Internet Of Things / IoT / Connected Home / Smart Houses

Yeah I've set up scenes in broadlink that will turn my virgin and tv on and set to a particular channel. Was hoping I could enter the room and say Alexa good morning and everything would fire up. Or say good night and have everything power down. Unfortunately alexa doesn't have skills other than tv control yet.

Should probably have gone for harmony.

Is Philips hue still the best supported option for smart lighting in a house without a neutral wire for smart switches?

Is there a way to bypass the original light switches so nobody turns off the live feed and makes hue useless?

Have you looked at Den? https://getden.co.uk/products/switch/

they are smart switches rather than bulbs, so no issue with people turning them on or off, as when you use the app it physically moves the switch.

Looks like no neutral required either.

Ah last time I looked they weren't available yet.

Damn expensive in comparison, but I guess that's the trade off for a more integrated system.

Yeah, not cheap, but to me look like the neatest solution to marry smart and physical switches. Real bonus points for not looking smart as well.

I have a 2 gang switch at the bottom of my stairs that controls a light downstairs and a light upstairs. They both have 1 gang switches at each end as well.

Do you think it's sufficient to have 2x1 gang smart switches and leave the "dumb" 2 gang in the middle? I would imagine the smart switch at both end would negate the need for a smart 2 gang in the middle?

Good question. not sure how they would play together, I did ask them something similar as I have some 4-way switches which I don't want to change, and they basically told me I had to change them all... They seem to respond pretty well on Twitter to technical questions.

It looks like there are no den skills on Amazon yet either. I'm sure there will be in time, but at the minute I keep coming back to Philips hue as the best supported option right now. Maybe I just get the 3d printed covers and live with keeping standard light switches until someone with more knowledge than me hacks a UK switch to work with Philips...

Have you looked at Tradfri, the IKEA version of Hue? Doesn't have all of the internet smarts, but you can get it to, and support for it is spreading fast (as far as I can tell). I kind of like that it's only on the local network, rather than the whole internet TBH.

I have looked at the Ikea ones but they don't have b22 light fittings and using an adapter is a bit clunky.

You can mix and match Hue and Tradfri if you use the hue controller. Keep the cost down on the IKEA bulbs...

Currently I'm feeling frustrated with the Tradfri drivers, as they don't work like the lights.

The lights you turn off and on again, and it overrides the app settings to turn them on. The drivers just stay off. Really annoying. I've just been told to switch them back to dumb lights most of the time. Ah well.

All signs point to Philips hue

Hue seems like a nice system. Its API is open (which I think was a smart move) so it integrates into a lot of stuff and you can even do your own custom commands. As well as the switch, mine are controlled by Alexa, IFTTT, Homeassistant and Harmony Remote.

Keep an eye on Amazon, Argos, etc. Deals come up quite often

Ended up coughing up all of my nectar points to kit the entire house (apart from bathroom) out with hue. Annoyingly bought the colour gu10 starter kit without thinking about what I was doing (only really wanted white), so accidentally paid more than i should have for the ability to turn my kitchen purple. Too late to return now as it's all set up and running so will just live with the novelty. Was very easy to set up and link to alexa.

Wait until Amazon Prime day to buy Hue.

Great lighting and the class leader. If you want to add extra stuff get a Smarthings Hub.

I had a handful of nectar points to use so all kitted out now. Might get some colour strips when on sale.

I have a left over unused b22 white bulb if anyone wants it for £10?

Dibs

I have Hue in all the lamps and a light strip on top of the kitchen cabinets acting like a big uplighter. I use the rectangular hue switches to control everything (one per room) but the kitchen which is on a motion sensor. All the timings and button programming is done through iConnectHue app. Third party but gives tons more options on how to control everything. A few Siri commands for HomeKit let’s me override things by talking to the watch (eg goodnight to turn everything off).

Ring doorbell uses ifttt to interact with Hue and the app I mentioned has a disco mode which the wife hates.

I tried the hive lights because I have their heating controller but there’s little support or intergration with other devices so they’re currently waiting to be redeployed in the shed when I get round to putting up the fitting and sticking a window sensor on the shed door as a switch (door open = on).

The light switches on the walls still control the big lights in the ceiling and I can’t imagine changing them as they provide big powerful find what you dropped lights on demand.

Next will be a Hue bathroom light with motion sensor as a controller, I’m fed up with shitting in the dark because I don’t want a bright light on. I’ll set it up to be 15-20% if activated after midnight. A bit more in the morning for the shower and full beans the rest of the day. The bedroom switch can be used to put it in a soft mood if we want relaxing bath time.

It’s all plug and play, super simple to set up and no skills required. Spendy though so look out for sales at places like Argos.

Has anyone tried the energenie stuff? I've been living with Philips hue for a few weeks now and really like them, and was about to order a few more of the wall switches when I came across the energenie switches. They look like a neater integrated system and don't need a neutral wire, the only downside is that you lose the ability to dim lights.

Buying enough switches to do the entire house and the hub works out about the same cost as buying the hue switches I had planned to buy, plus I could recoup some costs by selling all my 1 month old hue stuff.

Or is there a reason everyone still uses hue and not energenie?

Edit: stuck with hue and bought more wall switches and a motion sensor

Spent a bit of time researching smart hubs earlier in the week and although I came close to getting a samsung smartthings, I eventually opted to go down the raspberry pi route.

I'm now faced with the decision of HASS.io vs OpenHAB.

Has anyone tried both and has a preference? Is one of them better suited to someone code-illiterate?

I believe OpenHAB is easier to get going without touching any config files at all

I'm playing with HASS.io at the moment. It's not bad and picked up some stuff straightaway but some of the config can be an arse involved text editors and some things I just don't seem to be able to customise how I want regardless of how much I play about with the config files.

I haven't heard of OpenHAB before, may have a play tonight.

I want a mains socket that I can turn on and off with a Phillips Hue controller. Basically I want to turn fairy lights on and off.

So far I have found two options: an Osram outdoor socket that is hugely bulky and about £27 or a Bosch one that is (wait for it) £54. Bonkers.

Am I missing something?

Get a sonoff basic and wire it in-line, inside a waterproof junction box?