how smart has your home gone?

matt100 said:
How often does your power and internet go out?!
Click to expand...

It's not about that.

When you buy some cheap Chinese smart stuff you will need either to use there app or hub.
With the Hubitat I won't need either. You best go and watch some videos about the Hubitat to get an idea.

Smartthings has a Bluetooth built in. Have they ever turned it on? Nope and never will.
You can't backup all your settings\webcore. So if you need to replace your smartthings you have to start again.
That means factory reset stuff\re-pair them ect.

The Hue hub is just for lights, it's a bit dumb to say the least.

Now my Homey Hub 1 has everything built in. But Homey are cutting down things you can do.
 
deuse said:
It's not about that.

When you buy some cheap Chinese smart stuff you will need either to use there app or hub.
With the Hubitat I won't need either. You best go and watch some videos about the Hubitat to get an idea.

Smartthings has a Bluetooth built in. Have they ever turned it on? Nope and never will.
You can't backup all your settings\webcore. So if you need to replace your smartthings you have to start again.
That means factory reset stuff\re-pair them ect.

The Hue hub is just for lights, it's a bit dumb to say the least.

Now my Homey Hub 1 has everything built in. But Homey are cutting down things you can do.
Click to expand...

Why not look at Home Assistant if you like to tinker?
 
deuse said:
It's not about that.

When you buy some cheap Chinese smart stuff you will need either to use there app or hub.
With the Hubitat I won't need either. You best go and watch some videos about the Hubitat to get an idea.

Smartthings has a Bluetooth built in. Have they ever turned it on? Nope and never will.
You can't backup all your settings\webcore. So if you need to replace your smartthings you have to start again.
That means factory reset stuff\re-pair them ect.

The Hue hub is just for lights, it's a bit dumb to say the least.

Now my Homey Hub 1 has everything built in. But Homey are cutting down things you can do.
Click to expand...

I'm not trying to tell you you're wrong I'm just curious given I've got a house full of smartthings and hue and alexa and nest etc etc and haven't ever felt the need to go this route, thought I might be missing something.

I can't honestly think what I'd use bluetooth for anyway but I guess we have different uses.

I have smartthings for all my samsung appliances along with motion/leak/door sensors. Hue for all the lights (including INNR ones as I go with cheaper alternatives for the most part) and it all just knits together nicely with hubs stuffed in a cupboard.

The cupboard isn't very elegant I'll give you that and I had to get a switch to cope with it all but once it's done I just forget about it.

I do remember the one time we had a power cut a few years back a rude awakening with all the lights on full blast and not being able to turn them off but it's happened once and since then I think Philips have added a thing where the lights come back on in their same state.

My main issue is that I have far too many smartthings sensors and recently moved house so there's tons that are all named the wrong thing but thats just a case of deleting it all and starting again.

That said, I've not ventured into the cheap sensors etc, I did wander into trying to use the smartthings homebrew thing before and backed away with a NOPE.

I don't mind a bit of hackery on a project, not on my house :)
 
matt100 said:
I'm not trying to tell you you're wrong I'm just curious given I've got a house full of smartthings and hue and alexa and nest etc etc and haven't ever felt the need to go this route, thought I might be missing something.

I can't honestly think what I'd use bluetooth for anyway but I guess we have different uses.

I have smartthings for all my samsung appliances along with motion/leak/door sensors. Hue for all the lights (including INNR ones as I go with cheaper alternatives for the most part) and it all just knits together nicely with hubs stuffed in a cupboard.

The cupboard isn't very elegant I'll give you that and I had to get a switch to cope with it all but once it's done I just forget about it.

I do remember the one time we had a power cut a few years back a rude awakening with all the lights on full blast and not being able to turn them off but it's happened once and since then I think Philips have added a thing where the lights come back on in their same state.

My main issue is that I have far too many smartthings sensors and recently moved house so there's tons that are all named the wrong thing but thats just a case of deleting it all and starting again.

That said, I've not ventured into the cheap sensors etc, I did wander into trying to use the smartthings homebrew thing before and backed away with a NOPE.

I don't mind a bit of hackery on a project, not on my house :)
Click to expand...


I just prefer everything to be off line if possible.
Unlike smartthings I will be able to save all my settings from a web page, try doing that with smartthings :)

I had my virgin media hub\connection go off line. Everything stopped working.
And they stayed off line for 3 days till a new hub arrived.

The automation options in the habitat far exceed anything else.
Here is a light hearted review.

 
deuse said:
Tried it :(
It's a bit like linux OS. Very powerful, but crap to work with :)
Certain things which are free on most hubs, you have to pay for.
Click to expand...

Yeah appreciate it's not everyones cuppa tea, it's quite a steep learning curve, and isn't really a "plug and play" solution. A major update could break your integrations requiring you to spend some time to get them all back working again.

The one major thing that puts me off commercial solutions like Hubitat is that they could go the same way as Wink. Home Assistant being open source means there will never be that risk.
 
Semple said:
Hue have both an indoor and outdoor motion sensor.

Question though, if the light is in the hallway, and you have the motion sensor outside for when you walk upto your front door, you need to consider how you'd turn the hallway light on from inside the house. The answer could be as simple as having an indoor motion sensor as well :).

Outdoor: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-Ou.../B07KMP8P1Q/ref=psdc_1939545031_t1_B0748NCMNW
Indoor: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-In...V70WDM9CRY4&psc=1&refRID=E48MBGADVV70WDM9CRY4

Edit: These normally pop up as a deal on black friday. I think i've had these for about £20-25 as part of a deal pack.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I dont have a Hue Bridge though I'm using built in Zigbee is it? On the Echo Plus to control the Hall light

The sensor would go in the Porch so when entering the house at certain times of day the light will switch on

Can I achieve this with that sensor, an Echo Plus and a Philips Hue bulb or do I need a Hue Bridge which I want to avoid really
 
Semple said:
Yeah appreciate it's not everyones cuppa tea, it's quite a steep learning curve, and isn't really a "plug and play" solution. A major update could break your integrations requiring you to spend some time to get them all back working again.

The one major thing that puts me off commercial solutions like Hubitat is that they could go the same way as Wink. Home Assistant being open source means there will never be that risk.
Click to expand...


I would like to get all the Linux programmers together and slap them :)
If they would all get together linux would be far easier to use and may fight toe to toe with windows.
 
matt100 said:
I'm not trying to tell you you're wrong I'm just curious given I've got a house full of smartthings and hue and alexa and nest etc etc and haven't ever felt the need to go this route, thought I might be missing something.

I can't honestly think what I'd use bluetooth for anyway but I guess we have different uses.

I have smartthings for all my samsung appliances along with motion/leak/door sensors. Hue for all the lights (including INNR ones as I go with cheaper alternatives for the most part) and it all just knits together nicely with hubs stuffed in a cupboard.

The cupboard isn't very elegant I'll give you that and I had to get a switch to cope with it all but once it's done I just forget about it.

I do remember the one time we had a power cut a few years back a rude awakening with all the lights on full blast and not being able to turn them off but it's happened once and since then I think Philips have added a thing where the lights come back on in their same state.

My main issue is that I have far too many smartthings sensors and recently moved house so there's tons that are all named the wrong thing but thats just a case of deleting it all and starting again.

That said, I've not ventured into the cheap sensors etc, I did wander into trying to use the smartthings homebrew thing before and backed away with a NOPE.

I don't mind a bit of hackery on a project, not on my house :)
Click to expand...

You're probably not missing anything. Smart things works well with Hue and if you only buy smart things / hue related devices then you probably don't need to venture further away.

If you like to tinker a bit, have a look at some of the HA demo integrations people have put together: https://demo.home-assistant.io/#/lovelace/0
 
Relentless81 said:
Thanks, I dont have a Hue Bridge though I'm using built in Zigbee is it? On the Echo Plus to control the Hall light

The sensor would go in the Porch so when entering the house at certain times of day the light will switch on

Can I achieve this with that sensor, an Echo Plus and a Philips Hue bulb or do I need a Hue Bridge which I want to avoid really
Click to expand...

According to this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Hue/comments/9qjr6s/hue_products_with_amazon_echo_plus/ It would seem that only the bulbs will work. Or at least only the devices that "Amazon" have approved will work.

Whilst the Echo Plus does use zigbee, i think the issue is that it can only send zigbee commands - i.e. switch that light on. For it to work with motion sensors it would need to receive zigbee commands, and have some intelligence to know what to do with it - i.e. when triggered switch on hallway light.

Therefore i think you would need the bridge. I appreciate it's a bit of an extra cost, but it's a good bit of kit, and adds a bit more to the ecosystem than just being able to BT to the lights/control from google/alexa.
 
Semple said:
According to this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Hue/comments/9qjr6s/hue_products_with_amazon_echo_plus/ It would seem that only the bulbs will work. Or at least only the devices that "Amazon" have approved will work.

Whilst the Echo Plus does use zigbee, i think the issue is that it can only send zigbee commands - i.e. switch that light on. For it to work with motion sensors it would need to receive zigbee commands, and have some intelligence to know what to do with it - i.e. when triggered switch on hallway light.

Therefore i think you would need the bridge. I appreciate it's a bit of an extra cost, but it's a good bit of kit, and adds a bit more to the ecosystem than just being able to BT to the lights/control from google/alexa.
Click to expand...

Ah ok thanks i thought that might be the case, I'll have a read, thanks for your help
 
Semple said:
Just an update, had my Aqara button turn up the other day, was extremely easy to set up some automations in HA, and now have it controlling a zigbee light. Will look at buying a 4-pack this week.
Click to expand...

Good to hear. Where did you buy from? I have some in my basket on Aliexpress but not sure if I want to wait for up to 2 months!
 
deuse said:
Tried it :(
It's a bit like linux OS. Very powerful, but crap to work with :)
Certain things which are free on most hubs, you have to pay for.
Click to expand...

Have you tried HomeSeer?

Pretty much everything covered and you can tinker to your hearts content on Windows or Linux.

deuse said:
I would like to get all the Linux programmers together and slap them :)
If they would all get together linux would be far easier to use and may fight toe to toe with windows.
Click to expand...
 
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