how smart has your home gone?

Marvt74 said:
Cheers

Don't have any other stuff of theirs yet, but have looked at some of their light sockets so will look into it and try and work out if it's worth it. Have like the look of their smart sockets to avoid the ballache of plugs into a plug!
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Their wallswitches and lightswitches look good and work well. The app is a bit crap [it works, just not a great UI] but the integration with Alexa works well.
I run a mix of Hive and Lightwave depending on if I could replace the bulb (The hive bulbs came with a heating/water pack) or not.
You can group the whole lot into one group in Alexa if you want "Alexa, turn the sitting room lights to 50 percent" will happily do both types at the same time.
 
21 hue bulbs mostly colour
4 smart led strips
4 smart sockets
Nest Hello
Nest Thermostat
2 door senors
1 1080p outdoor IP cloud camera
1 Google home hub
1 Google home
4 Google Mini
3 Google WiFi mesh
8 Sonos speakers
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Worth digging up my thread on Wiser (the drayton system) just to spot a couple of issues you may face. A few others said similar.
Nothing impossible to get round bu a few early warnings in effect.

I still really like the system, and its in effect not fully implemented, I am still to be converted to the benefits of a fully smart home ;)

Edit, found it https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/t...rt-controller-my-install-log-issues.18833451/ @Rilot
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Thanks for that. Good info.
One of my friends has the Drayton kit the same as you and really rates it. Another frond has the Hive and another the Tado so I have experience will all three system. IMO the Tado is the best but is very expensive.
 
Even with those deals it's still much more expensive due to the price of the radiator thermostats. The Drayton ones are £40 each and so with the starter kit I would need another 5 thermostats to do the house. That puts the price at £415 to do the house. With the Tado the thermostats are £60 each but the starter kit doesn't come with them, meaning I need 7 thermostats + the heating + hot water kit which puts it at £720. It's good but I'm not sure it's £300 better than the Drayton.
 
I think I've finally finished 'smart'ing my home. Anything I don't have, they don't make yet or don't want.

20+ Hue bulbs and about 5 Hue strips
4x Hue sensors
4x Hue switches
Nest Hello
Nest Thermostat
7x Echo Dot (1 in each room)
3x Sonos Play:1 (1 on each floor)
4x BT Home WiFi Discs
ADT Smart alarm system with about 5 sensors

Last addition was to use my old iPad Air 2, which has now been mounted on the wall as you come into the house. Only has apps on it for controlling the above and a few shortcuts set up so I can use voice commands as I come into the house, did previously use an Echo for this but much prefer how much you can set up with shortcuts on iOS12. Also, it does feel kind of cool having a little tablet in the wall with all the visual feedback for the apps etc

Did debate replacing the fire alarms with Nest ones but they really don't offer anything other than looking fancy.
 
3x Lutron Caseta dimmers
8x Hue bulbs (4x colour, 4x white)
1x iHome Smart Switch
1x Apple HomePod
3x Apple TV (2x 3rd Gen, 1x 4K)
2x Nest Thermostats (Thermostat E upstairs, regular downstairs)
3x Nest Temperature Sensors (Downstairs: Living room, master bedroom. Upstairs: kids bedroom. Thermostats are in stupid places so the sensors help out)
2x Nest Outdoor Cameras
1x Nest Indoor Camera
1x MyQ Garage Door opener
1x Ring Pro doorbell
1x Raspberry Pi running Homebridge so non-HomeKit stuff works with HomeKit. Nice for the Nest gear and MyQ

I can control my washing machine from my phone too for some reason LG think people want to be able to do that.

I've also got a Google Home that is now replaced by the HomePod and a Google Home Mini (unused Spotify freebie) that I'm wanting rid of. I'm seriously impressed with the HomePod. It's quite creepy how well it can hear you over loud music, even from another room I can just say it at a normal speaking volume and it'll hear me. Siri itself isn't as advanced as Google's assistant or Alexa but I don't use it for any of that so it's perfect for me.

Still need to get:
- More Lutron Casetas. Eventually want to have every light switch replaced with one but at $60/each it's not going to be cheap which is putting me off a bit
- Whole home audio via in-ceiling/wall speakers and AirPlay 2
- Swap the Ring Pro for a Nest Hello
- Add some Nest smart locks
- Add some tri-band mesh wifi things
- Add an iPad/iPod Touch to centrally control things
 
Only just started to 'Smarten up' my home.

7 x Hue Colour lights
2 x Motion Sensors
1 x Dimmer Switch
1 x Echo Plus
1 x Echo Dot
1 x Lightstrip

Just looking at smart heating options now, but my boiler is ancient.
 
2 x Sonos
4 x Philips Hue White Dimmable bayonet ceiling
1 x Echo Plus(3 more ordered for March release, although they're Dots)
3 x Smart Plugs (for wall lamps)
1 x Philips Hue Strip light up the entire staircase (2 pieces) controlled with a Hue motion sensor on top of stairs and another one at bottom of stairs

Literally have Electrician coming today for Nest quote and replacing bathroom spotlights with large enclosures capable of holding Philips Hue Colour (as they're huge GU10 bulbs)
 
The last year or so has seen me increase significantly in smart tech at home. Current count:

4 x echo
3 x echo dot 2nd gen
2 x echo dot 3rd gen (much better sound quality then 2nd gen)
ADT smart alarm
Hive heating
Broadlink RF/IR remote hub
HDHomeRun
4 x Aether Cone WiFi speakers
2 x Fire Sticks
Fire TV 4K
2 x Mag256 IPTV boxes
Invoxia POTS/VOIP bridge
4 x Amazon smart Plugs
8 x TPLink smart plugs
6 x TPLink smart bulbs
PfSense & UAP running the network (Many ISP routers struggle with this many devices)
Big old Unraid server with 24TB storage and running many dockers including Plex which serves up media and the HDHomeRun feed to the smart devices around the house.

Biggest hassle as the smart plugs/bulbs rack up is remembering what everything is called for voice commands. Groups and routines become a must and I even have to have a naming scheme to stick to! Room - device type - sequential number. So “Alexa, turn on Dining Room Light one” gives me a chance if by some reason turning a group off misses one device by accident that needs asking to be turned off independently!

I also can’t wait until Apple Music plays nicely with Alexa later in the year like it does in the USA. That’s been a bind, only having my regular prime music account for playing directly on the echos.
 
Steedie said:
Last addition was to use my old iPad Air 2, which has now been mounted on the wall as you come into the house. Only has apps on it for controlling the above and a few shortcuts set up so I can use voice commands as I come into the house, did previously use an Echo for this but much prefer how much you can set up with shortcuts on iOS12. Also, it does feel kind of cool having a little tablet in the wall with all the visual feedback for the apps etc
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Yes pretty cool.

I’ve just mounted one in our kitchen/diner area which is pretty cool running homeseer which integrates Somfy, Zwave, RFXCOM, IP Cameras and Sonos.

Interested to know what you used to mount the iPad? I used a Vidabox and chased in an Ethernet cable for POE (not connected up yet so having to charge the iPad up out of the unit every so often)

Plan on doing another for the landing at top of the stairs.
 
Current Home

4 x Echo Devices
Ikea Tradfri with 4 x GU10 spots, 2 x E27 bulbs
Philips Hue with 2 x Philips Play lights

However due to move in a month or so so will be doing most of the new place in smart tech, Ring doorbell, sensors for lights etc

Just need to work out a way to get Alexa out in the garden

Kimbe
 
Don't get the Ring doorbell, get the Nest one. The Nest app and 24/7 recording is wayyyyy better than the Ring offering. I'm wanting to swap my Ring Pro for a Nest Hello but I can't bring myself to spend over $200 on a bloody doorbell.

I've been trying to add my TV to Homebridge so I can controll it with HomeKit/Siri but it's not returning the access token for some reason.

Hopefully Apple will release a HomePod Mini or something in the near future so I can get some more around the house without having to drop $250 on each one.
 
timmeh said:
Don't get the Ring doorbell, get the Nest one. The Nest app and 24/7 recording is wayyyyy better than the Ring offering. I'm wanting to swap my Ring Pro for a Nest Hello but I can't bring myself to spend over $200 on a bloody doorbell.
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Absolutely this, I went from ring 2 to nest hello and it's so much better.
 
Ring only lets you review short clips when it notices movement which means that things can be missed and you've no way of getting it back. Nest has 24/7 recording so you can go back to anywhere on a timeline and see what happened.

Someone ran over a cat outside my house and the Ring doorbell didn't pick it up so I couldn't see what happened but I could go on my Nest cameras and see everything that happened before and after. Sadly the cameras were on the other side of the house so I could only see cars turning into my street and leaving. The doorbell was bought to cover the front but that's clearly not working out.

Nest has higher monthly costs but if you have other Nest cameras it doesn't work out that much more expensive.
 
Surprised to see the amount of bulbs etc people have bought yet in the 18 months or so I've had hue stuff the price has barely budged!

My house is
Google Home Hub
Google Home
Google Home Mini
Hue Lightstrip + Extension (need another 2M...)
4x Hue Ambiance
4x Innr
Hue Hub
Smartthings Hub
Smartthings Door Sensor x2
Smartthings Motion Sensor x2
Smartthings Fob
Aqara Motion Sensor x2
Aqara Temp + Humidity Sensor

Not using all of my sensors currently though so they're sat waiting to be put into a loop.
 
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