon could even come up with it's own interface for advanced setups etc or as of Kodi 15 could even provide it's own webinterface along with whatever is installed as default webinterface (AFAIK)

[natethomas]

This is a place to talk about the actual gsoc announcement. PLEASE stop talking about home automation here. There's literally an entire forum section for discussing the merit of individual ideas.

[colek42]

Which features would be needed besides of dimming lights in room X, because I don't think you can easily come up with a generic UI for everything supported by home automatation out there. Also configuration of complex tasks might be a PITA to do in a 10foot interface and probably better done via a webinterface or a standalone app. So why does it have to be part of Kodi and why can't it simply be an external cross platform tool providing the generic API to be extended by addons which is using Kodis JSON-RPC (or any other OpenSource media center interface) to trigger the home automatation tasks? Such a tool might be of much more use then a stripped down Kodi integration

Human interaction interfaces with kodi need to be implemented before using it as a home automation control center would really make sense IMHO. Which is my GSOC project proposal.....

[DaVu]

Don´t know if this is really related....but:

http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...light=fhem

[Kib]

Don´t know if this is really related....but:

http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...light=fhem

It's not, this thread is about GSOC and it was specifically mentioned not to talk about home automation here

[Robotica]

Which features would be needed besides of dimming lights in room X, because I don't think you can easily come up with a generic UI for everything supported by home automatation out there. Also configuration of complex tasks might be a PITA to do in a 10foot interface and probably better done via a webinterface or a standalone app. So why does it have to be part of Kodi and why can't it simply be an external cross platform tool providing the generic API to be extended by addons which is using Kodis JSON-RPC (or any other OpenSource media center interface) to trigger the home automatation tasks? Such a tool might be of much more use then a stripped down Kodi integration

Same GUI as apps like "If This Then That" have. That app has a very simple GUI to set up events based on triggers.

[ludi]

Though I don't have much technical knowledge, I agree with dan-da, thinking that home automation might be better handled in an add-on. There are IMHO other features more important to be addressed directly related to a core function of kodi: managing the media files. From the top of my head:

- Add support to read the metadata inside video files; I am particularly thinking at mp4, mkv, webm,...

- Create a category for concerts, that is different from the movies or the movies videos category.

- Add more flexibility to the default Confluence skin for example by providing a simple possibility to add a new item to the top menu (the horizontal bar with the System, Video, Music, Pictures, ... items) for each imported source.

- Improve multiple user support.

- Add server client support...

...

[Ned Scott]

I should have done this from the start, but the home automation posts have now been split out of the GSoC announcement thread.

[nolos]

I tested around a bit for Z-Wave technology. It was fairly simple but I don't know how easy it would be to integrate. Worth a look.

[Powerhouse]

There are tons of things Kodi can implement, that are Home Automation related. For Example:

Kodi has a Weather App, that could tell my Smart Sprinkler Box, that it is raining outside, so turn off the Yard watering today.

Or for Security systems with camera's, hey someone is coming to my front door (as detected by the camera near the front door), pause what Kodi is doing (watching a Moive, TV Show, etc), and display the front door image on the screen.
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=182540

Starting a Movie? Is it during the day, then just play the Movie, but if at night, Dim the Lights.
https://community.lifx.com/t/kodi-integr...h-lifx/508

How about a Simple screen that shows if all the Outside doors of the house are locked (and if not, have a button to lock them).

When you look into services like Control4, they have interfaces that tie all these different devices together, in a simple to use interface. Hell, they even have interfaces that work with Kodi.
http://www.c4forums.com/topic/17630-chow...-control4/

The trick to all this Home Automation stuff, is to start small, and do it well, then move on to more stuff. So if you want to do Lights, figure out all the different stuff you want to do with lights, and make the interface easy to use (maybe have the lights be part of the 'i' Information Key). So if you press "i" (on a remote or keyboard), some of the menu items could be Full Lights, Dim Lights, All Lights Off. When you pause a Movie, the Pause Movie screen comes up. But what if Kodi would check, and say, hey, the Lights are on, and Dim, so lets turn the Lights to Full, and then when the Movie plays again, Kodi will Dim the Lights again.

The above sounds simple to me, and would be a good start in Kodi. The most difficult part would be, working with various Light systems to make it work correctly. But lets face it, if you made it work with only 1 or 2 Light systems, guess which one's I'm going to be buying in the Future...

Imagine the Branding in the Future....Hey, these Philip Hue Lights have a sticker "Works with Kodi".

[TheMonkeyKing]

I just came in here to see how the mentoring went. Oh well.

By the way, I need an API to link up with MQTT and a D-Bus interface to allow my Kodi devices to be either a publisher or subscriber.
*It's for Home Automation.