Can someone convince me on smarthome/home automation tech?
I'm a techie person, often an early adopter. I bought an iPhone the very first day the first one was released. I love playing with and setting up new gadgets. But I keep looking at home automation and find myself thinking "what's the point?" I just haven't seen any killer applications or use cases that make me think this is something I would value. A friend of mine is kind of into it, and his best demo is using his Google Home to turn his lights blue and play music. Fun trick, but not something I need.
Does anyone here have examples of really valuable or killer use cases in their smarthome setup? For what it's worth, I live with my spouse and 2 young kids, we have a small 2-floor apartment that we rent, we already use our programmable thermostat, and we don't own a TV.
I love my smartlock. It's got a keypad, so I never have to bring a key with me again. I've set it up to automatically lock itself if it's left unlocked for 3 minutes, so I never have to worry about whether I locked the door or not.
I also have it set up on a schedule for our cleaner's. Their number only works on certain days between certain hours and will automatically text me as soon as they enter the key to lock or unlock the door.
This and a camera pointed through the window at our front door (no more need of a doorbell and plenty of video clips if anyone ever approaches it) are the two biggest pieces of "smarthome" tech that I use on a regular basis.
This isn't a huge one, but the lights in my bedroom are smart lights, so I can turn them on, off, or dim them without leaving my bed. I also have them on a timer to turn on before I wake up, to help light up the room and stimulate melanin production.
There was a forced entry in my neighborhood recently, so maybe the camera is something I should setup. I can see the appeal of a smartlock, I'll need to see if my spouse is comfortable with it. Can you recommend the model you use?
This is the one I have (Schlage Connect).
As for Camera, I use the Arlo Q. They have an outdoor model as well, but I didn't want something that would easily be destroyed or stolen. It'll upload videos to the internet pretty much right away, so I'll have video even if they break the window or get inside to steal it.
We actually automated our lights too. We set them on motion sensor to automatically turn on/off and depending on time, different levels or brightness. It's great for someone like me, who can't sleep through the night and often get up to get a glass of water or something. Not a huge thing, but I found it really useful.
Thanks for the reply! This makes me think of a fancy hotel I was in once that had dim lights at foot level on motion sensors for when you go to the bathroom. That could be pretty cool, I might look into that as a project!
FWIW it's still cheaper to get motion activated lights (motion sensors that are smart home are still pretty expensive). They make plenty of night-light like things for this as well.
That is so true, they're expensive. We were lucky enough to catch a really good sale. Otherwise, I don't think I would have bothered.
True, I have a cheap light-detecting night light in the bathroom, so I guess anything beyond that would just be for fun.
I recently installed an outlet like this in my bathroom that has a built in automatic night light that works great.
I bought an older / historic home that needs a lot of updating. I am talking plaster walls. I plan to add home automation as I go. In the same vein, I am going to be running cat 6 throughout the house and then dropping it in am almost hidden closet and punching it all down and running it to one or two switches.
The biggest thing for me is cameras. I have a fence all the way around my place and two front gates. One on the north east and one on the south east.
I definitely want to rig something to the south gate to alert me when it opens since I don't have a lock on it. Same with a couple cameras. If something picks up while I am at work, I want a text or email.
As far as use cases in the house - being able to have cameras and lights on my network so I can control them from business trips / visiting family where I grew up.
My use cases are more security over convenience.
I have a Synology NAS (DS918+ model) with 2x8 TB and 2x2 TB redundant drives. It allows me to host all my media (music, TV, movies, audiobooks, etc.) on my home server and access content from anywhere using Plex mobile or web apps. I also use Synology's Diskstation app (DS File) and Diskstation Manager web portal for basic file management access. Keep pretty much all important files, documents, etc. on it.
Currently setting up a home surveillance system in my new place that backs up to the NAS and uses Synology's Surveillance Station. Then I'm also routing my OTA antenna through a tuner for live TV and DVR access - will be able to watch live OTA signals from a mobile app outside my home if I want. There's even technology in Plex that detects and removes commercials in the content saved to your DVR.
This isn't exactly what you asked about but still somewhat related. I haven't gotten into any of the typical smarthome tech outside of server type stuff.
Actually I've been really thinking about a NAS setup, since I'm becoming more and more wary of depending on big tech company cloud storage. How complicated was it to setup? Do you have automatic backup of your devices or does it work more like a network drive that you drag files into?
I've also got a Synology (DS1813+) at home (32TB RAID6). I used to build my own file server/central storage boxes and run freenas/opennas and similar, but, frankly, I got sick of the 'science project' aspects of doing that. I get enough science projects at work, sometimes when I come home I don't want to have a pile of server work waiting for me there too, ya know? :P
I am never going back. Those Synology boxes are insane with how many apps and plugins they offer, for everything you can think of (literally hundreds of apps like Plex that are a one-click install). They are small, quiet, powerful, an provide excellent protection for the data (honestly all they lack imo is ZFS support). They can talk to anything (unix, linux, windows, apple, most data streams from most vendors of security systems etc). Their web interface is wicked good, too. Easy to use, like a remote-desktop session into an apple-ish computer.
For backups, they can encrypt-and-replicate the contents to any cloud storage provider, or to other Synology boxes or even just any open file shares. They support excellent RAID redundancy and are easy to recover from a failure. They also perform regular resilvering/maintenance so you don't get caught out by a double-disk failure on rebuild. I also have an eSATA hard drive toaster plugged into it so I can just pop drives into the toaster and access them natively.
They have their own 'cloud' tools as well, though I've never bothered setting them up yet (including apps to access your data at home from all mobile platforms and PC operating systems). Just don't expect them to do a lot of computation for you - the CPUs/memory are low, aimed at a 'dumb' NAS, so you want their bigger/badder models if you plan to do transcoding on the fly and the like.
Setting them up is as simple as plugging in the disks, a network cable, and turning it on. It'll auto-install the OS from a firmware backup, then once it's done you log in, set up the disks as you like, let it finish. Then there's a massive OS update (which they put out frequently, even for 8+ year old models). Once that's done you just click-to-install the apps and tools you want, like you see in most modern linux distros. The open source ones are free, but there's also a host of pay-for apps meant to interface with various devices like home video security systems.
If it ever bricks, there's a pinhole on the back you push just like you see on wifi/routers that resets things to the defaults (without wiping the data there either). The disks can be put into another Synology box (or linux system) to recover the data if the system dies, there's nothing proprietary there. In fact the linux command line console is still there too and you can set up/tweak the apps/packages however you like. They do have a 'synology hybrid raid' mode that is proprietary (it adds better raid mangement and easier software-based raid expansion). You can also connect up to 2 satellite units as slaves via eSATA, if you want to add in more disks.
It's better than my home server builds ever were without the work, so I'm sold on it, at least until/if they start doing data collection (which they don't at present, other than which apps you've paid for).
I've been meaning to get into Owncloud at some point. It should be fairly trivial to set that up to provide, for free and from home, every meaningful service we get from cloud providers.
Synology boxes come with a GUI served through a web app. You set up shares and permissions on it and then you can navigate to the shares on different devices. It has built in back up tools.
A lot of people just install something like FreeNAS or RockStor on a computer of some kind and then create scripts to handle scheduled tasks.
I'm coming from a non-technical background, and it was a little arduous but doable. The main issues arose when I was setting up port forwarding in my router - that's to allow for Plex access over LTE.
I do standard file storage and also have automated backups of all my laptops and mobile devices. My main thing is backing up photos from my phone. Diskstation is a very powerful platform.
To be more specific, it allows the outside world to see your inside Network on whatever Port is blocked. For me, my ISP blocks incoming Port 80. So I have to port forward to get around that. Which I don't really do but if I wanted to I'd have to.
I share your "meh" feelings about it. Much of it is trash for sure. And I have many of the trappings of this "home automation" wave including a smartphone controlled garage door opener, a centralized NAS,, A computer attached to my TV, a MAC running a VPN/DNS Server, network cabling throughout the house, three access points, and (so far) 6 digital cameras and three digital assistants (Google) and a Google Nest.
The trouble is most of them are clunky and cumbersome, there's no real interoperability with everything (Wouldn't it be nice to just bark at my phone "Ok Google, open the garage"), but it isn't possible. So I open the app on my smartphone, login to the app because it's been a long time and then press the damn button on the screen hoping it wasn't disconnected in the last three months somehow. This is not very good, or useful when one simple button opens the thing if I walk there.
Don't even get into the nightmare of dealing with several different camera vendors.. Nest Cam, Unifi, Dlink, etc, etc.. they all have their own way, their own different software with different features and the added eff you of transmitting all this media in a standard format to lots of different places locally or in the cloud.
There are light controls (I don't have them) and door controls (I don't have them) that seem like they could be useful. But, for now doing thing like "Hey Google, turn the temperature down to 22" does feel useful.
The larger automation systems that control more.. like appliances, etc in one console are out there too.. but I imagine they're pricey. I don't think this space has really hit it's stride as far as providing useful, yet powerful and killer tools in a standardized way.
If you're willing to spend the cash, Nest's products(cameras, thermostat, locks) are pretty great. They lack some of the more advanced features of other products but are simple as hell to use. I have Nest cams, thermostat, smoke detector and now the Yale x Nest smart-lock. I also have a google home + mini, Hue lights and Smartthings home security kit. With Smartthings + IFTT + Google Assistant you can automate to your hearts content. I have to warn you though, once you get started you can't stop adding more. Your wallet will hate you for a long time :)
That being said, I need absolutely none of this stuff. But I love my tech and it makes doing simple things more exciting and futuristic. When I was a kid that movie "Smart House" always seemed so cool and now that I own my first house I can finally make something close to that a reality.
I started doing a lot of home automation right before my daughter was born. Robot Vacuum take some of the sting out of cleaning up after the baby. It's a lot easier to turn on a light verbally when cradling an infant, less risk of dropping. That's about all I've gotten into so far. I'd like a smartlock but can't seem to justify the price.
Home automation is one of those conveniences you don't miss until you've been using it for awhile, and then all of a sudden don't have it anymore (like when visiting others, or you tweak your configuration and it breaks for a few hours). My setup is Google Homes for voice control, Chromecasts for integration with the TV and Stereo, and Home Assistant for the hub to control everything else (including thermostat, lights, sensors, etc).
Consider a 'dumb' setup where you have a stereo hooked into a TV and a PS4 to control your media, and regular dimmer switches to control lights. Without additional purchases, that's 3 controllers to turn on and control your entertainment system, plus you need to manually set the lights. With my setup, I just say "Hey Google, play The Office", and using CEC the Chromecast turns on the TV and Stereo, and Home Assistant detects the media playing and sets the lights appropriately.
My wife didn't understand why this was so convenient until we had our child. All of a sudden being able to do things hands free (play/pause the TV, adjust the lights and volume) became a necessity. Not having to manage remotes, or walk across the room to adjust the lights with a baby has saved us a lot of headaches.
This is just one tiny example of what a connected system can do. Other things include setting lights based on the weather (especially nice with multi-color lights) and position of sun, sending mobile notifications when our washing machine is done, and adjusting thermostat and lights based on presence detection.
I know some people who have it, and it's largely gimmicky, or the costs aren't offset. e.g. I know people that use alexa to play music, but if you set up a NAS like mentioned elsewhere in the thread you've got a lot more control and you know it's not spying on you (inb4 tinfoil hat, there's good reasons to not use these systems).
That being said, you could go for open source stuff, either set up a NAS yourself with whatever you want, run nextcloud on it. If you want an open source alexa/google home replacement check out mycroft, although it might not have feature parity.
I think the best use so far for home automation is things that you would actually use (which sounds redundant), like keeping temperature at a set level or adjusting it based on when you're coming/going. That saves costs and is actually pleasant. I thinkthe best way of going about this is not looking at what the commercials say, but making a big list of things you find unpleasant in your household that you'd like to fix. It's too personal, imo, for everyone to use or justify.
I did not go full auto with a hub, I just got sweet cameras. I got the Blink ones. You pay no monthly fee for the basic cloud storage, it alerts me with video and audio when people come in and out while I’m away. It is sweet. Would highly recommend. They were indie, but Amazon just bought them.