Misc Any smart home buffs?

[old.Osy]

I've put up a Home Assistant VM, ordered a Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 dongle, a few ikea Tradfri smart bulbs, and one temp/humidity sensor. Oh and an Atom Lite to be used as a BT proxy.

Still waiting for the parts to arrive - anyone here dabbling in smart home automation? What's your setup? Any pitfalls? Advice?

Ta

 

[Deebs]

I use Domoticz as my controller, have Z-Wave, Zigbee and smarthings. All controlled via Alexa. Fucking love it. Obviously have schedules but basically welcome to a world of pain and joy. You will love it.

I have bulbs, swiches, smoke alarms, sensors and power in my setup, all interacting with one another.

 

[smurkin]

I have quite a few Hue lights, a hue hub, three or four hue motion sensors, two smart switches, two nest thermostats, perhaps five nest protects and some tapo plugs and I think five echo dots.

I tend to program the lighting through the Hue App as the colour routines/options are pretty sophisticated. But mostly, I use alexa to switch the various groups on and off using voice controls. Alexs also supports sunrise/sunset triggers which are pretty useful for lighting. The tapo plugs are currently powering the outdoor christmas lights.

The heating is geofenced to my phone with alexa voice control and the smoke alarms are linked into lighting system so they flash when triggered (sometimes ).

I use light strips under the beds which are slaved to the motion sensors so that when you get out of bed in the dark of night a nightlight comes on just bright enough to see where you are walking without waking up the wife. The bathroom lights are similar so you when you walk in in the night they come on dim without blowing your eyes and turn off after 10 minutes. The kitchen also has motion sensors so if you come in with your hands full the strips and spots come on.

Yeah, you can spend a lot of time on this stuff. Its good when you have a family where no one turns lights of when leaving the room. Actually, the motion sensor/night lights are probably the best thing I have running.

 

[Aoami]

I have quite a few Hue lights, a hue hub, three or four hue motion sensors, two smart switches, two nest thermostats, perhaps five nest protects and some tapo plugs and I think five echo dots.

I tend to program the lighting through the Hue App as the colour routines/options are pretty sophisticated. But mostly, I use alexa to switch the various groups on and off using voice controls. Alexs also supports sunrise/sunset triggers which are pretty useful for lighting. The tapo plugs are currently powering the outdoor christmas lights.

The heating is geofenced to my phone with alexa voice control and the smoke alarms are linked into lighting system so they flash when triggered (sometimes ).

I use light strips under the beds which are slaved to the motion sensors so that when you get out of bed in the dark of night a nightlight comes on just bright enough to see where you are walking without waking up the wife. The bathroom lights are similar so you when you walk in in the night they come on dim without blowing your eyes and turn off after 10 minutes. The kitchen also has motion sensors so if you come in with your hands full the strips and spots come on.

Yeah, you can spend a lot of time on this stuff. Its good when you have a family where no one turns lights of when leaving the room. Actually, the motion sensor/night lights are probably the best thing I have running.

I have a nest thermostat - what's the need for two?

 

[caLLous]

I have a nest thermostat - what's the need for two?

Multiple zones?

 

[Bodhi]

We've got a selection of:

- Philips Hue bulbs
- Nest Cameras (indoor and outdoor)
- Nest Doorbell
- TP Link Plugs controlling outdoor lights
- Google Home/Hubs in various rooms

We don't do anything especially advanced, normally just use voice controls to turn the TV and Lights off when we go to bed. Looking to get more stuff in the New Year though. Wife wants a Nest Thermostat but from reading around, they are fairly limited in what they can do, and I am being recommended the Tado kit. Seems a bit cheaper, but also means you can get WiFi TRV's for the radiators, which seem very useful in a house we don't always use all the rooms in. Anyone tried one?

 

[Deebs]

We've got a selection of:

- Philips Hue bulbs
- Nest Cameras (indoor and outdoor)
- Nest Doorbell
- TP Link Plugs controlling outdoor lights
- Google Home/Hubs in various rooms

We don't do anything especially advanced, normally just use voice controls to turn the TV and Lights off when we go to bed. Looking to get more stuff in the New Year though. Wife wants a Nest Thermostat but from reading around, they are fairly limited in what they can do, and I am being recommended the Tado kit. Seems a bit cheaper, but also means you can get WiFi TRV's for the radiators, which seem very useful in a house we don't always use all the rooms in. Anyone tried one?

That's one thing I want to look at, radiator TRV's but I cannot get my head around the fact that if you seal one end of a rad completely off how the fuck does the water move around as I thought the whole thing is built around a serial design.

 

[Bodhi]

That's one thing I want to look at, radiator TRV's but I cannot get my head around the fact that if you seal one end of a rad completely off how the fuck does the water move around as I thought the whole thing is built around a serial design.

My understanding is that they work just like a normal TRV, just you can control them via an App/Google etc and the Tado ones have a display on them with the current temperature.

 

[Aoami]

What's the point of smart TRVs if you have a smart thermostat? Not an expert on such matters so genuine Q.

 

[Deebs]

What's the point of smart TRVs if you have a smart thermostat? Not an expert on such matters so genuine Q.

TRV's work at the room level (multiple zones), thermostats control a single zone in most circumstances.

 

[smurkin]

Multiple zones?

Aye, that's it. There is a single oil boiler that drives two sides of the house, each side has its own independent set of pipes with its own diverter valves, pumps and controllers. And two nests. It comes from our house being too long for normal piping as it is converted stables and a barn. It also has two hot water tanks and two water meters. It costs an utter fortune to heat :|

 

[Aoami]

Aye, that's it. There is a single oil boiler that drives two sides of the house, each side has its own independent set of pipes with its own diverter valves, pumps and controllers. And two nests. It comes from our house being too long for normal piping as it is converted stables and a barn. It also has two hot water tanks and two water meters. It costs an utter fortune to heat :|

Blimey! Sounds lovely but a nightmare. A lovely nightmare.

 

[Bodhi]

TRV's work at the room level (multiple zones), thermostats control a single zone in most circumstances.

Aye they let you control each radiator individually and set them to their own schedules and turn them off when not needed. We've got a fairly typical 30s house where some rooms are lovely and warm and well insulated, and others are a draughty mess, so having that extra bit of control over a Nest definitely appeals.

We're already pretty well invested with Nest as well so it's a bit annoying they don't offer anything, and the lack of apparent development on the thermostat itself doesn't fill me full of hope they'll arrive any time soon.

Only issue I can see is the price - kitting out the house with the Tado stuff would be 700+, and the evohome kit would be over a grand, so it's a proper investment.

 

[Aoami]

Interesting. 4 for £180 at Screwfix. Might have to add 8 to the shopping list. Would be useful for me as my heating/hot water system needs replumbing... Currently if the hot water comes on it brings the heating with it, so I'm fiddling with the TRVs a lot to manage this. 1 3 port valve where there should be 2 2 ports I think.

 

[old.Osy]

Time flies, figured I'd update this.

I have since moved HA off to its own hardware (Lenovo M920q sff pc), with daily backup to my NAS. I have also replaced the usb based Sonoff 3.0 Plus dongled with the POE coordinator from SMLight - SLZB-06. In the event of a hardware failure, I have an identical cold spare M920q, and I can also quickly setup a VM and import the backup.

I'm obviously still learning and constantly tinkering and adding new stuff. So far we've got:

- custom HVAC integration (central gas based heating, closed loop for radiators) - nothing fancy as it's only one big zone, so the only value added here is that it shuts off heating if the window is open for more than 5 mins in the room where the temp sensor for HVAC is.
- Front door - light closest to the entry point goes on if the door opens when it's dark outside.
- SmartThings integration (basically pulls all the devices / entities and sensors from SmartThings account and brings em over to be used and controlled)
- Made a nice dashboard with the CCTV streams and assorted devices. Good for quick glances.
- For a couple rooms I have deployed smart switches + smart bulbs, and I'm running the switches in decoupled mode, so I can use single / double clicks to trigger different light options.
- Got four smart plugs spread around the house, with the main purpose to act as signal repeaters for the zigbee mesh.

On the radar:

- Energy / Solar integration (deploying solar soon)
- Motion sensors - inside and outside - trigger lights or alerts, etc, based on motion
- Switch on / off AC based on area and window status / temperature.

I stay away from Hue stuff on principle - grossly overpriced.

 

[Scouse]

Have you white blotted the things out that say "sex dungeon" and "murder room"?

 

[smurkin]

Seems good. I have a few Hue indoor sensors and a couple of outdoor sensors serving up the lights. I use the outdoor sensors to flip on all of the outside lights, but also in the day when triggered they make a doorbell chime in the kitchen and bedroom so I know when someone is calling. I have a few cameras too recording on my synology surveillance station. I agree, Hue stuff is pricey but it does last. I have one bulb which is 10 years old and gets used every night.

 

[old.Osy]

Have you white blotted the things out that say "sex dungeon" and "murder room"?

Just hid the mess the kids do

 

[TdC]

that sounds like something someone with a sex dungeon and murder room would say

 

[MYstIC G]

Let's hope those rooms don't every run in reverse order

 

[TdC]

I'm ...intrigued