The Black Friday 17 Thread! - pls make sure you understand competitor rules

Psycho Sonny said:
so you have motion sensors in some areas? as in hallways and bathrooms? in other rooms conventional switches?

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I'm still renting so I have no set up atm.

but when I buy I will be looking at a set up.

bedroom, cut out blue light in the evening and turn on dim and brighten to full synced with alarm clock. (i have a jerry-rigged version of this currently and it makes waking up so much easier)
hallway and bathrooms on motion sensors and dimmed at night and blue light cutting out in evening.
kitchen just blue light cutting out in evening.
lounge, blue light cutting out in evening as well as dimming and colour settings to set mood and comfort.
and that's just the lighting, I don't want to have to carry keys to get in. smart heating etc.


security aspect along with time saving is a rubbish and useless feature imo.
being able to control stuff from any room however can be useful.
 
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Psycho Sonny said:
I'm not saying they are pointless. I'm saying currently the cost is far too much for how useful they actually are.

If it came down to £1K in your pocket or automated lighting how many would choose automated lighting?
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That's not a great question to ask. Of course I'd rather have 1k in my pocket right now however, would I rather have 1k in my pocket or have 1k worth of smart home kit for the long term savings/benefits/ease of use that it provides. Absolutely the smart home kit

The initial investment is steep, totally get that. But when you've paid it, it's done. And then you don't have to think about it, it just becomes second nature. People are always blown away when they first come to mine and see some of the stuff I can control in the house just sat on the sofa (not my ugly one yet :p) or before I'm even in the house. And ITTT still amazes me at what it can do with some patience

Currently set up:
- All lighting downstairs is hue, from the lamps to the spotlights, controlled by automation rules and motion sensors. And lighting on the other two floors is all hue as well (no spotlights on these floors except bathrooms)
- Three Echo's, one on each floor, control all the audio/lighting/heating
- Nest heating on different zones
- Some plug sockets are smart ones so that I can control them via Alexa/Homekit
- Nest Camera for security

And I still want a few bits more such as the Nest fire/co2 alarms
 
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Any decent gaming monitor deals? Want something bigger than 24", ideally 27"+ with as high refresh rate and resolution as possible.
 
Steedie said:
That's not a great question to ask. Of course I'd rather have 1k in my pocket right now however, would I rather have 1k in my pocket or have 1k worth of smart home kit for the long term savings/benefits/ease of use that it provides. Absolutely the smart home kit

The initial investment is steep, totally get that. But when you've paid it, it's done. And then you don't have to think about it. It just becomes second nature. People are always blown away when they first come to mine and see some of the stuff I can control in the house just sat on the sofa (not my ugly one yet :p) or before I'm even in the house. And ITTT still amazes me at what it can do with some patience

Currently set up:
- All lighting downstairs is hue, from the lamps to the spotlights, controlled by automation rules and motion sensors. And lighting on the other two floors is all hue as well (no spotlights on these floors except bathrooms)
- Three Echo's, one on each floor, control all the audio/lighting/heating
- Nest heating on different zones
- Some plug sockets are smart ones so that I can control them via Alexa/Homekit
- Nest Camera for security

And I still want a few bits more such as the Nest fire/co2 alarms
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Now this is the post I have been looking for. It's a proper setup which no doubt when it's being used in such a fashion ultimately sells it to potential buyers.

So the echo's do you just say turn on lights and it does the lights in that area? What other things does it do? I don't have any echo's as I was looking to go more down the google route as I prefer google/andorid/nest, etc.

What sort of automation rules do you have?

I already have Nest thermostat and I'm looking into whether I should get the camera's too or other form of CCTV with a DVR/NVR. Do the lights interact with the camera? As in say if motion was detected at the side of the house or in the back garden you can make certain lights come on within the house (to make the person think someone is at home and awake) and the one in the bedroom flash red or something for possible danger?

What do you use the smart sockets for? As in what do you plug into them and why? All my gadgets are just left in standby and controlled by the remote control for instance.
 
Psycho Sonny said:
Now this is the post I have been looking for. It's a proper setup which no doubt when it's being used in such a fashion ultimately sells it to potential buyers.

So the echo's do you just say turn on lights and it does the lights in that area? What other things does it do? I don't have any echo's as I was looking to go more down the google route as I prefer google/andorid/nest, etc.

What sort of automation rules do you have?

I already have Nest thermostat and I'm looking into whether I should get the camera's too or other form of CCTV with a DVR/NVR. Do the lights interact with the camera? As in say if motion was detected at the side of the house or in the back garden you can make certain lights come on within the house (to make the person think someone is at home and awake) and the one in the bedroom flash red or something for possible danger?

What do you use the smart sockets for? As in what do you plug into them and why? All my gadgets are just left in standby and controlled by the remote control for instance.
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So when I come in the house, the Echo is by the door as it's the best place to be heard across the ground floor, I'll ask Alexa to turn the ground floor lights on, which they do. Or because I've added different lights in to different zones, I can request the lights turned on on a per room basis, but it's easier for the first. Once they are turned on, they can then be controlled via the motion sensors. So as I walk between rooms they will turn on and off as required (until midnight when that is disabled via other rules). The nice thing about the lighting is having difference "scenes" too, so if I'm watching a movie I can ask Alexa to put on a particular light level and colour depending on the mood. Or upstairs in the bedroom if you want some romance :p. And because I've got multiple bulbs in each room, you can set various patterns to happen, I rarely use them but they are cool for showing off.

The smart sockets are in the office and downstairs for the AV equipment, so I can ask Alexa to turn the TV on. Eventually I want to get a Harmony remote to control stuff further.

Another gimmicky thing that I rarely do but can on the odd occasion I need it is ask Alexa to heat my car up in the mornings if it's cold/need to defrost my windscreen (or unlock/lock the doors if i forget)

The camera is outside, so don't really have any rules for that other than to alert me or my girlfriend if it detects anything when we're away.

But I recently went on holiday and set a load of rules up before I left for various lights to come on and go off at certain times to make it look like people moving through the house. And this was different each day so it didn't look automated
 
Final purchase list

Bose Soundtouch 30 £347 (not necessarily a black friday deal) - Wife's christmas present
Ubiquiti Unifi Lite £76.39
3TB Toshiba P300 HDD £69.97
Mercedes E class service plan 2 yr/2 service £28.75/month
 
Robert said:
Just got the Phillips hue starter kit (three colour gu10 bulbs) for £89. Is this a relatively decent deal?
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I really don't understand the attraction/gimmick of light bulbs that change colour as I don't live in a tarts boudoir. I've converted our entire house to 'warm white' LEDs at £2.50p a bulb with a twenty year guarantee. I'm old school and continue to use the switches on the wall.
 
Purchased the Logitech G602 mouse and that's about it so far.

Could be worth upgrading my router but not sure what to go for (to replace BT Home Hub)
 
Faustus said:
I really don't understand the attraction/gimmick of light bulbs that change colour as I don't live in a tarts boudoir. I've converted our entire house to 'warm white' LEDs at £2.50p a bulb with a twenty year guarantee. I'm old school and continue to use the switches on the wall.
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I personally don't understand why someone posts a statement like that. What's its purpose? Do you want to try and understand? If so, ask a question. If not, why the post? A little like Psycho Sunny, who just looked to want to **** them off, then it turns out he actually just wants to understand what people do and could have saved us half a page of pointless posts...
 
Was taking a closer look at the Hue stuff... then stumbled across nanoleaf aurora 9 panel kit in the suggested other things you might like bit of the page.

No video... ok... go do some reearch... find there's a music reactive addon for it... then find that each one can be up to 30 panels... cue me ordering 2x 30 panel music responsive version for over £1k... when I was thinking about maybe trying one of the discounted hue starter kits... damn you, targetted advertisement... you finally got me.
 
Its simple with the Hue Stuff (Basic operation):

Hallway lights to come on automatically when it gets dark -> Then go off around midnight and only come on as night lights when movement is detected.
Landing lights -> automatically come on when movement is detected. To go off 10min after no movement is detected
Toilets/Bathrooms -> automatically come on when movement is detected. To go off 10min after no movement is detected
Lounge -> Philips switch on wall to turn on and off -> Use google home to change to set scenes -> Use google home to turn all lights off when going to bed via command
Kitchen -> Philips switch on wall to turn on and off -> Motion sensor automatically turns lights on and off when its dark using motion sensor.

Etc Etc

Throw in Nest/Tado for the smart heating
Throw in a Logitech Hub for AV equipment

Etc Etc
 
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just got wolfenstein II the new colossus steelbook on xbox for 19.99, was hoping for a cheap 500gb ssd deal not seen any as yet
 
Yep it's all about the daylight/motion sensors tbh, works really well...and they're wireless so you just stick them anywhere.

Hue GU10s finally went on sale here so I will have the last of the living room bulbs done.
 
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