how smart has your home gone?

utajoker

utajoker

utajoker

Soldato
Joined
13 Jan 2006
Posts
21,019
Location
Wigan
Hi

All things going as planned, we should be moving into a new house on December and all i can do is look at stuff to buy for it. Mostly smart home stuff that works with the Amazon Echo range.

Seems you can get more and more things that now work with Alexa so i am wondering how far people have gone with it and what works well and what doesn't?

Aside from the obvious hue bulbs I've seen door locks...window blinds...kettles.

Has anyone got any of these and can offer advice on which seem to be the better options?
 
We've gone

19 hue blubs (mostly colour)
Ring door bell
Nest Heating
2 RGB light strips controlled by Google assistant
3 Google home mini
1 Google home
3 Google WiFi mesh
3 tplink smart plugs.
8 SONOS speakers

Works spot on.
 
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We have a Honeywell Lyric T6 Smart thermostat that came with our new boiler. It’s great being able to control stuff via an app on your phone. I’ve also upgraded all the bulbs in the house to LED but these aren’t ‘smart’ although they make one hell of a difference!
 
Nest thermostat and smoke detectors
Blink WiFi battery powered cameras
Zwave dimmers (behind regular looking light switches), relays, sockets, motion detectors
Sonos in bedrooms, lounge, kitchen
Amazon Echo Dot in the kitchen, maybe used for timers

Happy with it all, although protects are an early version so we’ve had a couple of false warnings the newer ones sho7ld be less susceptible to.

We went zwave to allow us to mix and match a bunch of different solutions from different manufacturers, and to allow us to use normal bulbs and normal looking switches. The primary driver for smart lighting was to allow us to join light circuits up, move /remove switches etc without having to do any rewiring.
 
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I live in a shared rented house at the moment but my room is fairly smart...

Hive bulbs, tp link plugs, echo, a couple of sonoff devices, fire stick.

Playing around with the sonoff devices mostly, have the temperature and humidy sensor set up to turn on my fan when my room gets above 20C and a basic controlling a LED bar under my desk for when I am getting to the cables. they are great devices for <£10
 
Just Honeywell Evohome and an Echo V2 for now. But planning on a hue bridge and some bulbs and motion sensor soon.
Fancy a door bell as well mostly for the use as a front of house security camera though. So need one suitable for that.
 
So far...

13 hue lights including light strip
All controlled with a smartthings hub and several motion/cupboard sensors/plugs
Ring doorbell
4 x Amazon echo
Nest thermostat
Nest protect smoke detector
BT whole home mesh x3

Still going though! :)
 
Only gone Hive for my central heating. Pretty nice. Love how easy it is to control. Beats the pants of the one the engineer fit, it must have been the cheapest nastiest controller ever.

Cant say owt else grabs me. Maybe a smart security ? current one is great though.
 
10 x Philips Hue Lights
4 x Philips Hue Light Strips
10 x Philips Hue Motion Sensors
4 x Philips Hue Dimmer Switches
Nest Thermostat
Nest Smoke Detector
Canary Security Camera (All in one & Flex)
2x Apple HomePods
1 x Apple Time Capsule
4 x Airport Express for Mesh Wireless & AirPlay
3 x Apple TV

A fair bit has been done over the past few months to modernise alongside some home renovations and more to come!

Main purpose is to try and automate as much as possible, the lights are a great addition as they come on/off as and when you walk in/out of the room etc.

The nest devices are fab and integrate with HomeKit (with some tweaks to get them working), but everything is now controlled via Siri as I'm massively bought into the Apple ecosystem, so everything is all integrated and allows me to use my Apple TV's for my main entertainment source etc with content synced across all devices :)
 
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Not particularly for us. Few chromecast audios in various speakers, denon amp + q acoustics q7000i speakers, 2 hive zones, 2 raspberry pi's with kodi for movies from PC, 8 hikvision cameras, sensored night lights inside and outdoor WiFi

Not really looked into the Google home etc style stuff can't see it being used much
 
3 Amazon echos
6 hue lights
3 tp link smart plugs

In the future I want the ceiling lights to be done (16 GU10 Philips hue white )
Strip lights in the kitchen,hall bedroom and living room.
Don't have heating ( got 2x 2kw oil filled radiator-electric)
Only have a one bedroom flat.
 
Evohome in all rooms
Hue doing lights in hall/dining room/living room/office and outside
MyOlive Smart metering for oil tank
MiHome for plug sockets and further lights that won't take hue bulbs
 
Running HomeAssistant on an Ubuntu server running on HyperV controlling:

Hue lights and TPLink switches (dusk/late night and holiday control of lighting)
Logitech Harmony
Sonos
1 x Amazon Echo
2 x SonosOne with Echo
OwnTracks and MQTT tracking our phones to trigger automations (mainly lighting and heating adjustments when we leave work but also some announcments e.g. when I leave work)
NEST


Now looking at maybe integrating a doorbell/cameras and trying to write a script for HomeAssistant to notify me of bin day and which bins need putting out
 
I've got:

2 Amazon Echos

Ring Pro doorbell

Ring Pro floodlight cameras

About 30 colour and ambiance Hue bulbs, E27 and B22 mixed.

A 10m RGBW LED strip behind the TV that's controlled by a Hue compatible driver.

A Nest thermostat

4 Ubiquiti AP AC Pros running off a 48 port POE switch.

I'm gonna get a few Ubiquiti POE cameras as well.

I'm considering an Echo Show and an Echo spot, as well as some motion sensors for my Hue bulbs, but the Philips motion sensors are exorbitantly priced for what they are.

I'm looking forward to what outdoor home automation stuff comes out. Hue stuff is just starting to show up.
 
billysielu said:
Those with a bunch of 'smart' stuff. How do you feel about the risk of having things being more complicated / connected to the internet? Does the risk not bother you?
Click to expand...

I would have an issue when the only way to control something is via the Internet or network.

Hue bulbs work just like regular bulbs if you power cycle the switch, which is useful. The nest seemingly can be controlled manually, and echos are more of a plus than a necessity.
 
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