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Theyre normally 15 each but the 3 pack has been a little cheaper. So really youre getting $5 off on the three pack already plus another $5 off for the sale. I ordered one because I have a few misc lamps and stuff to fill. Anyone know of any bedroom / tower fans that would be compatible with alexa? I can find some ceiling fans but im just looking for a standalone fan I can turn on/ off with voice. Off topic but also any recommendations for a good garage/gym fan? I got some gym equipment for my garage earlier in the year and its starting to get hot as gently caress in there. Id prefer to stay around $50 if possible. Keystoned fucked around with this message at 15:07 on Jun 14, 2017 |
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Jun 14, 2017 15:04
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smackfu posted:It says regular price for that is $40. Did they cut the prices recently? I thought they were $20 each normally. Camelcamelcamel says they've been $40 since last year. Maybe 3-pack pricing has always had the discount?
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Jun 14, 2017 17:28
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Home Depot has the ecobee3 lite for 158.50 with a free 2 pack of remote sensors. Some people have said they have been able to return the sensors and get even more off. I currently have a not smart at all non programmable thermostat. The ecobee is generally well regarded here compared to the Nest isn't it?
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Jun 15, 2017 17:11
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hitachi posted:Home Depot has the ecobee3 lite for 158.50 with a free 2 pack of remote sensors. Some people have said they have been able to return the sensors and get even more off. Having not used a nest the ecobee is fantastic.
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Jun 15, 2017 17:20
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hitachi posted:Home Depot has the ecobee3 lite for 158.50 with a free 2 pack of remote sensors. Some people have said they have been able to return the sensors and get even more off. Ecobee is fantastic. Extra sensors are super clever
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Jun 15, 2017 18:01
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I want an Ecobee3 lite but really have no use for it. Where I live no one has AC and my heat is single zone hot water baseboard. Side note: I have bought 6 of the EcoSmart Dimmable LEDs to go with my Caseta switches, two were DOA so far. 
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Jun 15, 2017 20:18
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I just got a house, and I'm trying to figure out what I'm in for in a home camera system. I've read some of the thread but I'm still somewhat lost on where I should begin. Myself and my wife would like some video cameras for the exterior of our house for security..I realize it's not a perfect solution but it makes us feel better. We're thinking:
I have a Costco membership and I know they sell kits, if that helps.
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Jun 16, 2017 02:47
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i5-3570 refurbished system from EBay $150 3TB WD Purple $100 Netgear Prosafe PoE switch $100 CAT 6 cables $50 Blue Iris $50 + phone app $10 This gives you a budget of $600 to spend on cams and still come in at the high side of your budget. Both Dahua and Hikvision make outdoor dome-style cams that can be found for $100 a piece or less.
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Jun 16, 2017 03:03
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That's a great start! Thank you. If I have a computer I leave on 24/7 is there any reason I couldn't ditch the need for a i5 box?
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Jun 16, 2017 03:12
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I personally wouldn't buy a Hikvision if you're in the U.S. as it's pretty much impossible to get a non-firmware hacked version,, which also can't be upgraded to address the many security flaws including literally phoning home to the Chinese government. That being said, as it's often pointed out here, never let the cameras have access to the internet or anything past the server. Also if you already have a server type computer you just need to figure out how much power you need to encode a few 1080p or higher streams. If you're only getting a few cameras I imagine it's okay? GPU acceleration is only supported on Intel GPUs for Blue Iris and I'm not sure which versions at that. I know the latest CPUs (Sky Lake, Kaby Lake) are really good at transcoding video.
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Jun 16, 2017 04:34
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Jaxyon posted:That's a great start! Thank you. Depending on how many cameras you have, and if you're doing camera side or server side motion detection it can eat up a fair amount of CPU. So generally a separate computer is recommended. It's also generally recommended to isolate the cameras so you may want a second NIC. CharlesM posted:I personally wouldn't buy a Hikvision if you're in the U.S. as it's pretty much impossible to get a non-firmware hacked version,, which also can't be upgraded to address the many security flaws including literally phoning home to the Chinese government. That being said, as it's often pointed out here, never let the cameras have access to the internet or anything past the server. Hikvision has a lot of security vulnerabilities. They weren't phoning home to the Chinese government. They were phoning home for HikConnect which was Hikvisions cloud tool. It's very bad design from a security perspective, and it's disabled as of firmware 5.3. And you can get Hikvision cameras with the US firmware. You just generally need to buy through their various OEMs. LTS KT&C Swann Those all sell through Amazon. B&H Photo is an authorized reseller in the US so they should also have the US based firmware. If you have the Chinese language firmware and want upgrade it, there is a process to convert it to the English language firmware. It does void your warranty so I won't link to it directly. But it can be found.
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Jun 16, 2017 05:23
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I didn't know B&H was an authorized reseller. They're good and I would buy through them. Somehow that didn't come up when I was searching before. I guess because people want to get the grey market ones a lot cheaper.
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Jun 16, 2017 05:29
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CharlesM posted:I didn't know B&H was an authorized reseller. They're good and I would buy through them. Somehow that didn't come up when I was searching before. I guess because people want to get the grey market ones a lot cheaper. They were as of two years ago. If you call their people they should be able to confirm if they are or aren't. But there are a poo poo ton of Hikvision OEMs in the US. They can vary about how good they are about updating firmware. Nelly's and LTS are pretty good. Swann less so.
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Jun 16, 2017 05:34
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We bought about 10 Hikvisions for work from B&H about 6 months ago and they're legit resellers on English firmware. Price was competitive too. I like Dahua stuff too.
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Jun 16, 2017 06:23
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Happy Noodle Boy posted:I've been putting my older Hue bulbs on the few spots I have no need for them so now so now I can turn on my closet which is really dumb in practice but I have it set to turn on around the time I get ready for work so it mostly works? That was my thought. I forget to turn my closet light off sometimes, so it turning itself off would probably be good. Keystoned posted:Theyre normally 15 each but the 3 pack has been a little cheaper. So really youre getting $5 off on the three pack already plus another $5 off for the sale. I ordered one because I have a few misc lamps and stuff to fill. I use a smart plug for this. I am using homekit and not Echo but I am sure it's the same there, if you set the device as a a fan in the smart plug's app, it should be identified to the voice controls as simply "fan." So "hey siri, turn the fan off" works, I don't have to say "siri please turn off the lasko fan" or whatever. I use this fan: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004IS6JBY/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 It's a monster. If you want quiet, it's not this fan, but it blows air around like a motherfucker even on the lowest setting. Rick fucked around with this message at 08:51 on Jun 16, 2017 |
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Jun 16, 2017 08:42
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Jaxyon posted:That's a great start! Thank you. You could ditch the extra computer, but Blue Iris and IP camming is processor intensive. On your always on computer do you have a discrete video card? If yes, that will mess with Blue Iris' ability to use Intel hardware acceleration. Same story if you run AMD processors. 4 cams at reasonable specs (1080P, 10fps, motion activated recording) will probably produce 10-15% constant CPU use without hardware acceleration, And half as much CPU use with acceleration. Just a consideration. Devoting another system to it means you can just set it and forget it in a closet or something, and remote in for configuration changes. bobfather fucked around with this message at 11:08 on Jun 16, 2017 |
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Jun 16, 2017 11:03
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bobfather posted:You could ditch the extra computer, but Blue Iris and IP camming is processor intensive. On your always on computer do you have a discrete video card? If yes, that will mess with Blue Iris' ability to use Intel hardware acceleration. Same story if you run AMD processors. Is there a way to set it so that Windows Update won't automatically restart on Windows 10? I tried reading all the group policies but it's a bit confusing. I don't want to totally disable Windows Update, just let me do it manually when I'm there.
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Jun 16, 2017 11:06
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CharlesM posted:Is there a way to set it so that Windows Update won't automatically restart on Windows 10? I tried reading all the group policies but it's a bit confusing. I don't want to totally disable Windows Update, just let me do it manually when I'm there. I use the Windows Update MiniTool. Lets you change Windows Updates to be fully manual. Another great reason to run your IP cam server as a discrete system is you can VLAN or put it and all the cams on their on subnet, making strict firewall rules easier to implement. I have all my cams blocked from the internet, except for NTP and DNS traffic. They can only see my video server, and have access to nothing else on my LAN.
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Jun 16, 2017 11:14
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Are there reasons to not use wireless? I have neighbors with wireless cams and I had thought streaming video like that overwireless would not be ideal, we're talking houses under 1500sqft so it might be an option? They have no complaints.
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Jun 16, 2017 19:39
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Jaxyon posted:Are there reasons to not use wireless? You still need to run power to them, wireless just eliminates the network cable, not the power cable. If you get IP cameras they will be a single POE cable anyways.  Wireless also has tons of issues with reliable bandwidth. FCKGW fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Jun 16, 2017 |
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Jun 16, 2017 20:27
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Jaxyon posted:Are there reasons to not use wireless? Kinda. So I've done large scale projects with wireless components and a radio site survey was done. And enterprise grade wireless equipment was used. It worked great. And I've seen a lot of projects using wireless fail. It comes down to a lot of factors like the equipment being used. Cheap consumer wireless gear doesn't do a great job of handling persistent wireless connections that move a lot of bandwidth. And most of the wireless built into cameras doesn't exactly do a better job because wireless is generally aimed at the lazy and lazy tends to correspond with cheap for DIY. If you did something like connecting to a low end enterprise switch connected to something like the lower end Ubiquity access points that would work great for most home users. It would just be expensive and effort, there would still be drilling holes and more network set up. You also have stuff depending on how crowded the spectrum is in the area. When I lived in an apartment, my phone could see 20 or so wireless networks. Getting wireless to work flawlessly in that kind of environment is a crap shoot. The other issue is that people may not honestly know they have a problem. The majority of video surveillance is for forensic use. Check the video after the incident has occurred. So if they are having intermittent outages they may not be aware of them. A better test for this is to configure the VMS to send out email alerts or log times when connection is lost to the camera. For wireless that's a far from perfect test since most VMSes have a grace period to reconnect to the camera before considering it down but it can help indicate there might be issues.
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Jun 16, 2017 21:49
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Im looking at adding in a garage opener thats alexa and homekit compatible. Any recommendations? Amazon has the nexx opener for 100 which looks decent but I dont think it works with homekit.
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Jun 17, 2017 16:44
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Last I looked there were no actual HomeKit compatible garage door openers released: https://www.apple.com/ios/home/accessories/
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Jun 18, 2017 16:15
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Keystoned posted:Im looking at adding in a garage opener thats alexa and homekit compatible. Any recommendations? Amazon has the nexx opener for 100 which looks decent but I dont think it works with homekit. MyQ is going to eventually get a new bridge that is home kit compatible, but right now the status is "notify me when available". Should be compatible with the current system when it is released.
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Jun 19, 2017 03:29
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As far as Control4 Programming (Composer Pro) is concerned, would one be better off with utilizing a Macintosh or PC laptop? We have techs that use each and I plan to pick their brains, but I suspect it boils down to whatever one's prefered OS is. Is it a wash or are there benefits of one over the other? I go for the onsite training in August and am giving thought to grabbing a laptop.
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Jun 20, 2017 20:04
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We just got a new house and I wanted to start adding in various automation / control platforms. Assuming SmartThings is still the preferred system, I was thinking of using Ecobees for thermostats and Alexa for voice control. Good idea? Are the levitons still the preferred in-wall switches / outlets? I've got a v1 Ring doorbell - are any of the door locks any good?
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Jun 23, 2017 02:17
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Moved into our new place yesterday (high five to the poster above for being a fellow new mover), and found the owners left a 'Quirky Link' hub that maybe is used to control our lights that are otherwise a bit of a pain to operate. I've followed the instructions to get it onto my router, but every time it just hangs when it tries to connect to the router and usually my phone gives up on it and drops the wifi after a few minutes. It's a 2.4ghz network as it says it can't do 5ghz, I've even opened up the network in case it's a WPA2 Personal issue that it doesn't like and zero dice. Anyone got one of these boxes who can advise what might be up? I'm using the Wink software on my phone and the lights on the unit seem to do what they're supposed to.
EL BROMANCE fucked around with this message at 14:27 on Jun 23, 2017 |
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Jun 23, 2017 14:22
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jarito posted:We just got a new house and I wanted to start adding in various automation / control platforms. Alexa works fine with SmartThings. I use GE zwave dimmers, and they work great with Smartthings - I don't have experience with Levitons or any thermostats. As for locks, there was a discussion a few pages ago.
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Jun 23, 2017 17:17
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Derr, I am good at posting.
Moey fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Jun 23, 2017 |
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Jun 23, 2017 17:20
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I've been happy with my Vera, Lutron Caseta switches and Schlage door lock. Going to add in some GE outlets at some point. Edit: Sylvania "Ultra LED" dimmable work fine with Caseta dimmers. My local Lowes carries them. Moey fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Jun 23, 2017 |
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Jun 23, 2017 17:21
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^^^ this is me. Vera, lutron caseta, schlage deadbolts.
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Jun 23, 2017 19:38
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Google Home multi user support is finally available in Canada. Although to be fair I guess Home is technically only two days old in Canada. Everything else worked since US launch.
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Jun 28, 2017 18:58
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Any thoughts on the Nest outdoor cameras? I know you need to pay monthly for it to record.
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Jun 28, 2017 19:30
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Piggy Smalls posted:Any thoughts on the Nest outdoor cameras? I know you need to pay monthly for it to record. Our new place has one setup and I quite dig it. It generally triggers an alert for most things happening in our yard (it missed a neighbour today but that's the only one I can think of) and the quality seems decent. We have the thermostat too and I like having them both on the Nest app. Something that amuses me is that we have the indoor one mounted outside behind a Perspex panel to stop people interfering, but if nightmode is on the LEDs reflect so badly off it you can't see a thing. i might switch it for an outdoor one in the future and stick that one in the backyard instead.
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Jun 29, 2017 03:21
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EL BROMANCE posted:Our new place has one setup and I quite dig it. It generally triggers an alert for most things happening in our yard (it missed a neighbour today but that's the only one I can think of) and the quality seems decent. We have the thermostat too and I like having them both on the Nest app. So the quality of nightmode is pretty good?
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Jun 29, 2017 03:23
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From what I can tell it is, but because of the above problem this is what I see...
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Jun 29, 2017 12:49
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You could try turning off IR and using a different light source. That camera won't be all that good in the dark anyway.
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Jun 29, 2017 16:49
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Yeah at the moment I just turn off the night mode and deal with a dark image, in the future either the light in front of it or the one in my porch will be automation timers so not a big worry. Just something that made me laugh.
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Jun 29, 2017 16:55
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Are there any Hue switches that aren't the dimmer switches? The Hue Tap doesn't count as it's even more expensive.
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Jul 5, 2017 13:21
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So I grabbed a Wink 2 from eBay on the cheap and have it all set up and working which is nice (I suspected there might be some smart lightbulbs somewhere in the house, as I found a Quirky hub plugged in... but I couldn't get it to connect to my router, and nothing I've taken the cover off has relayed anything other than normal bulbs so far. But the recessed lamps look quite similar to the ones on the Wink site, so maybe there's hope yet!) I mainly want to do some stuff outside, so I presume the GE Outdoor sockets are the way to go, but wondering if there's any good resources for ideas/reviews on which gear is good and what should be avoided etc. Also I remember reading somewhere that I should plug in portable lamps to smart sockets, and put smart bulbs in fixed sockets... is this generally the way to go? I have a portable lamp we use a lot and it's a 3-way one so it sounds like that would suit the situation best anyway.
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Jul 5, 2017 19:46
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