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Does anybody in here have USAA? If so, have you pursued the discount for having a home security system? I've read a bit and it seems like it can go a few ways. If you have a super comprehensive system with sensors on glass and doors, it can increase the rebuild cost of the house, increasing your premium. But would a simple couple cameras that store locally and alert my phone count as a "monitored security system" like they require? I'd take any discount I could get, even if it's only a few bucks a year. It would pay for the system eventually.
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Apr 7, 2022 17:59
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HenryJLittlefinger posted:But would a simple couple cameras that store locally and alert my phone count as a "monitored security system" like they require? No. First of all, "monitored" mean professional, certified monitoring by a dispatch center. Also, cameras do not count as a home security system. They can be a part of one certainly, but cameras alone do not count. You have to provide a certificate to your insurer to even be considered for this type of treatment. It will look something like this: 
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Apr 7, 2022 18:38
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Any thoughts on smart thermostats, especially ones that integrate well with Home Assistant? I was looking at the Ecobee Smart Thermostat, but to be honest I'm not even sure what I'm looking for. I need to be able to monitor and control it remotely, bonus points if I can do it through the HA dashboard. Remote temperature sensor support would be nice too, since my home's HVAC is so poorly designed that there's often a 15-degree temperature differential between rooms on the same floor.
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Apr 8, 2022 15:41
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If your big problem is temperature differential and it is really bothering you, you should look at smart registers. They are pricy but have the potential to actually solver your problem vs make it slightly better.
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Apr 8, 2022 15:52
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A smart thermostat isn't going to do squat for a 15 degree temperature differential. You need an HVAC person out to diagnose. Could be a clogged duct, could be a damper just needs adjustment, or it could be a poorly designed duct system that needs to be totally revamped. Something to note is that if your HVAC blower is variable speed, messing with the registers/dampers might just make it angry. I would expect that smart registers will just fight with the blower constantly and they'll both end up oscillating back and forth. FWIW I have the Ecobee 3 (regular, not the lite) and it works great and it's nice to have all the little satellite sensors to monitor room temps. Can be controlled either through HA or the Ecobee app, but mostly we just use the Ecobee app honestly (haven't got that far along with my HA setup yet). The occupancy sensor is on a massive filter on it though, so it's not great for detecting presence for non-thermostat reasons. Something like 30 minutes I think, it's really slow to respond. Nest is junk from what I've heard, and HVAC techs hate it because it makes their job difficult (for some reason, not sure, probably doesn't allow easy overrides).
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Apr 8, 2022 16:05
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The differential is definitely due to poor ducting design, and someday I'll have that fixed, but the estimate I got a few years ago was several thousand dollars. I'm not ready to do that right now, since it's only an issue for a few weeks out of the year. I'm not looking for a thermostat to fix that, but I also want it to be able to react to the current temperature in the master bedroom rather than the hallway where the thermostat lives. I know too many people who have had various iterations of the Nest over the years, and most of them have had moderate to severe issues with reliability. So I'm looking at other brands.
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Apr 8, 2022 17:15
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The Ecobee 3 has a "follow me" mode that will put a heavier weight on the temps of rooms that have current occupancy. Not sure if the "lite" models have this or not. We disabled this feature because it didn't do much for us, but maybe we should try it again. The default though is to average (I think?) all the temp sensors together to come up with The Temperature that it uses to control the system. I'm fairly sure you could use HA to weight/prioritize/ignore specific sensors, though, and change setpoints based on how you want it to behave. Would be some work, but should be possible.
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Apr 8, 2022 17:28
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WhiteHowler posted:
I've had the same gen 1 Nest thermostat for going on 10 years now. I moved it to the house I live in now 5 years ago. Never a single problem with either location. I don't know if they had issues with the newer generations or something? The best feature ever is scheduled fan run times. I vent the house for 15 minutes every hour just to circulate the air.
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Apr 8, 2022 18:02
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Pitre posted:I've had the same gen 1 Nest thermostat for going on 10 years now. I moved it to the house I live in now 5 years ago. Never a single problem with either location. I don't know if they had issues with the newer generations or something? The best feature ever is scheduled fan run times. I vent the house for 15 minutes every hour just to circulate the air. I would add to this, I also have a gen 1 Nest and it's been absolutely solid for about 9 years. I also know a number of people that own newer Nests and nearly all of them have had issues with them so yeah, this may be a bigger issue with newer units. I also don't really do anything with it via automations and, even though I do have it integrated into Home Assistant, I still usually make adjustments from the Nest app and I dislike all the steps required to get it into HA to begin with (plus fixing it if the integration breaks). I've been eyeballing replacing it with an Ecobee Lite since it seems much more simple and feature rich in Home Assistant, plus the whole less-data-into-Google stuff.
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Apr 8, 2022 18:31
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I used nothing but the gen 2 Nests in my previous 2 homes and never had an issue with them other than the schedule screen in the app sometimes being wonky. I was sad when I moved into this house and it has a super proprietary Carrier Infinity system and my only option to smartify it is their $800 wifi thermostat. No thanks. It's an amazing and next-to-silent system, but I hate how proprietary it is. Tangentially related, what are some good HomeKit-compatible temperature sensors out there? I see Eve has some Thread ones but have gotten poo poo reviews on Amazon. And then there's the vastly cheaper Aquara ones that have good reviews, but I'm also sick of adding additional hubs. I'd like to put one in my toddlers' room that gets nuked by the sun all evening and use it to trigger their ceiling fan to turn on when it hits a set threshold. I'd really like for the Home app to be able to be capable of this automation rather than having to do it in another app.
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Apr 8, 2022 19:04
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DaveSauce posted:The Ecobee 3 has a "follow me" mode that will put a heavier weight on the temps of rooms that have current occupancy. Not sure if the "lite" models have this or not. We disabled this feature because it didn't do much for us, but maybe we should try it again. I've always felt that kind of stuff is super gimmicky unless you have the ability to automate the opening/closing of the air ducts going into each room.
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Apr 8, 2022 19:56
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xgalaxy posted:I've always felt that kind of stuff is super gimmicky unless you have the ability to automate the opening/closing of the air ducts going into each room. It works pretty well for me. I have 2 ecobees, 1 upstairs, 1 downstairs. Each one has 2 sensors attached to it, for a total of 3 data points on each floor. The occupied rooms are weighted more heavily so the room you're in is ideally the temperature you want. Zoning an AC system would be a much better solution of course, but that's a lot more expensive. For example, my owners suite bedroom is on the west side of the house and gets blasted by the afternoon sun. It can get 2 degrees warmer in there than the living room or kitchen areas during the late afternoon. That's fine with me though, because we're not in that room. I want the areas we're in to be 71 degrees, I don't care if my bedroom is 73 or not. I don't want the ecobee at that time to cool my bedroom to 71 which might make the rest of the house 69 degrees. Now when we go to bed at night, I don't care what temp the kitchen or living room is. I want our bedroom to be the right temp. Here's a current example. I'm sitting in my office upstairs, and I've got a couple computers going, and I face east so my office has been blasted by the sun all day. It's 73 in my office, but 69 and 71 where the other 2 sensors are. The AC is running because the occupied room is warmer than desired. The unoccupied room can be 69 and I don't care, I want the comfort where I'm at. https://imgur.com/a/5ZEZNz3 My biggest complaint is the ecobee really is focused on trying to save you money, and I honestly don't give a crap about that. I bought them to make the house more comfortable by using the remote sensors.
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Apr 8, 2022 21:27
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Anyone else have solar? I just got my final inspection done, so I can power it up — Enphase-based system, and the Enlighten software seems pretty legit. They measured the width of my roof wrong, so I ended up with only 3 kWh vs. 4 kWh of panels — but they held to the same price/watt since it was their gently caress up. At best, it was always going to be an offsetting thing / I know it’s not actually going to ‘pay off’ in the long run, but I’m a nerd + it’s an infinitesimally small offset to murdering the planet, so I went for it anyways. I think I’d like to align the following devices with peak power periods — hot tub (current no smart controller / some Balboa thing), EV charger (Emporia Smart Charger… which I think I can have triggered off the Vue energy monitor) and heat pump (Mitsubishi). Any easy APIs available to make it happen? I’m still on the fence about paying nearly $300/pc for the Kumo cloud interface (I have 5 units in my house) but if that’s what I need to actually smart-ify my system, I guess I’ll do it.
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Apr 10, 2022 18:10
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Sadly no. Florida is run by turbo chuds and despite having nearly as much sunshine as loving Mercury we have zero incentives, and governor If-it-worked-for-Trump-I’ll-just-crank-that-dial-to-eleven-please-make-me-President is poised to sign a bill that will effectively end net metering here.
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Apr 10, 2022 19:59
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We have solar but not tied into any peak power stuff currently. But as of yet, we only have a few things automated, mostly switches, and the like.
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Apr 10, 2022 20:32
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movax posted:Anyone else have solar? I just got my final inspection done, so I can power it up — Enphase-based system, and the Enlighten software seems pretty legit. They measured the width of my roof wrong, so I ended up with only 3 kWh vs. 4 kWh of panels — but they held to the same price/watt since it was their gently caress up. At best, it was always going to be an offsetting thing / I know it’s not actually going to ‘pay off’ in the long run, but I’m a nerd + it’s an infinitesimally small offset to murdering the planet, so I went for it anyways. I've got a 14kW enphase system with LG panels. No smart stuff, but I use enphase enlighten for tracking stuff. sharkytm fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Apr 10, 2022 |
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Apr 10, 2022 21:23
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WhiteHowler posted:Any thoughts on smart thermostats, especially ones that integrate well with Home Assistant? I used a Radio Thermostat as my main thermometer and a Qubino monitoring bedroom temperature at my old house, both on Z-Wave. I had to write my own automations, though. That's much easier to do nowadays.
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Apr 10, 2022 23:39
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So I'm back on a quest to make my ceiling fans smart. I was originally looking at a Bond universal adapter but it appears to no longer be available (not the universal RF adapter, but a device you attached to the fan itself. I ordered this and I'm going to try it out. But it means yet another app to control it, though it supports Google Home which is what I'd ultimately use anyway. I also found this, which I like because it uses Smart Life/Tuya so I already have that app. Plus it's half the price of the Hampton Bay option. I don't see any mention of UL/ETL listing on that (or any other clone on Amazon) but it seems like that receiver that connects to the fan is a pretty standard part that they're all going to be identical and commodity. But then again that doesn't mean that it's not poorly constructed in a way that's dangerous! No mention of listing on the Hampton Bay remote, but I'm assuming it has some certification, or if nothing else Home Depot putting their house brand name (Hampton Bay) on it tells me they've got some confidence in its quality. Would I be crazy to buy one of the $30 units and give it a try?
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Apr 14, 2022 04:26
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WhiteHowler posted:Any thoughts on smart thermostats, especially ones that integrate well with Home Assistant? I bought an Ecobee, went to install it today, and discovered that there's a C-wire run through my wall but not connected to my AC unit. It's about 20 years old and I don't even know how to get the panel open and don't feel very safe tinkering with it, even with the main breakers turned off. I'm trying to decide whether to return the Ecobee or pay some HVAC guy $120+ to literally connect one wire for me.
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Apr 14, 2022 04:36
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WhiteHowler posted:I bought an Ecobee, went to install it today, and discovered that there's a C-wire run through my wall but not connected to my AC unit. It's about 20 years old and I don't even know how to get the panel open and don't feel very safe tinkering with it, even with the main breakers turned off. It’s literally 5 seconds to connect the C to the board, assuming you can get it open. It’s absolutely absurd that it’s not connected on the install for the system and was the case for every place I lived in where I installed a smart thermostat.
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Apr 14, 2022 04:40
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movax posted:Anyone else have solar? I just got my final inspection done, so I can power it up — Enphase-based system, and the Enlighten software seems pretty legit. They measured the width of my roof wrong, so I ended up with only 3 kWh vs. 4 kWh of panels — but they held to the same price/watt since it was their gently caress up. At best, it was always going to be an offsetting thing / I know it’s not actually going to ‘pay off’ in the long run, but I’m a nerd + it’s an infinitesimally small offset to murdering the planet, so I went for it anyways. I had great success using some wemos d1 minis on my Mitsubishi mini splits and home assistant ( and esp home). Also have all my solar data via the power wall so what you are talking about is totally possible. I can control all my ACs via hass or Alexa. Cost like $5 each. I did something using the same hardware this guy uses https://chrdavis.github.io/hacking-a-mitsubishi-heat-pump-Part-1/. Highly recommend. PM me if you want more pointers. Here’s my GitHub for the esphome stuff for the ac. https://github.com/bwkraus/esphome/blob/main/bedroomac.yaml
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Apr 17, 2022 01:47
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Henrik Zetterberg posted:It’s literally 5 seconds to connect the C to the board, assuming you can get it open. It’s absolutely absurd that it’s not connected on the install for the system and was the case for every place I lived in where I installed a smart thermostat. I got the system panel open, and while I was 90% sure what I needed to do, I figured the other 10% wasn't worth potentially catastrophic damage if I messed it up. I ended up calling a local HVAC guy to install everything (including connecting the C-wire and mounting the thermostat) for $59. No regrets. I'm really liking the Ecobee so far, but the occupancy sensors are often wrong and you don't seem to have any control over how it adjusts Eco+ temperature logic for "not home" mode, which it assumes is the case if it doesn't detect anyone near the two sensors. Eventually I'd like to use Home Assistant's presence detection (which works VERY well) to adjust the Ecobee's temperature settings when I leave the house.
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Apr 17, 2022 01:56
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Anybody using any diy indoor air quality monitoring? There are a few commercial units that look pretty refined from the last time i looked a few years back but they are all wtf expensive.
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Apr 17, 2022 02:40
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DIY in the sense that I have a bunch of Air Purifiers (vesync/AIRMEGA), an airthings, and a bunch of Kaiterra laser eggs. In HA I combine a bunch of the metrics into an average and use the individual values. It works well enough.
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Apr 17, 2022 02:56
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Gyshall posted:DIY in the sense that I have a bunch of Air Purifiers (vesync/AIRMEGA), an airthings, and a bunch of Kaiterra laser eggs. In HA I combine a bunch of the metrics into an average and use the individual values. It works well enough. Any opinion on the quality of the airthings device? Looking around their brand seems to be the most well regarded. My thought was more about trying to get a few different devices that focus on a specific measurement as opposed to having a single device with 6-9 sensors. Why all these things have loving temp and humidity feels scammy to just up sensor count with no real added value. Anyways, probably going to go with airthings since it's the only brand that also has radon detection which seems like a pretty good add-in. I try to do the mail in radon tests ever few years since its a potential hazard in my area, and as the house settles im worried about cracks forming and getting an intrusion without me knowing about it for years. edit: Hmph, reviews say it only works when connected to the internet and wont give you any information if the connection is down. That's a bit annoying from I hope they don't just close down someday pov (not that I have much authority to bitch owning hue and alexa) edit 2: Ok, some of their products are bluetooth only to an app which then uploads it to the cloud, which ehh, doesn't seem that much better, but a step in the right direction. Also, now I see why you have the eggs as well since the airthings devices that are bluetooth don't sense PM. SpaceCadetBob fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Apr 17, 2022 |
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Apr 17, 2022 17:06
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TeMpLaR posted:I had great success using some wemos d1 minis on my Mitsubishi mini splits and home assistant ( and esp home). Also have all my solar data via the power wall so what you are talking about is totally possible. I can control all my ACs via hass or Alexa. Cost like $5 each. I did something using the same hardware this guy uses https://chrdavis.github.io/hacking-a-mitsubishi-heat-pump-Part-1/. Highly recommend. PM me if you want more pointers. Here’s my GitHub for the esphome stuff for the ac. https://github.com/bwkraus/esphome/blob/main/bedroomac.yaml Thanks! Will take a look at that... I just did the back-order for them from eComfort (price is ~$180, but they say it'll take until November...) and I'm not sure if the MSZ ceiling mount units are supported, but if that order gets cancelled I'll probably go that route.
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Apr 17, 2022 18:56
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Owner of four airthings wave pluses and I trigger a bunch of ERV automation off of them. Highly recommended. I got three on EBay open box from Best Buy for ~120 ea.
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Apr 17, 2022 20:09
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Yea i bit on airthings. The quality of reviews and the breadth of sensors won out over internet requirements. I strongly feel like an erv is in my future as i move to start weatherstripping my house and trying to make it more energy efficient (house is oil heat) and this last fillup was murder.
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Apr 18, 2022 23:04
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Apparently the Eufy door lock cam thing is going to start shipping in May so I'm pretty excited for that. I had been looking at the logitech doorbell cam thingie but am not sure where my doorbell transformer is (probably the attic but I don't want to go up there) so this will be a good option instead.
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Apr 18, 2022 23:07
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https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/04/shameful-insteon-looks-dead-just-like-its-users-smart-homes/ Apparently the Insteon servers are down, probably forever? Insteon leadership has ghosted everyone and scrubbed any mention of Insteon from their resumes and LinkedIns. I guess this is a good example of why cloud-based home automation is a bad idea and should be avoided. Hopefully no one in this thread was affected!
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Apr 19, 2022 01:31
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Dark Knight posted:I guess this is a good example of why cloud-based home automation is a bad idea and should be avoided. I'll continue to beat that drum in this thread.
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Apr 19, 2022 01:33
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Dark Knight posted:https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/04/shameful-insteon-looks-dead-just-like-its-users-smart-homes/ I moved into a house with about ten insteon switches. running on home assistant now, but if the hub dies I'll have to replace them all. fun!
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Apr 19, 2022 13:26
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I've currently got a house that's just a frame and want to take the opportunity to prewire as much as I can think of for home automation. What would you do if you could? My current hit list:
I want motorized blinds but the cost for these can be outrageous. I might make a wire available for power though.
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Apr 19, 2022 20:47
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porksmash posted:I've currently got a house that's just a frame and want to take the opportunity to prewire as much as I can think of for home automation. What would you do if you could? This might be over the top, but considering it's 2022... A small network closet on every floor, with plenum-rated single mode fibreoptic cables between them. Maybe do fibreoptic runs to behind where you intend to put your TV etc, while you're at it. https://www.fs.com/de-en/products/57016.html + https://www.fs.com/de-en/products/68103.html as an example between network closets (not super cheap, but it gives you lots of options). You can make do with a regular duplex singlemode fibre cable to endpoints. Mikrotik gigabit switches with SFP is <$100, gigabit SFP is <$10 (from fs). Then the road to 10 or 40 gbe is really short when/if you feel like upgrading down the line. Another pro tip that I saw elsewhere: take photos of every wall including conduit/wall boxes etc. before they put in drywall and insulation, that will almost assuredly come in handy later on. I'd put in extra conduit with pull cords ready to go as well.
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Apr 19, 2022 21:31
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Why are you suggesting single mode for house-length runs? Not only are the materials more expensive but it uses more power. Is there some sort of home automation standard I'm unaware of? (I'm a network engineer, not a home automation person)
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Apr 19, 2022 21:57
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Price difference is negligible and power draw is as well.
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Apr 19, 2022 22:02
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Wibla posted:Price difference is negligible and power draw is as well. So is there a greater than negligible advantage to using single mode? And what about my other question: is there some sort of standard I'm unaware of here? The last time I came across home gamer optical conversion for A/V type stuff it was all multimode. Has this changed?
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Apr 19, 2022 22:08
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Motronic posted:So is there a greater than negligible advantage to using single mode? First question: It makes little difference, I listed SMF on personal preference. With costs continuing to drop and SMF increasing in popularity for LAN-type applications, I don't really see a point in recommending MMF. Second question: no, this is purely to have a solid, future proofed network. FTTH / cable bandwidth is only increasing, and copper is less than ideal for >1gbit.
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Apr 19, 2022 22:22
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porksmash posted:I've currently got a house that's just a frame and want to take the opportunity to prewire as much as I can think of for home automation. What would you do if you could? gently caress Lutron Caseta switches. Get Lutron Ra2/Ra3 instead.
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Apr 19, 2022 23:56
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I can totally understand wanting fiber, but with the size of the residence and my overall network nerd level it's something I'd put as not worth the cost.
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Apr 19, 2022 23:58
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