Home Automation. Who's done it?

McCracken

McCracken

Logan Can't See This
Joined
Jul 9, 2005
Location
With your mom at a nice seafood dinner
I'm looking at trying this out at the house. I got my wife an Amazon Echo last year and we've been enjoying that but I see where I can do more such as automate the home. I'd also like to manage my power usage better and set up lights to come on in the evening before we get home or when we're away on vacation. Who here as tried this?

I'm looking at using a Wink hub and the GE link bulbs. I'd also like to use some smart plugs but not sure which ones to get. I don't need the naysayers in this thread so don't make me do a Google image search of an old meme to make fun of you online. Thanks.
 
Got a buddy who writes the programming for that stuff, his house is fucking insane. I don't know what brand he does it for but I think it is for a few of them.

It is really damn cool, he can even check the pH level in his pool or turn his oven on and off with his phone. I had to drop something off at his house once and I went over there and he wasn't home. I called him and he was in Boston, but told me to hold on and remotely opened the garage door for me. Crazy shit.
 
I've read some reviews and the wife's on board so I'll give it a shot. The Wink hub has good reviews and has a pretty decent write up on CNET. I think I'll try 3 bulbs and 2 outlets first. I'd also like to go with a NEST thermostat at some point too.
 
We have a Vera, some smart switches, smart door locks (Schlage, not that other shit). The AVR is integrated, so you could have it start playing Pandora when you come down the driveway every evening, or some dumb shit like that.

Doesn't Wink cost money every month? Vera is free dollars. That's why I went that route.

There is zero (real, practical) energy savings here. You'll spend a small fortune in devices to get any sort of real, comprehensive "home automation", and even then, for what? So you can turn down all the lights at the same time when Downton Abbey comes on? It's mostly about little stuff like having the hall light come on every night to 25% so that you don't have to fumble around in the dark.

Nest is overpriced shit for people that have been made stupid by their iPhones and can no longer work a regular thermostat.
 
shawn said:
Nest is overpriced shit for people that have been made stupid by their iPhones and can no longer work a regular thermostat.
Click to expand...

Please, Shawn, what is you opinion of the Nest?
 
rockcity said:
Is there an automated mute button for the kids when Downton Abbey comes on?
Click to expand...
Your voice. Don't know about you but I automatically yell at my kids all the time.
 
The other issue you'll likely run into: Neutral conductors. All of the wall switches require three conductors: hot, neutral, and switched hot. If your house is wired with a two-conductor wire that loops down to the switch and back from the device, you won't be able to install a smart switch at that location... or you'll have to fish a new three-conductor wire.

If you install smart bulbs, then you get into the issues of the bulbs burning out/blowing up/buzzing/whistling/etc, but now you've got a $20 smart bulb that you don't want to get rid of.
 
shawn said:
So you can turn down all the lights at the same time when Downton Abbey comes on?
Click to expand...

I'm sorry but I don't have a clue what you're talking about here.
 
RatLabGuy said:
Please, Shawn, what is you opinion of the Nest?
Click to expand...

Z-wave compatible programmable thermostat: $80

Z-wave compatible programmable thermostat made by a company that you've probably heard of: $140

Z-wave compatible programmable "smart" thermostat with humidistat and pretty touch screen: $175

Nest: $250
 
shawn said:
Z-wave compatible programmable thermostat: $80

Z-wave compatible programmable thermostat made by a company that you've probably heard of: $140

Z-wave compatible programmable "smart" thermostat with humidistat and pretty touch screen: $175

Nest: $250
Click to expand...
stop it with the facts already, lets not have them get in the way of the truth.

... yeah, but is your "Z-wave compatible programmable "smart" thermostat with humidistat and pretty touch " also conveniently owned by the same company that is tracking your every move on every other computing device?

... Does it have the ability to auto-update itself from some remote service at any time without your approval, potentially causing it to fail/act strange w/o warning and cause your furnace to burn for hours straight, or not at all during the winter?

See, you're missing out.
 
shawn said:
The other issue you'll likely run into: Neutral conductors. All of the wall switches require three conductors: hot, neutral, and switched hot. If your house is wired with a two-conductor wire that loops down to the switch and back from the device, you won't be able to install a smart switch at that location... or you'll have to fish a new three-conductor wire.
Click to expand...
There are a few 2-wire switches, but they are not common, tend to be expensive, and limited in what they can be used for.

For instance, you go to the light fixture and pull out the box, change the wires so the line going to the switch is always hot, and tap into that same wire nut to drive a receive module that sits between the AC and the light. So now the light is "smart controlled".
Now you go back to the switch, and replace it w/ a smart switch that sends the control signal to the "slave" you put in the light. Your switch always has power, it just sends a remote signal to the other one.

PITA but it's possible.
 
RatLabGuy said:
yeah, but is your "Z-wave compatible programmable "smart" thermostat with humidistat and pretty touch " also conveniently owned by the same company that is tracking your every move on every other computing device?
Click to expand...

I was referring specifically to Honeywell, rather than whatever latest Chinese company has decided to get into the business by selling products for half what everybody else is charging.

But yeah, all the other stuff you said about Nest is true, too.

And the information compartmentalization issue is another reason why you might want to use something like Vera to access those "smart" devices, rather than letting them access the internet on their own.
 
Yeah, I dont think I want somebody to be able to hack into my house. I hated the remote control thing that Duke put on my HVAC. My wife was home one day this past summer when Duke turned it off to conserve power. She called me freaking out about the AC going out, the 2 hours later said it was back on. Got up to 80 in the house. Since then, my dogs have chewed it up and I had to remove it.
 
shawn said:
Doesn't Wink cost money every month?
Click to expand...

Negative.

shawn said:
Nest is overpriced shit for people that have been made stupid by their iPhones and can no longer work a regular thermostat.
Click to expand...

I have a Samsung. Will I still be able to operate it?

shawn said:
The other issue you'll likely run into: Neutral conductors. All of the wall switches require three conductors: hot, neutral, and switched hot. If your house is wired with a two-conductor wire that loops down to the switch and back from the device, you won't be able to install a smart switch at that location... or you'll have to fish a new three-conductor wire.
Click to expand...

acdn.meme.am_instances_54450228.jpg
 
shawn said:
Z-wave compatible programmable thermostat: $80

Z-wave compatible programmable thermostat made by a company that you've probably heard of: $140

Z-wave compatible programmable "smart" thermostat with humidistat and pretty touch screen: $175

Nest: $250
Click to expand...
You can find NEST stuff for less than $250. That seems to only be the case when you want the latest and greatest.
 
shawn said:
Z-wave compatible programmable thermostat: $80

Z-wave compatible programmable thermostat made by a company that you've probably heard of: $140

Z-wave compatible programmable "smart" thermostat with humidistat and pretty touch screen: $175

Nest: $250
Click to expand...

Which one do you have? Thinking about starting with the new house with just a thermostat that uses Z-wave and the controller box if its easy enough.
 
shawn said:
The other issue you'll likely run into: Neutral conductors. All of the wall switches require three conductors: hot, neutral, and switched hot. If your house is wired with a two-conductor wire that loops down to the switch and back from the device, you won't be able to install a smart switch at that location... or you'll have to fish a new three-conductor wire.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily a problem; you can retrofit a nice cheap-ish ($30) wall timer like this one, even if you have a 3-way switch setup:

ST01
http://www.intermatic.com/~/media/i...in-wall/electronic/st01/st01_instructions.pdf

It's not "smart" but it serves the function of having lights turn on/off at prescribed intervals, and has randomizing functions to adjust the times slightly to it doesn't look like an old-school timer.

Not everything requires a WiFi connection to do something useful. :p
 
DSM Turbos said:
Which one do you have? Thinking about starting with the new house with just a thermostat that uses Z-wave and the controller box if its easy enough.
Click to expand...

None of the above. We have a dumb thermostat. Set and forget. The old house had a programmable, but it was the same thing. The only significant difference in the programming there was that we bumped the temperature set point a few degrees in the morning in the winter, and pulled it back a few degrees at night. With small children, that's less attractive. They're more likely to kick off the covers and wake up because they're cold.

Fabrik8 said:
It's not "smart" but it serves the function of having lights turn on/off at prescribed intervals, and has randomizing functions to adjust the times slightly to it doesn't look like an old-school timer.
Click to expand...

Right. Which gets back to some of my initial comments about how much any of it is really "worth" it. I mean, with us, it started out as "We need a new door lock for the new house. It would be nice to have one we could unlock remotely." That evolved into "we can do a lot more with this system, let's buy a few devices and see how well they work."

But you can turn your Christmas lights on and off with a $5 timer instead of a $25 Z Wave dongle.
 
Remote t stats are great for 2nd homes, vacation or short term rental properties and even rental properties. (check your local laws)

For my personal house I couldnt see investing a penny in it, because...well wtf is the juice.

Home automation falls into that "cool but..." space for me.
Hell in the 90s GE invested 100+ million into developing X10 and as Jack Welch said in his autobiography [It was the greatest execution of technology that every focus group said they wanted but no one was wiling to pay for in the real world]

All that said I've installed a lot of it. Its really neat to impress your friends. Once.

But good luck!
 
Not a fan of automating a house, if it decides it doesn't like you anymore it will try to tell an excavator to kill you.

That or a burglar can hack in and have his way with the place and he'll know when your gone by studying the light and hvac schedules you setup.
 
I do like the programmable stat, and I have a keyless front door lock but the rest of it makes me feel more vulnerable.
 
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