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No kids, just a household of two adults but we use our six Homes constantly. All lights, the garage, the Nest, the home theatre, the bedroom TV, and then music for any room (or all rooms) in the house... You get the idea. Honestly if we just had Minis we probably wouldn't use them for music but the full sized Homes sound good enough to fill a small room or play podcasts. I went into them skeptical but I couldn't live without them now.
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Jul 4, 2018 10:57
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LastInLine posted:Honestly if we just had Minis we probably wouldn't use them for music but the full sized Homes sound good enough to fill a small room or play podcasts. This is actually really useful info, thanks Hubis fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Jul 4, 2018 |
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Jul 4, 2018 11:42
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Hubis posted:This is actually really useful info, thanka We have 5 Homes and one Mini and the Mini is in a room that gets used seldomly but does get used. Had I been thinking, I'd have put it in the living room since that's the one place I'll never want to use the Home to play music, but it was the one we got last so that's how it ended up. The mic on the Mini is just as good as the full sized Homes as far as I can tell, and the volume of the vocal replies is good enough but if you care about the music (and I'll say I found out that I did a whole lot more than I thought I would after I had them for a while), go for the full sized ones.
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Jul 4, 2018 12:08
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Zero VGS posted:popularity = good? If you say so... I wasn't trying to battle anyone here, just giving my honest opinion. I find the smart speakers invasive and not worth the money/hassle but apparently families have a different use case than a sullen goon. Actually, popularity = good is not the argument I made. In the gooniest way, you decreed that it was a useless gimmick as if that was a self apparent law of the universe. When others had just said they like it and find it useful, that struck me as a stupid and arrogant decree to make. None of that has anything to do with popularity or it being good. Thermopyle fucked around with this message at 16:06 on Jul 4, 2018 |
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Jul 4, 2018 16:02
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BTW, the minis are surprisingly fine for background music or podcasts in a small bedroom, but I have most of mine set up to automatically play audio or video on other speakers and tvs.
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Jul 4, 2018 16:04
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Does anyone else use Homeseer rocker switches? I’m wondering if I can disable multi-press detection to make the switch more responsive to single presses (which is all I use).
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Jul 4, 2018 16:13
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Thermopyle posted:In the gooniest way, you decreed that it was a useless gimmick as if that was a self apparent law of the universe. I hadn't read anyone else's replies when I made the comment about it being a dumb gimmick, I just refreshed the awful app on the train and saw the highlighted green response directly to me, and replied to it answering with my own genuinely held personal opinion. My arrogant response was in fact still uncolored by anyone else and based on my own personal experience with an Alexa in my apartment. Sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings with a contrary opinion, I don't care about smart speakers enough to die on this hill. I feel like that guy who leaves a bad review and ruins the new Batman's Rotten Tomatoes score and everyone is pissed enough to start doxxing my house or something. I'm glad everyone here finds them useful.
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Jul 4, 2018 17:52
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Zero VGS posted:Sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings with a contrary opinion, If anyones feelings were hurt over this I don't know what to say...
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Jul 4, 2018 19:05
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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. I’m also open to other options, I want something that will be easy for me and my wife to use but still be usable to people who don’t know the voice commands or have the app on their phone.
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Jul 4, 2018 20:19
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Zero VGS posted:I hadn't read anyone else's replies when I made the comment about it being a dumb gimmick Let's all be better posters. Topcality, you see...! I'd say the Minis sound a smidge better than an Echo Dot, but I agree with Thermoplye that most any non-flagship model speaker should be piped through a better sound system, AVR, etc. (Yes, hot take is a disparaging statement.)
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Jul 4, 2018 23:12
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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. The thing that SmartThings has going for it is that it's a very good zigbee/zwave hub. With home assistant you have to hope you can configure a zwave/zigbee radio to work with your PC or whatever you're running HA on. A possible middle ground is to use your smartthings hub as basically a zigbee/zwave dongle. You set up the smartthings-mqtt-bridge which forwards events from your devices to your HA install and forwards commands from your HA install through ST to your devices. It works fine (unless you're using the SmartThings Shield TV dongle...the Shield 7.0 upddate broke the ability of the dongle to communicate with HA). I've been using the hybrid approach for several weeks and it works well as long as you're nerdy enough to get it set up. But if you're nerdy enough to set up HA, you should be fine. Unfortunately, I've been using the Shield TV ST dongle which is the one that no longer works with the HA bridge, so now I've got a zwave USB stick on the way and I'm hoping it's not a horrible headache to get working with HA.
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Jul 5, 2018 00:15
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The thing that will probably make me get an Echo finally is TiVo integration. Even with the ap on my phone and the iPad whose home is theoretically next to the TV chair, I find myself remoteless fairly often.
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Jul 5, 2018 00:25
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Thermopyle posted:so now I've got a zwave USB stick on the way and I'm hoping it's not a horrible headache to get working with HA. Other than making sure you have the right ID specified for your USB stick, it’s pretty straightforward (if you’re used to HA.)
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Jul 5, 2018 00:32
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Rick posted:The thing that will probably make me get an Echo finally is TiVo integration. Even with the ap on my phone and the iPad whose home is theoretically next to the TV chair, I find myself remoteless fairly often. “OK tuning to NBC on tiVOH”. *goes back to using Harmony Hub activity*
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Jul 5, 2018 00:44
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Kalman posted:Other than making sure you have the right ID specified for your USB stick, it’s pretty straightforward (if you’re used to HA.) That's good to hear. Though, I have the additional wrinkle where I'm running HA in a Docker container, and I've never tried passing a USB device into a container before. The bit I've read says it should work, so here's hoping...
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Jul 5, 2018 01:08
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Rick posted:The thing that will probably make me get an Echo finally is TiVo integration. Even with the ap on my phone and the iPad whose home is theoretically next to the TV chair, I find myself remoteless fairly often. Voice controls for television, particularly shuttle and volume, is not a pleasant experience. I use Google Assistant to control Harmony and while selecting a source or even starting playback of something is fine, beyond that (and maybe pause and resume), you find yourself needing the remote enough that it just isn't worth the hassle. YMMV, of course.
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Jul 5, 2018 04:40
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LastInLine posted:Voice controls for television, particularly shuttle and volume, is not a pleasant experience. I use Google Assistant to control Harmony and while selecting a source or even starting playback of something is fine, beyond that (and maybe pause and resume), you find yourself needing the remote enough that it just isn't worth the hassle. YMMV, of course. WithoutTheFezOn posted:Alexa, watch NBC. That bad, huh? I don't think I'll use it for anything but pause but if that's just a maybe at best, maybe I won't.
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Jul 5, 2018 09:14
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Rick posted:That bad, huh? I don't think I'll use it for anything but pause but if that's just a maybe at best, maybe I won't. I don't know if Alexa has native integration with Harmony but Google Assistant doesn't so complicating the matters is having to build IFTTT recipes to do things (which broke with Harmony around Christmas last year requiring me to use Stringify to get IFTTT to work) so it's kind of clunky in that you have to make your trigger phrases ahead of time. Even with native support though it just wouldn't be that wonderful. It's great for stuff like turning everything on which takes time with a Harmony anyway, you can do it in the kitchen while you're preparing your snack and when you sit down it's ready to go. It's great for turning everything off when you're done. Everything in between is better just using the remote.
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Jul 5, 2018 10:06
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LastInLine posted:I don't know if Alexa has native integration with Harmony but Google Assistant doesn't so complicating the matters is having to build IFTTT recipes to do things (which broke with Harmony around Christmas last year requiring me to use Stringify to get IFTTT to work) so it's kind of clunky in that you have to make your trigger phrases ahead of time. Yes Alexa does have native support for Harmony. I can say stuff like "Turn on BBC 1" to Alexa and the harmony will activate the appropriate activity, and then enter the correct channel number automatically. This is through the Harmony Favourites. Turn on/off works perfectly for all activities, Play/Pause works 90% of the time. There's also a secondary harmony skill which lets you specify commands directly but the voice syntax is a bit more clunky "Alexa, tell harmony to [exit]" for example. I have both skills active as it lets me use the standard commands with the simple voice interface and the more esoteric commands using the longer syntax.
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Jul 5, 2018 11:53
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Rick posted:That bad, huh? I don't think I'll use it for anything but pause but if that's just a maybe at best, maybe I won't.
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Jul 5, 2018 15:01
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Google assistant has native support for harmony. You just say, "ok google, ask harmony to [tv related task]". You could also set up shortcuts in the home app so you can leave out the "ask harmony" part. https://support.myharmony.com/en-us/harmony-experience-with-google-assistant
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Jul 5, 2018 15:35
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McPhearson posted:Google assistant has native support for harmony. You just say, "ok google, ask harmony to [tv related task]". You could also set up shortcuts in the home app so you can leave out the "ask harmony" part. That isn't what I meant by "native support". When you have to ask [x] to do [y], that's called an "Assistant App". That's not native. Native is what you get when you deal with Home Control devices, like your Nest or your Hue bulbs. You can just ask Google to "set the Nest to 69 degrees" or "turn on the living room". Harmony is supposed to eventually make it into that latter group where you can just ask Google to "Turn on the living room TV" and it will, no asking Harmony to do it. Now you can automate this away by creating IFTTT phrases but that's not the same as natural language. I'd say if it's going to happen it's a long way off because it's not like there's even a category for such home controls yet but I've read that they intend to get it there. Hearing how it's done on the Alexa side with some commands being native and some being delegated the way Assistant Apps work make me think Google's aiming for about the same functionality which will be better than it is while still being too awkward to use regularly. I do love voice assistants a lot but voice control watching things is very much a square peg in a round hole as it stands today.
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Jul 5, 2018 16:09
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LastInLine posted:Harmony is supposed to eventually make it into that latter group where you can just ask Google to "Turn on the living room TV" and it will, no asking Harmony to do it.
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Jul 5, 2018 16:43
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LastInLine posted:Harmony is supposed to eventually make it into that latter group where you can just ask Google to "Turn on the living room TV" and it will, no asking Harmony to do it. Now you can automate this away by creating IFTTT phrases but that's not the same as natural language. Yeah they were meant to be (or at least heavily implied they would be) rolling that out in May. No updates since then. https://www.blog.google/products/assistant/turning-your-house-smart-home-google-assistant/ WithoutTheFezOn posted:I’ve read that there is a thing for Alexa called “brief mode” (that some people saw pop up in March) that replaces most voice responses with just a beep, but I don’t see the correct option for that in my Alexa app. For me after I told it to do something a few weeks back Alexa just randomly asked if I wanted to enable that.
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Jul 5, 2018 17:30
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I just created HomeAssistant switches for my Harmony activities and then use my Google Home to turn on/off the associated activities without needing a “ask harmony.” Could map the volume to a HA light and use brightness to control volume and on/off for mute if you want voice control of volume. I will say that the ability to voice control shuttle via things like “skip ahead 15 minutes” or “skip to 1 hour” is actually really nice in apps that support it.
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Jul 5, 2018 17:35
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LastInLine posted:That isn't what I meant by "native support". When you have to ask [x] to do [y], that's called an "Assistant App". That's not native. Native is what you get when you deal with Home Control devices, like your Nest or your Hue bulbs. You can just ask Google to "set the Nest to 69 degrees" or "turn on the living room". I understand now. Although you don't need to get IFTTT involved at all to get rid of the "ask harmony to..." part, in the Google Home app you can set up shortcuts so when you say "turn on the TV" it adds "ask harmony" behind the scenes.
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Jul 5, 2018 20:49
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McPhearson posted:I understand now. Although you don't need to get IFTTT involved at all to get rid of the "ask harmony to..." part, in the Google Home app you can set up shortcuts so when you say "turn on the TV" it adds "ask harmony" behind the scenes. Do you have to add a different shortcut for each Harmony activity, or do you add the Harmony command all at once?
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Jul 5, 2018 21:46
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Subjunctive posted:Do you have to add a different shortcut for each Harmony activity, or do you add the Harmony command all at once? Each activity 
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Jul 5, 2018 22:43
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McPhearson posted:I understand now. Although you don't need to get IFTTT involved at all to get rid of the "ask harmony to..." part, in the Google Home app you can set up shortcuts so when you say "turn on the TV" it adds "ask harmony" behind the scenes. Yeah I set all this up before the Routines rollout and while I'd love to simplify I'm not going to do it if native support is coming. Plus Routines have the same problem IFTTT faces which is having to use an exact trigger phrase.
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Jul 6, 2018 06:20
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WithoutTheFezOn posted:For info, you can do this with Echos now if you go into the Harmony app and set up an activity /scene /whatever they call it You don't need to set up Routines for this. The Harmony skill already allows you to say "Turn on TV", or "Turn on Shield" without any extra config. This is the new version of the Harmony skill which was enabled about 6 months ago in the UK.
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Jul 6, 2018 09:02
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Yeah I was only thinking about how I do things. My “Watch TV” activity actually turns on the TV, TiVo, and receiver, and sets all the inputs.
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Jul 6, 2018 16:16
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Thermopyle posted:That's good to hear. Though, I have the additional wrinkle where I'm running HA in a Docker container, and I've never tried passing a USB device into a container before. The bit I've read says it should work, so here's hoping... I'm running Home Assistant in a Docker container as well and all I had to do was add code:
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Jul 6, 2018 16:35
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Oh nice thanks for the input. My Zstick just got delivered today. Maybe I'll have time to set it up this weekend. Anyone know what I have to do since all my zwave devices are already paired with my smartthings hub? Also can anyone recommend a zigbee usb device?
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Jul 6, 2018 18:38
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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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HycoCam posted: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. Does using the ST hub in this way still require the ST cloud to send commands, or is it all processed locally?
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Jul 6, 2018 20:39
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Thermopyle posted:Oh nice thanks for the input. My Zstick just got delivered today. Maybe I'll have time to set it up this weekend. The most reliable way to do it is to unpair every device from Smartthings and then add it to HA. Also, when you’re adding to HA you should preferably be adding using the HA Zwave control panel with the stick plugged in, not by using the button on the stick and walking around. (The latter can work but is less reliable.) That may require you to move your HA system around unless it’s ZWP devices or everything is direct hop to the stick, though.
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Jul 6, 2018 20:40
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bobfather posted:Does using the ST hub in this way still require the ST cloud to send commands, or is it all processed locally? It sends MQTT messages locally - you install a smartapp to do so and give it the IP address of the MQTT bridge (and annoyingly can't give it a dns name). Although I could easily see the hub throwing its hands up and just not doing anything if the internet is down, though. I haven't had an internet outage since switching to this method to know.
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Jul 7, 2018 00:15
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Does Echo connection still go through the cloud, or is that local too?
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Jul 7, 2018 00:17
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Subjunctive posted:Does Echo connection still go through the cloud, or is that local too? There are a few ways to get Alexa to work with Home Assistant. Home Assistant has an emulated Hue Bridge, which works on the local network. My understanding is that if you have multiple Echos, one will be chosen as the permanent point of contact for the emulated Hue Bridge, but your voice still has to be sent out to Amazon to be processed, and I'm betting communication between Echo devices happens over the internet. It would most assuredly not work if the Alexa service is down.
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Jul 7, 2018 04:10
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Is there a way to have a regular (dumb) switch along with a smart switch in a 3-way setup? Or do both switches have to be smart switches? I watched some videos and they mention "add-on switch" but I don't know what that is.
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Jul 8, 2018 01:02
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