Smart devices discussion

[flyweightnate]

But God forbid you have one running while something catches on fire...

[Mr. Hick]

Out of body experience is the best way to put it. Who puts a 5 foot fan in their ceiling????? They did, However, work surprisingly well. The house got to the "outside" temp in about 3 seconds.

[Cdn_Cuda]

I’m running lots of Hue lights, blink cameras (outside only), thermostat, and front door lock are all on HomeKit. Would like to add a few door sensors or may upgrade the external lock on my basement with a smart lock that gives me notifications when it opens. Easy to then check the appropriate camera.

I like the HomeKit integration, definitely beats having a hub for each product. Use one system at work for automated door locks and they discontinued the hub support and you had to pay a monthly fee. Big cup of nope from me. None of my IOT require any subscriptions.

[Siress]

I still remember the sheer terror I felt as a kid the first time I was in a house when one kicked on, making it's 1M dB roar, and I felt a rush of wind pulling me into the house toward the offending roar... Nothing has ever come close to that level of terror since then. Flying out of the bed of a truck that started rolling at >60mph...calm as a cucumber. That house fan, out of body experience.

[Mr. Hick]

Whole house fans are a frighting concept the first time you see them as an adult. it blew my mind. I thought for sure my friend was crazy. I had never once heard of that here in the North East.

[Siress]

I heat with wood stove and survive without Air Conditioning. It has nothing to do with security or being a luddite.... It's just the way the majority of rural America lives.

Yeah, I wasn't really considering systems that don't have a thermostat at all. I grew up in some of the hottest parts of rural America. The cheap AC alternative is a whole house fan, so thermostats don't really play a role there either. I philosophically amend my previous statement to reflect only situations where the alternative is a non-IoT thermostat.

[Mr. Hick]

At this point, anyone that doesn't have a thermostat they can control from around the world is a luddite or overly concerned with security.

I heat with wood stove and survive without Air Conditioning. It has nothing to do with security or being a luddite.... It's just the way the majority of rural America lives.

As for smart anything: No. No thank you. I don't actually enjoy even owning a cell phone, but that's the way of the world. Although the more people I meet with Roombas the more I wouldn't mind having one.

[Cyberpyr8]

I love my Roombas. I have (at any point in time at least) 4 dogs and 4 cats in the house. My kids are grown but I still have 2 daughters living here. Between everyone in and out and the animals, I couldn't keep up with a 4000 sq ft house with all of them. The new i7 Roomba is great. I can have it vacuum just some rooms of the house or all of it. I let it vacuum at night because it is pretty quiet. It also doesn't have to contend with sleeping animals, water soaked floor from my Golden Doodle drinking and sloping half of the water everywhere. But I also have it clean up around my front and back doors every day at 1PM. That way after the morning dog bathroom breaks and everyone in and out, the doorways are clean. I have an old 690 that works ok but it is now just the bedroom cleaner. I use the i7 for everywhere else. It runs and goes back to empty or recharge if needed. Then it will finish the job. Pretty slick plus it has a lot more suction. Definitely worth the money in my opinion.

I have the nest and you can opt out of the savings program it does. I just had it come up the other day and ask if I wanted it to monitor again and I didn't do it. I have them scheduled and don't want it messing with it. They work great otherwise. I really like the sensors and being able to cool or heat to certain areas of the house at different times through out the day. To me, they made the system worth it.

[Siress]

At this point, anyone that doesn't have a thermostat they can control from around the world is a luddite or overly concerned with security. I don't like the Nest though because I read it makes decisions for you and auto-enrolls you in energy saving programs that also override your settings. I use a Sensi and does just right by me.

The only other true IoT device I have is an Alexa Show in the kitchen. It's just so useful to have around while chasing kids around and not having a free hand.

Security cameras will never be managed by someone other than myself (e.g. Ring). It's easy to avoid by having IP cameras operate on a subnet that I can access through a trusted device that's connected to the internet. Saves money, has cooler features (e.g. Colorvu), and can use PoE so batteries are no longer a concern.

Security sensors....now there I might someday to IoT. SempliSafe seems compelling.

Drones (e.g. Roomba) I'll take when there's overwhelming evidence that there's a positive ROI. Particularly I'm longing for a mower that meets these criteria. One to deal with the snow in the driveway would be cool too. I have a couple of prototypes in development, but they won't be big enough for another 10 or so years.

[Cyberpyr8]

I will say that most of my devices also connect via Bluetooth as well as wifi. So in the case of door locks, I can get in when the power goes out if I am at the house. My daughters recently experienced this. The power went out and when they came home they could get in the back door through the Bluetooth connection to the lock. My main garage door wouldn't open and we never carry keys to the house since someone is almost always home. In that instance my mother in law was home but she can't manually open the garage door. They just went around back and opened the app and got it. It is a rarity but it does happen. Really I plan on one day getting a generator and not worrying about the power going out briefly. Maybe solar will be the way II go but I have more issues with short term outages here than I do with being off the grid entirely.

[vijil]

RAZRBAKK never heard of it. I'd more likely just go with something generic. Email is not the go to for encrypted comms.

[RAZRBAKK]

Hope you're not jumping to Protonmail.

[lhamilton1807]

Nice job putting them on a separate network. Smart move. Do you have a separate pipe out, or are you using a guest network with host isolation? That’s what I’m doing - guest SSID with a separate password and host isolation. My smart devices can’t talk to each other or anything else at my home and I’ve made a firewall rule to stop them from reaching the web portal on my router as well. They can communicate out and that’s it. All this can be done on a home router - expensive enterprise equipment isn’t required.

[Cyberpyr8]

Yeah I have my devices all on one network and our phones and computers on another. I have setup my devices like the Wyze cameras on 2FA wherever possible. I had too many devices on my main network and decided it was time to move them over. I figured it helped reduce any hacking into my network resources that I really care about. Plus using the mesh network I could expand it out to cover the 2+ acres I needed. Honestly, most of my cameras point to dogs, goats, chickens and my 79 MG Midget so I'm not too concerned about anyone seeing what they are doing. But obviously I don't want someone hacking in.

[punkncat]

IDK if these items even qualify in the arena you are discussing, but use some Arlo and Nest cameras at work, and an Arlo doorbell unit at home. I actually disconnected/disabled all the Alexa based stuff. I have one of the speakers and a couple of remotes for FireTV that were enabled.

Arlo- I like these simply due to the ease of install since you only have batteries, no cables. I have some of the first gen stuff because it was STUPID cheap and only really wanted it for watching the stoop for packages. I put one inside the main area of the house as well. Where the resolution on this gen isn't great, they do well enough for the limited field I need to see. Battery life on them is exceptional just so long as you purchase the good batteries. I highly recommend them for short range, low resolution "need to see a picture" type application.
We also use these at work to watch a storage conex unit.

Nest-Now these puppies are nice. I am using a couple of the weatherproof models. They are wired for power and have a 'puck' for wireless connection. They require no base station like the Arlo above. The connected cable is a flat ribbon, is ugly as hell, and the end requires a 3/4" hole to route inside or up into the attic. The ones we are using have a roughly 30' cable, I didn't look at spec, but would guess around that. All you need is a nearby plug. The video image is exceptional for what they are and has a very wide angle lens so they cover a lot as well.
Of this manner of camera it is by far the best I have dealt with outside professional level cameras.

We attempted to use some of the "smart" receptacle thingys but they didn't want to play right. Some super cheapy thing off Amazon that I should have known better.

The only other "smart" aspects that I use are related to the Samsung Smart Things app and devices. Our washer has the option, but I didn't see a need to have it connected to the internet. Mostly awesome when dealing with streaming from mobile devices to the TV, playing music on the big stereo without messing with computer, etc.