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Philips Hue has been a total washout at my house. No one wanted to turn lights on or off with their voice or an app so they'd shut them off at the switch, which isn't really Hue's strong point. I'm trying to re-purpose them to turn on when my Arlo cameras detect movement, but that's really janky as IFTTT only turns on your lights - it won't turn them back off again. Which means a bunny running across the yard at 1am activates a lamp in the living room and then someone turns the lamp off manually the next morning since it won't go off by itself. Apparently the Stringify app gives you options to automatically turn lights back off again, but I haven't had a chance to tinker with that. At least I only have 3 bulbs I need to re-purpose. Now I'll have the most expensive porch lights ever.
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Feb 12, 2018 19:45
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LastInLine posted:For my wife, the biggest plus was the fact she could turn off all the lights without getting out of bed. Does she just hate talking to robots or is Siri that difficult to use completely hands-off? Siri can be a little problematic. I've found that sometimes I have to phrase my voice commands in a very specific way for them to work (e.g. "Hey Siri, turn off the lights in the home office" won't work, but "Hey Siri, turn off the home office lights" will.) She also doesn't always have her phone on her - so it's really easy to get frustrated when she wants to turn something on or off and she has to trudge back to her bag downstairs or wherever to go get it.
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Feb 12, 2018 20:01
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Rick posted:I am surprised how much I use the tap, and am probably getting another one for the bathroom of all places. I usually have a device within arm's reach ofme wherever I'm sitting that can control my lights but if I'm in the living room I still often get up and hit the button. I feel exactly the same way about it. I've got a mix of smartthings and hue lights, and you bet that the Hue app and the Tap I have see the most actual use day to day. I think it's down to the Tap just working and working well. Once I press it I know that the lights will change quickly to what I've commanded.
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Feb 12, 2018 20:09
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ChadSexington posted:Siri can be a little problematic. I've found that sometimes I have to phrase my voice commands in a very specific way for them to work (e.g. "Hey Siri, turn off the lights in the home office" won't work, but "Hey Siri, turn off the home office lights" will.) Yeah I have Google Homes in every room so there's never the issue of not having voice control readily available. I've found that voice control for lights is just perfect at least for us.
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Feb 12, 2018 20:11
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Light control and TV on/off control was a cool, but slightly frivolous luxury when we first got it. Now with a 1 year old constantly under foot that poo poo is a drat necessity. Add alexa to that who is the drat cheapest set of extra hands a stay-at-home mom could ask for, and we could never got back to our pre smart home way of life. 
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Feb 12, 2018 20:18
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Chamberlain disabled the ability for IFTTT to close the garage door on the MyQ Garage so gently caress them, I'm going to get a Linear GoControl. They say it's because of security since they discovered that if the battery is low on the door sensor it might think the garage door is in the wrong state and they don't want people scheduling a close and it not happening. Of course, they didn't make any announcement about this or let anyone know so unless someone is paying close attention to their IFTTT logs they've actually caused the situation they were trying to avoid...a bunch of people think they have a scheduled close of their garage door that isn't going to work.
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Feb 12, 2018 20:42
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Thermopyle posted:Chamberlain disabled the ability for IFTTT to close the garage door on the MyQ Garage so gently caress them, I'm going to get a Linear GoControl. I was under the impression that third party controllers don't work on MyQ-compatible openers, is that not the case? I was in the situation of perhaps needing to buy a new garage door opener just last month and my research seemed to suggest that if you got a LiftMaster or Chamberlain it was MyQ or nothing.
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Feb 13, 2018 01:20
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LastInLine posted:I was under the impression that third party controllers don't work on MyQ-compatible openers, is that not the case? I was in the situation of perhaps needing to buy a new garage door opener just last month and my research seemed to suggest that if you got a LiftMaster or Chamberlain it was MyQ or nothing. Yeah, they just connect to the wires that go to your garage door button and use a wireless sensor to sense the garage door position. Doesn't matter the brand or model of the opener as long as it has two wires that connect to a button on the wall to control it.
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Feb 13, 2018 02:16
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Thermopyle posted:Yeah, they just connect to the wires that go to your garage door button and use a wireless sensor to sense the garage door position. See, that was what I thought. My opener is from the mid-90s so I knew that's how the old ones worked but I thought maybe the new ones only used wireless controllers inside and out or something. Incompatibility with newer openers was why I hadn't purchased a third party smart controller already but if they all still have the same screwdown terminals for the inside button I was having a tough time seeing how they couldn't work. Any reason you're picking the GoControl over other products?
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Feb 13, 2018 02:24
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LastInLine posted:See, that was what I thought. My opener is from the mid-90s so I knew that's how the old ones worked but I thought maybe the new ones only used wireless controllers inside and out or something. Incompatibility with newer openers was why I hadn't purchased a third party smart controller already but if they all still have the same screwdown terminals for the inside button I was having a tough time seeing how they couldn't work. I use smartthings for my home automation and the GoControl seems to be the best-reviewed Z-Wave compatible unit.
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Feb 13, 2018 02:27
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Krispy Wafer posted:Philips Hue has been a total washout at my house. No one wanted to turn lights on or off with their voice or an app so they'd shut them off at the switch, which isn't really Hue's strong point. You don’t have to use your choice or an app though? Just get the dimmer switch (the regular one, not the tap one, but I’m sure that works fine too) and stick them up on the walls right next to the regular in-wall switches and you can use Hue lightbulbs like regular lightbulbs. If your family can’t retrain to hit the Hue dimmer switches instead of the regular switches then that’s more on you guys than the Hue. The dimmer switches come with 3M command strip tape or whatever so you literally just peel and stick it onto a wall. Plus the actual switch portion of it is held in place by magnets, so you can detach it and bring it onto the couch or whatever. ChadSexington posted:Siri can be a little problematic. I've found that sometimes I have to phrase my voice commands in a very specific way for them to work (e.g. "Hey Siri, turn off the lights in the home office" won't work, but "Hey Siri, turn off the home office lights" will.) For the second point: you need physical switches. For the Siri part: I’ve found the best thing to do is to use HomeKit to save named scenes, rather than controlling each lightbulb individually. For example I have a scene called “in bed” which sets one light in my bedroom off and another to like 25%. I can just say “Hey Siri I’m in bed.” as I’m changing or climbing into bed, and she sets the scene accordingly. I also have the following named scenes: “watching tv,” “reading a book,” “getting dressed,” and so on. I don’t have to say anything verbose like “enable scene x” or anything, I just tell Siri “I’m reading a book” and she helps out  .
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Feb 13, 2018 10:29
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Boris Galerkin posted:You don’t have to use your choice or an app though? Just get the dimmer switch (the regular one, not the tap one, but I’m sure that works fine too) and stick them up on the walls right next to the regular in-wall switches and you can use Hue lightbulbs like regular lightbulbs. If your family can’t retrain to hit the Hue dimmer switches instead of the regular switches then that’s more on you guys than the Hue. The dimmer switches come with 3M command strip tape or whatever so you literally just peel and stick it onto a wall. Plus the actual switch portion of it is held in place by magnets, so you can detach it and bring it onto the couch or whatever. Sometimes home automation works. My wife loves the Arlo's and getting alerts whenever someone comes to the door. She hates talking to the lights or having to turn stuff on/off with an app. The separate switches might work, but in this case I think I'm going to just utilize them in my office or as security lighting once I get the IFTTT sequences figured out.
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Feb 13, 2018 14:54
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LastInLine posted:For my wife, the biggest plus was the fact she could turn off all the lights without getting out of bed. Does she just hate talking to robots or is Siri that difficult to use completely hands-off? Do you really want to have to take out your phone EVERY time you wanna turn some lights on and off? Or when google home/alexa invariably says "Sorry I didn't understand you!" ?
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Feb 14, 2018 14:59
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chocolateTHUNDER posted:Do you really want to have to take out your phone EVERY time you wanna turn some lights on and off? Or when google home/alexa invariably says "Sorry I didn't understand you!" ? This is exactly why I went with ZWave switches. There is still a normal switch for those that can't operate the HA stuff/Alexa. And also a backup for when those things invariably fail.
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Feb 14, 2018 15:07
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stevewm posted:This is exactly why I went with ZWave switches. There is still a normal switch for those that can't operate the HA stuff/Alexa. And also a backup for when those things invariably fail. I'm nerdy as it gets and the idea of having to pull out my phone or use voice to turn the lights off is terrible. Thus the reason I'm using smartthings with ZWave switches. I can use a switch like a normal person or use my phone or tell Google Assistant to control the lights. My whole family has been very pleased with how well it works.
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Feb 14, 2018 15:20
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chocolateTHUNDER posted:Do you really want to have to take out your phone EVERY time you wanna turn some lights on and off? Or when google home/alexa invariably says "Sorry I didn't understand you!" ? Do you have problems with it not understanding light commands? I had a problem because I named two things “living room” but otherwise I can’t recall ever having to repeat myself more than once, even with my kid. My girlfriend’s kid used to have trouble, but she would shout really quickly so I’m not sure how to score that. Are your room names really short? I don’t have any one-syllable names.
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Feb 14, 2018 15:34
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Subjunctive posted:Do you have problems with it not understanding light commands? I had a problem because I named two things “living room” but otherwise I can’t recall ever having to repeat myself more than once, even with my kid. My girlfriend’s kid used to have trouble, but she would shout really quickly so I’m not sure how to score that. 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. So yes, things go wrong sometimes.
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Feb 14, 2018 15:37
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Ah, I didn’t experience that! I’m definitely on Team Switch, though. I think I’m up to 18, counting the N-way ones.
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Feb 14, 2018 15:43
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chocolateTHUNDER posted:Do you really want to have to take out your phone EVERY time you wanna turn some lights on and off? Or when google home/alexa invariably says "Sorry I didn't understand you!" ? I've never used our phones to turn off our lights ever, I've only ever used voice commands and it's always worked. When Google was DDOSing the network from late December to early January there was an irritating delay but the lights always came on eventually. I haven't flipped a switch in the year since we set it up, not even once. Maybe my flat accent has something to do with it but we've very seldom had Google not understand us on the first try. If we accidentally talk over each other it might happen and occasionally when we ask a complicated query but never with the lights. It does sometimes screw up if we forget the name of the light we're trying to turn on mid sentence and say something like, "Okay Google, turn on the... uh... um... urchin lamp" but that's on us. I'd assume switches would work the same way though I don't have any (bad wiring being half the reason, the other half being that the majority of our lighting is not on switches and none of the ones we actually use save one). I actually have a few questions about switches that I'll ask when I get closer to the project but even then the primary goal will still be to be almost entirely reliant on voice commands. I guess the tl;dr is that as I haven't needed to flip a switch in a year I have a tough time imagining a case where I wish I had a switch.
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Feb 14, 2018 16:39
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Alexa has a REALLY hard time with plurals. I have 2 lamps, named left lamp and right lamp. Both of those are in a group called "lamps". For Alexa to understand it correctly I have to say "turn on lampsssss". Google Home/Assistant has no problems with this, it understands me 100% of the time without having to hiss. I could change the group name, but...  . I've gotten used to it. I haven't been bothered enough to go into Home Assistant and change the group name.
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Feb 14, 2018 17:38
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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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LastInLine posted:I guess the tl;dr is that as I haven't needed to flip a switch in a year I have a tough time imagining a case where I wish I had a switch. When I use switches instead of voice: 1. When I walk into a room it's bazillions of times faster to flip a switch next to the door then it is to say "hey google, turn on master bedroom lamp". 2. There's people conversing near where I'm at because I'm not an rear end in a top hat. 3. There's music or the TV on. My Home Minis are only like 70% (I have not actually tracked this, but its enough to change my habit) likely to recognize what I'm saying.
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Feb 14, 2018 19:23
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Thermopyle posted:When I use switches instead of voice: 1. Sensible, though it doesn't affect me as none of my switches control lights I'd want to use 2. It's just me and the wife and we seldom sit in the dark while we're talking 3. My full-sized Homes never have a problem with TV or music going at all. This kind of weirds me out how good it is even with loud music going. I'll admit my use case is rare, being childless with an opposite schedule from the only other person in my house and never having people over ever. Still, I'm amazed that having Star Trek lights is so nice, I don't think I'd like to have to do searches the Star Trek way but for home control I'm impressed. HycoCam posted:We had the same thing happen--snow knocked out the power and we couldn't get the lights to turn on a almost two days... I actually laughed out loud at this, almost choked on my beer.
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Feb 14, 2018 19:49
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Do people really just rely on voice-activating their lights or using their phones, or even (gasp) using physical switches? In the world of contact and motion sensors and rule engines for IoT devices, my whole apartment is on complete autopilot. I usually just have to ask Alexa or access HomeKit to toggle the odd light that fails to power on/off according to the sensor it's attached to.
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Feb 14, 2018 20:28
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bobfather posted:Do people really just rely on voice-activating their lights or using their phones, or even (gasp) using physical switches? What if you... don't... want a light on?
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Feb 14, 2018 20:55
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Droo posted:What if you... don't... want a light on? I definitely don’t want my bedroom light turning on and waking my girlfriend when I get up and go to the washroom in the night. Subjunctive fucked around with this message at 21:12 on Feb 14, 2018 |
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Feb 14, 2018 21:09
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Subjunctive posted:I definitely don’t want my bedroom light turning on and waking my girlfriend when I get up and go to the washroom in the night. Hell, I put a few dim little LED nightlights around my house because it's so much better than blinding myself whenever I need to take a piss at 3 AM. I'd murder anyone who tried to put motion-activated lights in places I might walk around at night. I've considered motion sensors in my garage but that's the only place.
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Feb 14, 2018 21:14
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wolrah posted:Hell, I put a few dim little LED nightlights around my house because I don't like blinding myself by turning on random lights around the house at night. Yeah, same. I could maybe make everything dimmable and just have it all come on at 15% between “good night” and sunrise, but with 3 people in the house I think it would get pretty fiddly.
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Feb 14, 2018 21:16
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Droo posted:What if you... don't... want a light on? 80% of my home lights are motion or contact-sensor activated. The other 20% turn on and off on timers that are active when we're home. Alexa and Siri are backups for those crucial moments when I'm too impatient for a timer to fire. For example, my living room gets lots of natural light, so the lights turn on daily 30 minutes before sunset, but in South Florida we often get overcast weather that makes it get dark faster. In that case I might turn on the lights via voice or Home.app The only ways I consistently use Alexa or Home.app are to trigger my "going to bed" routine or to inform my rule engine that tomorrow is a gym day (wake up earlier) or not, or on rare days where I have trouble getting out of bed to override my rule engine and tell it not to wake me up now, wake me up later.
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Feb 14, 2018 21:18
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Subjunctive posted:I definitely don’t want my bedroom light turning on and waking my girlfriend when I get up and go to the washroom in the night. This is easy. Most HA systems let you declare that you're home or not, or that it's the day or evening. And most rule engines can interface with that to make logic like: If you're HOME and it's DAY, BEDROOM lights are motion activated But if you're NOT HOME, or it's NIGHT, BEDROOM lights do not respond to motion
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Feb 14, 2018 21:21
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bobfather posted:This is easy. Most HA systems let you declare that you're home or not, or that it's the day or evening. And most rule engines can interface with that to make logic like: Yeah, I spent 20 years writing software, and debugging my house isn’t especially appealing. Getting it working for cleaners, contractors, house guests, etc seems like it would be pretty fiddly. Maybe if I get bored. My SmartThings app is only about 90% effective at detecting that I’m home within the first few minutes, so that would be an issue right there.
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Feb 14, 2018 21:44
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Subjunctive posted:Yeah, I spent 20 years writing software, and debugging my house isn’t especially appealing. Getting it working for cleaners, contractors, house guests, etc seems like it would be pretty fiddly. Maybe if I get bored. That's fair. SmartThings is definitely the weak link in my system also. It's gotten better but I'd also peg at 90% reliable, which is just unreliable enough to be aggravating.
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Feb 14, 2018 21:52
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I've got a strip of colored LED strips mounted to the bottom of our bed frame. They turn on by motion sensor only between sunrise and sunset. Works very well for being able to see my way to the bathroom whilst still not waking my wife. I can't imagine motion and contact sensors working well in the general case with our house or how we live. Whether I want the lights on/off/dimmed for most rooms in my house varies a lot depending upon what it is I'm doing in that room.
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Feb 14, 2018 22:28
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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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Ok I’m having a weird issue with my Ecobee3 lite and figured I’d post here. My comfort settings inside the app are 69 degrees when warming and home, 65 degrees when away and asleep. I have it connected to smart things. My away and sleep are set to 65 degrees. My “I’m back” is set to 69 degrees. I also have it connected to Alexa via both skills. Every. Single. Day. It sets the temperature during the day to 67 degrees. At one point I did have it set to that, but upped it (I thought) universally across all of the systems. What the hell am I missing? There’s no settings for comfort in the Alexa skills. Is there something buried in SmartThings that would override my home/away settings?
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Feb 17, 2018 13:42
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Theres a setting called smart temp or something similar that averages out your temp across the house. So if its 70 in one room and 68 in anothet iy sets the temp to 69. Check for that. I had the same problem.
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Feb 17, 2018 15:16
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housefly posted:Ok I’m having a weird issue with my Ecobee3 lite and figured I’d post here. Double check under Ecobee's HomeIQ section of the webpage a couple things, you can look at the System Monitor, Schedule, and Follow Me (not sure if you have this, I have an Ecobee3 lite where I don't have this, but it's probably a configuration part on my end of things as it is used in a building that I'm rarely in, so no scheduling or the like). Does anything stand out when the temperature shifts? Edit: Also, get on the horn with their customer support, I've found them to be very good and helpful. The Electronaut fucked around with this message at 15:57 on Feb 17, 2018 |
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Feb 17, 2018 15:52
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I don’t have any sensors attached to the system, so I’m not sure if those items will really come into play. I’ll have a look and see if anything stands out. Edit: nothing really standing out in the settings in the app or on the website. Also of note, I thought maybe the SmartThings auth has expired. I tried to remove the thermostat and it throws an error when I do that. Thinking ST is probably doing something funky here. housefly fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Feb 17, 2018 |
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Feb 17, 2018 20:02
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I just looked on mine and it is settings sensor follow me that averages the temp across your sensors. I know you dont have sensors but cant hurt?
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Feb 19, 2018 03:08
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You can’t even set anything inside the sensor section if you don’t have any connected.
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Feb 19, 2018 04:31
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