Internet Of Things / IoT / Connected Home / Smart Houses

Do you have a link to the model you have? I have some pretty hefty thresholds between rooms, do you think it could manage to get over a couple of cm’s?

Agreed on dyson, and they’re sh*t anyway. My old Henry hoover is miles better but is cumbersome.

Do you have a link to the model you have? I have some pretty hefty thresholds between rooms, do you think it could manage to get over a couple of cm’s?

We got the 980: https://shop.irobot.co.uk/roomba-vacuuming-robot-vacuum-irobot-roomba-980/R980040.html

It can do the thresholds fine.

I have a couple that may be spare - just need to wire up a bunch of sonoff switches first to see if i can lose the Hue switches.

You have those face plates space? You good Sir, are a saviour.

Let me know when you can't get into your house because your firmware is updating. :)

I prefer to burn the extra 4 calories a day to get up and use light switches and there's no fucking way I'm letting microphones into my house.

I've had them for a while - just never stuck them on a wall.

At the moment, I've blanked off the existing switches.

Whether they are spare depends on the success of my sonoff experimentation - I'm redoing a bunch of rooms just now.

Give me 2 weeks, and I'll let you know for definite.

I've just checked on ebay - the person selling the ones I have is no longer selling them, but the ebay suggestions have some very similar products

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/142928206008

there's nothing here that requires internet.

Disappointingly, I discovered my heating needs an internet connection to work properly.

It has local failover, but only as a dumb system.

Ideally, I'd like it to run on a local controller, but my guess is that would take hacking way beyond my means.

But they don't seem to be on sale any longer

I also want these.

Interested in 3d printing ?

Disappointingly, I discovered my heating needs an internet connection to work properly.

It has local failover, but only as a dumb system.

This is true of Hive in general if you have the same one.

When I moved in the previous occupants had programmed some complex schedule, and we couldn't adjust it with the local dumb controls.

The Hive system is the worst of all the systems as it does require an internet connection for anything more than rudimentary home control. At least ChromeCast is standalone, at least Philips Hue does everything on the local hub on your local network (their APIs and clients just update the local hub). But the Hive... requires an active internet connection for advanced control.

Even though it is programmable: https://github.com/aklambeth/bg-hive-api you still need the internet to use it.

Once I have my network set up I'll Wireshark and see whether this looks trivial to reverse engineer (i.e. whether they've been so lazy they've not put TLS on the local connections).

How is the Nvidia Shield?

I am looking at the feasibility of ditching Virgin and getting all media through internet sources. Part of that will be Netflix etc, but some will end up having to be streamed fro. the LAN, after downloading from somewhere. Currently I have no good solution to the LAN streaming part of this.

@Velocio A few questions for you!

1. Why Hive over nest, seeing as all you have google homes, surely nest plays better with those?
   
2. Any reason not to just use the chromecast for plex client over the nvidia? I personally ditched chromecast for plex client as it doesn't have a standalone remote, currently using a amazon fire to do the job
   
3. I was going to ask you about smart switches (like den) over smart bulbs but if you are avoid start ups I guess that rules them out...
   

What are you using for the motion detector lights? The standard hue ones or something else? I'm pondering what option to go for here, just get the Hue ones or set up something using Hass.io and ziggbee sensors.

I'm picturing this
https://youtu.be/xKYABI-dGEA

How is the Nvidia Shield?

It is excellent, I like Android TV and that has Netflix, Mubi, etc... but I do not trust the Smart TV shipped editions, and the Shield gives me an unmodified Android TV experience that I control. I love the Shield. Nvidia also frequently update it, so highly recommended.

Why Hive over nest, seeing as all you have google homes, surely nest plays better with those?

The prior owners had Hive and a lot of stuff was still installed. Seemed silly to replace an already working system.

Any reason not to just use the chromecast for plex client over the nvidia? I personally ditched chromecast for plex client as it doesn't have a standalone remote, currently using a amazon fire to do the job

I want my Plex client to be using the cabled network, I dare to stream 4K movies and FLAC files.

I was going to ask you about smart switches (like den) over smart bulbs but if you are avoid start ups I guess that rules them out...

Zigbee is reliable, smart switches not so much. I also have a good awareness of the security landscape of a lot of these things and I simply do not trust small company new entrants into this.

I'm picturing this

This is not far from the truth :)

Why Hive over nest, seeing as all you have google homes, surely nest plays better with those?

The prior owners had Hive and a lot of stuff was still installed. Seemed silly to replace an already working system.

Fair enough, don't think there is much difference in functionality anyway, and the whole point is that that you don't need to control them, so link to google homes less important I guess.

Any reason not to just use the chromecast for plex client over the nvidia? I personally ditched chromecast for plex client as it doesn't have a standalone remote, currently using a amazon fire to do the job

I want my Plex client to be using the cabled network, I dare to stream 4K movies and FLAC files.

I have all my chromecasts hardwired using adapters, sure it is still not as quick as proper hard wiring, but better than wifi.

I was going to ask you about smart switches (like den) over smart bulbs but if you are avoid start ups I guess that rules them out...

Zigbee is reliable, smart switches not so much. I also have a good awareness of the security landscape of a lot of these things and I simply do not trust small company new entrants into this.

Yes i'm waiting on reliable smart switches, bulbs don't work for me, I have ceiling spots everywhere so would cost a fortune. I want smart switches which change the physical state when they are changed via smart, so Den looks the part, but no way am I investing the £4k that it will cost to switch over until they have been used in the wild for a while...

p.s. it took me 7 attempts to get the mark up right for the two level quoting there...

I've found that Plex over Chromecast is a real ballache. Often doesn't update what you're watching, pause doesn't work, etc.

Raspberry Pi is probably my favourite standalone player (or HTPC with the Plex for Kodi add-on but that's considerably pricier).

Ah interesting, I have switched to using a simple amazon fire stick, hard wired in, as means other people can use the little remote to control it, rather than needing an app on their phone, which just meant they didn't bother...

There are loads of cheap remotes out there for the raspberry pi (although I just used the IR receiver from one and combined with a Logitech remote). Firestick is fine but I'm not that keen on the interface and I don't like having to open Plex each time (obviously a fairly minor issue).

The Nvidia Shield has a a great little remote, and was one of the things that really sold the system to my wife who did not want to be mucking around with apps and she wanted a simple nice and tactile remote.

This, btw, is what my home system actually looks like

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That radiator is not on btw.

That room does not need heating!