For home improvement retailer Lowe's, the ongoing explosion in the Internet of Things has created a few challenges. For example, thousands of home automation and security device makers all want Lowe's to sell their products. The problem: many don't want to share their Application Programming Interface (API) software with Lowe's, said Kevin Meagher, vice president and general manager of the company's smart home business unit.Some device makers are trying to protect their APIs partly to protect their profits, but that approach doesn't help the homeowner, Meagher said in an interview at Super Mobility Week in Las Vegas. Home owners want to avoid having separate apps for every device; otherwise they'd have to show up at the doorstep and launch one app to turn on the lights, another to unlock the doors, yet another to control the thermostat.To offer users a more unified smart home experience, Lowe's has been selling a smart home app and installation kit called Iris since 2012. The $179 kit has now reached "many tens of thousands" of customers and is sold in all of Lowe's 1,500 stores, Meagher said.
It is designed to be plug-and-play and comes with a hub that connects to a user's home Wi-Fi. The kit includes three sensors, two door contacts and a keypad, but homeowners can buy other devices to connect to it, all controlled by the Iris app from a smartphone or tablet."We're pretty pleased with the response," he said. "We set out to solve one problem, to have an open platform where every device can connect. But a whole bunch of vendors don't want them to connect because it affects their business model. Some device vendors are starting to realize they need to open their APIs, but even then, most of them are doing crazy things like saying, 'The only way I'll share the API is if you talk to my cloud platform.' "This is what I mean when I say things are getting a little cloudy," Meagher said. "It's challenging for us because that's not putting consumers first. "Meagher argues that a retailer like Lowe's is in the best position to keep customers first because of decades of retail experience and because Lowe's buys $50 billion a year in home improvement goods that it resells to consumers.
With that kind of buying power, "we can make the rules and drive the standards and tell device makers, 'excuse me guys, we need to do this.' I just want to have a level playing field. I wouldn't want another standards body -- God knows there are plenty of those -- but we want open APIs. And if device makers encrypt their stuff, then tell us, so we can talk to the device."Lowe's Iris will support any smart home device that connects over Wi-Fi, Zigby or Z-Wave.Because Lowe's is in the retail business, Meagher argued it is closer to buyers wanting smart home products than the wireless carriers and cable companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast. "They find it is really hard to do retail...," he said. "It has taken us 70 years to get where we are."Meagher said "there's a real battle going on" as to who will be the biggest smart home provider. Major retailers like Sears, Home Depot and Best Buy also sell smart home solutions. But those retailers are lined up against network technology providers entering the smart home marketplace."
We sell things and that's all we sell and everything in the future is going to be connected," he said. "The question is whether technology companies can do retail faster than the retailers can do technology."Despite his insistence on an open API, Meagher said Lowe's is willing to work with any vendor, and has already heard of some futuristic smart home applications from actual manufacturers.For example, lawnmower makers are talking to Lowe's about using Iris to inform a homeowner when the oil in the mower in the garage needs to be changed. An inexpensive sensor in the lawnmower could monitor each time a sparkplug fires and for how long, to detect how many hours the mower has been in use.Lowe's already sells 50 connected devices for its Iris system, but supports hundreds of others that run over Zigby, Z-Wave and Wi-Fi. "We have water leak detectors, Nest thermostats, GE light switches, Hunter ceiling fans. We're the big boys and we're creating a doorway for it all to happen. Next year we'll have air filters connected for your HVAC system."
To express your thoughts on Computerworld content, visit Computerworld's Facebook page, LinkedIn page and Twitter stream.A common question from those camping in hot weather is "can a teardrop be air-conditioned?", to which we reply a resounding Rest assured there have been many talented, clever, and sweaty minds working on this problem. There have been numerous designs of swamp coolers, ice coolers, and other gizmos that use 12V battery power, but most of these increase humidity, which is fine in the dry western deserts, but will evoke screams of agony from folks in theI've come to the conclusion that 120V power is necessary for real air-conditioning that actually de-humidifies the air, which means you have to either have power hook-up at the campground, or a generator with a capacity of at least 5 Amps, or 500 Watts (see photo and caption at the bottom of the page). There have also been attempts to use RV air-conditioners ($600) or modify window units to make them
split-systems, with the coils outside and the fan/condenser inside. This requires Freon work, which is out of the realm of the averageConsidering all this, I believe the best way is with a small window unit (5,000 BTU or less), commonly available at Home Depot for around $79 and weighing 40 lbs. I solicited people for their way to mount this air-conditioner in their teardrop, and following is some of the bestOne thing I found is that even at 5000 BTUs, the unit is vastly oversized for a teardrop, which presents a coupleThe cooling cycle has to run in order to dehumidify the air, and so if the condenser cycle kicks on for just a few minutes, it will not run long enough to dehumidify. Also, if there is not an adequate flow of warm air over the evaporator coils, they will ice up. A normal installation of an air conditioner calls for it to re-circulate the air inside the room, as it is more efficient to cool air that has already been cooled.
But to avoid the problems mentioned above, you should set it up so the unit brings in warm air from outside and then blows it into the teardrop. the unit run longer and give the best dehumidification. units just mounted in the wall or doorway, sometimes this is just a matter of moving the damper lever to "fresh air" instead ofSome smaller units may not have this option built-in, and so you will have to devise some way to get warm outside air to the intake (or leave all your windows open). But for those units modified with ducting, you can just put the duct on the cold air output and let the unit take in outside air normally. You will also have to install vents to let the air out of the teardrop, so that the cabin is not pressurized, which will reduce the airflow and potentially ice upSo which is my favorite? Operationally, the remote-ducted unit is best set up for a teardrop. Since you only use the A/C part of the year, you are not taking up space
full-time with the A/C unit. This would also be the quietestHowever, I realize some folks will not want to go to the trouble of setting up the A/C every time, so I can see where the in-wall units would be best for them. For units mounted inside the teardrop, you also must make provision for the condensate water to drain out of the unit, or you will flood your teardrop! click on the photos below to see some examples of how people have installed their A/C, and start dreaming of cool bliss. Brad Ferguson's In-Wall (Galley) Darryl Engle's Remote Ducted Roly Nelson's In-Wall (Tongue) For those remote campers, Honda makes a 2000 Watt generator that's small and super-quiet and will power an A/C unit about 3-1/2 hours on a tank of gas. using a generator to power your A/C unit, make sure it's well away, lest the A/C suck in exhaust from the generator and pump it into your teardrop, which could be deadly. Never sleep in a