home automation hardware/software

[The Nal]

• "Alexa, when am I going to die?"

[LondonTom]

 Its so Star Trek!!

I wish my parents would let me lose on the lights and stuff, was trying convince them of the need to use Smart Bulbs the other week but it didn't go down well!

[eFestivals]

13 minutes ago, LondonTom said:

 Its so Star Trek!!

I wish my parents would let me lose on the lights and stuff, was trying convince them of the need to use Smart Bulbs the other week but it didn't go down well!

I'd start with a plug socket or two, and try and find somewhere very-obviously useful to deploy them to impress your Mum - perhaps a kettle or coffee machine for that first brew.

The normal light bulbs aren't really the best place to start in 'converting' a home. We're too used to switching a light on as we enter a room, and so you either need to really have a set-up for all of the house (with 'scenes' and motion sensors) else it doesn't work great. I've given up on lights for the moment as the wife is hostile and i don't have the dosh to spend on the kit I'd need anyway.

Not sure if you've got a NAS, but a new home automation app has recently appeared in the list on my Synology, called nhome, which looks pretty good and (having given it a quick look) is easy to use, tho it's limited in the hardware it supports. It works like a dream with wemo stuff tho, as does the echo dot.

[eFestivals]

"Alexa, tell me a joke"

What did one eye say to the other eye? There's something between us that smells

"Alexa, that was a crap joke"

If you think that's bad you should hear the others.

 

[The Nal]

Bought a fancy new 3 way HDMI splitter off Amazon and set it up only realise that it doesn't work with Sky HD due to HDCP issues.

Have 2 older cheapo pound shop type ones that I've had for five years or so, assumed they were dead but I tried one and it worked perfectly. 

[The Nal]

Anyone looking to do any VHS to Digital conversion, I can highly recommend both of the below. Very very easy.

USB grabber

Scart to phono

 

[eFestivals]

I'm currently wanting an electric venetian blind for my office window. Bleedin' expensive, tho.

My desk is opposite the window, and for about 2 hours a day the sun is straight thru on my eyes ... so the blinds just tend to stay shut, and I don't see the day.

Some smart electric blinds could close and open as necessary, would be fab.

But £300-£400 for everything I'd need feels just too much.

[The Nal]

24 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

I'm currently wanting an electric venetian blind for my office window. Bleedin' expensive, tho.

My desk is opposite the window, and for about 2 hours a day the sun is straight thru on my eyes ... so the blinds just tend to stay shut, and I don't see the day.

Some smart electric blinds could close and open as necessary, would be fab.

But £300-£400 for everything I'd need feels just too much.

I have the exact same issue but I just stand up and pull the blind down a bit for those two hours. Saving the 300-400 quid 

[eFestivals]

5 minutes ago, The Nal said:

I have the exact same issue but I just stand up and pull the blind down a bit for those two hours. Saving the 300-400 quid 

I've been sat here for 5 years and i know i rarely change the blind.

[eFestivals]

Really really want to have automated blinds, but i just can't justify the cost.

There seems to be a bunch of DIY kit things in development that might do the job if they ever get put on sale, so i guess i'll have to wait for those.

Meanwhile I decided to voice activate the rest of my office by tying together the Amazon echo with the rest of the automated stuff in the office - which at least didn't involve spending any money.

[windy_miller]

I do wonder what the world has come to when people are too lazy to get off their arses to close some blinds or turn on a light switch.  Seriously... get up and close them manually.  Your back will thank you for it too.

[eFestivals]

6 minutes ago, windy_miller said:

I do wonder what the world has come to when people are too lazy to get off their arses to close some blinds or turn on a light switch.  Seriously... get up and close them manually.  Your back will thank you for it too.

i'd have to think about doing it 5 times a day, when I don't have time to think at all (seriously). So the blind stays shut all the time.

I'd prefer to see some of the day when i look up.

It doesn't class as a necessity - else i'd have bought it already - tho I would like it, a lot.

As for lights, printers, sockets, etc, they all get turned off when I say 'work done' - saving myself work, and helping save the planet too. 

[windy_miller]

1 hour ago, eFestivals said:

As for lights, printers, sockets, etc, they all get turned off when I say 'work done' - saving myself work, and helping save the planet too. 

Apart from the all the electricity used by the massive bank of amazon cloud servers that have to process your request.

Edited April 18, 2017 by windy_miller

[fred quimby]

2 hours ago, eFestivals said:

i'd have to think about doing it 5 times a day, when I don't have time to think at all (seriously). So the blind stays shut all the time.

I'd prefer to see some of the day when i look up.

It doesn't class as a necessity - else i'd have bought it already - tho I would like it, a lot.

As for lights, printers, sockets, etc, they all get turned off when I say 'work done' - saving myself work, and helping save the planet too. 

Why 5 times a day when your requirement is just for the 2 hours you specified earlier. Not sure you need to think about it too much.

 

Oh sun is in my eyes - close blind. Surely that would be quicker than all the time you spend think about automation

[eFestivals]

25 minutes ago, windy_miller said:

Apart from the all the electricity used by the massive bank of amazon cloud servers that have to process your request.

Ha, there is that ... tho the power used - and very efficiently too - is less than a phone uses for a few seconds. ... so i have to ask, do you turn your phone off between calls...?

For the rest of the time, tho, the automation system is running to a bunch of conditional scripts on my NAS which is 24/7 anyway.

My lazy-arse ways can be criticised, but there's defo a power saving here (tho perhaps only because of my lazy-arse ways).

[eFestivals]

5 minutes ago, fred quimby said:

Why 5 times a day when your requirement is just for the 2 hours you specified earlier. Not sure you need to think about it too much.

Amongst other things, cos i tend to wander into my office with my arse out first thing in the morning, and my neighbours should be protected from seeing that.

I've got a decent window since last summer (so probably doesn't make much difference now), but I've also tended to have the blinds closed as well to help heat save, so i'd want them closed at night for that too.

 

5 minutes ago, fred quimby said:

Oh sun is in my eyes - close blind. Surely that would be quicker than all the time you spend think about automation

mebbe, but less interesting.

Like it or not, automation is a growing thing, and amongst other things I want to be on that first wave as a potential future job, cos if I need a future job my options are limited outside of minimum wage. 

[fred quimby]

18 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

 

 

mebbe, but less interesting.

 

[eFestivals]

I signed up to Amazon Prime yesterday for a number of different reasons, but the one i'm liking right now is being able to say "play some daft punk" and it happening .... cos I now have voice activation via the Echo Dot for any bit of music on Amazon music.

 

 

[eFestivals]

two new toys .... a weather station in my garden, so I can know what the weather is in my back garden when i'm on the other side of the world (yeah, I know, that's useful, right? :P) that's been up and running for a few weeks now.... and I've gone for a cheap automated blinds option for about a ton, that's not arrived yet.

The blinds thing might be tricky to integrate with everything else, tho research tells me it's do-able, so via a combination of things I can have it open and shut at the start and end of the day, as well as close if the sun is out at the times the sun is shining thru to blind me at my desk, plus some random voice controls any time i want.

Still on my list: automated curtains for the front room - that need me to stand on the back of the sofa to close them at the mo (so these do have a real purpose, unlike most of this).

And new to my wishlist is a robot-hoover .... it'll probably never happen tho, unless the decent ones fall in price by about two-thirds.

[eFestivals]

Missed from my wishlist above are the bits and pieces needed to integrate the very-dumb heating system we have, to make it much smarter (and to stop me freezing in my office in winter).

One of the things required to integrate the automatic blinds is an infra-red controller linked in to the smarthome system, to send the commands to the blinds.
Something like this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01NBI10PK/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1495358219&sr=8-2&keywords=broadlink+black+bean)

Which has just opened up a whole new world for automation, because those IR controllers can be used to control any IR devices - such as TVs, stereos, etc. 

[eFestivals]

want to turn your smartphone into a single remote control with which you can control everything in your home that uses a remote control in a joined-up way, and for less than £20?

Get one of these:-
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01NBI10PK/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1495358219&sr=8-2&keywords=broadlink+black+bean&tag=efestivals-21

It's feckin' ace.

[eFestivals]

Have finally got the cheapie remote controlled blinds i bought integrated into the system (I was waiting on some software), as well as adding a remote control fan in my office (plus I've set-up the bedroom TV to come on as an alarm clock).

So now, for my office, when I say "alexa turn work on", the blinds open (if after sunrise, otherwise they stay shut until sunrise), the radio comes on, my desk light comes on, the power sockets I need switch on, and my desk fan will come on if the office is too hot (and if it's not too hot it'll stay off but turn on during the day if it gets too hot).

In the middle of the day at certain times of the year (when the sun isn't high in the sky as it is in the middle of summer) the sun shines thru the window into my eyes - and so the blinds will also shut for the time it does shine in my eyes if the sunshine levels (detected by a weather station in the garden) are above a particular level. If the sun goes in during this period the blinds will open again; if it comes out again, they'll shut again.
(I probably need to tweak the settings for this a little, when it's the right time of year for the sun to shine in my eyes).

And then at the end of the day I say "alexa turn work off" which switches off the radio, sockets, desk light & fan, while the blinds will close at sunset (whether that's before I finish work, or not). And I don't have to walk out of the office in the dark (if it's dark) because a motion switch will turn the top light on between sunset & sunrise if 'work' mode isn't on.

All very geeky/nerdy, but rather cool and a bit Star Trek.

Next up - tho it might be a while - is robot vacuum cleaners, and (if I can talk the missus into it) a powered electric curtain rail for the front room, as we need a new curtain rail anyway.

[The Nal]

Can you use that remotely - ie when not at home - to turn on lights, pull blinds etc?

[eFestivals]

2 minutes ago, The Nal said:

Can you use that remotely - ie when not at home - to turn on lights, pull blinds etc?

yep.

and all for free.

 

Edited July 17, 2017 by eFestivals

[eFestivals]

upgraded to the latest version of openHAB at the weekend. It works well, but it didn't like the lots of typo-errors that were dotted thru my configuration files, that I didn't spot before because everything had worked. There were a few hours of trial and error to track those down, but now i have everything sorted and it's running well.

I also got a bit carried away last night - whoops - and spunked £250 on a robot hoover. I seemed to have found a bargain, tho, cos the one I've bought cost over £150 less than its price on amazon, and reviews of that model compare its features and performance and with the top-of-the-range ones that cost nearly £1k. It'll probably be a couple of weeks before that arrives.

I also did a lot of research about what kit I need to buy for my heating system, and it's cheaper than I'd been thinking. I could buy decent enough kit to do it for less than £100, tho I'll spend a bit extra so that everything about it is wife-friendly.