How do you make your home smarter with Loxone?
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- čas přidán 25. 08. 2024
- We are renovating and extending a 1970s bungalow in Dorset. We want the home to be as efficient and green as we can. As part of the build we are installing a smart home platform from Loxone. Loxone will be installed to operate heating, ASHP, MVHR, Solar, Battery, blinds, full home audio and more. In this video we cover the elements that make up a Loxone install and an overview of our installation. You can see details of first fix in another video.
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main support i have as a dealer is let your dealer supply and install margins on it are low and will give the buffer for them while allowing the warranty and changes to be feasible. It is a bullet proof product but the programmer/ company needs some kind of incentive or if it was me you will pay way more for program and have service charges after installation even for remote connected changes.
You may have the knowledge but they're the certified trained dealer. I still give access to the config but the devices are always in our name.
Thanks, I appreciate the feedback. I am buying the vast majority of equipment from the installer. He was ok with me using the very small number of parts I purchased to make my decision. It’s a pretty big investment for me. I am paying way more in services than I have spent on all my previous automation projects over the last 20 years but I want the foundations to be rock solid and reliable. Obviously there is no warranty on the handful of devices I have but I am happy I went that route. I had planned to use significant numbers of Loxone rgbw spots but while they are a really great product they didn’t quite work for me.
I do want to understand how the system works and to be able to tweak things a little in the future. I may even attend the training in the future as it’s not that expensive in the scheme of things.
I’m looking at a similar project on a refurbishment in the UK. Loxone looks great but I’m swaying towards KNX for lighting and switches to avoid any single point of failure. Wondered if that’s something you considered before choosing Loxone?
Hi, I did look at KNX but my understanding was that it was a bit more difficult to configure as you have to configure each device, for example you have to configure the switch and the dimmer or relay unit whil Loxone will just scan the Tree network and automatically discover everything. But as you suggest the KNX route does give a level of fault tolerance as it doesn't rely on a single central server like Loxone. From my research the Loxone mini server seems to be pretty solid, the most likley failure will be the micro sd card so I plan to have a backup copy of that just in case perhaps at worst case a spare mini server but I don't think that's really required. You do get a broader choice of switches and sensors with KNX. I dislike the standard Loxon switches, the touch pure that I will be using is nice but they are over £200 per switch! I did see a half way house solution at the Swindon self build centre recently. It used low cost KNX components and was super simple to configure, that trades off against some limitiations of the overall integration that may be possible but if you are mainly looking at lighting I would check it out. www.luxorliving.co.uk/for-private-customers/luxorliving-smart-home/ Unfortunatley when I saw that I had really gone too far with Loxone to change.
Thanks for your video you are providing information my first glance into Loxone and their product range. (I hope you get sponsored 😀). To be honest the diagram doesn't mean much to me. I can see the mini server and audio server because of the colours and you explained that. But if there is any writing on the extensions the image is too small to see. You have explained most of your extensions anyway. It seems very customisable using their software Config. The touch pure have 5 zones to configure. I was going to ask about touch screens. I see there is an app, is that cloud based only. Or uses local wifi, which could be controlled remotely with a VPN connection to the house. Display wall panels? As with most hardwired systems the planning is the most important step to determine what you need a where. It appears much more difficult for an existing house, but I see they have a retrofit page, more wifi modules I guess? Keep up with the content! Good luck.
Hi Bryan, Thanks for your comments. I wish I was sponsored but this will all be from my own money. I didn't talk through my diagram in much detail as it is still changing a lot. The bigger modules have either 4 dimmer channels or 14 relays. My design at the moment keeps getting me very close to tipping over to extra modules. For example if you want 5 dimmers you have to buy 2 modules so may as well use more dimmers as long as it is less than 8 (The dimmers are over £500 for 4 channels). The same with relays, if you need 15 you need to buy another 14. There are some exceptions to that but I am sure you get the idea.
The concept of Loxone vs many other home automation systems is that many of the functions will be automated based on time or presence, after that is is scene based. This is designed to avoid you having to pick up a phone, walk to a wall mounted screen or shout at Alexa. As an example when I walk into our open plan living space at a certain time I can have rules that will set lighting, turn on the TV or radio, open blinds etc. If I want to switch scene say from cooking to serving at the dining table its just one press of a wall switch.
There is an app that can connect directly to the mini server over the local network or if you chose to remotley. I plan to wall mount an Ipad whcih Loxone can actually control including software updates and by turning on the ipad display when I enter the room or dimming it if I dim the lights. The remote connection I think is authenticated via Loxone and then connects directly but you could also use a VPN. I have seen some really nice wall display panels from other vendors including KNX whcih I could use with Loxone but as I said the concept of loxone is that you should not need to interact with it that way very often.
As you have seen there are wireless modules that use Loxone "air" with a smaller server and modules that go behind switches so a much simpler retrofit is possible. Loxone has positioned itself as a more professional platform so I am not sure how easy it would be to do it yourself, if you are not going all in for such a project I would probably explore Zigbee or Z-Wave products.
I have had many people aske me why I am not using Home Assistant. I suspect I probably will do so at some point and link it to Loxone but I didn't want to break the house if I mess up a software update. The core of the house functionality (heating lighting and security) needs to just work. If I add some tricky bits on the top to automate or for reporting it doesn't matter if I break them. I will go into much more detail on each use case with Loxone over coming months.
@@JurassicJungle I know what you mean. I use HA personally and find that the monthly updates which add new features there is always a risk of instability. Where as, I imagine, Loxone offer a few necessary updates which certainly feels more stable and does not need to be tinkered with. I saw another video about leaving enough DIN slots for expansion. I like the openness of HA, but you can guarantee that things just work when it's the same manufacturer. Also, you have so much to do it must be nice to outsource work. I don't know if there are any HA contractors?
@@bntambridge Hi Bryan, I think the updates from Loxone should be less likely to cause an issue as design much like an industrial PLC solution. They describe is as being "Clopen" a closed platform that just works but open to integration with other platforms. Loxone discourage a DIY approach and even closed their web store to the public for a while. I find it is also not documented very well. They really want you to use a Loxone partner to ensure a great end user experience which I do think is a good idea. The Loxone partner will design and build the panel, install at second fix and do all of the programming work. Some don’t let the customer tinker and will maintain remotely.
The partner I am working with “Thames Valley Automation” is run by an ex Loxone employee and so far he has been pretty flexible. I will have to see how much I take on ownership or if I pay him for some updates. The heating control in particular is quite complex so I think I will certainly leave that to him.
I have purchased a 1Home gateway which allows a 2 way link to Loxone via MATTER so I hope I can use that for connection to Alexa and other services. My only disappointment with that is that I know I can’t get voice control of the audio server which would have been nice.
Massima diffusione!