how smart has your home gone?

arknor said:
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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I did see you had bought the gradient strip and thought it was an odd purchase. It's normally for people already in the Hue ecosystem who want some high quality RGB strip lights that diffuse better than some of the cheaper individual LED strips. If you weren't after any of those benefits, they are just expensive LED strips tbh.
 
I’m a big fan of Govee in my gaming room. Definitely much easier to have it on the same ecosystem.



Almost too many smart devices in the home now. 13 cameras, climate control in every room, 8 smart plugs.
 
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Wait until you get to the point where you can't be bothered to changed the batteries in the door / window sensors and Google reports half the plugs aren't available due to them being christmas lights, couple that with the 5k samsung fridge freezer not connecting to smart things properly every other day oh and always having to change the damn batteries on the yale door handles otherwise you can't get in the house.
 
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5punk3monk3y said:
Wait until you get to the point where you can't be bothered to changed the batteries in the door / window sensors and Google reports half the plugs aren't available due to them being christmas lights, couple that with the 5k samsung fridge freezer not connecting to smart things properly every other day oh and always having to change the damn batteries on the yale door handles otherwise you can't get in the house.
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The door/window sensors are probably one of my least changed devices tbh. Unless you're opening the door several hundred times a day it probably has little to update. Motion and temperature sensors are my frequent changers - which is to be expected based on how often they have to update a change.
 
5punk3monk3y said:
Wait until you get to the point where you can't be bothered to changed the batteries in the door / window sensors and Google reports half the plugs aren't available due to them being christmas lights, couple that with the 5k samsung fridge freezer not connecting to smart things properly every other day oh and always having to change the damn batteries on the yale door handles otherwise you can't get in the house.
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Or when your sensors are with ADT that borks the whole system when the batteries run down, then say they’ll send out batteries or an engineer that never arrive.

The smart things app is incredibly temperamental.
 
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dlockers said:
I did see you had bought the gradient strip and thought it was an odd purchase. It's normally for people already in the Hue ecosystem who want some high quality RGB strip lights that diffuse better than some of the cheaper individual LED strips. If you weren't after any of those benefits, they are just expensive LED strips tbh.
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That was a normal white+colour strip I'm using as a bedroom light/night light, I got a gradient strip the next day.

I cut the Gradient strip down by 2 arrows so it only runs across the back 90% of my desk, then pulled the desk out a little it more from the wall.
The colours almost line up perfectly even though the strips 20 inches longer than my monitor.

This video was good for checking the colour alignment at 1mins in its 4 spinning colours.
I guess the bottom of the screen just doesn't look that good because nothing much is happening there but static colours in most scenes

on this video it looks pretty sick as the lighting hits near the bottom of the screen.

Really tempted to get one that sticks on the back of the monitor too, even though the cost is insane :S

next time I have some money burning a hole I guess.


All the hue stuff should be half the price it costs though imo
 
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I have a few now.

Hive thermostat
Eufy doorbell
Tapo home plugs x8
Various Alexa devices x6

All have been perfect except one Tapo homeplug which developed a switch failure in the first 9 months, quite common on the earlier KP115 plugs allegedly.
 
We are with Alexa that controls a mix of Tapo, Hue, Ikea, Innr, Calex, Broadlink, Deco, Govee, Hive, Energenie, Reolink, Bosch, Siemens, Kasa and Hoover.

All have been pretty solid, apart from the Energenie hub going pop, which has lead to a change to Tapo.
 
aVdub said:
We are with Alexa that controls a mix of Tapo, Hue, Ikea, Innr, Calex, Broadlink, Deco, Govee, Hive, Energenie, Reolink, Bosch, Siemens, Kasa and Hoover.

All have been pretty solid, apart from the Energenie hub going pop, which has lead to a change to Tapo.
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Pick a lane man :cry:
 
I've not done anything to mine recently other than slowly one by one replace all the INNR bulbs I had as they failed one by one.

Lesson learned, yes hue is expensive. None of them have failed.
 
matt100 said:
I've not done anything to mine recently other than slowly one by one replace all the INNR bulbs I had as they failed one by one.

Lesson learned, yes hue is expensive. None of them have failed.
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I've had hue fail after 6 years or so. Luckily I've bought so many I just pick the oldest still in warranty on Amazon and trigger a replacement. #unethicalprolifetip
 
Bluecube said:
Do you control everything via apps? Have a look at Home Assistant which may help you with a more stable platform for all your devices
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Got the RP along with the dongles etc but didn't implement HA because it would make the samsung fridge a waste of time (which ST is on it anyway), I know you can use the Web browser on the fridge for HA but at this stage I just can't be bothered with it all anymore.
 
Has anyone ever had issues with the Hue outdoor sensor? It seems to be triggering constantly - or at least, the light is behaving like it has been triggered constantly:

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