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syphon
Jan 1, 2001
I want a home security system, but I don't want to pay a monthly fee. Given that my phone receives texts and e-mails in a matter of seconds (or at worst, minutes), I'd rather have a system notify me if a door opens or motion is detected, rather than calling the police.

It looks like there are several Home Automation systems that do this very well. I want to see what your experiences are with these.
  • Private Eye Pi - Uses the Raspberry Pi as a brain. This looks interesting, except you have to build all the control boards yourself. Not sure if it works with wireless sensors.

  • Iris (by Lowes) - I bought this and installed it. It works pretty well for what I want it to do. If a door opens or motion is detected while the alarm is activated, I get a text within about 5-10 seconds. There's also a decent app that lets me see and control everything from my phone.

    The downsides are that you have to pay $10/m to unlock many features I feel should be free. Also, the dashboard feels very 'free to play' to me (there are lots of grayed out features with a link to the store encouraging you to spend money. You can't hide these).

  • SmartThings - This one looks similar to Iris, but a more open system. They encourage third party developers to extend the features, and the smartphone app looks very slick. It looks like it does almost everything i want already.

    The downside is that they don't focus on security (so it doesn't have a nice keypad like Iris, and you have to buy a third-party siren). It's also a bit more expensive than Iris.

The first two look more like Security systems, but SmartThings looks like they style themselves a full home automation setup. Each of the systems supports a variety of sensors and power outlets and whatnot, so you can do lots of cool things with each.

Like I mentioned above, I bought the Iris system, but I'm thinking of returning it in favor of SmartThings. Does anyone have any experience with any of the systems I listed, or anything else?

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crm
Oct 24, 2004

I've been looking into this as well.

I really like the SmartThings product, but there doesn't seem to be a good or easy way to integrate with a security monitoring service.

Did you ever come up with anything?

syphon
Jan 1, 2001
I ended up buying SmartThings. What do you mean 'integrate with a security' product? I use SmartThings as the security product. Here's what I had to buy:
  • SmartThings hub
  • 3x Multi-sensor (one for each door to my house)
  • Motion Sensor
  • FortrezZ siren (this is the one SmartThings pushes on their site)
It came out a bit more expensive than the Iris kit I originally tried from Lowe's. I think it was $350 total?

Basically, I use the SmartThings app on my phone to set my status to 'Away'. Then, whenever any of the door sensors or motion sensor are triggered, SmartThings sends a push notification to my phone and sounds the siren. It also has tons of 'apps' and encourages third party development, so it seems pretty extensible.

My only complaint with SmartThings is that their documentation is terrible, and they don't have a very good "end to end experience". For example, they have a slick dashboard for getting notifications when someone opens a door while you're gone, but if you want a Siren to go off as well, you have to set up a SECOND 'app' to do that. Oh, there's no way to search for apps either, so you have to browse each one individually and see if it does what you want based on a vague description.

Overall I'm pretty happy with SmartThings so far.

EDIT: Do you mean integration with a service that calls a security team or the police for you? (similar to what typical alarm companies like ADT do)

syphon fucked around with this message at 20:52 on May 28, 2014

Namlemez
Jul 9, 2003
Vera probably has the biggest user community and plugins, though from what I read isn't super friendly.

http://getvera.com/

Combat Pretzel
Jun 23, 2004

No, seriously... what kurds?!
Some Malaysian company is running a Kickstarter for a control box. They sound a little fishy, but given they've released some Linux based media player thingy, that's supposedly well enough regarded (didn't bother to research it enough, beyond its actual existence), so I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. They're promising all sorts of stuff similar to the NinjaSphere, except for the location stuff inside the house, for a fraction of the price (if you can still net one of the early adopter boxes for 80 bux). They ostensibly support Wifi, BT and Z-Wave out of the box, with some expansion modules coming up at some point.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1561203377/the-stack-box-a-smart-home-controller/

hotsauce
Jan 14, 2007

Combat Pretzel posted:

Some Malaysian company is running a Kickstarter for a control box.

Hmm. Wonder where they found the guy from Pennsylvania to do the marketing video? Anyhow.

Looks...interesting. I do have to wonder why the box is so large, when it appears as if there is only a small circuit board occupying the entire thing. I don't know. On the fence about believing the claims. They are seriously saying their box can do everything. That's bold.

Bookmarked just in case...

Edit: not trying to be internet detective here, but...they backpedaled on their Kickstarter page...



hotsauce fucked around with this message at 03:49 on Sep 14, 2014

Combat Pretzel
Jun 23, 2004

No, seriously... what kurds?!
As said, they sound a little fishy. And they handle the updates in a rather clumsy way. This may possibly turn out as a dud, but I rather lose 80 bux on this than 350 bux on that NinjaSphere. I was interested in preordering latter, since I heard about it before, but it turns out that it's delayed as gently caress to begin with. And despite their October delivery promise, I've found one of their developers saying around three weeks ago(!) that they're currently completely rewriting their whole stack. Doesn't sound too promising either.

I've a bunch of Hues and LIFX here, that I want to control in a common way with both alarms and geofenced triggers, and I have a bunch of smart powerplugs (Plugaway) coming in at some point, that should also be controlled via geofencing. So far I haven't found a satisfying controller solution. There's something called Fibaro, but it's expensive as gently caress and only works with Z-Wave. There's also apparently "The Thing System", but I don't want to fiddle with a Raspberry Pi. There was another Kickstarter for a device called Homey, but it sounds as fishy as the Stack Box and NinjaSphere... so v:v:v

Chamook
Nov 17, 2006

wheeeeeeeeeeeeee
I backed Homey, and they seem pretty enthusiastic about it, but no real progress updates yet. They have forums up at their website where people ask about support for things and they mostly reply with "we'll look into this". Hopefully I won't feel I've wasted my money this time next year.

twi
Oct 31, 2011
Is there anything affordable out there for light sockets? I google around for rf and/or wifi sockets, but everything that comes back is in the $40+ range. Meanwhile, I can pick up a set of 5 regular ac outlet adapters and 2 remotes for $30. Like, it doesn't even have to be an integrated system, I just want to control lights without getting off my lazy rear end.

Combat Pretzel
Jun 23, 2004

No, seriously... what kurds?!
No idea, there were a bunch of plug-between solutions over on Kickstarter. Emberlight is one name that comes to mind.

Also, anyone here using the Aeotec Multisensor? I heard it can be ran on batteries, and is low power enough to last more than a few days. How quickly does its motion sensor react? It's a Z-wave sensor and I'd like to try/use it to automate my lights whenever I get that controller (if it's worth drat).

Combat Pretzel fucked around with this message at 14:49 on Oct 5, 2014

wandler20
Nov 13, 2002

How many Championships?
I've been looking into this a lot lately to replace my Vivint system and eliminate a $66/month bill. I was sold on Revolv but Nest (Google) came in and bought them out and basically killed off the device.

Today I went ahead and bought the SmartThings Hub: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FWYESVQ/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It should do pretty much what I'm looking for right now, I just need to get some parts to work with it.

syphon
Jan 1, 2001
I've been using SmartThings for a while now, and am reasonably happy with it. I basically use it as an alarm. Using our phones as 'presence sensors', the alarm automatically arms whenever my wife and I both leave the house (and disarms whenever one of us gets home).

The only pain in the rear end is that it's all 'cloud based', so the entire service is susceptible to outages. Last night their site had an outage (its first since I bought it), so we couldn't disable my alarm all night, short of unplugging it. We ended up unplugging the siren, and dealing with the "door is open!" alerts whenever we opened a door.

wandler20
Nov 13, 2002

How many Championships?

syphon posted:

I've been using SmartThings for a while now, and am reasonably happy with it. I basically use it as an alarm. Using our phones as 'presence sensors', the alarm automatically arms whenever my wife and I both leave the house (and disarms whenever one of us gets home).


That's a really cool feature. We rarely enable our alarm now when we leave for the day because we either forget or it's an extra hassle to do so. The idea of it automatically arming really excites me and the other little things this device can do.

syphon
Jan 1, 2001
It's not perfect. I'd say 1 out of every 15-20 times, the alarm won't disarm in time, and we'll accidentally set off the alarm by opening the front door. Still, the ease of use (an alarm that activates itself when necessary) is well worth the false positives, I feel.

MeKeV
Aug 10, 2010

Namlemez posted:

Vera probably has the biggest user community and plugins, though from what I read isn't super friendly.

http://getvera.com/

I've had mine since the beginning of the month. I chose it based on the community, and it seemed reasonably well established (for the cheaper end of the HA market).

Well, I've had a couple of niggly problems so I send in an email to support-13th October. 22nd October I get a reply asking me to turn on remote support, I do this and as of today have heard nothing else since, even with a couple of follow up emails from myself.


Unbelievable. And my return period is probably going to elapse now because I had the silly idea that an email to support would have me up and running and happy with the device!

Three Olives
Apr 10, 2005

What if Hitler invented the BMW i3 Subcompact Electric car?
I guess I should put this in here? Anyone have solid experience with the new breed of smart thermostats? I'm on chilled water for air conditioning but electric heat and get murdered in winter on heating and it's supposed to be a colder than normal winter so I'm trying to avoid another $300 electric bill for my 1,000 sqft place. I think a smart thermostat would do a ton to bring that cost down, I just want my house warm is when I get home from work and wake up in the morning, but when I am asleep or at work as long as the pups don't freeze bring on the savings.

I was going to go for the Nest but the Honeywell Lyric looks interesting from a product standpoint, especially with sensing presence by phone instead of motion which would be less than ideal as my thermostat is in the dining room area facing a wall of windows. I have also been looking at slowly doing some lighting automation and it looks like the Honeywell line in general is much more friendly towards third party support but really my goal is to get my heating costs under control going into winter and the less I have to program or think about that the better so it leans me towards the Lyric and Nest which seem less third-party friendly but more automated on their own.

Oh, I might as well throw this in here too, for home automation I am really looking at the Wink hub, the forthcoming Wink Relay in particular, it looks to be a very solid offering that would let me slowly put more pieces in place and it looks like the system is much more friendly towards the non-Lyric Honeywell thermostats but I am completely open to other hubs. The thermostat is the pressing matter as we get ever closer to turning on the heat but I want to start buying things that will eventually play nicely together.

Three Olives fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Nov 2, 2014

Mr. Apollo
Nov 8, 2000

I've been looking at an iSmartAlarm, a few Leviton Vizia RF+ light switches, and some sort of hub for my place. The Revolv looked nice but it looks like Google killed it with it's purchase of the company. I guess the next best choice is the SmartThings hub?

Any idea when HomeKit devices are supposed to start rolling out?

syphon
Jan 1, 2001
It happened quite a while ago, but it's worth noting that Samsung purchased SmartThings back in August: http://blog.smartthings.com/news/smartthings-updates/smartthings-samsung-open-platform/

What this means for the platform as a whole... I do not know!

Dbhjed
Jul 20, 2006

Homework?!
Lipstick Apathy

syphon posted:

It happened quite a while ago, but it's worth noting that Samsung purchased SmartThings back in August: http://blog.smartthings.com/news/smartthings-updates/smartthings-samsung-open-platform/

What this means for the platform as a whole... I do not know!

At least Samsung didn't kill SmartThings when they bought them out like nest did revolv. I have a smartthings and love it. Always adding new things and they have a great community. The only thing missing IMO is Nest integration ironically

Three Olives
Apr 10, 2005

What if Hitler invented the BMW i3 Subcompact Electric car?

Dbhjed posted:

At least Samsung didn't kill SmartThings when they bought them out like nest did revolv. I have a smartthings and love it. Always adding new things and they have a great community. The only thing missing IMO is Nest integration ironically

Google has been talking about their grandiose internet of things open home automation system forever though, it makes sense that they would want the engineers to work on their thing and not attempt to entrench the kind of central hub somewhat proprietary system that they have been saying is dumb and wrong.

Dyslex1c
Jun 15, 2012

MeKeV posted:

I've had mine since the beginning of the month. I chose it based on the community, and it seemed reasonably well established (for the cheaper end of the HA market).

Well, I've had a couple of niggly problems so I send in an email to support-13th October. 22nd October I get a reply asking me to turn on remote support, I do this and as of today have heard nothing else since, even with a couple of follow up emails from myself.


Unbelievable. And my return period is probably going to elapse now because I had the silly idea that an email to support would have me up and running and happy with the device!

I have been using a Vera 3 for about 9 months now. It definitely has its pain points, but I seem to be getting around them. Right now it is controlling some lights, heating/AC for 3 floors. Motion sensors seem to be tricky, because is you want near real time performance you have to crank the polling interval way up, which eats batteries. It works great with Phillips Hue. I just recently integrate a sonos speaker.

Right now, as I have time, I am adding keypad deadbolts. Next year I plan on getting the zwave Intermatic pool control kit and also adding some home theater contols to it.

All in all if you don't mind really DIYing the crap out of things, and cant deal with a fair amount of frustration from figuring the thing out, the Vera 3 is a pretty powerful thing. The plugin support for third party stuff is pretty awesome.

AFewBricksShy
Jun 19, 2003

of a full load.



Is there anything that will connect to an existing system?

I've got an old security system at my house that isn't really used, but it's got sensors on all of the doors as well as the basement and first floor (I think) windows. I'd like to get some sort of smart system, but it seems that most of the stuff is going to be set up by a company who is going to want everything monitored.

syphon
Jan 1, 2001
Are the sensors wired or wireless? If they're wireless, they very likely use Z-Wave or Zigbee, which are both relatively open standards.

I know SmartThings (and most likely other systems) worth with both Z-Wave and Zigbee, so it's very possible it would pair with your existing sensors just fine.

AFewBricksShy
Jun 19, 2003

of a full load.



Wired. The system is most likely 25 years old.

Dyslex1c
Jun 15, 2012
I have a wired alarm system and my house is only 5 years old, so im in the same boat. I did see an alarm panel that can integrate with the vera via a plugin.

http://code.mios.com/trac/mios_dscalarmpanel

osiyo
Nov 14, 2014

Hello!

syphon posted:

Are the sensors wired or wireless? If they're wireless, they very likely use Z-Wave or Zigbee, which are both relatively open standards.

I know SmartThings (and most likely other systems) worth with both Z-Wave and Zigbee, so it's very possible it would pair with your existing sensors just fine.

I have wireless sensors on my alarm. Is there any way to tell the difference? Would there be any handshaking or programming needed?

I really want to augment things and increase coverage in a couple of zones. My current system doesn't text me.

syphon
Jan 1, 2001
I'd recommend taking apart one of the sensors and look for some kind of branding or labeling.

I don't know much of anything about the protocols themselves... pairing a sensor is very much like Bluetooth. You have to press a button on the sensor and (usually via the software) put the system in "searching for new device" mode.

I can't think of any easy way to determine what protocol your sensors use other than trying to look for a label, or attempting to pair it with a hub of each type. :)

osiyo
Nov 14, 2014

Hello!

syphon posted:

I'd recommend taking apart one of the sensors and look for some kind of branding or labeling.

I don't know much of anything about the protocols themselves... pairing a sensor is very much like Bluetooth. You have to press a button on the sensor and (usually via the software) put the system in "searching for new device" mode.

I can't think of any easy way to determine what protocol your sensors use other than trying to look for a label, or attempting to pair it with a hub of each type. :)

Thanks! That gives me a place to start. I should also pull the documentation on the alarm system for clues. I bought the place in June so the install isn't mine and I have no idea what it's capabilities are. It's not fancy.

I recently picked up a Dropcam for internal motion detection. This was mainly so I would receive an alert even though I do have motion on the alarm system. Pretty nifty, it ties in with the NEST thermostat so you can set your home/away.

Garage door monitoring is going to be bumped up on my list. I had to review DVR footage last night because my wife left the door up. 12 minutes of vulnerability but no intruders. Our neighborhood has been getting worked over by a crew over the last couple of weeks.

Life in the big city.

Combat Pretzel
Jun 23, 2004

No, seriously... what kurds?!
So yeah, anyone here using OpenHAB (and maybe HABmin)? If so, what platform are you running it on? It can apparently run on a Rasperry Pi, but so far I haven't seen anyone write a clear guide on what to buy to get it to run quickly including Z-Wave transceiver.

clockworx
Oct 15, 2005
The Internet Whore made me buy this account
There was a crazy sale over Cyber Monday to get a wink hub + 1 bulb for $16 on Amazon. I pretty much couldn't resist at that price, so I guess I'll see how it pans out.

TheEffect
Aug 12, 2013
Does anyone here use iSpy? If so, do you know if there's a way I can get it to record everything externally on my VPS; and if not, is there a program that will do this for me?

Edit: Seems like there might be a way to do this but I'm not too sure since I'm not great with this sort of thing. If I'm correct you need a license to do this. Is there any free monitoring program I can use?

TheEffect fucked around with this message at 01:48 on Dec 9, 2014

BEHOLD: MY CAPE
Jan 11, 2004
I just bought a Wink hub and some lights; so far I am pretty happy with what it does. I intend to integrate my door locks and thermostat to the system. It has some neat features like geofencing from any location, so for instance I can set the thermostat to start warming up the house when I walk out of my workplace between set hours in the afternoon, and then turn on the porch lights and unlock the doors when I arrive at home.

Three Olives
Apr 10, 2005

What if Hitler invented the BMW i3 Subcompact Electric car?
So as of today Nest is completely integrated into Google Now and it is completely awesome. The only reason I was considering the Honeywell Lyric over the Nest was geofences, Google Now is 1000% better:



So Google Now already knows when you leave work and what the traffic is like so now that is tied into Nest so it figures out when you are leaving work and how long it will take you to get home and pre-heats or cools your house to be ready when you get home. :3:

SLOSifl
Aug 10, 2002


Three Olives posted:

So as of today Nest is completely integrated into Google Now and it is completely awesome. The only reason I was considering the Honeywell Lyric over the Nest was geofences, Google Now is 1000% better:



So Google Now already knows when you leave work and what the traffic is like so now that is tied into Nest so it figures out when you are leaving work and how long it will take you to get home and pre-heats or cools your house to be ready when you get home. :3:
I enabled this immediately and it's loving great. Saying "okay google, set the temp to 72" is really handy. Not that the app is particularly hard to use or anything, but I sometimes wear an Android watch and this makes it super convenient.


August Smart Lock posted:

Keyless
August’s encrypted locking technology is safer than keys that can get lost and codes that can be copied.

Total Control
You control when people have access to your home. For example you can issue a key that works 24/7 for a family member, or one that works a couple of hours a week only for your cleaning person.

Log Records
You can see a Log of who’s entered and exited—and exactly when they did—remotely from your phone.

Always On
It doesn’t matter if your power, cable or Wi-Fi goes down. August uses 4 AA batteries that keep it running in any circumstance. When the batteries get low we'll even send you reminders.

I also just received my August Smart Lock and installed it in about 5 minutes. I played with it a bit, locking and unlocking my front door and stuff. If I ever actually leave the house, I'll see how it works with the auto-lock/unlock feature. The app connects to the lock very quickly and responds basically instantly, and the unit itself is actually pretty swanky feeling to use to manually lock and unlock the door.

It was designed by Yves Behar so it looks pretty cool too.

The real review will begin when my wife gets home from work. I added her as a user and she should have gotten a text message or something. How it works from that end, I don't know yet. If it's even slightly annoying, then I will hear all about it.

For those that don't know, you can also invite people for indefinite access, temporary access, or scheduled access.

We almost never lock our front door and often have people watching our pets for a few days, so hopefully this will help both of those things.

SLOSifl fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Dec 16, 2014

Three Olives
Apr 10, 2005

What if Hitler invented the BMW i3 Subcompact Electric car?
I really, really want a smart lock because I hate carrying keys but I can't find a single one that supports mortise locks.

Combat Pretzel
Jun 23, 2004

No, seriously... what kurds?!
If I were to buy a smartlock, it should work like VW's keyless system. As in when I touch the door handle, it'll look for the key transponder, unlock if found and actually let me actuate the door handle.

SLOSifl
Aug 10, 2002


That would be cool too. The goal of this one is to unlock the door when anyone who has a "key" is nearby. In theory, the door should always be unlocked when I come home. It's supposed to somehow prevent that from the inside as well - it doesn't unlock when I approach from inside, but does when I approach from outside.

I think the end result is kind of similar.

KillHour
Oct 28, 2007


Three Olives posted:

I really, really want a smart lock because I hate carrying keys but I can't find a single one that supports mortise locks.

This is because mortise locks aren't found in residential construction. Your condo palace needs one of these bad boys.

http://www.sargentlock.com/products/product_overview.php?item_id=160

Hope you have an old Palm lying around to program it!

syphon
Jan 1, 2001

Three Olives posted:

So as of today Nest is completely integrated into Google Now and it is completely awesome. The only reason I was considering the Honeywell Lyric over the Nest was geofences, Google Now is 1000% better:



So Google Now already knows when you leave work and what the traffic is like so now that is tied into Nest so it figures out when you are leaving work and how long it will take you to get home and pre-heats or cools your house to be ready when you get home. :3:
This is badass. I'm just now looking into getting a Smart Thermostat (hopefully one that integrates with SmartThings) and this is a pretty cool feature!

I was actually considering the new ecobee thermostat, mostly because it has a separate temp sensor (which will help a little bit with the difference in temperatures between my upstairs and downstairs.

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Combat Pretzel
Jun 23, 2004

No, seriously... what kurds?!
Be aware that Nest doesn't support separate weekly schedules. I work in triple shift and Nest would be useless to be, since its learning algorithm can't deal with that, and you can only set a single schedule. Personally, I'm using the Netatmo Thermostat. It supports multiple schedules, has an optional PID algorithm and supports anticipation once their servers figured out the thermal characteristics of your house. However not sure how applicable it is to you, since it starts and stops the boiler by shorting two wires (which you can hook up to either the thermostat itself, or the relay and use former wirelessly).

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