I'm looking at getting into some home automation stuff in the next few months. I'm gonna start with the Samsung Smart Things hub, and work from there. Who else is in on this? Speak to me of IFTTT recipes and Nest thermostats and all that kind of stuff.
Was going to post a thread with the same exact title, has potential. So far all I have some Philips Hue bulbs but plan on getting the following over the next few months: Chamberlain MYQ Garage Door Opener (mainly cause the wife always thinks she leaves it open) Rachio Smart Sprinkler Controller Arlo Pro Cameras And then eventually a Nest.
I have about 9 esp8266 waiting for me to write some code on them. The esp8266s will replace switches and a raspberry pi will be the brains of the operation running HomeAssistant. If I ever get time.....
Have the following but we just moved into our first home so still trying to figure things out and how everything will work together Ring Nest Samsung Smart things Samsung smart outlet Google Home Phillips Hue (2 bulbs) Echo dot (everything above were xmas gifts from an uncle w/ no kids and money to blow, we didn't ask for dot since we asked for google home but he got us one anyways)
I forgot I ever even started this thread. Right now I have the Smartthings hub, with a motion sensor for the bathroom lights ( which are a combo of Hue and Cree, at the moment ), a Hue bulb in my bedroom, a Hue lightstrip behind the TV for ambient light, and an Echo that I use for the lights in the bedroom. I've been on the cusp of getting a Nest fire alarm for a while, and have just never pulled the trigger. Same for August door lock. I don't wanna go thru the hassle of the smart thermostat, even tho I think my landlord would let me install it. And Sonos speakers, which I'm using Echo to control on a beta program right now ( I think it will go live later this year )./ Might pick some stuff up on Prime Day today/tomorrow if I see something at the right price.
My collection: - 5 Hue lights (1 in a spotlight in the living room, 1 each in a lamp upstairs and downstairs, and a pair in the bedroom lamps) - WeMo Switch (currently hooked up to another lamp but bought it to control the garland on the bannister during Christmas) - Nest Thermostat Once I get around to mounting my tv and adding a mantle over the fireplace, I'll put a lightstrip across the mantle to add ambient lighting for TV and see about syncing it to the TV's output.
Google Home which works with Chromecast/Chromecast Audio Kinnect on the Xbox one, which enables voice control of the TV/xbox/netflix/etc. Nest Indoor Cam x2 so far none of these are integrated at all.
The intergration, for me, is the really fun part. Even just doing something simple like having my bedroom lights turn on and Sonos starts playing music when I get within 100 meters of the condo, depending on time of day. I haven't been keeping up as much as when I started this thread, but the IFTTT has a lot of useful recipes ( called applets now ) for some basic stuff. I forgot I had a Chromecast. I have it enabled so that I can ask my Echo to turn on Happy Endings and it will come on, but I have used that maybe three times. When I'm out of the busy season for work I might try some more things.
Yeah fuck that. That's the one item that cannot afford to fail in the house. The possibility of it being hacked by someone is a lot less conspicuous to neighbors than someone having to smash something or pick a lock.
I'd just be paranoid that a "lock" command I'd send wouldn't go through, and the door would still be unlocked when I'm not home.
I've never seen any tech review mention that as a problem. I'm sure it's possible, I'm not terribly concerned about it. The main issue to avoid that is mentioned is to not enable voice control, since Alexa ( I can't speak for Google Home ) cannot yet discern one voice from another 100 percent of the time. Someone could yell a command from outside and gain entry that way.
Damn. They got the smart Hunter fans for $300 today, $50 off. I'm setting up all my trips for the football season, I shouldn't buy something that expensive today, at least not a ceiling fan.
I've got an EcoBee, which has been great. And an Echo Dot. In the market for a ceiling fan for the master bedroom, so that Hunter Smart Fan sounds pretty cool. Would definitely be interested in thoughts on the best packages perimeter security - mainly security cameras. We have motion sensor lights around our house, but would definitely be interested in being able to check who's at the door / around my house when I travel.
want to get a smart lock of some sort but afraid to pull the trigger so many options out there, and replacing our front door in a couple months anyways. might as well wait until then
Truthfully, if you aren't sold on the concept, you shouldn't do it. CNET had a piece dealing with all smart locks maybe a year ago. They said while they rated the August one as the top lock, none are head and shoulders above the rest, and all have some flaws, and none actually improve security, they only make things more convenient for users. The convenience is what I'm looking for, but not everyone else.
my roommate just got a nest. i can't control it. for example, he just had it blasting AC and the house was real cold. I wanted it to stop so I clicked the air up from 72 to 75. But that didn't do anything, it just kept blasting AC. When I want it to get colder I'll click it down from 76 to 73 but that doesn't seem to work either. Do I have to do all this through "schedule"
Bought a Wemo smart plug since my wife never can never remember if she left her curling iron on. I've got a bunch of money to Best Buy right now and I think rather than a bunch of smaller gadgets I'm going to go for an Arlo Pro setup. Anyone have experience with them?
Apple TV (need to upgrade though) Philips Hue (3 bulbs and light strip) Ecobee 3 with 3 sensors Love the idea of this thread. I really want to do the garage door opener and am also looking at smart vents (Keen vents work with Ecobee and sensors). Ceiling fan would be cool too.
All I have is: LG Smart TV Smartphone (Galaxy S8) - but I very rarely ever use the Google Assistant on it Fire TV/Roku/Apple TV - won the Fire TV in a contest, Apple TV was a gift. I rarely ever use the microphones on the remotes Logitech Harmony Smart Control Two tablets - I just dusted off my abandoned Fire Tablet to use it with the Logitech Harmony Echo Dot - for my birthday next month My thermostat is programmable but not internet connected. It can be internet connected, but I disabled that Stretching for some of those things, but I'm not really into the smart home thing. Don't have any need any internet connected lightbulbs, locks, thermostats, and etc. shit like that. Only reason I got the Harmony is because I got tired of juggling all the remotes since my older model Harmony didn't work well with my TV and doesn't work at all with the Fire TV.
Love it. After an hour I checked the filter and it was completely full. Laid on the couch, read a book while a robot vacuumed my house. Not too shabby.
I think I'm going to go with the Arlos first cause I have close to $500 to Best Buy and I'm not sure when I'd be willing to spend that much on cameras again. I'm assuming you have a Nest, are the savings significant? We're already good at turning the air up when we leave, keeping it warm prior to bed etc. I've recently convinced myself to just go with a Honeywell WiFi unit but would be open to the Nest still if the savings are that good.
I am really bad about adjusting the thermostat, so it is helpful to me. It's Paid for itself over the years
If you have the SmartThings hub, they have a new app for managing the Nest systems which is pretty good now. Also I don't see the issue with smart locks. I determined burglar can bypass the locks or have a locksmith get them in much faster than investing in tech to "hack" the lock. However I love the convenience of giving my family a code and deleting it after they leave or having a code for my housekeeper which is only good on one day for 4 hours.
Set some things up for my condo this weekend. About 8 Phillips hue bulbs, divided them into 3 rooms / sections. Set the voice commands for Alexa to turn them on / off. It's pretty cool, working on the automation schedule like someone posted above. Also got a lock with a keypad that you can send codes to through Alexa. Gonna go for nest thermostat, smoke alarm next. Anyone know how to get Alexa and Sonos to work together?
Is it worth it? I currently have a Dyson, but I am lazy and don't like vacuuming Wife and I have talked about getting one, but not sure if it's worth it. Thoughts? Does it run into furniture? We have a ranch house and 3 dogs/1 cat so a lot of shedding Tony Perkis thoughts?
I love it. It is great if you have animals that shed a lot. It picks up shit that you didn't even know was there. You can pretty much turn it on and let it do it's thing. Just make sure you don't have any cords or something like that that can get caught up in it. It comes with a remote and you can download an app on your phone that you can control it with. I remotely started it from my work which is 20 miles from my house. And it has a ton of sensors so it rarely runs into anything. I'm quite impressed with it and find myself at times just watching it clean the house.
killerwvu I've run it everyday. Every time it fills up. My cleaning lady came yesterday and commented how much cleaner our floor was. Today I ran it again and it still filled up. My mom is a clean freak and said I should be embarrassed at how much crap it found. My sister bought the same one and took it to my parents house. It filled up at their house as well. Worth every penny.
May have already been discussed but is the Nest worth the investment? I keep our house at 76 all summer, which in Florida is 9 months of the year. I understand it will learn when we're home and when we are not. We're gone most of the day so I assume I could have it bumped up to 80 or so and then it will automatically cool down when I'm about to get home. From everyone's experience, is this saving any significant amount of money?
If you forget to bump it up or if you're miserable having to endure the 80 degrees until it cools back to 76, yes. You can geofence it with IFTTT and have it start cooling the house once you enter a certain perimeter which is just a lovely feature.
I ended up going with: Can't beat the price with the reviews it has. The Nests capabilities seemed over the top for what I wanted it to do and there's a lot of other things I'm looking to add. Got an Arlo Pro yesterday as well. Just went with one to get things moving, Costco has a 2 camera add on pack for $300 so I'll buy from there when I'm ready to add more but I'm really liking it so far.
I bought and installed a refurbished August lock from Amazon. When I went to set it up with my phone it said I can't, as the lock is already registered to someone else . Hopefully they can sort this shit out over the phone.
I have Control 4 with Alexa and Nest. The Ctrl 4 has to be programmed to work with Alexa but it's essentially a scalable system that can control nearly every aspect of your home. If your network goes down you're still on an intranet system but most everything we have runs through the internet though so we're kind of screwed if that happens.
Join the Sonos Beta program and hope they invite you in. It has worked both better and worse than I expected. It is just nice to pair the voice control with great speakers, not the all range speaker Echo comes with. But that is all I can say with the NDA.
I have had limited success with an app called "My Speaker". Not sure if its SONOS affiliated or not. Still have some work to do to get it fully functional though.
Big fan of Arlo cameras. Really like the geomapping function that arms them when neither of us are within a radius of our house and disarms when one of us is. Took me a while to figure out the motion detection so that the cats weren't setting them off 50 times a day but once that worked out they're great. My biggest problem is that I've bought all of my "smart" electronics independently based on the research I did on them so they all use a different app. Arlo cameras Skybell HD doorbell Nest smoke/CO detectors Ecobee 3 thermostat
set up our ring last week, really liked it so far. i think we'll splurge for the $30 recording function after the 30 day trail runs out. Nice to be able to pull up every instance of motion near the door while I'm at work. does anyone have the ring chime? thinking about getting one in case we aren't near our phones when someone rings