Smart Homes

philly169

philly169

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Mrs 169 was given an Amazon Echo for her birthday in October, to start with i wasn't too keen but now i think its pretty cool. We use it mainly for music. Her family have also all purchased echo's and echo dots.

Her brother has gone whole hog and kitted out his house with Hue lighting, so much so he bought everyone the Hue lighting starter kit for Christmas.. We are waiting to set ours up as all our lamps are screw fits.

Now my home is becoming smarter, I've also considered getting a couple of Nest Protect Fire & Carbon Monoxide alarms, as our fire alarm is currently hanging off the ceiling where we had a leak in the bathroom, as well as TP Link Passthrough Energy Monitors.

Anyone else running a smart home? How do you find it, does it make life easier or is it just a fad?
 
philly169 said:
Mrs 169 was given an Amazon Echo for her birthday in October, to start with i wasn't too keen but now i think its pretty cool. We use it mainly for music. Her family have also all purchased echo's and echo dots.

Her brother has gone whole hog and kitted out his house with Hue lighting, so much so he bought everyone the Hue lighting starter kit for Christmas.. We are waiting to set ours up as all our lamps are screw fits.

Now my home is becoming smarter, I've also considered getting a couple of Nest Protect Fire & Carbon Monoxide alarms, as our fire alarm is currently hanging off the ceiling where we had a leak in the bathroom, as well as TP Link Passthrough Energy Monitors.

Anyone else running a smart home? How do you find it, does it make life easier or is it just a fad?
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I see it as the standard in the future mate, not a fad at all.
Wish I had the time and internet speed to set my house up :D
 
its deffo the future, not everyone will take it up of course, but high end new builds will be smart, the retrofit market is massive, i would like to set up a company doing exactly this! But no money or balls to do it!

More and more stuff will come in, OK some things like kettles as we discussed a while ago maybe one step too far, but it can be very useful. Lights, heating, security being the big 3 for me, but there will be more things like the amazon buttons, smart fridges, more links to retail so when you run out of milk, its added to your next online shop or texts whoever in the family is nearest a shop.

Still price prohibitive at the minute to go full on mainstream, but count yourself as an early adopter or BETA tester for the rest of us!
 
Very interested in the HUE lighting. You mentioned your waiting to set it up because yours a screw fit is this a common problem. how is everyone else finding HUE?
 
karlcole said:
Very interested in the HUE lighting. You mentioned your waiting to set it up because yours a screw fit is this a common problem. how is everyone else finding HUE?
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you can buy both screw and bayonet fits, brother in law bought us the bayonet one, so ive had to get some converters. They look really cool, he has his installed in lamps, as opposed to ceiling lights, as well as having a lot of meterage of the light strips. I would like them, but at £60+ for 2 meters its a bit pricey!

Hopefully should be able to comment on the HUE's next week.
 
in terms of the Amazon Echo it would be much better if they interlinked, so for example playing music down stairs could be turned off by talking to the one upstairs, but this isn't possible which is a shame.

I'm not to sure on the dash buttons, i think you can only get a 48 pack of loo roll which is a bit excessive!
 
I have an Echo dot in my room and in the lounge and might get one for the kitchen.

We have the Nest Thermostat, which can be controlled by the Dot, or my phone obviously.

We also have numerous Philips Hue bulbs in the lounge, hallway, dining room, landing, bedroom, garden and my son's room. They are quite cool setting them to fade in when we wake up to help us get up and the different scenes. I also like the fact I can control them away from home so helps with security and set it so they come on as I get near to the house.

The integration between Hue and Echo Dot is a little flaky as it sets up all the scenes and the lights as devices, so it isn't as good as it could be, but I do like saying, "Alexa, turn off downstairs lights" as I walk out the lounge and all the lights downstairs go off as I walk up the stairs to bed.

I also want to get the Nest smoke alarms / Carbon Monoxide sensor as they look pretty cool.
 
I can see the idea behind automating your home, but for the life of me I cannot see why you need a device to turn on or off lights when you are leaving that room. To me, the more automation you have the more dependant you are on that 1 gadget that controls that and everything else in your life, and loads more that could go wrong.
 
Bunkermagnet said:
I can see the idea behind automating your home, but for the life of me I cannot see why you need a device to turn on or off lights when you are leaving that room. To me, the more automation you have the more dependant you are on that 1 gadget that controls that and everything else in your life, and loads more that could go wrong.
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You're not dependent on it. I can still use the light switch if I want to reminisce about how the peasants do it.
 
I have some ego wifi adaptors, and a netatmo wifi thermostat. Happy with both. Im going to get a couple of wifi fused spur units later in the year too, to control my outside up / down lights.
 
We have a Risco house alarm system, pretty cool.....set/disarm using your mobile via the cloud, including if you are away from home. Also sends alerts to your mobile if the alarm is set off, a pic is taken and sent to your phone too. Can also take them manually via the phone. As a result we never use the conventional alarm keypad.

Tempted by the lights and heating systems but likely to move with 5 years so may wait.
 
Still waiting for internet, how long does it take BT to set up good old fashioned FTTP :D

I will do this in a few years, still think it's a touch too early but the prices are going in thee right direction. 5 years time it will be the norm.
 
I am also fishing in this department.. so looking at options. Currently considering Echo v/s Samsung Smart Things. Security is my primary objective rather than mood/music settings. Watching this thread.

We have Nest thermostat and it does temp and hot water. We went for a wired installation rather than wireless. It does look cool, but not yet very impressed with its Auto-learn ability yet - must be

We considered the Nest Fire/CO sensor but talked out of it by the sparky. As per new regs you need sensors which are mains powered and with 10y battery life. When we put our new sensors, he was waiting to hear if the latest Fire/COs are Part B compliant. So we went ahead with 'dumb' sensors instead.
 
I think most of these Home Automation things a bit gimicky but this Powerwall from Tesla i think is very exciting and very much the future......

https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/powerwall

It stores enough energy when coupled to a solar roof to provide power for a 2 bed house through the night. Sure its expensive right now but give it a few years and i can see them being installed on all new build houses. The new solar roofs coming out soon from Tesla are also brilliant looking.
 
ScienceBoy said:
Still waiting for internet, how long does it take BT to set up good old fashioned FTTP :D

I will do this in a few years, still think it's a touch too early but the prices are going in thee right direction. 5 years time it will be the norm.
Click to expand...

The internet was a huge hit at making things smarter...
 
vkurup said:
I am also fishing in this department.. so looking at options. Currently considering Echo v/s Samsung Smart Things. Security is my primary objective rather than mood/music settings. Watching this thread.

We have Nest thermostat and it does temp and hot water. We went for a wired installation rather than wireless. It does look cool, but not yet very impressed with its Auto-learn ability yet - must be

We considered the Nest Fire/CO sensor but talked out of it by the sparky. As per new regs you need sensors which are mains powered and with 10y battery life. When we put our new sensors, he was waiting to hear if the latest Fire/COs are Part B compliant. So we went ahead with 'dumb' sensors instead.
Click to expand...

Yeah, our fire alarms are hard wired, porbably from the original build so likely due to be replaced. I'm torn between the Nest Protect and a standard fire alarm, i'd need two, one on each floor so its either £180 on Nest's or £80 on normal wired alarms and £20 on Carbon monoxide alarms. Not sure if having Nest's are necessary, though worst case and we sell our house I could just uproot them and put old ones in...

Fade and Die said:
I think most of these Home Automation things a bit gimicky but this Powerwall from Tesla i think is very exciting and very much the future......

https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/powerwall

It stores enough energy when coupled to a solar roof to provide power for a 2 bed house through the night. Sure its expensive right now but give it a few years and i can see them being installed on all new build houses. The new solar roofs coming out soon from Tesla are also brilliant looking.
Click to expand...

Yeah, solar is my next thing. I love the look of the solar tiles and Tesla do some great stuff.

We're considering a shed in the garden, so ive been looking at a solar kit so we can run it off grid, looks pretty simple and uses just a car battery to store the power.
 
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What are considered a decent smart thermostat/timer gadget to control a combi boiler?
Our current timer switches hot water and central heating so it would need to mirror that somehow.
 
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