Recommendations for easy home automation??

Forums › Gadgets, robotics, home automation, electronics (including wearables) › Recommendations for easy home automation??

Ed2341

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#214852 31-May-2017 15:08

Just wondering if anyone uses home automation, or can recommend a product? Looks like the US market has an infinite amount of brands. I want to control thermostat, cameras, garage door, front door lock and some basic lighting....

Thanks!

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#1792574 31-May-2017 20:20

you cant use the US Zwave products in nz as they operate on the wrong frequencies for our country

davidcole

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#1792577 31-May-2017 20:25

I dont think such a product exists. Home automation does seem to be like the wild Wild West at the moment, with all companies figuring out where they fit. Apple uses their Apple tv as a hub and have some products out in the market. Google has their own. Wemo does some things, zwave other with a Vera hub. It's quite hobbyist.

Myself I have an openHAB sever with a mix of custom raspberry pi based sensors, zwave sensors and relays, pi based relays.

If I wanted cheaper I could have gone wemo but there were aspects of zwave I preferred.

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Talkiet

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#1792582 31-May-2017 20:37

Jase2985:

you cant use the US Zwave products in nz as they operate on the wrong frequencies for our country

I think that should be you "shouldn't" use the US Z-wave products... They use a different frequency that as far as I am aware is not approved for use (at least for that purpose) in NZ. I doubt they would magically fail to work if you used them here.

FWIW I have AU/NZ Z-wave products myself. I'm not sure they are the simplest although the complexity is going to be in the controller anyway, not the underlying home automation networking.

My solution won't suit the "easy" requirement... Have a look for some of the major brands like Samsung Smartthings... (Note I don't know if it's available locally)

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

sonyxperiageek

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#1792643 31-May-2017 21:11

I got started with OpenHAB last month, but have been busy lately so haven't been able to add more things onto it.

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tieke

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#1792690 31-May-2017 22:14

There's no great all-encompassing system at the moment - most people end up using something to tie all the various smart home bits and pieces together. I use homeassistant running on a raspberry pi to talk to everything. Someone has built a xiaomi library for it, so I have many cheap Xiaomi smart home bits and pieces (xiaomi temperature monitors, door sensors, motion sensors, push-button switches and power sockets which run on a custom zigbee protocol) all able to be incorporated into home-assistant automation rules and able to be controlled by my Google Home or Alexa. (If you're concerned about devices calling home, the good thing is that if you enable developer mode on the xiaomi devices then you can control them locally).

I also link home-assistant to a broadlink IR transmitter which controls my heatpump/stereo etc, and home assistant also plays nicely with my limitless and yeelight led bulbs, neurio power sensor, opengarage garage door opener and all the other miscellaneous other home bits and pieces I have picked up over time.

lchiu7

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#1793299 1-Jun-2017 20:02

I am only doing lights (a combination of Phillips Hue bulbs and Insteon switch controlled lamps) at the moment using OpenHAB and HABridge as well as the native Hue bulbs bridge. I have to use OpenHAB and HABridge because there is no support for Insteon hubs in Alexa or Google Home for the non-US versions. HABridge makes the Insteon switches look like Hue bulbs.

Can't think of anything else I want to do apart from possibly the gas fireplace. This is turned on via a low-voltage switch/relay so if I could find a low voltage relay that was controllable by the Amazon Dot or Google Home I might look at it. I suspect I might need something like Zigbee which means yet another hub type device unless others have better ideas.

I do have a Harmony Ultimate Home which is still in the box. I use a Harmony One now so it would be reasonably easy to install the Ultimate Home and control the AV system with it. The problem is, I don't my wife wants to talk to turn on the TV :-(

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#1793588 2-Jun-2017 11:53

we use one of the fibaro home centre lites. its only being used for basic stuff at the moment, lighting and controlling the hot water cylinder but were happy with it.

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Ed2341

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#1794199 3-Jun-2017 13:39

Thanks, I think i'm going to go with August Door lock and keypad, the ring doorbell, Arlo pro home security and then the echo show when it is released. Seeing as all of these can be controlled via Echo and also can be viewed on my phone.

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#1794209 3-Jun-2017 13:58

Just be aware that you will have to have an August Connect to remotely control the August lock outside of Bluetooth range. The August lock is good but realistically 99% of the time it's unlocked is with the keypad.

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chimera

506 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1795452 6-Jun-2017 15:57

Make your own home door controller like I did. Easy as. Works well enough, integrated it with OpenHAB. Lock and unlock remotely off iPhone via Openhab app. My instructable if you need...

http://www.instructables.com/id/RF-Door-Lock-ESP8266-and-OpenHAB/

Cost me about $80 all up.

Talkiet

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#1795456 6-Jun-2017 16:08

chimera:

Make your own home door controller like I did. Easy as. Works well enough, integrated it with OpenHAB. Lock and unlock remotely off iPhone via Openhab app. My instructable if you need...

http://www.instructables.com/id/RF-Door-Lock-ESP8266-and-OpenHAB/

Cost me about $80 all up.

Neat, and cheap, but definitely doesn't satisfy the requirement of "easy"... Very easy to forget how complex things are when you already know them so well.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

chimera

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#1795489 6-Jun-2017 16:19

Talkiet:

chimera:

Make your own home door controller like I did. Easy as. Works well enough, integrated it with OpenHAB. Lock and unlock remotely off iPhone via Openhab app. My instructable if you need...

http://www.instructables.com/id/RF-Door-Lock-ESP8266-and-OpenHAB/

Cost me about $80 all up.

Neat, and cheap, but definitely doesn't satisfy the requirement of "easy"... Very easy to forget how complex things are when you already know them so well.

Cheers - N

Yes, moderately true - but hence why I made a detailed instructable on it to make it "less complex"

Talkiet

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#1795492 6-Jun-2017 16:22

chimera:

Talkiet:

chimera:

Make your own home door controller like I did. Easy as. Works well enough, integrated it with OpenHAB. Lock and unlock remotely off iPhone via Openhab app. My instructable if you need...

http://www.instructables.com/id/RF-Door-Lock-ESP8266-and-OpenHAB/

Cost me about $80 all up.

Neat, and cheap, but definitely doesn't satisfy the requirement of "easy"... Very easy to forget how complex things are when you already know them so well.

Cheers - N

Yes, moderately true - but hence why I made a detailed instructable on it to make it "less complex"

It's the little things, like having a solution in place to save you when the Pi corrupts the SD card and you need to restore from backup, or fix the boot, or reimage, or swap to a spare preconfigured card etc :-)

Personally while I am putting a reasonably full set of smarts in my new build, I won't (initially) be including the garage or front door lock... Just a little bit of paranoia :-)

Cheers - N

(I'd hate for someone to be able to yell "ALEXA, UNLOCK THE FRONT DOOR" and that B1tch let in the intruders :)

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

chimera

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#1795495 6-Jun-2017 16:29

Talkiet:

(I'd hate for someone to be able to yell "ALEXA, UNLOCK THE FRONT DOOR" and that B1tch let in the intruders :)

Hence why I personally left out the unlock portion from the HA bridge, and only do the lock part

01EG

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Ultimate Geek

#1795523 6-Jun-2017 17:12

tieke:

opengarage garage door opener ...

Are you happy with opengarage solution, looking into something, cheers

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