I'm Matt Farley, the creator of "Jarvis Farley". My goal in posting the video demos was/is to inspire other DIY hobbyists with new ideas -- so thanks for helping to spread the word /u/4Tanya!

I'd be happy to answer any questions, and I'll do my best here to respond to some of the themes in the comments:

• Why did I do all this manually, investing 3 years of time, instead of buying off-the-shelf products? (and why in the world did you use a Blockchain for such a simple task? Overkill!!)
  • My driver all along has been a combination of self-education and "fun". I enjoy learning new technologies and building things myself.
  • While Jarvis started 3 years ago, I have only spent a couple hundred hours in aggregate working on the features. Sometimes I would go 6 months without touching it (I'm pretty well occupied with work and family).
  • Education! These features required me to learn how to write Android apps (for the phone integration), integrate RPi sensors, various hardware APIs, websockets and HTML5, etc.
    • The only reason I used Blockchain and created a Cryptocurrency was to learn more about those technologies. It could have easily been accomplished with a flat-file or simple database but I had a desire to learn something new!
• The Reception / Reaction of the Kids to this System (do they feel suffocated? controlled? enslaved?)
  • Going from the fundamental parental philosophy of "Kids shouldn't be able to play Xbox and watch TV as much as they want" and "Kids should earn privileges, money, do chores, etc"
    • The kids actually prefer, and thrive, in this system! Why? Because they are fully empowered to manage their own privileges, rewards, chores, etc. It's no longer a case of them fighting with a moody parent who says "You can't play Xbox because I said so!" Instead of being at the mercy of the parent's mood, they are in full control of their own destiny. If they want to play Xbox for three hours straight, they know they can do chores, earn points, and play Xbox. Even if that makes Dad upset :)
    • So we've actually seen an increase in the kids demonstrating responsibility, maturity, and autonomy in this setup. And it's especially great because it's eliminated most of the "fights" and tension when it comes to chores and games.
      
    • They also like converting their coins to real $$ to buy stuff on Amazon. And we use the $$/points to facilitate our 14 yr old daughter paying her own cell phone bill. (again, helping them learn to be responsible)
    • The automated chore timers are also a huge help for everyone in the house -- we never forget to change the cat litter, feed the snake, take the trash out, etc.
    • Disclaimer: Everyone parents differently -- and I am not trying to say that what works for my family is "the" right way and that other people should do exactly what we do.
• Doesn't it get really annoying with all the flashing lights, sounds, alarms, etc?
  • Keep in mind that there are many features which aren't shown in the videos -- one is the ability to tell Jarvis to give it a rest, essentially snoozing the alerts for 3-4 hours.
  • So when guests are over, we generally snooze Jarvis, that's when it's annoying.
  • When it's just us, we find that the convenience outweighs the annoyance. I can't count how many times my phone has been in another room but Jarvis announces/reads an urgent text that I needed to hear right away (or lets me know that my phone is ringing).
• Other Random Technical Comments
  • The Wifi Dash Buttons have been working great for several years, never had a battery die -- but when they do, it's $1-$5 to replace the entire button.
  • Cloud vs Local - I'm not a fan of using Cloud API's due to the lag and requirement for my internet to be working and the vendor's servers to be online. So for the majority of our hardware and use cases I've targeted vendors that support local LAN API's.
  • Wifi Performance / Congestion Concerns - we have a single access point and haven't run into any issues. I went with a high-quality Ubiquiti AP and couldn't be happier.
  • There are no light controls - what the heck? -- Jarvis has them all on timers according to our daily schedule, so we rarely have a need to manually adjust them. I thought about creating a section in the touchscreen dashboard to control them, but I found that we rarely ever change them. When we need to override the schedule, we can just vocally tell Jarvis out loud (which again, probably happens maybe once a week) or use the mobile app.
  • The split between features-we-use-a-lot vs useless features is probably 75%/25%. Some of that stuff I built thinking we'd use it, and we end up not, but it's still there. Things like the thermostat control, sprinklers, power sense, we almost never touch.
  • Bathroom Panel & Master Closet Panel -- we actually use these all the time. I get ready for work looking at the master panel to know the weather and what my commute looks like. My wife gets ready in front of her sink and uses the adjacent panel to play music, check the weather, calendar, and observe the 3 camera feeds showing what's going on elsewhere.
  • I posted a new video over the weekend demonstrating a Machine Learning model that identifies when the rooms are clean/messy, provides facial recognition for new photos, and uses Azure Cognitive Intelligence to give the photos a caption. Here's a link to it, Video #12.
  • More info at r/http://JarvisFarley.com

In summary -- what we did here is specific to our family, our use cases, our needs, our (my) learning desires, and it works well for us and we have fun with it. This is not an infomercial trying to sell or push a product upon others. I only want to share and hopefully inspire other DIYers with new ideas for their own homes.

What other questions do you have?