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dreesemonkey posted:Are there any recommendations for a not-terrible basic security cam / DVR systems? A 4 camera one would probably be plenty. My feeling from reading most of the reviews of different kinds are the software tends to be poo poo and/or people are expecting it to be end all be all absolutely perfect in every situation. My requirements are fairly basic. I don't need text/e-mail alerts or anything like that if it detects motion, I would just like to be able to access and export footage if something were to happen and I guess it would be nice if I could see live feeds if I really wanted to. This is a pretty good system. Hook up a couple of their cameras and you're good to go. http://www.nortekcontrol.com/pdf/literature/2gig-nvr-lit.pdf
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Aug 17, 2016 18:05
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It's an old video but still pretty funny https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t218kHnQK0
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Aug 24, 2016 09:39
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Has anyone seen/heard of a "smart kettle"? I currently have this kettle and it is excellent, but in my infinite laziness, I would like to be able to turn it on remotely. I have considered simply using a homekit-enabled outlet plug to give it power remotely, but that would not actually turn the kettle on. Anyone have any ideas?
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Sep 12, 2016 19:36
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chupacabraTERROR posted:I have considered simply using a homekit-enabled outlet plug to give it power remotely, but that would not actually turn the kettle on. Anyone have any ideas? That is a 1,500 watt kettle while almost all smart outlet plugs are rated below 600 Watts so be glad it won't work because otherwise your day might start with your home being on fire.
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Sep 12, 2016 19:45
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For those of you going the DIY route with HA.. The open source software Home Assistant recently added a feature to emulate a Philips hue bridge. This allows devices that support the Philips hue local API to be able to control any switchable device on your Home Assistant system. It is primarily meant to allow the Amazon Echo to integrate with zero work, and for that it works perfectly. The Echo immediately discovers all switchable or dimmable devices. It will also allow you to activate scenes or scripts you have setup in HA if you have them set to be exposed on the emulated hue bridge.
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Sep 16, 2016 15:05
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stevewm posted:For those of you going the DIY route with HA.. The open source software Home Assistant recently added a feature to emulate a Philips hue bridge. Could you explain this on very simple terms? Does this mean I can run the hue lights without buying the additional controller or something and if so how?
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Sep 16, 2016 15:08
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Keystoned posted:Could you explain this on very simple terms? Does this mean I can run the hue lights without buying the additional controller or something and if so how? No, to control actual Philips Hue lights you still need the bridge. This feature in Home Assistant fakes a hue bridge and allows other devices or systems to control devices inside the Home Assistant software via the Hue API. For example I have ZWave controlled light bulbs in my Living Room lamps on my Home Assistant system. HomeAssistant exposes these via it's fake Hue Bridge, so the Amazon Echo can see them and I can control them with voice commands to the Echo... for example: "Alexa, turn on living room lamps". As far as the Amazon Echo is concerned, it is controlling Philips Hue lights. Before this feature, getting Alexa/Echo integrated in Home Assistant was not an easy task. For those of you who don't mind a little coding and messing about, I really recommend Home Assistant. It is so flexible and supports soooo many devices. https://home-assistant.io/components/ It does have a somewhat steep learning curve due to the configuration being done via YAML text files. But this also allows it to be extremely flexible.
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Sep 16, 2016 15:25
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So if all I want to do is use an echo to turn on and off lights what is the easiest / cheapest method? At this point I dont care about colors or dimming or any fanciness. I just want to be able to tell alexa to turn off my kids lights when they forget to turn them off like always. My preference would be to just buy a bulb and screw it in without having to buy some fancy controller or hub also but maybe thats not possible?
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Sep 16, 2016 19:05
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I use a Philips Hue starter kit for this. Hub + 2 bulbs.
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Sep 16, 2016 22:17
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As long as you don't care about turning them on with voice, just use a hue. If you care about turning them on it's more complex because if the switch is turned off the bulb won't respond.
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Sep 16, 2016 22:40
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sellouts posted:As long as you don't care about turning them on with voice, just use a hue. Or get a switch guard and a Hue wall switch and then it isn't an issue.
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Sep 16, 2016 23:57
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Keystoned posted:So if all I want to do is use an echo to turn on and off lights what is the easiest / cheapest method? At this point I dont care about colors or dimming or any fanciness. I just want to be able to tell alexa to turn off my kids lights when they forget to turn them off like always. How many lights? A smart bulb costs $15 each, a smart switch costs $35. Yes you need a hub but if you are like most people once you start automating a couple of lights you will love how well it works so much that you will want to add more eventually so you are really, really better off just dropping the $65 on a Wink hub now and be ready for any devices or more sophisticated automation you want to do than start from scratch and re-pair everything later.
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Sep 17, 2016 01:03
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Kalman posted:Or get a switch guard and a Hue wall switch and then it isn't an issue. I don't really consider covering up a switch and mounting something right next to it on the wall an acceptably elegant solution.
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Sep 17, 2016 02:53
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Kalman posted:Or get a switch guard and a Hue wall switch and then it isn't an issue. This is dumb, how would this seem like a desirably situation to anyone sane? It costs $10 less than a Z-Wave wall switch and that doesn't even include the cost of the Hue hub. Buy a Wink hub and some z-wave wall switches.
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Sep 17, 2016 03:11
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Three Olives posted:This is dumb, how would this seem like a desirably situation to anyone sane? It costs $10 less than a Z-Wave wall switch and that doesn't even include the cost of the Hue hub. Wink Hub + Zwave switch = ~ 110 bucks. Non-dimmable (unless you spend more, and have a neutral wire), Siri is a pain. More flexible and can control gangs of lights together without trouble. Requires a willingness to go into a your switch box and wire things. Hue White starter kit plus switch/bulb kit plus switch guard = ~110 bucks. Dimmable, Siri works out of the box, as does Alexa. Three bulbs, so if the switch is controlling a room with multiple bulbs it might not be a great solution. On the other hand, if each room is only lit by a single overhead bulb in a fan or similar, it'll work fine for multiple rooms. No opening up walls. Both approaches have merits, pick the one that makes more sense for your house, but both are options.
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Sep 17, 2016 03:21
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Kalman posted:Wink Hub + Zwave switch = ~ 110 bucks. Non-dimmable (unless you spend more, and have a neutral wire), Siri is a pain. More flexible and can control gangs of lights together without trouble. Requires a willingness to go into a your switch box and wire things. But if a room is lit by multiple bulbs, you can just add more bulbs and group them together as a "room" in the hue or home app. Unless you're using track lights or bulbs that aren't regular lights, then maybe you should consider smart switches instead.
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Sep 17, 2016 04:23
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Frank Dillinger posted:But if a room is lit by multiple bulbs, you can just add more bulbs and group them together as a "room" in the hue or home app. Unless you're using track lights or bulbs that aren't regular lights, then maybe you should consider smart switches instead. Well, it's a cost issue at that point - some of the switches in my house are running gangs of 6 or 8 lights. One switch is a lot cheaper than 8 Hue bulbs there. (Which is why I have both Hue and z-wave switches in my setup.)
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Sep 17, 2016 05:34
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For what it's worth there's no opening up walls in any of these situations. Even if you don't have a neutral wire it's pretty easy to pull one from a light usually. You can't get insteon at Home Depot but my switches and controllers have been awesome. Indigo domotics is a great piece of software and the plugin system hasn't treated me wrong.
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Sep 17, 2016 07:19
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Frank Dillinger posted:But if a room is lit by multiple bulbs, you can just add more bulbs and group them together as a "room" in the hue or home app. Unless you're using track lights or bulbs that aren't regular lights, then maybe you should consider smart switches instead. A room lit by less than 2 bulbs? We obvious in stupid early adoption phase of smart homes but come on, light switches should act as light switches, if you have to explain to someone how your loving light switch works in your home you have done something terribly wrong. I don't care if you have taped another one next to a guard, you screwed something up.
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Sep 17, 2016 08:40
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I'm thinking of getting a wemo switch to control my bedside lamps, a switch operates the plugs, with my echo dot. Is it a decent option? I'm trying to skip buying a hub and I have neutral wires throughout the house.
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Sep 17, 2016 20:52
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Three Olives posted:A room lit by less than 2 bulbs? I think we're discussing two different things. All I'm saying is, if you have multiple hue/smart bulbs in one room, you can group them together in HomeKit as one singular element, so that you can flip them all on with one command. Guest access is obviously a concern, but you can use lutron or insteon switches instead in that case.
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Sep 17, 2016 21:50
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Three Olives posted:A room lit by less than 2 bulbs? Totally. My bathroom, my hallway both have one light for starters. Both of which benefit from being smart for nightlight purposes alone, yet less the bathroom being a light that, for whatever reason, I forget to turn off. I'm in agreement with you but weren't you also upset that you couldn't order uber from your wall switch? That's an equally silly use case to others.
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Sep 17, 2016 22:14
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sellouts posted:I'm in agreement with you but weren't you also upset that you couldn't order uber from your wall switch? That's an equally silly use case to others. Upset? I thought my clear overarching argument was when you are getting into such intimate technology as a light switch it should just loving work. I'm not upset that I can't order an Uber from my light switch but if you are going to put a Uber button on my light switch it better drat work. We accept that "technology" doesn't work sometimes, I think almost all of us are fine with that, the issue is a light switch is not "technology", it should work as a light switch always. If you want to tack some additional functionality onto it great but that technology should work at the level of a light switch because it is a light switch. Do it right or don't bother doing it
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Sep 17, 2016 23:45
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"We" What wired smart switch doesn't work in that way? And how does that pass regulation in regards to controlling electrical load? A list of those should appear in the OP as that's pretty dangerous. Hues are great. They have great application in varied electrical situations, the software is super easy to use, the bulbs are easily found, i find them to be high quality, they require no electrical knowledge for those that cannot modify their place or aren't sure they want to commit, and there are ways that an adult of average cognitive ability without a smartphone could walk into a room and figure it out intuitively. There are also a lot of options that aren't hue that are just as good or possibly better!
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Sep 18, 2016 00:10
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A great example for Hue is my bedroom. We have a wall switch at the door that controls a lighted ceiling fan. Right next to that I placed the Hue dimmer switch plate which controls the table lights that are on the two night stands. Did the same thing in our new nursery for our soon to be born son. Got a Hue White Ambiance for a sole table lamp which is awesome for creating a very dim and warm glow. Should work great for giving enough light to feed the baby without having to turn on the ceiling fan with three 40watt equiv bulbs. Hues are awesome!
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Sep 18, 2016 02:04
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Got the hue two-bulb pack and hub and tested it in my bedroom. Turning on lights with my watch is rad as hell. (also returned C by GE, which are cheap and easy to use, but suck)
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Sep 18, 2016 06:27
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Rorus Raz posted:Got the hue two-bulb pack and hub and tested it in my bedroom. Turning on lights with my watch is rad as hell. Can't the GE and Cree smart bulbs also be controlled by hue? I thought there was a big thing when hue killed access to third-party bulbs some time ago?
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Sep 18, 2016 07:14
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No idea, but there were no standalone hubs available at the time either way
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Sep 18, 2016 07:23
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I have a switched outlet in my living room which turns on a lamp. On the other side of my living room I have a couple more lamps that I'd like to turn on with the same switch. Is there some sort of extender thing that I can plug into the switched outlet and whatever other outlet I want to control? Basically a comercialized version of this. I feel like if you can have internet transmitted over powerlines it shouldn't be that difficult to control a relay.
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Sep 19, 2016 21:42
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durk onion posted:I have a switched outlet in my living room which turns on a lamp. On the other side of my living room I have a couple more lamps that I'd like to turn on with the same switch. Is there some sort of extender thing that I can plug into the switched outlet and whatever other outlet I want to control? Basically a comercialized version of this. You need a smart hub, then have the hub monitor the state of the smart switch and have it trigger the smart outlet based on the state of the smart switch. Three Olives fucked around with this message at 02:38 on Sep 20, 2016 |
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Sep 20, 2016 01:22
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Here's what I was thinking of: SwitchFlip. Unfortunately it's still vaporware...
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Sep 20, 2016 16:00
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I've just started looking at this stuff, but it seems like while you wait for that thing you could also do it by controlling the bulbs instead of the outlets, with like this kit and two more bulbs. Not very versatile without the hub, though, I would think.
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Sep 20, 2016 20:59
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spiralbrain posted:This is a pretty good system. Hook up a couple of their cameras and you're good to go. This looks cool (I like the Alarm I/O interface on it). My one hesitation is that it lists two specific cameras that it supports. If I have another PoE web camera from Ubiquiti, is guaranteed not to work on this system?
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Sep 21, 2016 05:34
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WithoutTheFezOn posted:I've just started looking at this stuff, but it seems like while you wait for that thing you could also do it by controlling the bulbs instead of the outlets, with like this kit and two more bulbs. Not very versatile without the hub, though, I would think.
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Sep 21, 2016 05:39
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Phone? durk onion just wanted to control three lamps simultaneously with one switch. Won't that switch let you do that?
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Sep 21, 2016 08:03
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stevewm posted:No, to control actual Philips Hue lights you still need the bridge. How is HA vs. OpenHAB? I've got OpenHAB controlling my ZWave switches and working with a bridge to Echo, but I couldn't figure out how to get the dimmers/fan switches to do anything other than just be Off/On with Echo.
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Sep 21, 2016 19:02
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WhyteRyce posted:How is HA vs. OpenHAB? I've got OpenHAB controlling my ZWave switches and working with a bridge to Echo, but I couldn't figure out how to get the dimmers/fan switches to do anything other than just be Off/On with Echo. Only thing I can say is I briefly tried OpenHab. I quickly got frustrated with it. Not to mention couldn't find a decent GUI for it at the time. I found HA and never looked back. Getting ZWave working was a little hairy since it uses a separate OpenZWave library for it. Getting the Echo working is as simple as adding "emulated_hue:" to your configuration.yaml. (Though I think for new installs it is there by default.) Once you have done that and restarted HA, tell Alexa to discover devices. It should find all switches and dimmers by default. Dimmers automatically work with commands such as "Alexa, dim left lamp to 50", or "dim left lamp to half", etc... Dunno about fan controls as I don't have any of those. As a side effect of using the emulated Hue bridge, you can only use On/Off/Dim commands. So to activate a Scene or Script you have to use the ON command. For example I have a scene called "Movie Mode" To activate it, I say "Alexa, turn on Movie Mode". I used these instructions: https://home-assistant.io/getting-started/installation-virtualenv/ to install HA on a headless virtualbox Ubuntu 16.04 VM running on my home server. Alternatively they also have a all-in-one script that will install everything in one go on a Raspberry Pi 2 or 3. (3 recommended) https://home-assistant.io/getting-started/installation-raspberry-pi-all-in-one/
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Sep 23, 2016 14:07
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I'm (re: my general contractor is) hardwiring my smoke detectors into my panel because my house is torn up right now anyway. I also have a wired security system with a basic Ademco panel. If I wanted to tie my wired smoke detectors into the security system, is that a huge undertaking or should I pay an electrician to do it?
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Sep 28, 2016 01:24
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HEY NONG MAN posted:I'm (re: my general contractor is) hardwiring my smoke detectors into my panel because my house is torn up right now anyway. I also have a wired security system with a basic Ademco panel. If I wanted to tie my wired smoke detectors into the security system, is that a huge undertaking or should I pay an electrician to do it? There are hardwired smoke detectors that don't have a alarm trigger, there are hardwired alarm systems that use standardized mesh wireless for connection, there are hardwired that use wifi for connection, there are completely proprietary ones. The simple answer is if you don't want to do some basic research on how your alarm sensor(s) are triggered hire someone, none of us know how your system is wired nor what detectors your contractor is planning on installing.
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Sep 28, 2016 03:22
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Three Olives posted:There are hardwired smoke detectors that don't have a alarm trigger, there are hardwired alarm systems that use standardized mesh wireless for connection, there are hardwired that use wifi for connection, there are completely proprietary ones. There are smoke rings that integrate with existing hardwired smoke detectors that trigger a 24hr Fire to a panel if its running a 345 receiver (which I believe most do in the US). It looks at the electrical signal that is generated during the alarm and sends the signal to the panel. I think they work with most 345 panels. Honestly I wouldnt mess with wiring anything. Wiring sucks and its just easier to deal with wireless when applicable.
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Oct 5, 2016 16:14
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