Supported hardware and protocols?

[jslegers]

Is there any way to support UPB, KNX, Z-Wave, BACnet or other popular home automation protocols?

If not, do you intend to add support for any of these technologies in the forseeable future?

Is there anywhere I can find an overview of technologies currently supported by heimcontrol.js?

Is your approach compatible with any solutions from commercial home automation vendors?

[tjanson]

Heimcontrol is more of a DIY project than a hub for commercial solutions. I.e., the typical use is wiring up sensors, relays, Arduinos, 433 MHz receivers, etc. and possibly writing your own plugin. In other words, if you want to design your own home automation solution, Heimcontrol is a good basis.

In that vein, none of the protocols you mention are currently supported. It’s not they’re fundamentally incompatible with Heimcontrol – quite the opposite –, it’s just that no one has written a plugin to support them. I think it’s fair to say that Heimcontrol is not under active development at the moment, so I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Based on your question my guess is that some other software is a better fit for you (unless you want to implement stuff yourself).

PS. I haven’t used it, but OpenHab might fit the bill.

[jslegers]

Based on my research so far, I'm leaning towards a Loxone miniserver.

Loxone is a company based in Germany and their miniserver is intended to be mounted on a DIN rail. At a cost of € 498.00, you get out of the box support for KNX, and optional modules can provide support for various other protocols (like 1-Wire, EnOcean, Modbus, DMX, ...). Additionally, Loxone provides both a RESTful HTTP API and support for websocket connections out of the box, which should allow me to easily build a fully custom webinterface.

I guess this is a quite expensive approach compared with a DYI wifi based solution, but in spite of my own budget constraints it seems to me that it's still a better approach for a home I'm planning to live in for the rest of my life.

[tjanson]

Looks cool – if you have the cash. A wireless battery-powered temp & humid sensor is 80€, an IR bridge is 100€, each wifi capacitive touch switch is 100€, and so on. Looks seriously sexy, and like you said, if you have a nice home and a five or six figure budget – why not indulge yourself? Not quite my market, I prefer a sub-200€ solution, total.

In any case, good luck with your project.

[jslegers]

Thanks.

As the server will be pretty much a central communication hub between GUI, sensors, switches, thermostats, I want it to be flexible, scalable, robust and compatible with a wide range of devices. So I'm willing to invest a bit more in that.

For the actual sensors and other devices, I'm willing to consider Arduino or Raspberry Pi based setups, at least for the time being. Do you know any good sources you can recommend for that?

[tjanson]

I build my own stuff; I don’t know of any finished products. If you’re willing to go DIY, have a look at MySensors by @henrikekblad which has links and brief instructions for all kinds of sensors and actuators (in addition to offering a cloud platform of some sort). But again, this assumes you enjoy wiring and soldering and coding.