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Lowe's To Sell Off Its 'Under-Performing' Iris Smart Home Automation Business (cepro.com) 119

Posted by BeauHD from the short-end-of-the-stick dept.
CIStud shares a report from CE Pro: Giant home improvement retailer Lowe's is giving up on the smart home market. The company announced its "difficult decision" to exit the home automation market and is seeking a buyer for its Iris Smart Home business as part of a "strategic reassessment." The announcement is part of multiple other maneuvers by Lowe's that include closing its Orchard Supply Hardware business, dumping its Alacrity Renovation Service, shutting down all its locations in Mexico, and shutting more than 50 locations in the U.S. and Canada. Lowe's Iris was hailed as the only entry-level home automation system that handled ZigBee, Z-Wave and Wi-Fi when it came out in 2012. Speaking to investors, president and CEO Marvin Ellison [lumped Lowe's Iris in with other initiatives as an] "underperforming... non-core business."
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Lowe's To Sell Off Its 'Under-Performing' Iris Smart Home Automation Business More

Lowe's To Sell Off Its 'Under-Performing' Iris Smart Home Automation Business

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  • Massively overpriced (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kokuyo ( 549451 ) on Wednesday November 28, 2018 @06:08AM (#57713560) Journal

    This is not about the specific product but home automation in general:

    Am I just naive or is this whole sector massively overpriced?

    I have not yet found a product line that would fit all my home automation needs (like lights, door lock, surveillance cameras, garage door, intrusion detection, shutters, smoke detection, home entertainment control and so on), has a UI that doesn't make you want to pull out your hair by the roots AND is actually affordable.

    Because let's be honest, a wireless light switch does not cost more than 3 bucks to produce. It just doesn't. And then I keep seeing prices like 20 to 50 bucks a pop.... remember how many switches you need and do the math.

    After all this time of home automation being a thing, especially with the smart home appliances Google, Amazon, etc are offering, one would think that doing it yourself with arduino or something comparable could not still be the more versatile and cheaper option. But my gut tells me it is.

    So am I being naive or haven I just not yet stumbled upon the right product?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Entrope ( 68843 )

      You know the old line. Cheap, convenient, secure: pick any two.

      If you want a well-designed system, you need to pay for it in either dollars or privacy. I recommend dollars.

      • Convenient/Secure are direct tradeoffs, so you only listed two things. And obviously you can't have them both.

        That only gets you to choosing between making it cheap, or getting to select the security/convenience tradeoffs.

        In the standard formulate, "fast, good, cheap; choose two" they're talking about the development process more than the product. All the product traits are bundled into the "good" part; if you want a good product, you have to either take a long time to engineer it, or else spend a lot of mo

    • Not only is it it overpriced it's just another fad.

    • Because let's be honest, a wireless light switch does not cost more than 3 bucks to produce. It just doesn't.

      Sure, if you don't count the R & D and engineers' salaries. And setup costs with the off-shore manufacturer. And any licensing fees for protocols like Z-Wave / Zigbee. And cost of getting it UL-certified. And the cost of shipping it from China (or wherever it's being made) to the US. And the % the retailer will charge you to sell it on Amazon, eBay, or in a brink and morter like Lowe's or

      • Because let's be honest, a wireless light switch does not cost more than 3 bucks to produce. It just doesn't.

        Sure, if you don't count the R & D and engineers' salaries. And setup costs with the off-shore manufacturer. And any licensing fees for protocols like Z-Wave / Zigbee. And cost of getting it UL-certified. And the cost of shipping it from China (or wherever it's being made) to the US. And the % the retailer will charge you to sell it on Amazon, eBay, or in a brink and morter like Lowe's or Home Depot. And any post-sale support / handling returns and exchanges when a customer can't figure out how to get it to work with their network or is just unlucky enough to receive a bad one. And oh yeah, some type of profit margin after all of this.

        Yeah, 3 bucks sounds right. You should totally do it!

        Let's assume you're correct, that the GP's math is off, and with all of the R&D/admin/retail markup, it's closer to $15/switch. That still means that $50/switch is more than triple the production cost. Moreover, if you're doing light switches, ten packs should help to amortize that far better...but they're not much of a savings even if it is possible to get that sort of a quantity back without going to a wholesaler.

        Moreover, the underlying issue is not *only* cost, but the fiefdoms. I've got a bunch of

      • There is special UL testing for lighting; it is super-cheap. It gets tested, because insurance, but it is excepted from most rules.

        They wrote the rules so that when you build an LED light bulb, even though it has a circuit board with computers on it, it doesn't get any of the emissions testing for electronics; it is tested the same way that an incandescent bulb is tested. It has a power supply in it, you can't run LEDs without one, but it doesn't get the testing normally required for power supplies where th

    • I have not yet found a product line that would fit all my home automation needs (like lights, door lock, surveillance cameras, garage door, intrusion detection, shutters, smoke detection, home entertainment control and so on), has a UI that doesn't make you want to pull out your hair by the roots AND is actually affordable.

      As the saying goes, you can have it good, fast, or cheap. Pick two. I agree that home automation tech to date is a clusterfuck of incompatible standards, sketchy hardware, poor security practices, and godawful interfaces. The problem is that they sell you a device but have no further incentives to actually keep it up to date or to use good network security practices or to actually make something that works well. They just are incentivized to sell you something Good Enough to buy it and don't give a shit

    • A big part is expectations-- a point for a commercial install will generally run $1,000 for parts, smarts, and install. Residential is generally much lower, closer to $150-200 all told.

      I use Insteon, which is about $50 per control point for parts. I use a Universal Devices ISY994i which is about $300 with networking support and z-wave plus the Insteon power line modem. The setup can be completely firewalled from the Internet. I use it to control line voltage lights via plug or dimmer, Philips Hue lights,

      • Yeah... the only things that would be useful sounding to me would be stuff like the locks, which I wouldn't trust, or garage/exterior door monitoring, which isn't worth the effort. My in-laws just got some such thing, and while traveling together they were panicking over every time the doorbell was wrung that they couldn't correlate to a package delivery, but I guess if you're able to avoid becoming neurotic about it... For light switches, a few timers set for when you tend to be in dark rooms are about a

    • I never found home automation all that appealing myself and not worth the effort.
      There is a few things I would like automating most of which you stated.
      I would like to double check to make sure the locks on my door are in place, turn on or off some key lights, and perhaps preheat the oven at a temperature.
      However a lot of the stuff I see such as washing machines which you can start automatically is kinda stupid. Because it cannot load itself and unload itself. Thus needing manual intervention anyways.

      A lot

    • Because let's be honest, a wireless light switch does not cost more than 3 bucks to produce. It just doesn't.

      Actually, it just does. As someone who has been intimately involved in this area the cost is >$3. It's often >$6. And that's just the cost, not including any profit. They could focus on making something that would cost less but have no security, not unlike the one way security sensors of old. But then you'd likely complain about the lack of security ;-)

    • I have bought various items and Lutron, IRIS and WINK are the 3 I avoid with a passion. Highly overpriced and poor performers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lobotomy ( 26260 )

      YES! So overpriced. I have X-10 controllers and modules that I got in the 80s. I would love to retire this outdated protocol for something modern. When I look for replacements, I am shocked at how horribly overpriced everything is (except for some of the base units that seem reasonably priced).

      I priced out a replacement for the modules I use to control my Christmas lights. It would have been over $700 just to do that. Are you kidding me? When X-10 was released, it was marketed to everyone (I discovered it

  • Vivint will take it over.

  • The whole automation is missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Cyberax ( 705495 ) on Wednesday November 28, 2018 @06:31AM (#57713648)
    The whole home automation industry is missing the point. I spent a lot of time and money on trying different products and I could barely find anything worth using.

    Let's look at light switches. What's the main requirement for a light switch? Yep, being able to reliably operate it blindly in the dark. Amazingly enough, quite a few vendors fail this. For example, GE ZigBee switches have almost a one second delay between pressing the switch and light coming on. Sounds trivial but it's actually quite a significant problem.

    Let's look at smart outlets next. What is the requirement here? Simple, being able to replace existing outlets in existing electric boxes. Again, there are barely any products capable of doing this.

    I'm seriously considering funding a development of the wireless light switch done right - it'll behave like a regular switch but will have a mechanical actuator to flip it remotely.

    • Re:The whole automation is missing the point (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 28, 2018 @06:54AM (#57713694)

      I think the automation industry is expecting too much from their investments in the industry that have very thin margins already. And too early in the market. And missing the point as well, like the connected home appliance manufacturers usually do. Automation should make living in and maintaining the property easier instead of adding complexity and cost where there was none before.
        Where are my moisture sensors in the concrete to automatically warn and measure damages from leaks? Where is the automatic traffic warning system that warns the maintenance crews in a large apartment complex from blocking the emergency drive ways so that the local resident board member wouldn't have to call the administrator, who calls the maintenance company or the contractor about the potential threat to the lives of the elderly residents? Where are the p2p connected reservation systems that enable turn based access to shared resources like the laundry machines without the monthly charge from the telecom, the cloud and the service companies?
        Instead I can surf the internet with my fridge.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        and a sycophantic obsession on cloud dependence on requiring a connection to the vendors proprietary cloud offering else the hardware becomes a brick, stop it, people don't want to throw away hardware because a company went out of business or a product line got the axe from a merger.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Where are my moisture sensors in the concrete to automatically warn and measure damages from leaks? Where is the automatic traffic warning system that warns the maintenance crews [...]?

        I'd wager that many of these sorts of things have been killed by pinheaded bureaucrats.

        Posting as AC since I don't know how much of this is public, but some friends of mine did work recently for a sensor suite that was to be installed on all Texas Department of Transportation (TxDot) maintenance vehicles. The system was designed to identify potholes, spot poorly marked lanes, recognize guardrail damage, etc. and log it all in a TxDot database, with the idea being that as TxDot vehicles were driving around,

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mccalli ( 323026 )
      There are also very few light switches. Plenty of dimmers, but straight on/of? Nope.

      This is fine for lighting in your living room or whatever, but kind of useless for lighting in a utility room or bathroom or what have you. I like the home setup I have but it's definitely incomplete - I would like straightforward on/off switches to be easily available.

      • YES. And this illustrates the way that the industry doesn't understand itself.

        You have a home automation system. You can dim your own damn lights. You don't need a dimmer slide on the switch. Just put a big, normal rocker switch on there with two positions. When it changes positions, you flip the state of the lights. If we want dim, we'll tell Alexa or Google to dim, or we can but a dimmer for the ROOM which is just a data presenter to the controlling hub -- and we can make that control a SET of switc

      • The reason that you're finding it so hard to find non-dimmers in the UK is that we typically don't have a neutral wire in our lighting circuits.

        With a dimmer, even when it's turned off it still allows a tiny vampiric current through the circuit - this is to keep the device powered and listening for commands. This current can occasionally be enough to make the bulbs react, which is why most dimmers recommend the inclusion of a bypass in the circuit.

        With relays, and a hard on/off decision, there can be no vam

    • it'll behave like a regular switch but will have a mechanical actuator to flip it remotely.

      Sounds like overkill. There's not much choice in switches, agreed, but the ones I use (Z-Wave from Düwi, Zwave.me and Fibaro) all have a local switch that turns the lights on and off pretty much instantly, even when the Z-wave network is down or the switch is not configured. The Fibaro modules can be wired to work with my existing mechanical switches, sitting behind it (a tight fit to be sure), and that also work instantly, though the module does need to be configured for that to work. I'd love some

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Cyberax ( 705495 )
        I'm using ZWave switches from Eaton. They are sufficiently OK, but they still lack the tactile feel of a true paddle switch.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by isj ( 453011 )

      GE ZigBee switches have almost a one second delay between pressing the switch and light coming on.

      Yes, the stock firmware has that bug. Although I seem to recall it was the GE dimmers that did that - not the GE switches.
      It was one of the first thing we fixed in our custom firmware (we deploy them in businesses/hotels).

      I agree that a plain rocker-type switch would be preferable for switches instead of the springy-rocker-two-button thing. I think that an actuator would add too much cost. But hey -at least it is not as bad as the touch-sensitive flat glass panales some switches/dimmer have.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Cyberax ( 705495 )
        I asked the customer support and they told me that it's an intended behavior to allow double-clicks. Can you share the firmware you're using?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by isj ( 453011 )

          I'll check with my boss and get back to you (I'm not 100% sure what the license terms were).
          Out of curiosity: how many GE Zigbee switches/dimmers do you have?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Cyberax ( 705495 )
            A dozen or so in my house. I'm looking at converting the whole HoA so that'll be around a hundred eventually.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by isj ( 453011 )

              My boss is all for sharing but have to look into if there is any liability. That'll take a few days.
              Please email me at isj-firmware AT i1.dk so we can stay in contact.

    • I agree. I think this is because there are too many players trying to grab the whole pie, which is impossible.

      We just need a simple, expandable open standard. If you make a wifi switch, the z-wave guys are not going to buy you. If you make a z-wave one, the zigbee folks won't buy you. So the market is already divided by at least three (probably unequal) parts. A device made for this arena cannot sell as well as a dumb device. This sabotages the vendors from the start.

      Because of this there's not much c

    • I'm seriously considering funding a development of the wireless light switch done right - it'll behave like a regular switch but will have a mechanical actuator to flip it remotely.

      I'll save you some time, it's already been done.

    • I'm seriously considering funding a development of the wireless light switch done right - it'll behave like a regular switch but will have a mechanical actuator to flip it remotely.

      That's not even close to "done right." It is wasteful, and has fire-starting failure modes. Worse, any low-cost models will have high peak current that will throw people's circuit breakers. The actuators will use more power than the lights!

      If you want those features without it sucking, you need to build a separate power distribution system into the home, that just does the lighting, has limited power, and uses solid state relays, and soft switches. You can't use the solid state relays on circuits that suppo

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Cyberax ( 705495 )
        Why? Actuator will be a simple low-voltage magnetic coil with a magnetic core attached to the switch's paddle.

        The power draw is negligible, actuator is only used during switching. The fire-starting modes are the same as in the regular switch - the almost-open contacts that just barely touch, creating a high-resistance path. The ways to work around this are straightforward (make sure the actuator can't latch on, use the tried-and-true mechanical design).

      • If you want those features without it sucking, you need to build a separate power distribution system into the home, that just does the lighting, has limited power, and uses solid state relays, and soft switches. You can't use the solid state relays on circuits that support full power, and you can't have mechanical actuators+fire safety without also spending a lot of money. And you probably don't even want AC; maybe a 12V lighting circuit, controlled directly by the digital meter.

        USB-PD?

  • I'm rolling my own now (Score:3)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Wednesday November 28, 2018 @07:54AM (#57713794)

    Simply and plainly because there is not a single home automation system offered that isn't

    - insecure as all hell
    - phoning home even the most trivial things
    - a combination of the two above, i.e. hands some company my house keys (and whoever else that manages to breach their nonexistent security)
    - more expensive than the house it's supposed to automate
    - simply and plainly broken out of the box

    or a combination of all of them.

    I know, home automation is still a rather new thing, but frankly, if I with my hobbyist level knowledge of mesh networking, sensors and embedded development can come up with a faster, cheaper, more robust and more secure solution that ANY of the systems I have seen so far, you know something's not right.

    • I would recommend looking into the Universal Devices ISY994 and Insteon line if you have a spouse. Keeps the marriage going better... doesn't leak data.

      • About 300 bucks for a device that offers the functionality of a RasPi.

        We're at the price issue again.

        • Get a refurb unit for $99. While you can bit-bang a serial modem, it is a heck of a lot more painless for something that abstracts links and addresses for you. Just depends on scale though. One light that you want on at dusk and off at dawn is no big deal to script on a Pi.

          I used to feel the same way, but so many little things are so much simpler. It pissed me off to pay $50 for the functional equivalent of 'curl' in a network license... but after a month of dealing with stupid issues on the Pi, I broke

  • Try the ELK M1 Gold platform (Score:3)

    by PeeAitchPee ( 712652 ) on Wednesday November 28, 2018 @08:19AM (#57713850)
    Slashdotters interested in a DIY combination security / automation platform might want to check out the ELK M1 Gold [elkproducts.com]. It's not cheap but highly configurable and has been around for a very long time (like, over 15 years I think?). It has outlasted many of its competitors because it's highly modular -- if / when a new protocol like ZWave becomes available, ELK can just make a module for it that plugs right into the bus. They also make a wide range of sensors for just about anything you'd want to do, and best of all, you can write rules that make the system take actions when certain events happen. You can even get affordable third party monitoring for it from Watchlight [watchlight.com] and a few others. Note that it's NOT a surveillance platform, so no camera support or integration.

  • I looked at the Iris - The impression I got was they were really focused on their own line of devices which made me assume incorrectly that it was more proprietary than it was and I also wasn't impressed with the interface. Instead I opted for the SmartThings platform and ran that for a few years but have now switched to the Hubitat Elevation. Local control is best in life.

  • Lowes Going the Way of Sears (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Lowes is circling the drain... they are quickly learning that the approach for Walmart does not work for home improvement stores. They cannot keep staffing Lowes stores with Walmart-grade employees who can't even tie their own shoes, let alone have a discussion about wire gauge vs. ampacity or concrete pressure ratings.

  • Now there is home automation. And cheap too.

  • Do I need more? (Score:3)

    by AndyKron ( 937105 ) on Wednesday November 28, 2018 @12:00PM (#57714850)
    I still have X10 and plenty of modules I haven't used yet. My dad still uses a RadioShack standalone X10 controller that he bought 35 years ago and it still turns lights on and off. Do I need more?

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