how smart has your home gone?

Biz.Kid09 said:
Yeah very good point, be nice to have it all integrated together. I only really need 2/3 anyway as I am not looking at huge property. The Hello is another camera also so I would only really need one looking over the front of the house/driveway then one at the back.

EDIT: @Psycho Sonny , am I right in saying if I purchase a Nest Hello and 2/3 Camera, wire them all up and then I just choose either the new Nest Aware or Nest Aware Plus plan and that covers me for all the devices so it would just be one annual charge to get access to the 24/7 footage or whatever option I choose?
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Yes it's one fee now yearly regardless of how many cameras you have it's why I'm now ****** off.

I bought a nest hello. I paid £40 to get I think it's 10 days of constant recording to the cloud.

Then I had the option of getting nest cctv. But I'd have to pay £300 per camera then an additional £20 or £30 per camera per year. So 4 cameras that is £120 on top of the £40 so £160 a year for a helo plus 4 cameras.

So I decided to get 4 dahua cameras and a nvr and install them. The guy I got to install them ended up being a cowboy and ripped me off with the install but I was going on holiday and didn't want the hassle of doing it myself and he knew what he was doing the 2 guys he sent to do the job were idiots and took 3 times the time to do the job it should have taken and they were charging me per the hour.

I should have gotten a full quote up front for the job rather than on a per hour basis.

Ended up costing me £1k for what should have cost me £600 including the cameras. So overcharged £400 but I wasn't bothered as I needed it done and didn't have time to look at alternative quotes. But I won't be using them if I ever need some work done in future.

But now I could have gotten nest cameras. Spent £1200 on 4 iq cameras and then just pay the 1 subscription fee rather than £160 per year.

You can add as many cams as you want now with no additional costs.

They should have adopted that model to begin with and I wouldn't have bothered going down the nvr and IP camera route.

I have nest hello at the front then another 2 one covering the garage and gate on that side and the other covering the whole of the front and driveway including the road to capture cars and people going past.

2 at the back looking across one another so they capture the full back garden including all rear access points.

Also nest has an alarm system only available in the US currently but I know someone who bought it in the US and shipped it over here and it works fine.

So their alarm could be coming here in a few years too.

Having everything integrated in the one app is good.
 
Thanks for the information @Psycho Sonny , sorry to hear with what happened with your CCTV. I think I have been persuaded to go for the Nest cameras, with the Hello camera I can probably get away with two more which isnt too expensive and can always add on later. Yeah I did notice they do the security, that is the next thing I need to look into, I have been looking at the Texecom Premier Elite Ricochet 64-W Live Wireless Kit 3 which gets good reviews. I would like it to be all one app though. Maybe shipping one over isn't a bad idea.
 
Just installed 2 x Reolink cameras (£50 each) 5MP and very clear audio recordings. Quite impressed for cameras at this price.

Both powered over ethernet, local (memory card) and network storage (home automation server) for all footage. The server backs up indefinitely where the cameras roll over when the memory card fills up.

Reolink offer a cloud storage solution but I'm not a big fan of the cloud. But its there if I every change my mind.

The app is very good on IOS and Windows 10 plus setup was a breeze.

Going to run some Cat 6 to the garage now for another 2 cameras when I get a bit of time.
 
Home still has zero smart devices.
Cromecast is as close as it gets still

Won't be touching the heating or doing any camera stuff. But may tinker with a couple of rooms lighting
 
413x said:
Home still has zero smart devices.
Cromecast is as close as it gets still

Won't be touching the heating or doing any camera stuff. But may tinker with a couple of rooms lighting
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What's your issue with smart stuff? I've never come across a normal thermostat I didn't hate, nest took all that away :)
 
matt100 said:
What's your issue with smart stuff? I've never come across a normal thermostat I didn't hate, nest took all that away :)
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Just expensive and another thing to go wrong.
Always felt that a comfortable temperature and a morning /evening for weekdays and all day for weekends is fine
 
matt100 said:
Maybe we have a different opinion on expensive. For me it's basically a necessity, especially Vs the cost of a years heating.
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I thought it wasn't economic? Like how getting a more economic boiler is never more economic than waiting for your original to die?

And that its more for comfort/convenience?
 
Yeah totally, I meant if I'm spending this much on it all I might as well spend a small amount of that once to make it convenient, I gather there are savings. Who knows.
 
matt100 said:
Yeah totally, I meant if I'm spending this much on it all I might as well spend a small amount of that once to make it convenient, I gather there are savings. Who knows.
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I believe its very situational.
I think it would take 5+ years for me to see any savings.
If you have a big house and make use of zones and usually leave the heating on 24/7 hypo get more benefit.

I have a 3 bed detached that's really warm most of the time
Use all the rooms
Heating is set to come on in a schedule so I'd save very little each year.
 
As you said and I agreed it's more about convenience. I doubt it would pay for itself in any meaningful amount of time although I would say that in more normal times when my other half and I had a mixed WFH/office and meeting schedule it definitely made life better to have the heating not come on when we weren't there (geofenced) and then be able to set it to come on when we're leaving the office etc via apps.

Also, I'd personally pay the money to never have to faff with another thermostat panel again, I hate those things. It's like controlling your house with a calculator.
 
matt100 said:
As you said and I agreed it's more about convenience. I doubt it would pay for itself in any meaningful amount of time although I would say that in more normal times when my other half and I had a mixed WFH/office and meeting schedule it definitely made life better to have the heating not come on when we weren't there (geofenced) and then be able to set it to come on when we're leaving the office etc via apps.

Also, I'd personally pay the money to never have to faff with another thermostat panel again, I hate those things. It's like controlling your house with a calculator.
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Its about the one thing in the house I have to look up the instructions for! :D

The thermostat I have is super old, it also has horrible on off range

If set to 20c it'll come on at 18 and off at 23.that's probably my main gripe
 
PaDE said:
Just installed 2 x Reolink cameras (£50 each) 5MP and very clear audio recordings. Quite impressed for cameras at this price.

Both powered over ethernet, local (memory card) and network storage (home automation server) for all footage. The server backs up indefinitely where the cameras roll over when the memory card fills up.

Reolink offer a cloud storage solution but I'm not a big fan of the cloud. But its there if I every change my mind.

The app is very good on IOS and Windows 10 plus setup was a breeze.

Going to run some Cat 6 to the garage now for another 2 cameras when I get a bit of time.
Click to expand...

This will probably be my next big thing to add, i also like that Reolink integrate well with HA.

I just need to bring myself to taking out my server rack so that i can run the cables again.
 
Gone a bit Ring mad lately.

x2 Ring Indoor Cams
x2 Outdoor Ring Stick Up Cam Battery
1 x Ring Alarm 5 Piece Kit – Home Security System Assisted Monitoring
1 x Ring Video Doorbell 3 Plus Plus i have Ring Spotlight Cam Battery on the way.

It's all linked to Alexa, Philips Hue and my zigbee smart thermostat.


I really want a smart door lock for my new office, but i am not sure how secure or reliable the technology is. I need to do some investigation.
 
Just added some Xiaomi sensors to my Home Assistant setup. Got a CC2531 receiver flashed, so far got a couple of the temp/humidity sensors, door sensor and a motion sensor.

Added some GU10 Hue bulbs to the bathroom, the motion sensor is set up to trigger the lights on at a different brightness depending on time of day and also triggers below a certain Lux level during the day. Added the door contact sensor to this as well to keep the lights on as long as the door is shut, to avoid the lights going off automatically (after 60 seconds) while having a bath/shower etc.

Just about to order some Aqara smart buttons for a few functions. One of which is to use one as a smart doorbell. I have set up Home Assistant to make an announcement via various Echo's around the house, and also to push a notification to our phones along with a snapshot from the Unifi camera pointing at the door.
 
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