how smart has your home gone?

The_Arbiter said:
Seems like the best place to ask this.

These standard smart wifi bulbs that use an app, the set times/dimming/etc, is that tied to the bulb or the app?

A couple of scenarios. Phone has wifi off due to sleep, will the bulb work? Bulb is changed to another room/fitting, will it reset its timings/settings?

Thanks
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Moving to different fittings/rooms or having WiFi off on your phone won’t affect routines, times or settings.

I may be wrong here but my understanding is that the device/plug is tied either to a hub if it’s a product that uses such a thing (like Philips Hue or Hive) or to your personal account with a manufacturer‘s cloud provisioning (like Amazon or TP-Link) and sometimes both if you link things like the Hue skill to Alexa. Thus for the products to know what to do they need the hub powered up and on your network and/or a connection to the internet. Everything else has no effect.
 
After throwing my toys out the pram with the Google doorbell issue I've embedded myself further. (although could switch to home kit easily)

Saw this video on YouTube where you can have a 3 gang light switch. Only connect to one (standard one light room) at mains but other 3 work as smart buttons. Makes sense. Just didn't realise. So I now have a 3 button.

One for main light.
One for led desk/shelf lighting
One to set my trv to 21c/15c

My smart TRVs are on a schedule. But sometimes I'll come in the room to use computer or game etc. Just push button and on it comes. Leave. Turn it off to set back to routine.

Amazing.

So lazy

JJxa98f.jpg
 
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Didn't see anyone with the Hue christmas lights chain , outside their house, anyway, just the usual dumb lights that flash, as opposed to any subtle colour changes,
maybe there will be some deals on them with the xmas demand over.
 
Had another smartthings motion sensor fail, they do seem to die after a couple of years and pricey to replace so I'm trying Sonoff vie Zigbee/alexa with my Eero mesh..

Anyone got any experience? They seem a bit flakey to me? Like i've had to reset one twice since the weekend.
 
I've had a couple of issues with sonoff motion sensors, with them stopping working, but after doing a lot of reading on various forums, it seems the battery contact can be a bit poor which causes problems. I simply pacedk a thin piece of card between the battery and the back of the case and since then I've had no trouble from them. Might be worth a try.
 
Good to know thanks..

I may be missing something but I also think alexa can't handle multiple sensors for the same routine like smartthings?

Like before I had an upstairs motion sensor, a downstairs one and then it was set to turn the lights off if neither of them saw movement. Now I have to have one routine for upstairs and one for downstairs which is bound to cause conflicts given someone could be moving downstairs whilst the upstairs one hasn't seen motion etc.

Part of me says just cough up for aeotec ones and be done with it tbh
 
CapitalOne said:
Having been involved in some research into GPT, Data Structures and APIs I am really looking foward to integrating it into HA at some point. Very exciting!
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Be sure to document and share what you do. Always interesting to hear what other HA projects people are upto.
 
The idea of being able to control Hue TV back lights directly from the TV for ANYTHING your watching on the TV is perfect! BUT £130 just for the app only for that specific TV? Wow!
 
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LuckyBenski said:
Surely that's built in?!
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Huh? I assume there's minimal hardware in the Samsung TV, then you're paying for the app to run in the background on the Samsung to control your Hue TV backlights.

The TV controlling the light is the best solution as anything you watch will control them.
 
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NeilF said:
Huh? I assume there's minimal hardware in the Samsung TV, then you're paying for the app to run in the background on the Samsung to control your Hue TV backlights.

The TV controlling the light is the best solution as anything you watch will control them.
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Sorry I didn't pick up that it was on a Samsung TV - was that on the video posted without comment? I glossed over that as assumed it was related to the previous post about cameras.

Absolutely ridiculous to charge £130 for an app, especially when it's likely to run out of support VERY quickly indeed on a smart TV.
 
I'm looking at automating some lights, possibly Hue as I had a hub but open to other options. I'd like to do 2 things:

1) Have a contact on the front door that when opened it turns the hallway light on if dark (or set by time eg 6pm to say 1am).

2) A motion sensor to turn the landing light on at full brightness between say 6pm and 10pm and then 50% brightness between 10pm and 7am

I currently have some Hue bulbs incl the Hub and multiple Alexa devices.

Many thanks
 
Mark M said:
I'm looking at automating some lights, possibly Hue as I had a hub but open to other options. I'd like to do 2 things:

1) Have a contact on the front door that when opened it turns the hallway light on if dark (or set by time eg 6pm to say 1am).

2) A motion sensor to turn the landing light on at full brightness between say 6pm and 10pm and then 50% brightness between 10pm and 7am

I currently have some Hue bulbs incl the Hub and multiple Alexa devices.

Many thanks
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I've been slowly moving over to Tapo as the Hue's lights go out and find they are easy to set up, Alexa finds them quickly and through the Alexa app I am able to turn on the kitchen TV + 8 ceiling lights @50% for example when the OH comes home for lunch, by using a Tapo door sensor.

We have one Tapo motion sensor in the hallway, which activates a ceiling light for 1 minute @15% between the hours of 12am to 6am.
Another inside the toilet that turns on the ceiling light and keeps it on, until someone leaves and one in the bathroom, that turns on the mirror whenever someone goes in.

I've tried many different brands over the past 14 years and so far, these are doing what I want + more.

To note: Not all Tapo products require a hub, some do, but if you have a limited amount you can add on Wi-Fi it might not be for you. I have a mesh network from the same company and manage fine.
 
aVdub said:
I've been slowly moving over to Tapo as the Hue's lights go out and find they are easy to set up, Alexa finds them quickly and through the Alexa app I am able to turn on the kitchen TV + 8 ceiling lights @50% for example when the OH comes home for lunch, by using a Tapo door sensor.

We have one Tapo motion sensor in the hallway, which activates a ceiling light for 1 minute @15% between the hours of 12am to 6am.
Another inside the toilet that turns on the ceiling light and keeps it on, until someone leaves and one in the bathroom, that turns on the mirror whenever someone goes in.

I've tried many different brands over the past 14 years and so far, these are doing what I want + more.

To note: Not all Tapo products require a hub, some do, but if you have a limited amount you can add on Wi-Fi it might not be for you. I have a mesh network from the same company and manage fine.
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Thanks, that’s exactly what I want! I’ve ordered some Tapo stuff to come tomorrow!
 
Mark M said:
Thanks, that’s exactly what I want! I’ve ordered some Tapo stuff to come tomorrow!
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You are welcome.

One thing as well, is some (Only found so far with the cheaper camera's I bought recently) do not like playing with a Mesh than has both 2.4ghz and 5.0ghz, so had to point them towards the 24ghz channel on the router.

Everything else plays just fine.

I hope Tapo works well for you.
 
I got some philips hue starter pack with 2 bulbs , the hub and a button.
A 2 metre white+colour strip
and a 2 metre gradient strip.

the ambi light strip I stuck on the back of my desk, I did have a cheap rgb strip from amazon one that can do multiple colours at a time, like shooting asteroids etc controlled by my mobo.

I think it cost like £10 and honestly the hue strip isn't a massive upgrade considered its like 12x the price
It's too long for my desk though so 20cm on each side wraps around towards me., I really don't want to cut it even though its too long for me monitor and the colours don't match up that great


Honestly don't think I would recommend hue lights to people theres no value for money at all.

BTW my gradient strip is reflecting on a white wall, is there a best colour it should be reflecting on? like pure matt black or something?
 
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