RPA for the home (IOT and Robotics)

Who knew that Enterprise legacy systems and IOT in the home have a lot in common (and a lot to answer for). Bear with me, it's a quick read and there's an important message here if you are "into" RPA!

Over the last 3 years, for fun, I've been building a digital home and my home today turned 60, the number of devices (wired or WIFI) connected to my network (+ 10 more zigbee / zwave devices).

Scarily, the number of "legacy" IOT application vendors I now have in my home is many. However, not unlike the enterprise, this grew out of necessity / requirements of the different devices I needed. To list the vendors; Honeywell and Carrier digital thermostats, Levitron (Dimmers), Feit (Bulbs), TP-Link (light switches and Plugs) and KASA. I have Alexa (Echo's), Apple (HomePod), Onyko Receiver, Amazon Fire Sticks, Google ChromeCast (and Google Music), Aqualink, Smarthings (Zigbee/Zwave hub with 8 (growing fast), sensors, detectors and buttons. I have Ring Doorbells and Cameras (wired and wireless). We are also a "mixed" Apple and Android family. Phew, I think that's it!

Now, in reality, none of these devices or their applications are particularly complex, far from it. Even after wiring the more complex high voltage 3-way switches, every device connects to each application with a few clicks. Creating automations, routines, scenes, schedules, is also pretty straight forward - but then the "integration" (or lack of it) fun begins and I need RPA! Perhaps for IOT it should be RIOT - lol.

Now, I have at least 8 applications on my android phone (not counting music, streaming etc.,) I have the Alexa app, My Leviton, Feit Electric, MyInfinity and TCC (Honeywell), Ring, Onkyo Remote and Kasa. On the surface (integration), no pun intended, you would think if I want to have any event from one IOT application, interact with any device, group or scene in any other IOT application, someone would have figured out a standard on how to do just that, easily, right? Nope. (where is IEEE when you need them). So, I need to keep all 8 apps open and ready on my phone for some things... Now Amazon does a good job recognizing devices from other vendors but it doesn't work with all devices and it chooses not to re-act to all events from all devices. Add to that that my wife cannot use her own "household" shared Amazon account to control the devices directly from her phone. She has to actually logon as me or re-create everything I've created, herself, all over again. And she's not going to do that. (Sounds like RPA sharing user ID's ???)..

I did trying adding Samsung SMARTthings to Alexa but since Smarthings and Alexa were now both connected to the same Levitron devices, Alexa didn't see those devices as the same, and thus had me seeing "double" the number of Levitron devices! Sigh.

So, to fix some of these problems (or so I thought), I signed up and installed two RIOT (Robotic Internet of Things) applications (Stringyfy and IFTTT). Now, they are very clever and appear to do things out of the box with graphical drag and drop designs, designed for the typical "non-programmer" home user. But like RPA, they quickly hit a wall (and we are talking really simple use cases) so to do any real automation, they provide some even smarter programming tools (for programmers like me) - (strings, global variables, threading, event handlers, virtual devices) etc., However, this all made me realize last night, that this IOT industry is headed the same way as the legacy enterprises we all know and love. The easy automations are easy - and then it quickly falls off a cliff. I mean I can get it all to work but sometimes, I can't even remember how!

At the end of the day, the only way I see of solving this, is using more and more technology from one single vendor and enjoy the perks of out of the box automation and integration - built to do so, from the ground up. It currently looks like it will be Amazon and I do hope they will be able to keep up by enticing all IOT vendors to play nice (works both ways) in their eco system. This to me, is why DPA (Digital Process Automation) in the enterprise is so important. It's not about placing a bet with a single vendor for the sake of it, but to be able to become a truly digital company and to create a digital journey for every interaction (IOT devices in my case), this all needs to be more logically connected for the future of all our sanities!

I hope you enjoyed the read. The bubble in the RPA market right now is solely because too many people believe (due to vendor / analyst hype), that the age-old problem of joining applications together at the UI layer is easy. Even with the best technology, the best brains and a deep desire to do so (when vendors collaborate), easy is the last thing "tactical" automation is. I'm off to add my 61st device. Happy IOT day!