Home automation

[Sharxfan]

So I am looking to do some homebrew home automation and figured I would hit up the BARF hive mind for some reviews.

So I don't want Google or Amazon in my house listening to every damn thing I am saying just to gain some convenience. I would like to know if anyone has done a cloudless voice implementation for home automation. I have looked on the web some and read a few Reddit threads and so far it looks like Home Assistant may be my best bet but I want some Barfer input on this before I go down the rabbit hole. I am looking to try and keep it out of a proprietary ecosystem so bear that in mind. Smartthings looks awesome but from what I can see it is a Samsung ecosystem and would really like to keep it open source.

So any good/bad experiences or other suggestions are welcome.

 

[mrzuzzo]

I do use Smart things. It's been pretty good as of late. There are plenty of custom/open source device handlers and coding your own is pretty simple. Community support is impressive.

All my devices are either zigbee or z-wave. Don't want any WiFi crap on my network.

 

[mercurial]

I was an early adopter of home automation. It's pretty boring, and mostly useless. Custom automation is no better, and takes way more time. It's a hobby for someone who is really bored with life.

 

[mrzuzzo]

I was an early adopter of home automation. It's pretty boring, and mostly useless. Custom automation is no better, and takes way more time. It's a hobby for someone who is really bored with life.

Total disagree there. We use ours all the time.

Even for simple things like make sure the door is locked when the wife leaves the house, turn off all the lights when we go to bed, turn on some lights upon sunset, not to mention integration with all the assistants, etc etc. It's been great for us.

 

[littlebeast]

what are you trying to do? we don’t much use for ‘home automation’ but definitely do for home security. and in that regard, we have full video surveillance with live notification (nest). it works great.

 

[tzrider]

I'm using Hubitat and like it quite a bit. It runs locally and will keep working if Internet service goes down. Most of our switches are Z Wave but I do have a few WiFi plugs that I'll phase out eventually.

 

[Sharxfan]

Maybe home automation is a misnomer in my case. What I really want to do is turn certain things off and on with a voice assistant or app. I had an ADT house alarm until a lightning strike fried the motherboard awhile back. I started looking at ways to replace it and found Konnected and really liked what was going on with it and then that led to the whole voice activation/automation hole.

Thinking about having a small Rasp Pi as the app hub in the kitchen and having it display tasks and weather and other useful info for the better half. Also want to be able to turn upstairs lights on/off and adjust the thermostat as needed without having to go upstairs. Also, want to give the kiddos their own voice box so they can control their room lights and LED strips if they want.

Also, want to do some outdoor video surveillance and maybe integrate some AI to determine if there are human-sized presences outside.

 

[Lights_Guy3]

I use SmartThings paired with Google Assistant. Smart plugs, garage door tilt sensors, humidity/temp/motion sensor in my gun safe, water intrusion sensors, fire/CO alarms, strobe/siren alarm, etc are all Z Wave. Rachio sprinkler controller is wifi. Smart thermostat from Honeywell (I think the circular Nest products look stupid) is wifi. Hunter Douglas top down/bottom up smart window shades are some form of wifi (I think) but integrate through a custom device handler into the Samsung hub.

My main control panel is a wall mounted android tablet using ActionTiles through an app called Fully Video Kiosk. The Kiosk app allows the tablet to utilize the front camera as a motion sensor for an auto wake up feature so that it turns on whenever someone walk up to it. It also allows the ActionTiles page to show full screen for maximum utilization while also preventing someone from exiting the app. Friends can't mess with me by changing stupid settings on the tablet (something every drunk person ever thinks is super clever and funny). I have it configured to show a "screensaver" after so many seconds of non use which is dictated by a service called DakBoard. Dakboard screensaver display is configurable to use a rotating customized background image and shows shows current/forecasted weather, events linked by my Google calendar, and RSS feed. Since ActionTiles is web based, I can log in from any location and see status of sensors and also trigger events. The downside to this app is that during an internet outage I will not have control from remote locations. Realistically that doesn't happen without a power outage, so it's a moot point.

I have my phone and wife's phone acting as proximity sensors to trigger events in the house as needed, and have also made an "easy on" guest mode so that if we both are out of the house things will still function if we want them to.

It's easy to configure Google Assistant to add voice control for anything through the Samsung hub. Most commands are built in already. For example for the thermostat all I had to do was get it connected to the system and then the Assistant took care of the rest. Ex: "Hey google, turn thermostat on and set heater to 75". "Hey google, I'm cold" (boost temp by 5). And any other reasonable thing you could think of to control a thermostat.

As of recently, anyone added to your "household" can use customized voice commands that have been setup on any other phone within the household. This is great because my wife isn't all that tech savvy, so I can do all the setup work on my end with the results being tied into her voice as well. We've used this feature to make commands like "turn on/off the bass" or "close all blinds".

The Samsung hub natively supports easy event creation. For example: Wife bought an outdoor fountain for the birds. I don't want the water pump to burn itself up if the water runs low so I have the smart plug calibrated to read power draw and auto shutoff when it detects that its doing a lot of work, followed by a notification to both our phones that reads "Fountain water LOW".

I evaluated the Raspberry Pi option originally, but decided that it would require far more work to get up and running than I was willing to do. Having easy smart phone integration for control was important to me and the SmartThings is better for that. Pairing with new devices is so easy - and that was key to convincing the wife that going down this whole smart home road was worth it.

 

[mercurial]

Total disagree there. We use ours all the time.

Even for simple things like make sure the door is locked when the wife leaves the house, turn off all the lights when we go to bed, turn on some lights upon sunset, not to mention integration with all the assistants, etc etc. It's been great for us.

"Great?" It sounds mildly useful, but great is a bit of a stretch. :laughing The most useful setup for mine was the ability to turn off all lights at bedtime, but that was at a time when I was a single person living in a large house, so when I got home I'd have to walk all over and turn on lights, and then vice versa at bedtime.

The one smart home kit that is super useful, is a sprinkler timer that knows the weather and season.

 

[Lights_Guy3]

The one smart home kit that is super useful, is a sprinkler timer that knows the weather and season.

I agree. My timer knows current rainfall, humidity, temps, etc and adjusts watering as needed. My water service into the property is a little small so that if the sprinklers are on the water coming out of the shower head is a little less than enthusiastic. I have it synced to my work schedule and it will pause watering if I am up early to jump on the shower (5am ish).

 

[mlm]

I ended up choosing Wink a couple years ago. It's adequate, but not great, and the biggest issue I have with home automation is that we have multiple things and the integration is poor.

The main purpose of the hub is to manage lights via Z-Wave switches. All our exterior lights are covered and integrate well with motion detectors. Also does a good job of taking care of garage and out-building lights that were regularly left turned on.

+1 on the sprinklers. Have the Rachio 2nd gen which works well, but the 3rd gen is what I'd go with buying new as the adjustments (wind, rain, temperature) look like they've been improved considerably.

Video is a completely separate issue. At most, you might integrate with the video based motion detect. That much works with the Ring doorbell (front lights go on when someone approaches the door is nice), but otherwise doesn't seem to be well supported.

 

[tzrider]

We have a few Ring spotlight cameras and I wanted to be able to turn on their spotlights and sirens from the hub. A Hubitat user wrote an app that handles Ring camera integration and it can turn on the lights and sirens.

I implemented a panic function that will turn on all lights in the house, activate spotlights and sirens and play a second clad on sound on exterior Sonos speakers. Pretty much makes all hell break loose. :laughing

 

[littlebeast]

Maybe home automation is a misnomer in my case. What I really want to do is turn certain things off and on with a voice assistant or app. I had an ADT house alarm until a lightning strike fried the motherboard awhile back. I started looking at ways to replace it and found Konnected and really liked what was going on with it and then that led to the whole voice activation/automation hole.

Thinking about having a small Rasp Pi as the app hub in the kitchen and having it display tasks and weather and other useful info for the better half. Also want to be able to turn upstairs lights on/off and adjust the thermostat as needed without having to go upstairs. Also, want to give the kiddos their own voice box so they can control their room lights and LED strips if they want.

Also, want to do some outdoor video surveillance and maybe integrate some AI to determine if there are human-sized presences outside.

you probably don’t have to integrate anything - most video surveillance systems have that built in (our notifications go along the lines of ‘movement detected’ or ‘person detected’ - and both notifications include the location where the movement or person is). i’d also recommend interior surveillance. we have our cameras placed covering cross sections of our house so detection is unavoidable to anyone moving through the house. the system also has a speaker function - useful for informing an intruder that their presence is known and they are being recorded (although it more frequently gets used by my SO when he is traveling, and decides to inform me late at night to stop working and get my ass to bed - that’s when i look up at the camera and give him the salute lol).

 

[mrzuzzo]

we have our cameras placed covering cross sections of our house so detection is unavoidable to anyone moving through the house. the system also has a speaker function - useful for informing an intruder that their presence is known and they are being recorded (although it more frequently gets used by my SO when he is traveling, and decides to inform me late at night to stop working and get my ass to bed - that’s when i look up at the camera and give him the salute lol).

This sounds creepy.

I have some Wyze cams with these functions but I wouldn't trust them so much as to have them inside the house. Just not really that secure.

 

[Sharxfan]

Yeah not so sure about cameras in the house unless I had them blocked from the internet. If I had to log onto my home network and then could catch the feed I would be okay with that I just don't like my data on the web trusting others to keep it secure. Hence my wanting to do a home-brewed non cloud-connected hub and voice-activated functions.

 

[Free_Bird]

My House Automation took the form of Kitchen Appliances. My favorite is the electric Pressure Cooker. Along with the Bread Machine can throw in ingredients than let the machine do it's thing.

An old Alarm System still functions. Ultrasonic and door sensors activates Bells and Siren.

Motion sensor Flood lights on sides of the House. That Cats set off every night.

Aerogarden and Lamps on timers makes it look like someone is home. The new LED bulbs are cool.

 

[Sharxfan]

So on Black Friday Wallmart is selling a 7" RCA android tablet for like $25 bucks I am thinking this may make a good touchscreen for the home system. My other option would be to build something using a touchscreen Raspberry PI 4.

 

[mercurial]

This sounds creepy.

I have some Wyze cams with these functions but I wouldn't trust them so much as to have them inside the house. Just not really that secure.

I had some crappy Wyze camera. It has red LEDs on the front to indicate some kind of night mode, which seemed to randomly come on and off. I decided I'd rather not have a company that is beholden to the CCP, watching my every movement in my house.

Another thing to think about: cloud storage cameras enable the panopticon police state. Ring freely shares data to Police without warrant. Owning a ring device that faces onto public streets is, IMO, unconscionable.

 

[mrzuzzo]

Yeah not so sure about cameras in the house unless I had them blocked from the internet. If I had to log onto my home network and then could catch the feed I would be okay with that I just don't like my data on the web trusting others to keep it secure. Hence my wanting to do a home-brewed non cloud-connected hub and voice-activated functions.

Yeah exactly.

Since the big companies (Ring, Amazon, Google) were all caught sharing your videos/audio with their contractors and people, imagine what happens with cheaper cameras.

Ring was busted letting their contractors in Ukraine watch videos from people's supposedly secured cameras...

 

[mrzuzzo]

I had some crappy Wyze camera. It has red LEDs on the front to indicate some kind of night mode, which seemed to randomly come on and off. I decided I'd rather not have a company that is beholden to the CCP, watching my every movement in my house.

Another thing to think about: cloud storage cameras enable the panopticon police state. Ring freely shares data to Police without warrant. Owning a ring device that faces onto public streets is, IMO, unconscionable.

I have a few Wyze cameras. I use one outside of the garage, the other I use sometimes to watch where mice are getting into my house.

Everything is uploaded to the Wyze cloud. Anything can happen with the video once it's in the cloud.

If the camera is so cheap it seems the company can't be making money off of it, they must be making money in different ways.

How 1.5 Million Connected Cameras Were Hijacked to Make an Unprecedented Botnet

the larger botnet used against Krebs is made mostly of internet-connected security cameras made by DAHUA Technology, a Chinese manufacturer, with a subsidiary in California