Internet Of Things / IoT / Connected Home / Smart Houses

I applied the Dilbert principle of ignoring this for a week in the knowledge that it would resolve itself and as night follows day I ran through the AP set up process today and it connected first time.

#sorted

New Google thingamajig that tracks sleep via RADAR.

2nd Gen Google Smart Displays

Interesting. Radar modules are really cheap now and seem like a good fit for presence detection. I'd never have thought they were capable of the sort of fine movement tracking you'd need for monitoring sleep.

Just purchased new house having not been a homeowner for 8 months and looking into building a new smart home system. I’m guessing home assistant has moved on quite a bit since I removed it from my house nearly a year ago to sell!

The first two or three things we want to pick up are a video doorbell and thermostat, and an outdoor camera or two.

We had a ring doorbell 2 in our old house because we were limited at the time by the lack of wiring for a doorbell and the market at the time, but have more freedom in the new house with an existing doorbell. Is it worth buying into the nest ecosystem? Or is eufy a better option with local storage? Home assistant integration is key.

I guess if the nest doorbell is worth buying it probably makes sense to get the nest thermostat too, but are others a better bet? Again preference for HA integration.

As for cameras, really only want a couple of outdoor ones, and am considering going for a nvr and poe cameras, unless the eufy ones are decent and could bundle up with a eufy doorbell?

TLDR, if you were starting from scratch, what doorbell, thermostat and cameras would you go for?

Didn't Google change a load of the nest permissions so home assistant functionality broke? I think they've launched a new API since then (for a small charge) but obviously you're hoping Google doesn't break it again.

The main question is probably whether you want it all controlled by/notifications from home assistant, in which case you can go with basic stuff, or you want the Google, eufy, etc app to do that?

It would be nice to have an easy to access stream in their own app for the missus to use, but something with enough useable homeassistant sensors that it is useful for other automations.

The google API is meant to be very good but who knows how long it will last.

I've been playing around with TP Link stuff which seems good for the price, although annoyingly is split between Kasa and Tapo without any links between the two (apart from Home Assistant).

Google and Nest are handy for easy set up. Throw in a Samsung Smarthings hub and you've petty much got most of the common protocols sorted and talking to each other.

Personally I'm not 100% about cctv cameras using their ecosystems. They cost a lot, the cloud backup is expensive and filming people outside your house is a GDPR nightmare.

filming people outside your house is a GDPR nightmare

Seems to be completely ignored and I can't imagine the ICO fining anyone let alone a home user.

filming people outside your house is a GDPR nightmare.

Purposely filming people outside your house for no other reason wouldn't cut it.

But happening to record things that go on outside your own property when the main purpose is for security is likely to be covered as a legitimate basis for doing so, as long as you don't hang on to the footage for longer than necessary.

Caveat Reddit but: https://www.reddit.com/r/gdpr/comments/g93yq1/how_does_gdpr_affect_public_filmingpictures/

My neighbours security cameras caught a dawn raid by 40+ riot police over the road from us. Not going to post that...

https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/domestic-cctv-systems-guidance-for-people-using-cctv/

If you are capturing images beyond your property boundary

Which a typical video doorbell facing the street will and many standalone cameras too

Let people know you are using CCTV by putting up signs saying that recording is taking place, and why.

Never seen that next to a video doorbell or domestic CCTV.

There are other requirements too, hard to tell if they are being met by walking down the street.

The GDPR laws/regulations aren't explicit about signage though, so that ends up just being the ICO's interpretation, and it's no surprise that the ICO are wording things on their website in such a way (it's not in their interest to do anything differently).

In reality the ICO aren't going to come after everyone with a Nest/Ring doorbell because they don't have any signage up, so it's pretty safe to ignore as long as you comply with the main thrust of GDPR and don't misuse the footage.

(None of this is my problem as I don't have any CCTV/smart-doorbells of any form.)

The Govt's own page on it is less forceful on the signage issue:-

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/domestic-cctv-using-cctv-systems-on-your-property/domestic-cctv-using-cctv-systems-on-your-property

Anyway, I'm not going to get into an Internet spat over CCTV signs for domestic/doorbell cameras. The evidence is out there that the ICO and Govt don't really care.

Regardless it would be fun* to post a SAR through the letterbox of random video users and then chase it. I expect I'd have many frozen sausages in my lawn by nightfall.

The evidence is out there that the ICO and Govt don't really care.

The evidence is out there that the ICO don't really care about very much eg https://informationrightsandwrongs.com/2020/09/04/ico-fines-what-fines/ and other posts in that blog.

They appear either vastly under-resourced or vastly disorganised. The official method for organisations to report breaches to the ICO is a Word doc to download, fill in and email back.

I had the police knock on my door a while back asking if what recordings my video doorbell had as there had been a murder in the area and they were looking for evidence.

Thankfully the road my house faces onto is unlikely to have pedestrians, and my front door is angled in such a way that a doorbell won’t see someone til they’re at the front door. It’s not so much for security we want it but more to answer the door while we’re away, which is unlikely any time soon.

I am also looking at doorbells, but has to be battery so I think the Ring 3 is going to be it.

But, Smart blinds - where has everyone bought their smart blinds from? I want to sleep without the LED street lamps stopping me, but wake up with the morning sun. A friend got his from powered blinds.co.uk

@aggi did you get some in the end?

Ours are Somfy and have been thus far faultless. Most places are fitting a motor unit from an automation maker, into their own stock of blinds.

Yeah the ones at that site are as well. Did you get one of the hubs to connect it to an assistant?

I went with Powershade https://www.stylestudio.co.uk/systems/powershade/ which were from Kelly's Blinds https://www.kellysblinds.co.uk/motorised-blinds

I didn't get the hub as that was £150+. I got a Broadlink RM4 (I think, you need the model with RF as well as IR) for about £30 and use that to control them. That should be compatible with most blinds that use radio for control but I think some are encrypted.

Thank you

We do have the hub - nice for things like closing the ones in the bedroom at sunset in the winter/if you want a lazy morning in bed but some sunlight. Like all smart home stuff, sometimes it's tough to envision just how much you'd use it until you have it, but its also fairly difficult to defend as more than a toy/luxury in an absolute sense.

Closing the blinds at sunset is good, particularly as before that we kept taking the baby up to bed and realising we hadn't closed the blinds. Voice control through Alexa is also pretty convenient, can close the blinds from downstairs if you're going up to get changed.

Ooh that is nice, I'm also very aware that our bedroom is south facing and last summer would get extremely hot with blinds up

i would have to acknowledge they are expensive given my use cases. Am going to get a quote from Kelly's blinds (any referral benefit for you?)