Home automation

Hey guys,

A couple of weeks ago on amazon prime day I ordered a refurbished amazon echo. I saw a friend use his and really loved it. So far we haven't done too much with it aside from my boys having Alexa fart about 1 million times. I really want to figure out how to incorporate the home automation features of it. Can you guys recommend a system that works, but doesn't break the bank? Any systems that work better than others?

Thanks,

Chris

z-wave is your best bet price wise and functionality wise. there are hundreds of different z-wave devices, and many are both smart and normal. In other words, you don't need to tell Alexa to turn on the light if you're trying to be quiet and just want to use the switch.

Are you sure you want Amazon to record all your conversations?

Ive been using openhab. Nice side is its free and works with many different standards and is very customizable.

Bad part is you pay for it in time invested to learn the software, set it up and troubleshoot it.

Fueled by Caffeine wrote: Are you sure you want Amazon to record all your conversations?

I don't talk about much too be honest with you. I don't talk about anything particularly interesting either.

blizazer wrote: Ive been using openhab. Nice side is its free and works with many different standards and is very customizable. Bad part is you pay for it in time invested to learn the software, set it up and troubleshoot it.

I installed it last night - set it up and tested by muting my Samsung TV from a zwave light switch and the phone app. Pretty easy to get the ball rolling - but I don't have any other devices in my house and I need that switch for it's original purpose. The sole reason I had the zwave switch on my patio was so I didn't have to climb two flights of stairs to turn on/off the backyard spotlights and I was too lazy to pull a wire for a 3-way switch (and I got the hub for less than a roll of copper 3 wire long enough to do the job).

I am now shopping for a big discount bundle of gadget stuff I don't really need. Thanks a lot.

Congrats on setting it up so quick.

Ok, the next trick is visiting mysensors.org and integrating their DIY under $5 arduino based nodes to openhab.

Ive also been using imperihome on wall mounted android phones to connect to the openhab server. If you dont already have old phones to use, check slickdeals for under $20 prepaid android phone deals.

Ok. Could one of you translate?. I don't understand much of the above posts. What are you trying to achieve? Give me something else to start researching to death and then acquiring gadgets.

Mazdax605 wrote:

Fueled by Caffeine wrote: Are you sure you want Amazon to record all your conversations?

I don't talk about much too be honest with you. I don't talk about anything particularly interesting either.

I keep threatening to get one of those refrigerators with the internal camera & live-stream it on YouTube.

klb67 wrote: Ok. Could one of you translate?. I don't understand much of the above posts. What are you trying to achieve? Give me something else to start researching to death and then acquiring gadgets.

What do you want to know?

There are many different types of controllable items from lamps, switches, thermostats, vacuum robots, garage door openers and so on. There are also sensors available for telling when a door is open, what the weather is like, tempreature in each room, etc. There are a number of competing standards for how they communicate with each other and the controller units that operate them. You can even make your own but - to get them to talk across protocols you need a piece of translation middleware. There are also a number of those commercially available as well as a couple open source offerings.

OpenHAB is a well supported, open source effort at that translation layer as well as a user interface, state manager, rules engine and so forth. It has bindings that allow it to communicate with tons of different devices and because it is open source and because it was designed to be open - it's extendable to whatever you can code for.

Does that help at all?

What am I trying to achieve... a few things I want to accomplish:

• RFID doggy door that only opens between 8am and 11pm.
• A patio umbrella that automatically retracts when the wind speed gusts to over 15mph and no one remembered to do it before they left for work.
• open the garage door from my phone so when I'm on the motorcycle I don't need to carry an opener, and check the state, be able to close it when I'm on the road and my kids leave it open.
• control all outdoor lighting and music selection/volume from my phone or a tablet
• follow the sun automatic window shade deployment and control from the phone to over-ride. I have a lot of windows. Poor management of them leads to AC that can't keep up. Running around adjusting them with long poles to operate the cranks is super annoying.

It's not full home automation, but we now have Skydrop working our sprinklers. It monitors the weather and creates a schedule that (hopefully) is right for your lawn, ground cover, etc. I took advantage of a 50-off sale.

My goal was water efficiency. It takes a lot of electricity to work that pump. Plus the old system didn't know that it had rained the day before or was going to rain tomorrow. I admit, a neighbor got me excited about it. Now we get to be Skydrop buddies. Added bonus: When repairing/replacing sprinkler heads, it's nice to be able to turn everything on and off remotely using my phone.

We've had it going for just a week or so. So far, so good.