I'm glad to hear that these companies have finally published their APIs. Excellent. Honestly, that would mostly take care of one of the two big issues I have with recent automation devices.

I don't want to continue my negativity, but I still have issues with the direction these recent systems are taking. It's still a bit of a mess to get all these disparate systems working together. For one, you're going to end up with multiple controller modules. If you want to control those Hue lights you still need the Hue controller, for example. The Rovolv talks to that controller, not the lights.

Second, unless I'm missing something, all the commands have to be sent over the internet. This seems pretty slow to me. I'd be interested in seeing a full setup and how responsive it would be. The goal of ZWave was to have a protocol that responded instantly and without fail (it's the entire reason I switched from X10 to ZWave). The speed with which this happens can be impressively fast, and doesn't depend on WiFi, which much of these new devices do.

Lastly: cost. This is still a huge obstacle to home automation adoption. In fact, it's even worse now. The Nest is about twice as expensive as other HA thermostats, and the Hue bulbs will bankrupt you if you wanted to outfit your whole home with them. High prices have always been a problem with HA. I only afforded the equipment I have because of a radio shack firesale.

All I'm trying to say is that everyone is acting like Google buying Nest was the worst thing in the world. My counter is that Nest wasn't going to be the company to bring home automation to the masses on their own. It just wasn't going to happen. Why not see if Google can do something in this space?

I also find it humorous that it seems like most of the people freaking out over the acquisition are Nest owners but not home automation enthusiasts, and they're the ones saying how bad this is for home automation. I'll be the first person to say that home automation is in a terrible place right now, and I want to see if someone can do it right. I don't know if Google is that company, but this market has been around for decades without someone getting it right, so lets give them a freaking chance.