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Subjunctive posted:Yeah, but people will make fun of me less if it's a physical intrusion vs yelling "Hey Siri, unlock the front door" through an open window.
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Sep 12, 2017 20:40
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Egbert Souse posted:I'm stumped at which home automation system to get into for my security/lighting needs in my apartment. Video camera motion sensing you'll find isn't as reliable as a door sensor or dedicated motion sensor. Especially if the camera is outdoors--spiders and flying insects tend to wreak havoc when the sun goes down.
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Sep 12, 2017 20:49
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South Park is getting in on the fun with Alexia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yf0WJQfGQoY
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Sep 14, 2017 20:17
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paternity suitor posted:My Alexa goes off all the time when people are over and say something vaguely resembling "Alexa", and I have to warn people not to gently caress with it on purpose because it's apparently irresistible when you're drunk, so I've been waiting for a show to gently caress with us like this. God voice recognition can't come soon enough. We've tucked the Alexia out of sight in our house. Connected it to some chessy Frisby bluetooth speakers hidden above the kitchen cabinets. Changed the voice activation from Alexia to Computer and used the UK English language setting. (Gives it a British accent.) Has done a great job stopping guests and their kids from messing with the device.
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Sep 15, 2017 04:50
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What hubs are folks using? Wink, Iris, Smart Things, Home Assistant? I started with Wink, it wouldn't work with my First Alert ZCombo Smoke/Co detectors, so I moved to SmartThings. Got most everything working in SmartThings except figured out automating things like turning on spotlights when you come home and stuff was a bitch. Discovered Home Assistant with the added benefit of supporting miLights without having jump through hoops and was sold. Best part about Home Assistant is it supports SmartThings and Wink. Have the Wink in an outbuilding controlling lights and locks and SmartThings still controls the Z-wave mesh in the main house. My one gripe is if I reboot the Home Assistant box the mosquito MQTT broker doesn't seem to start like it should.
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Sep 23, 2017 22:07
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Or change the cover for the exterior box: http://www.homedepot.com/p/BELL-1-Gang-Horizontal-Vertical-Weatherproof-Universal-Device-Flip-Lid-Covers-MX1050S/202266482
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Sep 29, 2017 17:37
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Neon Belly posted:I'm completely new to home automation and still exploring options. Is a Shield+this dongle a good start? I currently only own two Nest cameras and plan on purchasing the Nest doorbell once it is released and another camera to cover my backyard. Do you currently have the new Shield? And/or do you have Raspberry Pi 3? And are you an Android or Apple household?
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Oct 13, 2017 19:47
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pipebomb posted:Can someone help me out? http://www.diychatroom.com/f17/replace-braeburn-1200nc-honeywell-lyric-426513/
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Oct 27, 2017 01:38
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Don't feel bad--I fought with your pictures for like 20 minutes before it dawned on me that there had to be others that climbed your hill first. 
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Oct 27, 2017 04:02
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housefly posted:There are 6 can lights in the living room https://www.homedepot.com/p/Halo-RL...ZHA69/302569279
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Nov 3, 2017 18:47
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Happy Noodle Boy posted:Last question can either of them have their trigger changed or are you stuck with Alexa / Ok Google?
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Nov 21, 2017 05:50
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Have you folks that like NEST cameras ever tried the Amcrest cameras? For affordable cameras I've always used a mix of HIKVision and Amcrest/Dahua. But lots of folks love the NEST cameras. Have the NEST cameras gotten better over time? From what I know about the NEST cameras: NEST cameras are twice the cost of the other cameras, have half the resolution of the other cameras, do not support PoE, do not support any local recording options such as ONVIF, FTP, RTSP, or SD Cards, and require a broadband connection/have no local viewing. Is that still the case? My preferred choice has always been HIKVision cameras for the ones that can be wired for PoE. And to use the Amcrest/Dahua wifi cameras for the areas where you have access to power but it isn't possible to run ethernet back to an NVR. Is the attraction of the NEST simply the ease of setup and the fact you will never have to worry about maintaining an NVR? I've always felt the biggest drawback of the NEST cameras is you can only have one or two before you begin to degrade your wifi and broadband performance. With the other brands, setting up a 2nd network for the IP cameras to keep the traffic off your home LAN kind of happens automatically when you use an NVR with a PoE switch. What am I missing about the NEST cameras that makes them so popular?
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Feb 11, 2018 19:21
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chocolateTHUNDER posted:The backend services that link google home to all their API's was down for like 6 hours on Christmas day. Telling google to turn your lights on and off during that time did nothing.
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Feb 14, 2018 19:16
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Getting SmartThings to automate stuff got frustrating. Loaded Home Assistant up on a Raspberry Pi with the intention of getting rid of SmartThings. In the end I kept SmartThings to manage the Z-wave devices/mesh and use Home Assistant to manage an emulated Hue bridge, MQTT, presence detection, camera events, and handle all the automation. Working very well. My first smart home hub was a Wink. Home Assistant allowed me to put the Wink in an outbuilding and integrate the spotlights and door locks into the mix as well. Since integrating Home Assistant and having it handle the scripting, I've not had the issues I had with SmartThings. Setting up Home Assistant did take a few weeks--mainly fighting with my limited Linux knowledge. Stuff like delaying the start of the smartthings-mqtt-bridge until after the mosquitto MQTT server loaded was trickier for me than getting the scripting to work.
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Feb 14, 2018 23:03
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Automated blinds are like a DVR--you have no idea how much you needed them until you've had them and then not had them. If you are doing new construction, somfy is tough to beat for reliabilty but you are going to be paying a fortune. I'm hoping we get zwave blind/drapes with PoE motors in the near future.
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Mar 12, 2018 02:30
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smoobles posted:I'm having a tough time searching for a window AC unit (~10,000 BTU) that's compatible with my SmartThings setup. I think you just need a unit that either has auto-resume, like posted above, or a unit with manual controls, something like: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Frigida...211R1/206734517
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Apr 3, 2018 06:53
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Siri can call hands free, can't it? Not an iphone user, but recently there was the story of the boy pinned by a minivan seat that used Siri to call 911 a few times while trapped. Side note on Alexa. Alexa has a "drop-in" feature you can enable across households. Linking households can be pretty creepy, my siblings have no desire to link our households, but we are all linked to our parents for that "just in case" situation. Has not been creepy as I'd have thought, has actually allowed the grandparents to talk with the kids a heck of lot more.
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Apr 27, 2018 22:42
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Home Assistant is better than SmartThings, imho--but the learning curve is a heck of a lot steeper. My setup is also SmartThings and Home Assistant with an MQTT server. My very first hub was a Wink Hub that was retired in favor of the SmartThings, but that got dusted off and incorporated into the mix as well. The Wink sits in an outbuilding and controls a few outlets, lights, and locks and thanks to Home Assistant and MQTT, you can't really tell what hub controls what--all the devices are interconnected and controllable via voice or phone. When it comes to scripting--Home Assistant wins hands down for both ease and complexity. Doing things like turning on the driveway lights as your getting close to home or controlling accent lights based on day of week, season, temperature, and weather--all easy to do in Home Assistant. Plus Home Assistant tends to support just about everything you can imagine. Camera systems, sabnzbd, stock notifications, media servers, milights--the cheap version of Hue bulbs--the list goes on and gets bigger every month. (https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/) The blog lists the monthly updates which no other platform that I know about comes close to--SmartThings might get an update or two a year. e: on the garage door question. Yes--both Smart Things and HA support presence detection. SmartThings has one method, HA has several. I switched to HA and OwnTracks but OwnTracks has been acting up so someday soon I'll pony up $5 and switch to Zanzito (android only though.) And some time when I have time to learn it, I'll incorporate FIND as well. https://www.internalpositioning.com/ (Just not sure if FIND will work around our house in a practical sense...) HycoCam fucked around with this message at 04:48 on May 7, 2018 |
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May 7, 2018 04:37
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Thermopyle posted:I use GPSLogger set to passive for HA presence detection. It's free and accurate. Thanks for the tip! Looks to be really easy to implement, will give it a shot before Zanzito.
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May 7, 2018 20:06
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Hubis posted:I've been using the Ubiquiti Unifi plug-in to do presence detection based on whether the cell-phone is connected to the wifi. It's a limited use-case, but it's pretty rock solid. One of my goals with router based presence detection is to incorporate something like the dynamic playlists in Amarok with my guests. The idea being I'll ask friends that tend to come often to name ten bands they like and five they never want to hear. When HA detects their presence, a script will tweak the dynamic playlist so guests hear music they like while visiting. If I could do it with Spotify, I'd use Spotify, but writing a python script to modify the amarok files seems to be the easiest. Talking about might get me to spend the time needed to see if I can implement or maybe find out I'm trying to reinvent the wheel. So, anyone heard of a way to dynamically change the music playing based on who is around?
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May 7, 2018 21:30
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One other dream automation--connecting a Roomba to a central vacuum system. My Google-fu skills have uncovered lots of people that think it would be a great idea with theories of how to use a Pi or Arduino but nothing concrete. Anyone know of anything that would let a robotic vacuum use a retrofitted toe kick dust sweep into someway to empty the dustbin and charge the vacuum. This project seems a lot harder to pull off than changing the music based on who is around... Seems like it would take a commitment from a manufacturer due to the current design having the charger and dustbin on opposite sides of the Roomba.
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May 7, 2018 21:42
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enraged_camel posted:I need some sort of automation routine for an old-school coffee machine. Basically, something that will take the filter with used coffee grounds out, clean it up, put it back in, then put fresh coffee in, then fill the thing with fresh water and turn it on. Not old school but at least they are full bean. 
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May 8, 2018 03:33
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You sure the Hunter doesn't have a blue wire? The fans that operate with a remote typically have a controller at the fan that has black and white providing power to the controller and a shared white (neutral), black to control the light & dimmer, and blue to control the fan & speed. As for the "best" way to control lights and fans--I've been using the GE Z-Wave switches with great success. Seven fans with seven pairs of switches, plus addon switches if you have three way light switches, is going to get costly... I have no experience with the Enerwave controller, but it seems like this would work with plain old light switch and simply replace the remote controller inside the fan: https://smile.amazon.com/Enerwave-Z-Wave-Switch-Module-Convert/dp/B01CPO2D3K Half the cost but without a phone/alexa/etc you can only control on/off of the entire unit.
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May 11, 2018 20:40
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ElCondemn posted:I just moved and I’m contemplating ditching SmartThings in favor of HomeAssistant. Anyone make that move and regret it? We had to leave all our switches, outlets, ecobee etc at the old house so I’m basically buying everything new. It will need to integrate with a half dozen echo dots, harmony hub, garage door, multi sensors, maybe a nest thermostat, light dimmers and fan controllers. As was said--SmartThings works great as the main zwave hub. I have a Raspberry Pi HA setup that controls both a SmartThings and Wink hub. Getting the MQTT messaging working and the smartthings-mqtt-bridge running is a bit of a chore--but reliable once it's running. Scripting and automations in Home Assistant along with HA's highly configurable web interface have made it my favorite controller for smart homes albeit with a learning curve.
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Jul 6, 2018 18:59
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IUG posted:Has anyone gone from OpenHAB to Home Assistant? If so, what do you think of the comparison of the two? IMHO, if you haven't tinkered with a Raspberry Pi yet--this is your perfect opportunity. The Raspberry Pi is pretty dang cool. But yeah, it is $100+ by the time you buy the case, heat sink, power supply, SD Card, and Aeotec USB Z-Stick. I am constantly impressed Home Assistant--so far everything I've wanted to do, it can do. Just a bit of time investment to figure stuff out.
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Jul 30, 2018 20:08
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The miLights/Limitless LED/generic Chinese wifi bulbs and light strips work well with HA using the emulated HUE bridge. Fibaro RGBW Micro Controller if you want a true zwave controller for strip lights. As for wiring security cameras. If you are installing four or more cameras, Power over Ethernet is the way to go. The PoE cabling when installed correctly will be behind the mount. If thieves want to mess with your cameras they are much more likely to wack them with a shovel or something over getting a ladder and screwdriver. There are also a few considerations when positioning your cameras. Overt and covert cameras, for one--locate highly visible cameras in your eaves looking down and hide a camera under a deck/near your door/somewhere lower aimed up (vs down)--you'll often get more usable pictures of faces and cars from a lower perspective. Another design consideration is to have cameras looking at other cameras--think of a triangle with three cameras able to see each other. Gives multiple views of an event with the added advantage of a solo person not being able to disable all the cameras without being on video from the others. Trenching direct bury ethernet to a tree and running conduit to a bird house with a camera inside is one way to hide a covert camera that looks back your house, for example.
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Aug 5, 2018 18:00
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Go back to the part about writing to the HOA to get permission to put up cameras.... If you are going wireless and battery powered--pick your cameras and then go buy two bird houses. Get the ones with a hinged bottom (normally used to clean them out) and you have the perfect mount for a covert camera. Toss insect poison granules inside with the camera and spray it with poison every month or so and you won't have to worry about webs and crawly things setting off motion alerts.
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Aug 24, 2018 04:13
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HoA's have some crazy rules. Does mounting cameras fall under a needing permission to change the appearance of your house rule? Would you need to get HoA permission to mount driveway spotlights?
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Aug 24, 2018 04:23
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Boxman posted:I moved into a house with a bunch of z-wave/Zigbee poo poo in it, as well as a nest and a MyQ garage door opener, so I bought a Wink hub. Try excluding the problem z-wave devices first, then start the inclusion. But with that said--you are where I was several years ago. Started with Wink, found Wink supports a limited subset of devices--for example wouldn't work with the First Alert CO/Smoke detectors. Grabbed a SmartThings hub and everything connected/worked as expected. Started to get into automations and found SmartThings lacking. Loaded up Home Assistant on a Pi and never looked back. Getting things working on the Pi took a few months of learning. My configuration has the SmartThings hub controling all the ZigBee and Z-Wave devices, using MQTT as the communication layer between SmartThings and HA. HA also supports Wink, which got un-mothballed and put in an outbuilding to handle lights and locks.
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Jan 28, 2019 19:05
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If you have multiple routers and access points, FIND3, might work for you. https://www.internalpositioning.com/doc/automation.md Have not played around with FIND so not sure how well it works. So far I've been happy with simply having home and away presence detection and don't tend to keep a phone with me once home.
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Feb 1, 2019 19:13
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Home Assistant 0.87 just added SmartThings support via Samsung's Cloud API (versus MQTT). https://www.home-assistant.io/components/smartthings/ Anyone brave enough to install 0.87 yet? And/or gotten the new SmartThings integration working?
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Feb 8, 2019 18:34
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A standard UPS will keep your Pi alive during power outages. But I've found only the turn off automations seem to work...
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Feb 15, 2019 18:14
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His Divine Shadow posted:I would like a wireless security camera with motion sensors to bolt to the wall of my garage, I live rurally in a safe area of the world, but I still feel like it'd be good to be able to record any potential theft, ideally get a license plate or car description. Might also be cool as a wildlife camera. You'll find that if you want to capture activity like cats at night, you're going to need a really good camera with supplemental IR lighting for night time. (Plus you need to treat the area around your cameras to discourage spiders--haven't figured out how to get rid of the flying critters that typically trip the night time motion...) There is a concept with surveillance cameras of overt and covert. WiFi cameras are great to get your feet wet, but if you get serious you'll want PoE cameras. Placing cameras under decks, so they are below eye level looking up and direct bury ethernet cable to things like bird houses and mailboxes can give you great camera placement for capturing faces and license plates. (Bird houses make it easier to position a camera that looks toward your house so you can get images of people leaving. Same with the mailbox--waist high placement makes it easier to get details of cars entering and exiting your driveway.) The HIKVision 4K PoE cameras are tough to beat as far as price, quality, and reliability.
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Feb 15, 2019 18:57
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Yale makes one of the best smart locks--highly recommend. Interesting story today in the Washington Post about Ring and the "benefits of the cloud": https://www.washingtonpost.com/tech...eillance-reach/
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Aug 28, 2019 14:17
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I'd think the question isn't so much what Ring will and won't hand over, but more who turns over camera data and doesn't. If 80% of the people in your neighborhood give their permission for the Ring to surrender their images--what does it say about the other 20%. It turns into a "Maybe those other 20% aren't all criminals, but I bet if the cops look hard at those 20% they will find the crimes." Or what do the police do with the person that normally turns over their camera data, but for a particular instance decides not too--are they automatic suspects? Slippery slope...I am glad my feeds stay local.
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Aug 31, 2019 16:23
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Was looking for remote water shutoffs and found what I think is relatively new whole house water filter from GE with a bunch of smart functions. Anyone have any experience with the filter? https://www.homedepot.com/p/GE-Smart-Whole-House-Water-Filtration-System-GXWH70M/307938369
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Oct 6, 2019 20:23
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SCheeseman posted:More dumb questions that should be easy to find answers for but somehow isn't: As for smart locks--I have zero experience with August locks, but lots of folks love them. Of the locks I have worked with, in order of quality from lowest to best, Kwikset, Schlage, and Yale. The Yale locks really are worth the money. The Kwiksets cost much less, don't have the quality feel--but do come with a lifetime warranty.
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Dec 7, 2019 18:03
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Few ways to do the dimmable lights. The Hue solution works and is probably the easiest and the costliest. Halo makes a ZigBee controlled light if you have a home automation hub of some type already. The only issue with lights is you can't use a dimmer switch with them--you have to dim them via a routine or home automation interface. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B073P7HXHY You could also replace your light switches if you have a neutral in the each box needing a smart switch: https://smile.amazon.com/GE-Repeater-Required-Works-Smartthings-14295/dp/B06XV25Z5R. The switch solution is going to need a hub as well to work, but is going to be the least expensive option over replacing 10 bulbs.
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Feb 5, 2020 05:48
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Motronic posted:lol, probably. Was it my panel setup?
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Apr 8, 2020 16:08
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Erwin posted:Ah, makes sense. https://community.smartthings.com/t/whistle-pet-tracker-integration/9223 https://community.home-assistant.io/t/whistle-v3-api/89538 (** I have yet to integrate the collar into my HA setup.)
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Apr 8, 2020 16:18
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