Smart Home

redneck joe

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I remember seeing Bob Villa do one years ago and of course the technology is way better and I'm guessing 'arrived'. Things will change of course and there will be something newer and better all the time. Has anyone done it or at least heavily researched it?
 

bruceb58

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I have some smart home stuff for my rental house. I use it to control lights and to allow me to change the access codes to the entry locks. I use the Vera controller but the Samsung smart things is also good. All the items I control use z-wave communication.
https://smile.amazon.com/Vera-Contro...&keywords=vera

One thing that is nice is I can see if my garage door is closed or not by just looking at my phone. I can also open and close it with the phone. Since I don't actually put my car in the garage, I don't want a garage remote in the car.

There are a lot of individual developers doing all sorts of things and come up with new products. One thing I need for my vacation rental is a way to change the keypad code for the garage door so that the code can be changed for each renter. When I retire in January, I am going to come up with a way to do that using something like a basic keypad and a Rasberry Pi controller.

I did a program for light control where I used a z-wave switch that was dimmable plus a motion controller. Lights come on at sunset 100%, 30% at 10PM and 5% at midnight. When the motion controller senses motion, it sets the lights to 100% until it sees no more motion and then sets it down to whatever it was on previously to after 5 minutes. Lights go off at sunrise. I did this to allow renters or me to be able to see better when we arrive late in the evening. It's nice having the lights dimmer just to get rid of unneeded light.

My friend at work has his set up so that when he arrives, a smart dongle on his key chain gets detected and the doors unlock. Not sure I would do that but it shows what kind of options you have.

I also use internet controlled thermostats but they aren't hooked up to my Vera system.
 
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redneck joe

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yeah didn't see all that, just was looking at workable. Not too interested in cameras other than maybe a doorbell. mostly lights, HVAC, garage door.
 

bruceb58

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Honeywell thermostat
Ring doorbell

Not integrated together but both work well.
 

sam am I

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Joe,

I primarily use devices such as smart light switches and outlets (TP-link, Smart Home) that don't require separate hub/s to operate.........e.g., device/s are operated directly from your wifi router. This helps cut costs at times

I run smart cams (Samsung) and my lawn sprinkler controller (Hunter) are also direct connect to my wifi. The one exception to direct wifi is my hub based roof top electronic weather vain system (AcuRite) that also integrates several remote temp sensor (one in deep freezer, one in squirrel house with smart cam) and water detection/flood detector (several in basement at floor level)..............

My amazon echo then operates lights/outlets directly as well since I want hands free voice activated within my house at times (coming in a dark house with arms full of groceries, you know......"Alexa, turn on the house" where I have grouped my family room, dinning room, living room and kitchen lights as "house" within the Echo app and of course each may be controlled individually by the Echo.......e.g., "Alexa, turn on the kitchen light", ."Alexa, turn on the coffee pot"

All above systems can be ran/accessed and set via apps to generate alerts/notifications to my smart phones (or desktop/laptop PC's) of motion and/or sounds (camera/s), temp out of range, freezer/furnace crapped out etc (AcuRite), water detection/broken pipe, etc (AcuRite), over or under current usage on sprinkler solenoids and feed wires (Hunter internal), water usage out of range on zone, sprinkler feed pipe leak, head/s plugged etc (Hunter, external flow meter), real time wattage usage of plugged in devices (TP-Link), real time control, timer and away scheduling of lights and outlets (TP-Link).
 
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bruceb58

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I have Amazon Echo as well but don't use it for light control yet. It will integrate with my Vera Hub so I will be able to control lights with the Vera programming and smartphone app as well as with voice commands from Echo.
 

Janster

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I can’t say our home is a ‘smart home’ but my husband installed several light switches & outlets that are ‘smart’ and integrated with an App.
You can buy the switches online (can’t remember). We use both the iHomeControl app and the Lutron App. We also have Chamberlain garage door openers that can be opened/closed or check the status of them from anywhere thru Chamberlain App.

And all that - was done DIY and really inexpensive.

Having ‘smart lighting’ is especially useful when you go on vacation and need to setup timers for the lights to come on/off while your’e not at home.
 

redneck joe

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OK we went with Alexa. Got a Plus for the kitchen / living room and a dot for each my office and the bedroom. Since the office and kitchen are 'my areas' i renamed her to 'computer' for obvious reasons. For those that do not see the obvious reason, I found a Star Trek red alert skill. My wife is currently very annoyed....

Alexa did hear me from the kitchen this morning which is about 25 feet and two turns away.



Now the great debate, which ancillary products to use. I have a Nest coming. Forgot to order on first run but i sure hope it gets here soon as my upstairs tstat appears to be dead so want to swap with downstairs when I put the nest it. My office is 43 degrees right now.



There are two main ways to go it appears:

wifi with a skill (app)
hub

I'm down to Wemo and Lutron for the most art. I did get a Hue, hub on the way as I'm assuming I will get more Hue's the color is great and a TP Link plug (wifi) to try out. TP Link does not have a dimmable switch and as I have enough lights to confuse airplanes at 30k feet that is a must have.


Wemo is wifi. Must have wifi of course, unless just works on wifi router, not internet? Can't see to find that out.
Lutron is a hub. Still appears to need wifi or as the question above, wifi router?


Lutron has been around, never hear of Wemo but good reviews.

What happens on either one of those if

internet is lost?
router / modem craps and you replace?






I know lots of questions but can anyone take a stab at it?
 
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southkogs

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Since the office and kitchen are 'my areas' i renamed her to 'computer' for obvious reasons. For those that do not see the obvious reason, I found a Star Trek red alert skill. My wife is currently very annoyed....
I didn't see anything else besides this in your post ... :pound:
 

redneck joe

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I figured you would catch that....


Forget Wemo - not three way switch application that is not a half baked work around.

And the Plus has a built in hub for Hue that does the basics i'm finding out, and crosses to the dots thru the app. Just set the one Hue up and tested.

So now, go all in on Hue's or a combo of Hue's and Lutron switches...
 

sangerwaker

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Unless you want RGB lighting, Lutron will give you far more options that Hue. Lutron has 3 systems. Caseta, RadioRa2 Select, and Radio Ra2. Lutron allows astronomic light scheduling, leaving/arriving options, as well as tabletop and wallbox remotes.

The Caseta system does not require a hub, but you will need one to control lights from a smart device or use the time scheduling or arrive/leave function. Both RadioRa systems require the hub. The astronomic function is awesome for outside lights.

Caseta has a max device count of 50. Ra2 Select caps at 100, full blown RadioRa2 caps at 250 I believe.
 

redneck joe

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yeah looking more and more like I'm going that route other than a few table lamps.


I broke Alexa. Seriously. After hooking up the hue hub it went haywire on me, I tried everthing I found online, four hours on with tech support and I now have a Tuesday 3pm Central conference call set with Alexa and Phillips tech support / engineers. What has happened to me is apparently not possible.....


The nest rock tho. Prob going to get one for the upstairs so I can turn on my office heat while still drinking coffee because walking up the stairs is soooooo 2016.


Going to put myself on a monthly budget - this can get pricey if I go whole hog. On the three way lights good thing I have a master electrician friend who owes me money.
 
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redneck joe

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well it is official. I killed Alexa. 6 hours of troubleshooting wiht advanced IT and Phillips, and added a new device - nothing worked. It's (mostly) all going back.

Google it is...
 

thunder550

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I bought an Echo Dot when they first came out. Wasn't thrilled with it. Got a Google Home and loved it, now have 3 in my house. Alexa has been relegated to playing music in the garage.
 

sam am I

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Hmmmm, I haven't had any issues with my Echo, Alexa runs a ton of stuff in my house that I've added too over a few years now, no issues adding devices, all bind w/o problems But! I do hear/read reviews that Google Home is "smarter out of the box" than Echo FWIW.

Perhaps in fast forward mode, I would have chose GH over Echo but, at the time I bought Echo back in 2015, it would be 2 light years later till Google Home was born. Might be switchn now, hmmm....Poor ole Gurl
 
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redneck joe

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The trouble has been with the plus in connection with the hue hub. Been thinking - what I may try is just the echo, no plus and use the hub form the few Hue lights in lamps. I can use a TP link plug for on off but do like the dim feature.

Google has come a long way but who will 'win'? I think both will end up the same(ish) but i really like being able to call the thing 'computer' and don't want to holler out 'google'.
 
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