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So I've gotten some Alexa devices and generally enjoying them, but had an interesting interaction when running into the lights with similar names to rooms problem with Hue: Echo, set lights in bedroom to dim red.  A few things share that name. Which one did you mean? (mumbling) Oh god... I'm sorry, I was unable to find God.
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Feb 19, 2018 08:58
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| # ? May 10, 2024 19:17 |
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Lead out in cuffs posted:So I've gotten some Alexa devices and generally enjoying them, but had an interesting interaction when running into the lights with similar names to rooms problem with Hue: It would be a lot more weird if Alexa claimed to find god.
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Feb 19, 2018 09:52
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Use “bedroom lights,” not “lights in bedroom.”
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Feb 19, 2018 18:41
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porkface posted:It would be a lot more weird if Alexa claimed to find god. As outcomes of Alexa's quest for spiritual enlightenment go, this is quite true. Tapedump posted:Use “bedroom lights,” not “lights in bedroom.” Thanks -- yeah I also renamed the light in the bedroom that had "bedroom" in its name to reduce confusion.
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Feb 19, 2018 21:46
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TLDR... Anyone tried this? WyzeCam: Buy Now $19.99 - www.wyzecam.comhttps://www.wyzecam.com/product/wyze-cam-v2/
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Feb 20, 2018 06:42
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Cornjob posted:TLDR... I've seen testing of it and it doesn't come off well. quote:During testing motion alerts provided no push notification despite being able to turn them on or off. Basically the motion detection is also twitchy as hell with small lighting changes triggering it. It's not ready for prime time and the $20 is better spent by putting it in the bank.
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Feb 20, 2018 09:21
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Well, I'm having the first problem with my Smartthings setup since I got it 6 months ago. Up to this point it's been rock-solid. All of my zigbee devices are "Unavailable". Unplugging the hub for an hour didn't seem to make any difference and they've been in this state for a couple days now.
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Feb 20, 2018 16:02
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Thermopyle posted:Well, I'm having the first problem with my Smartthings setup since I got it 6 months ago. Up to this point it's been rock-solid. This is probably of no help, but the only Zigbee device I have is one Hue bulb. When I first added it, it would randomly become 'unavailable' and stay that way no matter what I tried, until it would randomly start working again. I changed the device handler to ZLL RGBW Bulb which fixed the issue. I guess this only helps if all of your zigbee devices are Hue bulbs, but at least maybe see if there's a different device handler available?
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Feb 20, 2018 19:32
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You guys, I have so many questions. I'm just confusing myself at this point. I've read the thread from about last July, but I figured starting from the beginning would only be confusing myself with old technology. If I buy something that says "works with Alexa," do I need to buy an Echo Plus, or will it work with, say, a Show or a Dot? Is it dependent on whether the device in question has a hub of its own? I have hue lights and a bridge on the way but delayed by weather, we've preordered a Nest doorbell that comes with a free Google Home mini and ships next month, we have a million Mac and iOS devices, and I successfully put Home Assistant onto a Raspberry Pi2 I had sitting around, but of course no devices to test it on. I don't speak Python, so I feel kind of over my head with that one, but I bought the Pi to learn new things and then never did, so ... I was thinking the Google Mini would be fine to start with, but some things I'm interested in aren't available yet, and seem to be maybe Alexa-enabled only. I don't want to start building things up, only to have to switch it all over later. Also, this whole thing got started because we'll be re-siding the house this spring or summer, and I want to get doors, outlets, windows, doorbell, cameras, lights, whatever, all situated with the nice new siding. What am I forgetting that would best be done while the siding is off the house?
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Feb 20, 2018 22:55
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I'm *pretty* sure if something says it works with Alexa it will, at the very least, work with Amazon devices.
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Feb 20, 2018 22:58
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Thomamelas posted:I've seen testing of it and it doesn't come off well. I ordered one. Its not much of risk at $20. Ill share my thoughts after ive had a chance to play with it
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Feb 21, 2018 01:12
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Thermopyle posted:Well, I'm having the first problem with my Smartthings setup since I got it 6 months ago. Up to this point it's been rock-solid. I've had hit or miss results with Zigbee devices. My GE Link bulbs in particular are finicky and one of them kept falling off the network. I moved it closer to my hub, in case reception was a problem. It fell off the network again, this time talking my Zen thermostat with it. I'm assuming maybe it was because it was now the next closest Zigbee device in the mesh? Half the time my bulb stopped working, I had to delete it and pair it again. Other times it only needed to have the power supply toggled. After the thermostat incident, I ditched the bulb. Then, my thermostat only needed to have the c-wire and batteries momentarily yanked and reconnected. I guess my suggestion to you is to reset the devices themselves and troubleshoot from there. If you have a device known to be iffy, try removing it from the picture. If nothing helps, maybe your hub is bad. EDIT: By comparison, my Z-Wave devices have been great. azurite fucked around with this message at 05:20 on Feb 21, 2018 |
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Feb 21, 2018 05:18
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azurite posted:I've had hit or miss results with Zigbee devices. My GE Link bulbs in particular are finicky and one of them kept falling off the network. I moved it closer to my hub, in case reception was a problem. It fell off the network again, this time talking my Zen thermostat with it. I'm assuming maybe it was because it was now the next closest Zigbee device in the mesh? I'd love tips for keeping GE Link bulbs in network. House I brought had something like 33 of them. For some fortunate reason (knock on wood) none of the outdoor ones have ever fallen off the network but every other bulb seems to have multiple times. I even got 3 Zigbee outlets and put them around the house to try to strengthen the network since I read that GE Links won't relay messages by themselves. But things are still falling off.
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Feb 21, 2018 15:17
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Zigbee sounds like kind of a mess...
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Feb 21, 2018 16:05
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It is. I've only got the zigbee devices I have because they were particularly good deals at the time and I thought "surely just a few devices will be fine". Also Samsungs SmartThings email support is even slower and more unreliable than zigbee.
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Feb 21, 2018 16:13
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Granted I did have some issues with my Zwave network as well. But I eventually figured out it was simply a matter of signal reception. The Zwave devices out in my garage couldn't reliably reach the rest of the nodes near the center of my house. I eventually put Zwave bulbs in some lamps that where close to the garage and this solved the problem. Gotta love mesh networks. They even make specific Zwave repeaters for this purpose. Plugin devices that do nothing but act as a routing node.
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Feb 21, 2018 17:08
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The GE Link bulbs are just trash. No other bulbs have given me the same trouble. Had one a few feet away in direct line of sight of the hub and it still dropped regularly.
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Feb 21, 2018 17:24
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Google just announced an update to the Nest Cam IQ indoor camera that adds Google Assistant. I guess that thing has a speaker on it, so now it doubles as a Google Home (mini(camera)).
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Feb 21, 2018 22:00
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Hughlander posted:I'd love tips for keeping GE Link bulbs in network. House I brought had something like 33 of them. For some fortunate reason (knock on wood) none of the outdoor ones have ever fallen off the network but every other bulb seems to have multiple times. I even got 3 Zigbee outlets and put them around the house to try to strengthen the network since I read that GE Links won't relay messages by themselves. But things are still falling off. Well, I honestly tossed the one that wasn't working because it had become a liability to have turned on. It was in the same room as the hub and it still caused trouble. The other ones I have are okay, but they stay switched off most of the time at the wall. What makes them even more aggravating is the fact that the guts probably change from bulb to bulb. I got a couple where I needed to go into the SmartThings IDE to get them working, whereas I didn't need to for earlier ones. Oh, and the plastic domes collect condensation for some reason, and it can't escape once it's in there. Total garbage. I'm going Z-Wave where I can, now, and am also moving towards smart outlets and wall switches with dumb bulbs since I've had way more success with them.
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Feb 22, 2018 03:33
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Red Warrior posted:The GE Link bulbs are just trash. No other bulbs have given me the same trouble. Had one a few feet away in direct line of sight of the hub and it still dropped regularly. I have 2 OSRAM Lightify bulbs and out of the two, one inconsistently but regularly fails to respond to commands from the hub. So you can probably group them into the "trash" pile as well. They're $25AUD each though, which is roughly half the cost of a HUE bulb and significantly less than the next closest competitor over here. Maybe Tradfri will be better if they finally release here?
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Feb 22, 2018 03:42
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So, in case anyone cares...the solution to the issue where all my devices stopped working with my smartthings hub was a reboot. But a very specific kind of reboot! I have the SmartThings Link which works as a hub but connects to my nvidia shield tv. Being a modern person I of course knew to try rebooting the shield, and I even unplugged the Link from the shield a few times. Unfortunately, I didn't do it in the order Samsung eventually told me to do this: 1. Unplug Link while Shield is on. 2. Power off the shield. By "power off" this means you must go into the menu and select power off. Do not do it by unplugging the device or using the touch-sensitive power off "button" on the device. 3. While the shield is powered off, plug the Link back in. 4. Power back on. 5. Everything now working.
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Feb 22, 2018 17:53
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Whats a good starting point if I wanna look into installing surveillance systems? Main thing is being able to view feeds remotely. What am I looking at in terms of hardware? Is it stupid not to go with a service as outlined in the OP?
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Feb 26, 2018 17:01
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codo27 posted:Whats a good starting point if I wanna look into installing surveillance systems? Main thing is being able to view feeds remotely. What am I looking at in terms of hardware? Is it stupid not to go with a service as outlined in the OP? Do you want something that you just plug in and don't have to do anything more to get working, or do you want a DIY camera janitor setup?
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Feb 26, 2018 18:07
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I wanna know what kind of options are out there and what kind of advantages there are to them. Plug and play would be great but what kinds of features are available and a good idea to have?
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Feb 26, 2018 18:22
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I have a 17 year old and 19 year old living in a pretty dumpy apartment. I live an hour away and always worry about their safety. Any recommendations on a security system that would let them know when someone enters or exits the apartment or does some sort of loud alarm? It likely wouldn’t be connected like an ADT type of thing but wouldn’t mind learning about a service I could pay for that wasn’t ADT (I don’t really like ADT).
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Feb 26, 2018 23:51
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codo27 posted:I wanna know what kind of options are out there and what kind of advantages there are to them. Plug and play would be great but what kinds of features are available and a good idea to have? Some of this depends on the system scale. Home users are slightly different than small business which are different than small home business like a day care and so on.
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Feb 27, 2018 00:01
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Piggy Smalls posted:I have a 17 year old and 19 year old living in a pretty dumpy apartment. I live an hour away and always worry about their safety. Any recommendations on a security system that would let them know when someone enters or exits the apartment or does some sort of loud alarm? It likely wouldn’t be connected like an ADT type of thing but wouldn’t mind learning about a service I could pay for that wasn’t ADT (I don’t really like ADT). For an apartment, Simplesafe probably should work fine. You don't need zoning and the space should be small enough for wireless sensors to have enough range.
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Feb 27, 2018 00:08
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Piggy Smalls posted:I have a 17 year old and 19 year old living in a pretty dumpy apartment. I live an hour away and always worry about their safety. Any recommendations on a security system that would let them know when someone enters or exits the apartment or does some sort of loud alarm? It likely wouldn’t be connected like an ADT type of thing but wouldn’t mind learning about a service I could pay for that wasn’t ADT (I don’t really like ADT). Cheapest would just be a wireless doorbell system that supports door sensors - something like https://www.homedepot.com/p/Honeywell-Wireless-Door-Contacts-RCA901N/202187814 E: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Hampton-Bay-Wireless-Door-Alert-Kit-HB-7900-02/206135504 might be easier even. Kalman fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Feb 27, 2018 |
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Feb 27, 2018 00:16
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I love you goons. Serious. This is why I can never ever leave these forums. Such amazing people are goons. Thanks for the advice. Will look into Simplisafe.
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Feb 27, 2018 04:40
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Thomamelas posted:Some of this depends on the system scale. Home users are slightly different than small business which are different than small home business like a day care and so on. Well one person I know just wants a couple cameras to monitor their rental property something like the guy above me except its cause the tenant has a pet they are not allowed to have and is making GBS threads all over the place. Regardless its something I wanna learn about
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Feb 27, 2018 15:37
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So my Amazon Echo has finally learned to listen to my 3 year old. When she says " 'lessa turn da teebee awff" it works perfectly. Downside is that it's hilarious biased towards her and is hard to hear my wife and I now. Technology.
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Feb 27, 2018 15:56
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codo27 posted:Well one person I know just wants a couple cameras to monitor their rental property something like the guy above me except its cause the tenant has a pet they are not allowed to have and is making GBS threads all over the place. Regardless its something I wanna learn about If you want a full course than https://ipvm.com/ has a pretty good one along with their guides. Although most of their stuff is behind a paywall. Are you looking as a general curiosity? Are you looking to do the install for people you know? That tends to change up how you approach the subject matter. It's kind of a big subject and I don't mind doing a few effort posts but it does help to know where to start. Actually I can start with an easy one. You can break up cameras into types a couple of different ways. Today we'll start with transmission method. IP vs Analog vs HDAnalog vs Cloud. Starting with IP. IP transmits over a network. So most commonly over Cat5/6 but there are a lot of alternative options. But for stuff like jails you'll see RG-59/6 being used to carry the network. The pros to this is that I can move some computing power to the edge. Things like motion detection and basic analytics can be done on the camera. I can also put inputs and outputs on the camera. Resolution is limited only by bandwidth and the processing chip sets available at the time of design. The downside is compatibility is more complex. In theory ONVIF was supposed to help with that but ended up being only kinda. A lot of ONVIF support is only the bare minimum requirements. So you'll get streaming video, hopefully audio. But some of the things like motion detection, or the inputs and outputs being supported may not happen. This means you're still generally dependent on what the camera's SDK offers and what the NVR or VMS supports. Some manufacturers are good about this. Axis goes out of their way to avoid breaking support for previously implemented features for their cameras. Security or other reasons sometimes force it but it tends to be a fairly rare event. It's one reason every VMS/NVR supports them. Write support once, make small updates every few years. Hikvision as an opposite example breaks poo poo constantly. Not every firmware revision but every couple breaks something. Analog: Generally you'll find most analog systems are on coax, with the occasional UTP install. Other options exist but they tend to be exotic. Or in the case of low end wireless, not worth using. The pros with analog is widespread compatibility for the video side. It's all pretty much NTSC or PAL. SEACAM doesn't have really any support in the industry and their might have been some tiny company doing it but I've never heard of them. But if I plug in an NTSC camera to an NTSC DVR, it pretty much just works. But that's also the cons. You're limited to NTSC and PAL resolutions. There were some attempts to go beyond it like 960H but that's such a terrible loving idea that every 960H device should pretty much be burned. The other big headache is PTZ support is a big pain. And you have to move stuff into the DVR like motion detection. HD Analog: Kind of a poo poo show. In the beginning there was HD-SDI which was branded as HD-CCTV. It had more resolution than Analog which was good. But it cost as much as IP which was bad. And IP had more resolution with the early 2.O MP cameras. Which was much worse. Basically it was a pretty stupid idea. And that's been the general trend since. Right now there are three competing standards in the market. HD-TVI, HD-CVI, and AHD. The first two are Hikvision and Dahua. The later is a bit more open but the only player of note is Hanwha who bought Samsung's security camera division. There is some compatibility but it's iffy. It's fine for home users as long as they understand that an upgrade is generally gonna be rip and replace. Cloud: I'll include cloud as it's own thing because while it's IP, the architecture is pretty different. Recording goes to the cloud. What this means is the cameras are often designed as cheaply as possible with almost all processing done in the cloud. This is great because you can apply some analytics that home users might not bother with. The downside is they need all of the video. So for most home users they are looking at being happy with one or two cameras, with happiness decreasing as the number of cameras increase. Also the image quality tends not to be as good as other cameras at the same resolution. This is because cloud cameras tend to have much more aggressive compression settings than an IP camera or the DVR at the same resolution.
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Mar 1, 2018 05:15
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Ikea had an update for their app today for their smart app. It mentions support for under the cabinet lighting, which doesn't seem to be something they have listed on their website yet.
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Mar 1, 2018 12:31
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Anyone had recent experience with blinds from either Lutron's Serena line or from ZebraBlinds? We're not super picky about the blinds themselves (vanity, fabrics, snazz) but are more interested in the quality of their Z-wave radios, remotes, and motors. The price difference isn't straight up double, but it's close. We're looking at single blackout rollers or blackout cellular and would upgrade to double rollers in a few big rooms for both blackout and diffuse sweetness. Point out any pitfalls, goons?
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Mar 10, 2018 20:55
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Tapedump posted:Anyone had recent experience with blinds from either Lutron's Serena line or from ZebraBlinds? No experience, but what exactly is the point of having these other than achieving peak laziness? I mean, there’s a good argument to be made for the illusion of security they comes from having the blinds appear to open and close when you’re not home, but wouldn’t it be one more thing to have to put batteries in? I guess I just don’t get it.
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Mar 10, 2018 23:11
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housefly posted:No experience, but what exactly is the point of having these other than achieving peak laziness? I mean, there’s a good argument to be made for the illusion of security they comes from having the blinds appear to open and close when you’re not home, but wouldn’t it be one more thing to have to put batteries in? I guess I just don’t get it. I know personally I have a bank of 5 windows across the rear of my house on the first floor. The blinds are almost always down because I can't be bothered to open and close them every day. Definitely plan to add smart shades at some point so they can close at night, or when I tell Alexa it's move time or whatever. So...I guess peak laziness yeah.
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Mar 10, 2018 23:46
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housefly posted:No experience, but what exactly is the point of having these other than achieving peak laziness? I mean, there’s a good argument to be made for the illusion of security they comes from having the blinds appear to open and close when you’re not home, but wouldn’t it be one more thing to have to put batteries in? I guess I just don’t get it. Skylights and other inaccessible windows, for one.
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Mar 11, 2018 00:31
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Kalman posted:Skylights and other inaccessible windows, for one. That makes sense for those applications. I live in a ranch so for me it’s just being Uber lazy. That said, I do need shades to go with my curtains.
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Mar 11, 2018 00:35
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housefly posted:No experience, but what exactly is the point of having these other than achieving peak laziness? I mean, there’s a good argument to be made for the illusion of security they comes from having the blinds appear to open and close when you’re not home, but wouldn’t it be one more thing to have to put batteries in? I guess I just don’t get it. Can we change the thread title to Home Automation - Peak Laziness?
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Mar 11, 2018 01:03
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I am here for peak laziness. But also scenes. And in the case of blinds you could use for temperature control in some spots. In the bedroom you could have them open with your alarm. My wife likes to always close some of our blinds when we leave the house, so that could be automated (since I forget so frequently). But mostly for peak laziness, and so I have one extra thing to unplug when the robots take over.
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Mar 11, 2018 22:04
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