Cloverfield

Industrial Automation Meets Home Automation Robotics Part One - By N.L. Belardes

I've met enough industrial automation super-tech-geeks (mostly sales guys) who use industrial automation equipment to run their own jimmy-rigged home automation setups. They power the lights, the jacuzzi, the temperature, television and DVD player. Even their showers turn on and off and the heat is regulated!

That's a lot of programming that non-Dilberts just aren't going to have the know-how for, and shows that some sales guys have some incredible spare time! But it's also a sign that home automation is real, is marketable, and that just because people in the industrial automation sector are the ones setting up such networks, doesn't mean your average Joe doesn't want to increase the laziness factor. Oops, I mean efficiency factor...

My question is, if industrial automation people are crossing over, and ease-of-use products are becoming more real, then when is an industrial automation company going to split and go way of the mainstream in home automation. OK, maybe that's still in the future.

Here's a video I shot of Hanson Robotics a few months ago at Wired's Nextfest in Los Angeles. When these doodads come out I wonder who will jimmy-rig one to a CompactLogix:

Industrial Automation Blogosphere Growing Despite Lurking And No Commenting - By N.L. Belardes

There sure are a lot of automation-related blogs out there these days. Great to see the old timers of the industrial automation blog world are still working hard: Gary Mintchell, Jim Cahill, Carl Henning, Walt Boyes and Eric Murphy.

But still not a lot of blog commenting going on. That means a lot of lurking, a lot of reading, a lot of checking out the voices in the automation community scene without having to engage in actual public conversation online.

It's an interesting business, automation. Everyone wants to be talked about--got products to sell, but not many believe in radical transparency: just talking honestly about product and business and letting others see you talk.

Most companies just want to smear marketing gibberish online. I like real conversations.

I wasn't surprised to read on Mintchell's Feed Forward a real conversation about the possibility of Rockwell being sold. What surprised me at first was the lack of comments about a $5 billion company selling for $15 billion. But then I reminded myself of the un-public nature of the automation business. Deals done behind closed doors. And a fear of radical transparency, a new way of marketing via blogging.

Yet there are more automation blogs out there in the blogosphere. Just look at Mintchell's blog roll. It's growing.