Internet Of Things / IoT / Connected Home / Smart Houses

Battery is a single AAA. I've had mine about 2 months and it is reporting 91% battery left with the unbranded cell it came with.

Range is okay but not great. One floor or one room away is fine but probably not much more.

For the DIY approach some of the sensors at pihome.eu look interesting and might have better range. https://www.pihome.eu/product/wireless-ds18b20-room-temperature-sensor-battery-powered-2/ - Needs a NRF24L01 receiver I think. The whole pihome system looks interesting, I hadn't seen it until this morning. Might order some and have a play.

Sensorpush seems very good so far.
I don't really need it to turn anything on or off but it seems that you can integrate. Everything else I have is Google/Nest and Would have been good to see some sort of Google Home integration.
I believe you can connect with IFTTT indirectly. Their email alerts can apparently use email forwarding in your inbox to send an email to trigger@applet.ifttt.com and create an IFTTT applet with an email trigger and a tag.

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Not really wanting to get into Raspberry Pi stuff or IFTTT, I've just ordered a SwitchBot Thermometer Hygrometer and the SB hub ordered. Apparently its Alexa compatible, so I'll find out in a few days

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B07L4QNZVF

Thanks for the info, they sound ideal for my situation

The SwitchBot meter and hub arrived and yes you can get temp readings easy enough through Alexa. But you can't use it as a trigger for a routine.

It works with IFTTT and the Alexa actions trigger (
https://mkzense.com/Alexa-actions )
Which can be discovered as a virtual doorbell devices within Alexa.

I now have IFTTT -
If RH above 52 then Action "dehumidifier On" is sent.
If RH less than 49 then action "Dehumidifier OFF"

Alexa routine of Doorbell press Dehumidifier ON or OFF operates the smart plug as required.

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Bunch of zigbee compatible stuff coming to Lidl soon. Lighting and smart plugs

https://www.lidl.co.uk/en/c/smart-home/c1693/w2

Hello IoT thread.

What are the alternatives to Sonos for a multi room speaker system? Preferably one which works with existing hardware?

I'm not suggesting it as a cost effective or necessarily the best system but we've got google home max. They pair together wirelessly to work in stereo if you have two in a room and music follows you seamlessly from room to room.

The intercom function is pretty useful too, allowing you to speak between rooms with a voice command.

Its an expensive way to do things but it does work very well. I'm sure there are better sound quality options but this is fine for us.

Google speakers, and with the existing speakers try and hunt down a Chromecast Audio.

This is what I use. Have 4 x chromecast audios (And a couple of spares that I am hoarding) and a few google speakers dotted around. What I really want is a nice, sensibly priced but powerful outdoor speaker that is google enabled.

Outdoor? Cast?

I assume you know you need good WiFi coverage over the garden, etc... but now I'm curious, what are you trying to do?

Do you want a weatherproof speaker capable of giving a loud and quality audio across a garden?

I'd add...

You know you can just use Bluetooth speakers and a Google Nest Mini... and then configure the Nest Mini such that the "Default speaker" is the bluetooth one?

This widens your choices considerably.

Yep, got Wifi from a repeater outside.
We have a large decking area (80sqm or so) so would love to have speakers around that, I guess I could just get some normal ip67 speakers, and run speaker cable to an amp inside with a chromecast audio, but the cabling would be a pain.

Note: I live in the middle of nowhere with no neighbours, so don't need to worry about annoying anyone apart from my wife, which I do anyway without blasting music whilst I BBQ in freezing weather.

Yes, I think the issue is, that I don't really know if I want something permanent (which means running power cables and all the faff associated) or just a portable speaker I can grab and take outside with me when needed.

Is it possible to use google home or similar to control sonos speakers?

Basically I have 2xplay 1's and the old version of a Port (which Sonos only support through their awful awful s1 app). I'm about to move to a bigger house and would like to add more rooms/speakers but I don't really want to buy anything from sonos and if possible decouple my hifi hardware from the multiroom system so I'm not at the mercy of a company which intentionally makes perfectly good products obselete.

There's DTS Play-Fi https://play-fi.com/technology/ Seems to be building in popularity with some decent brands but still not that well-known.

@Sam_w Get a couple of these for outside and job's a good 'un https://www.kronosav.com/products/soundcast-vg10-omni-array-bluetooth-speaker-with-dsp

There's also Undok which again quite a few products use https://www.frontiersmart.com/undok

How much?!

Ouch!

I was thinking more a couple of £50 speakers, some cheap cable and a Lepy Amp!

Its transformative technology fills your space with the most robust sound on the market though. Surely that's worth the extra?

Anyone got an outdoor weatherstation that's ideally compatible with Google home that they'd recommend?

What do you want to measure? If just temp and humidity, it becomes a lot easier.

Ideally wind too.

We've got a budget for Secret Santa this year in lieu of Christmas party. My giftee's mentioned he fancies an Alexa device. The budget will cover a Dot or a Show 5 but I can't ask him which he wants. Is it worthwhile getting a Show or does the screen not really add much?

We have a show 8. The screen is sometimes good, song lyrics and youtube videos seem to be the main things it shows for me and I imagine the smart home stuff may be useful when I sort it out. but most of the time it isn't really noticeable.

Cheers, that was helpful. I've got him the screen-free one, which leaves a bit of budget over for a funny/cheeky gift as well.