Hey everyone! I’m wondering if anyone here is into smart home products and automation?

Personally I’ve slowly been trying to make everything in my house “smart” while trying not to splash out too much cash at once and keep overall costs relatively low 😄

Current setup is Philips Hue and Smartthings hubs with quite a few Hue lightbulbs, 2 generic Zigbee LED strips, a Philips Ambilight Android TV, smart Samsung washing machine, a Eufy doorbell, a few Zigbee plugs & motion sensors, and 5 Google Home Minis around my house. 👀

My favourite automation I’ve done so far is a really simple one: motion lights. We have a 3 storey house and the hallways get dark, especially in winter. It’s nice to be able to walk up or down the stairs and the lights come on automatically on each landing, then go off again after no motion for 60s. Just makes life a little bit easier by not having to worry light switches, especially if you’re carrying something up the stairs! They also come on at 80% brightness through the day and 10% brightness during the night, which helps if you need to get up in the middle of the night for whatever reason.

I recently bought a Raspberry Pi 4 and Conbee II stick and I plan on implementing Home Assistant (as soon as I get some spare time!) to be able to condense the two Zigbee hubs into one and harmonise everything even further. Hopefully I can then get around to doing some more complex automations too!

So if you’re into home automation, what devices do you have, what would you like to buy in future and what’s your favourite use case/automation you’ve done? Would love to get some new ideas! ✌️

P.S. I guess we could also think about how Nothing could add to the home automation scene in future. I’m sure they could make some great looking smart home products.

    Related discussions

    adbo

    I haven’t done much stuff. I use Homeassistant on my RPI 4 and use it to turn my Lamps on at sunset and to turn all lamps, Air Purifier etc off when I leave my home as the homeassistant app is able to track your position and do stuff based on this.

        adbo I’m on a very slow path to automating my gaff, like yourself, looking to spend as little as possible! Got 2 Google Home Hubs, a couple of Hue bulbs and a Chromecast of course! I also recommend ZigBee smart plugs from Lidl they work so well and are suuuuper cheap!

          I’ve got an echo in my sitting room and a nice set of Kasa lights over my bed in the bedroom, plus an echo plug for the bed heating (winter nights). Connected the indoor cameras to it as well. Looking to expand to more lights and get ready for a disco party, voice-activated. 🥳

          adbo Current setup is Philips Hue and Smartthings hubs with quite a few Hue lightbulbs, 2 generic Zigbee LED strips, a Philips Ambilight Android TV, smart Samsung washing machine, a few Zigbee plugs & motion sensors, and 5 Google Home Minis around my house.

          What are the lightbulbs like, as in would you consider them worth the cost? Do they last a long time? My brother-in-law has a few of those smart plugs that link to his Alexa, quite cool I must say!

          I have 3 Google Home Minis, Google Nest Hub, plus 3 Smart TVs (1 Sony, 2 Samsung), 1 Chromecast, Ring Video Doorbell, Ring Spotlight and Floodlight camera plus an Ember mug ☕️

          My favourite out of the list is probably the interaction of Google Mini/Hub. We use it quite a lot of the time to find out general information (weather/time/news) plus to play music throughout the house. Sadly, it doesn’t really connect with our Ring equipment and I don’t have the funds to start forking out on the Google Nest stuff!

          In terms of what Nothing could do, well with the TE links it would be really great to see some sort of home speaker system. Probably something like a Google Home Mini or the bigger Hubs, without the display.

              I have smart speakers and displays throughout my apartment. I only have a few smart lights but once I find a home that I’ll be settled in for awhile, a goal will be to have almost every light a “smart light”.

              Back in the day when we used to turn settings off when leaving home I used to have NFC tags stuck to walls and doorframes to turn on or off certain settings.

                10% brightness at night is a great idea. Is there a blue-light filter too?

                I’m planning major building work on my house this year and will certainly be looking at the benefits of installing an IOT.

                Kastello the homeassistant app is able to track your position and do stuff based on this

                yessss that’s something I’m looking forward to when I finally install HA! Would love to be able to turn everything off automatically when we leave.

                Louis ☕️ What are the lightbulbs like, as in would you consider them worth the cost? Do they last a long time?

                I opted for Hue even though they’re more expensive than other Zigbee bulbs because I’ve heard of other brands (like IKEA) having connection issues or dying after a year or two. I’ve had some of my Hue lights for 3 years and they’re still going strong. They’re meant to be rated up to 25,000 hours so should be good for a long while yet! Hue also have great features like remembering state during power loss, whereas a lot of smart lights turn on when powered - which isn’t great when you have a power cut in the middle of the night!

                I’m also trying to ensure all of my smarthome devices operate on Zigbee, which again is a little more expensive but is more stable and reliable than wifi and it’s also a mesh based network, unlike wifi, so is expandable without more hubs/points too.

                Louis ☕️ weather/time/news) plus to play music throughout the house

                I do take my Minis for granted sometimes! They are powerful little things aren’t they. When they work, that is. Sounds like you could do with switching to Alexa since you have Ring products though?

                        Considering there are widgets planned to control Tesla cars, I expect there will be something similar for smart homes. There’s a good opportunity there.

                        I’ve a few Smart lightbulbs, 2-3 smart plugs and a couple of Echos.

                        I don’t really take full advantage of them as I recently moved to a new flat and haven’t got round to setting everything up properly.

                        Once Nothing starts building its IoT network etc I’ll probably take more interest.

                        adbo Sounds like you could do with switching to Alexa since you have Ring products though?

                        Yeah, I originally had the Google stuff, then the Ring came later before Google had even developed their own cameras…Sigh!

                          I have smart plugs and lights that are triggered by sensors and/or time of day. I also have two outdoor cameras that when triggered by “people” record but if it’s after dusk will turn on by downstairs lights for 5 mins (this is only the back garden camera). I have 3 google speakers which I love (and works will all the plugs and lights).

                          My cameras are by Hive who’ve just announced they will stop supporting them in 3 years so after that they will be bricks (great) - at that point I’ll probably opt for google cameras.

                          2 months later

                          Did anyone see the Google announcement regarding the Google Home app recently? Basically they’re improving the app, upgrading their automation experience and making routines even smarter.

                          They’re adding a lot more routine “starters” (triggers for routines) such as media starts/pauses, doorbell presses and motion sensor activity as well as more actions too. For example, if someone rings your doorbell, you can automatically pause media while you go and answer the door.

                          They’re also implementing “home” routines, where anyone in your home can run/edit the same routine - finally! For anything you feel you can’t do within the routine UI, they’re adding a script editor for the more advanced automations, which looks very similar to Home Assistant’s script editor. Makes me wonder if they’ll be able to compete with HA!

                          To compliment all of this, they also announced a redesign of the Home app. It’s nice to see Google finally updating their app and improving the user experience with routines.

                          Sources: https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Blog/New-home-automation-features-to-make-your-smart-home-more/ba-p/248418

                          https://9to5google.com/2022/10/04/google-home-app-redesign/

                          I already use Google Routines so to know there is going to be more intelligent etc. is great news!

                            RobIgo I love Google routines. Take some type to learn and setup some routines and it can be quite nice and feel futuristic when waking up and saying “Hey Google, good morning”

                              Smart home and automation aren’t widely used in India as of now. It is getting into light from the past couple of years. I have Amazon’s Echo Dot and Syska smart LED’s around my home. I’m looking forward to install completely automated tech in my home in the coming months.

                                Surya_8055 the more I can get tech do for me the better! Currently I have cameras at the front and rear of the house and they are set to motion detection “people” (so animals or the wind blowing doesn’t trigger it to record and send me an alert). The rear of the house also has a routine where between 12 midnight and 6am if the camera is triggered to record my downstairs lights all come on for 5 mins (hopefully if this was somebody snooping around my back garded it would deter them).

                                I like the fact that in the future if your doorbell rings it pauses what you’re watching on tv (and can turn out an outside light etc).

                                    RobIgo Yeah, those are some cool features to have. Like its more futuristic and good to have.