Field guide
For the person who already owns the expensive system.
Almost everything written about KNX is aimed at electricians or at people being sold something. This is aimed at the owner — what you actually have, what it genuinely does better than anything else, and precisely where its limits are. We have tried to be useful whether or not you ever buy anything from us.
Casient also covers apartments, early-learning centres, hotels and offices.
The framework
Four steps of home intelligence.
Every product in this market now claims AI, which makes the word useless for telling products apart. This ladder does. Each step can do something the one below cannot, and the placements include the uncomfortable ones — a flagship Savant installation and a supermarket motion sensor sit on the same step.
The four steps in full →It is also the most useful thing to take into a showroom. Three questions place any product on it, and they take a salesperson about thirty seconds to fail.
Step 1
Manual and on a clock
- What it adds
- Action without a person present.
- Where it stops
- A well-designed manual house, with good switches in the right places, is more pleasant than many automated ones. A timetable is a guess made once. It is right about the average day and wrong about today. It does not know you are away, that it rained, or that the room is already warm.
Who sells this
- A switch
- Timers
- Most “smart” heating
Step 2
Reacts to buttons and sensors
- What it adds
- Response to the world, not just the clock.
- Where it stops
- Every response is a photograph taken once. Nothing remembers, so nothing improves. Behaviour is wired by hand, address by address. Nothing decides when two rules clash, so often the last instruction wins.
A flagship installation and a supermarket motion sensor sit on this step together. The expensive one is better executed. It is doing the same kind of thing.
Who sells this
- Control4
- Savant
- Crestron Home
- KNX logic modules
Step 3
Understands what you ask
- What it adds
- You no longer need to know the system’s vocabulary.
- Where it stops
- It still waits for you. A perfect step 3 system in an empty room does nothing, because its whole job is turning requests into actions.
Putting a language model in front of a rules engine improves the front door and changes nothing behind it. The house did not become more aware. It became more articulate.
Who sells this
- Josh.ai
- Homey
- LLM assistants
Step 4
AI suggests, fixed rules decide
- What it adds
- Written rules settle clashes in a fixed order, and a log says why.
- Where it stops
- It needs a model of the building, a log of what happened, and something that settles clashes in a fixed order. With only two of the three, you get something worse than step 2, not better.
It is early. It runs in one real home so far.
Who sells this
- Casient
Three questions
Where does your house sit?
Answer honestly rather than hopefully. It takes about twenty seconds, nothing is sent anywhere, and the same three questions work on any salesperson.
Answer all three to place your house
The guide.
- 015 min
What is KNX, and why does my expensive system still feel dumb?
KNX in plain English
KNX is a very reliable wired system that nobody owns. It does not keep a history, does not know your rooms, and does not decide when two things disagree. That is why a good KNX house can still feel dumb.
Read → - 025 min
I've been offered a hub that connects my KNX to an app. Is that the upgrade?
Why a bridge is not a brain
A hub or app makes your KNX easier to command. It does not make the house decide anything. Here is one question that tells you which one you are buying.
Read → - 035 min
Every product claims AI now. What is the difference between any of them?
What "AI in the home" actually means
Four steps, from a plain switch to a house where AI can only suggest and fixed rules decide. Three questions let you place any product on them.
Read → - 045 min
What do all these terms in my documentation actually mean?
The language of your installation
A short glossary of the words in your KNX paperwork, in plain English, with a note on what each thing cannot do.
Read → - 055 min
What is in my project file?
What your ETS project already knows
Your project file is more than a wiring record. It describes every device and setting in your house. It is hard to read, and it is worth asking for a copy.
Read →
These pieces are written for an owner to read and for an integrator to send. If you install KNX for a living, the place to start is your own project file. Integrators can also find fix-it notes in KNX notes.
Installers: run a free Readback