Internet Of Things / IoT / Connected Home / Smart Houses

I'd love it if they released a self-host option.

The one advantage of the pricier Nest... the thermostat is basically a computer and so the knowledge and control is actually done local.

This is a bit like Philips Hue... all of the scenes, knowledge of lights, etc... are actually contained in the hub itself so it's local and continues to function when there's an outage.

The annoying things about some of these IoT systems is the way that they really just want it to be a UI over an API on the internet... but the way those fail during power outages, internet outages or their API going down are just terrible.

My whole IoT investment now starts with the question: How will this fail? Could this work if deployed off-grid with a shitty power supply? If yes, then I'm all in. I expect to have internet and power... I just don't assume it's always the case.

I went a little smart home crazy in black friday, filling in a few blank areas.

3 x Ubiquiti APs to replace the TP link ones that keep failing (have got the 3 years free cloud controller for now)
Simplisafe alarm system (10 x entry points, 2 x motion sensors, glass break sensor, 2 x cameras, loud siren), only took an hour to install, and works really well, easy to arm\disarm, accidently set it off once (sensor fell off a window) and my phone blew up with alarms, siren went off, and I could easily check the cameras to see if there was anyone wandering round the house.
Lost of Hue! Bought 8 bulbs, which gives me enough to do 3 bedrooms, landing (nightlight for daughter to go to loo at night) and dining room, for ability to dim, also bought dimmer switches, annoyingly Samotech switch covers are currently out of stock, so waiting for them to come in and then will fix to wall. Got colour changing bulbs for the bedrooms, daughter is a massive fan of the music syncing app, gives me a headache though.

I had some cheap TP link bulbs in before, which don't use a dedicated bridge, the hue are much more responsive and stable. Only annoying thing I have realised is that my in ceiling spots are sealed units, so would need to change the whole units to be able to use GU10 bulbs, which gets pricy and more labour intensive.

Ceiling spots are easy to change, I did about 20 recently. Just beware the plasterboard / ceiling when you pop them out.

Replacement spot casing are £6-ish on Amazon for GU10, transformers similar ball park.

Yes, the issue is I have loads of the buggers, and they all only 2 years old, so feels a bit wasteful to change them. I do have one bulb directly above our bed (loft room so no pendants) which is pretty annoying at night, so may do a test by changing that one, can then at least dim or turn that one off.

The other thing I would like to change is my office lights, I have 4 of these in my office, which are fine, but don't give any modulation in light output, I guess something like this would be the hue equivalent, but £1k to change one room is mental.

Looks like it was designed in the 80s

I think I just have a shitty shower.

The thing that annoys me the most is summarised in the attached document.

I'd love a shower where you select the temperature digitally.

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• Diagram-of-your-shower-knob_o_33250.webp

Simplisafe alarm system (10 x entry points, 2 x motion sensors, glass break sensor, 2 x cameras, loud siren), only took an hour to install, and works really well, easy to arm\disarm, accidently set it off once (sensor fell off a window) and my phone blew up with alarms, siren went off, and I could easily check the cameras to see if there was anyone wandering round the house.

Do you need to sign up to a plan to get anything other than the base station siren sounding? It is not clear on the site.

Found the answer on the Simplisafe forum - there is no notifications without a monitoring contract (3/12/20)

As ever, thanks for your thinking. I had wondered if your experience with Hive was 1 or 2, but you've said 2. Will go with Tado. Someone has written up their experience of Tado vs Netatmo here - https://www.reddit.com/r/smarthome/comments/fkcii5/tado_vs_netatmo_comparison_of_both_systems/ they note the netatmo TRVs are much louder than Tado.

A note about Decos and compatibility - TP Link have said there seems to be issue with ethernet backhaul via some D Link switches. So much they list it in their troubleshooting docs, and I saw it in at least one forum thread.

Finally reconfigured my network a bit. 3x Deco M9 Plus for the mesh in AP mode attached to a Firewalla Gold which is attached to my modem. The firewalla allows me to set up VLANs per ethernet port (it has no wifi) which means I can shove my Amazon fire TV dns unblocker onto a separate VLAN. Now to integrate the home stuff....

From someones twitter

" I’m sitting here in the dark in my toddler’s room because the light is controlled by @Google Home. Rethinking... a lot right now. "

thats why i'll never get any hi tech gadgets fitted to a house i own
google went down for 30 minutes today and destroyed peoples lives !

An internet outage does not plunge your google home controlled house into darkness.

Unless of course you live in a house with no light switches and can ONLY use google home to turn your lights on and off.

Was just reading into the rules around smart lighting. I knew it was a legal requirement to keep mechanical switches in your home in the UK but didn't realise that the EU requires smart bulbs to default to on when switched mechanically. Same in US. Fire safety apparently...

" I’m sitting here in the dark in my toddler’s room because the light is controlled by @Google Home. Rethinking... a lot right now. "

About as fake as you can get:

1. Google does not offer smart lighting... so this would need to be something else, i.e. Philips Hue
   
2. Google Home is merely a hub for aggregating multiple vendor functionality into one, so if Google Home failed you would just use another that you'd have already installed as part of the setup, i.e. Philips Hue
   
3. Smart lighting all keeps hardware switches
   
4. Flicking a power switch in a full power out scenario always goes to max brightness, daylight temperature
   
   

The scenario in the tweet isn't possible... even if they'd said it about a Philips Hue outage it wouldn't be possible as you just flick the light switch.

Of course... maybe the problem is that the person cannot switch a light switch, but in that case getting a smart system enables them the 99.9% of time when there isn't an outage.

gah, you can't even trust the random twitter posts the beeb pick to make their headlines / news these days

They've removed switches and lights are hardwired on 100% of the time, and only have google phones.
Lights were (soft switch) off and they only have Google phones... play store wasn't working so they couldn't download Hue to switch it on?

I dunno. It's certainly fake. I guess they could have flipped the circuit breaker even in my incredibly contrived example.

Maybe not 'smart home' but certainly 'smart brewing' when you can control the brewing kit and monitor the ABV of your beer from a cloud app.

What a time to be slightly tipsy.

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Don't know about losing lighting but I do know that with Hue if you get a power blip in the middle of the night all the bastard bedroom lights come on full strength.

You know you can choose what the default is after power loss?

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You are my god!

edit - "Sorry, this product does not support 'power-on behaviour' " :( Must be third party smart bulbs. But I can swap them for Hue bulbs from another room, it's only the bedroom where the power-on matters.

Glad to of been of service.

But, yeah, Hue only for that setting AFAIK.

Had some blinds installed just before Christmas. Opted for electric ones in the bedroom which were Powershade as there are four blinds and thought it would also be useful for auto opening/closing when away.

Didn't get the hub to control them as that was about £170. Got a Broadlink RF universal hub for about £35 and that seems to control them fine with easy setup which is pretty good given the price difference.

S'up all. I just bought a Logitech harmony companion purely because I stupidly lost the remove on my cheap tv soundbar and this was the easiest and lowest cost solution. I have an Amazon Echo by the TV so I think I can do some fun stuff with Alexa and scenes.

Anyone else got any other tips for getting the most out of the Harmony hub? My setup is quite simple, smart TV, soundbar connected by optical, hue lights, homekit plugs on a few other random devices, no apple TV yet as waiting for the next release.

@aggi

Do you have the remote?

Get the remote.

I love my harmony remote.

I assume that it's one with a hub.

If you haven't got the physical remote then definitely get it. I'd say the best bang for your buck is the Harmony Touch remote, ebay seems to have lots but they're often coming from the US https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Replacement-Logitech-Harmony-Touch-Universal-Remote-Control-Black-IL-RT6-1/224073742356?hash=item342bd5f814:g:Bb0AAOSw4J9fBzrk

Get the desktop PC program as well as the mobile app, you can do more set up stuff on the desktop version.

You can link your Harmony account as a skill on the Alexa app. Gives you voice control for turning on your activities and control of them.

It's worth setting up favourite channels (think you need to do it on the desktop app) so you can say "Turn the TV to BBC One" or whatever rather than having to know the channel number.

You can change what device (remote or hub) sends out the IR signal on a per device basis. My hub is inside a closed cupboard where it controls the set top box and my TV and amp are controlled by signals from the remote.

It can control Hue lights directly. For other stuff, if you're feeling brave, you can hook it up to Home Assistant and either control your Harmony stuff with Home Assistant or control Home Assistant stuff with your Harmony.