Advice Smarter coffee machine & Google home

[Moriath]

I have ordered a front outside light with a camera on it so i will be able to see who is at the door and tell them to wait for me if i am at the top of the house.

The hpuse has built in hardwired smoke alarms and burglar alarm.

I like the hive thermostat. Thats definately saved us a lot of money.

 

[JBP|]

I've just spunked 150 quid on 3 Philips hue bulbs and the bridge. need to find a cheaper option for the kitchen (8 gu10 bulbs) but hue compatible would be good.

Should be getting a Nest thermostat at the end of the month, what kind of savings should I expect from it?

 

[Tom]

I also have the Nest smoke detector. You can link it to the Lifx lights, so that all the lights will turn on and flash red if the alarm notices anything wrong. You can also set them so they'll flash if you receive a text message or something (in case your phone is on silent) but my PC has a desktop alert for texts so I don't use that.

The smoke detector is pretty cool. Last year I was at work, I left the plasterer busy in my house (know and trust him). The smoke detector sent me a notification saying it had detected smoke. I could check on my security cameras, everything was fine. The plasterer said he shit himself with the smoke alarm went bananas.

 

[old.user4556]

@Big G what sort of things do you use the lights for? We can get them on the hive thing and im trying to come up with an excuse to get some. But apart from being turned on when we are away to seem like someone is home. Iam not sure of the use for them. Thanks

Primarily used for different light levels depending on the situation in the living room. I have two presets that are voice activated: "movie night" and "standard", both fairly self explanatory. I can also put them on timers for when I'm away for the week / weekend and having them turn on and off remotely from the HomeKit app. As you would expect the whole system is expandable to thermostats, smoke alarms, security cameras (turn lights on max across the house) etc.

 

[MYstIC G]

I got a smarter coffee machine (gen 1) a while back and a Google home speaker at Christmas.
As the coffee machine is older it doesn't support Google home. so is there any way of connecting them up or am I stuck using the app until I get a new machine?
Thanks in advance for your advice.

For me this highlights the issue with most of this stuff. You don't generally get proper security updates to things like your broadband router so expecting feature updates for IoT stuff is always going to be totally hit and miss.

Don't know if you can get Google home to link with an android app like tasker that might be able to control the existing app on your phone but might be worth looking into.

 

[smurkin]

I've just spunked 150 quid on 3 Philips hue bulbs and the bridge. need to find a cheaper option for the kitchen (8 gu10 bulbs) but hue compatible would be good.

I have the same issue - the kitchen has 10x GU10 bulbs in the 75mm deep format - the Hue colour bulbs are £40 each!

 

[Exioce]

Have a house alarm fitted but the cats set it off. FML.

 

[JBP|]

I have the same issue - the kitchen has 10x GU10 bulbs in the 75mm deep format - the Hue colour bulbs are £40 each!

Apparently Innr do GU10 bulbs around half the price, but quite a few reviews claim they emit a buzzing noise.

Also Ikea bulbs are alleged to work with a hue hub but involves a bit of fannying about. At the moment I'm leaning towards the Ikea bulbs in the kitchen.

 

[Tom]

Don't go unbranded cheap stuff when it comes to things like lights. Lights get hot, hot things burn. You don't want hot burny things mounted in a ceiling.

 

[Moriath]

Don't go unbranded cheap stuff when it comes to things like lights. Lights get hot, hot things burn. You don't want hot burny things mounted in a ceiling.

Led lights dont get hot tbh.

 

[Tom]

Led lights dont get hot tbh.

Oh they most certainly do. 5W may not sound like a big number but in an enclosure that small it will fry your skin.

 

[Moriath]

Well i replaced the halogen spots with led lightrs and the halogenused to cook my head if i was close to them. The led ones dont.

 

[Tom]

Well i replaced the halogen spots with led lightrs and the halogenused to cook my head if i was close to them. The led ones dont.

That's because they're much more efficient than a halogen lamp and radiate much less energy. But if you touch one, you'll still get badly burnt. They still generate a lot of heat and can start fires if not designed correctly. There's a reason LED lamps have fins on the back.

 

[JBP|]

Back on the coffee machine for a moment, I got this message today ...

Hi JBP|. The previous gen products cannot get a software upgrade to give them similar functionality, it is beyond their scope and their platform doesn’t support the security required. We will be doing an upgrade program. Please contact support@smarter.am for further information =)

I assume this might mean a discount on a new machine. fuck that shit, I'll just use the one I have until it breaks and get something else when I need to.

 

[~Yuckfou~]

I assume this might mean a discount on a new machine. fuck that shit, I'll just use the one I have until it breaks and get something else when I need to.

ditto