About the smart home thing

11 comments

1. Thanks for your efforts. When I was reading how people were turning on their A/C from their phones before coming home, I was keen to know more.

2. I’m in the process of designing the interior of my new mansion and I’m very intrigued by this setup! I love the NFC sticker idea so I can turn off all my lights at the door. Thank you for sharing!

3. I’m doing basically the same thing in my home office. A/C automatically turns on 30 minutes before start time, lights turn on five minutes before. Both turn off five minutes after my typical end time unless the motion sensor detects that I’m still in the room.

4. Not a huge fan of the switchbot app but their stuff works and seems to be some of the only smart home stuff easily available in Japan. I’m currently using their LED tape and a smart light bulb. I have nature remo as my IR blaster to control the aircon (it has a humidity and temp sensor, can see from the app), and I prefer the nature remo app more than the switchbot app so far.

5. One thing that I have found is that my cheapo LED strip from AliExpress was pretty easy to manually program into Switchbot and I control the colour of the lights from my iPhone and various automations.

   I have it on red lightning at night as a nightlight before going to bed and I have it turn the LED lights by the Window to bright white a dawn. Not needed in the summer but it certainly makes waking up easier in the winter as it always appears to be a sunny day.

   Even cheap LED lights that come with a remote from Daiso can be integrated easily.

6. Amazing. I only have a wifi outlet switch to monitor my gaming PC power draw from the wall and to turn it off remotely.

   In the future I planned to attach more switches like this so I can feel very safe in case I leave home for vacation and can be sure I turn off all electricity that might be a fire hazard.

7. Wow! That all sound so unnecessary, and [nothing could ever go wrong!](https://www.newsweek.com/amazon-smart-home-brandon-jackson-echo-racial-slur-allegation-1806947)

   – Post about how a minority family’s smarthouse shutdown on them because of an alleged racial slur.

   – Boo-ed and downvoted.

   I’ll laugh and think of you doorknobs sometimes when I operate a lightswitch.

8. Just to clarify, there’s no requirement to keep your smart devices within the same brand, other than for simplicity’s sake. If you’re using an amalgamation controller like Google Home/Home Assistant/Alexa, then they will take devices from any brand you want and integrate them into a single space to control it from.

   Admittedly you still need to get each device’s associated app, but only to create an account. That’s a hassle, but the up side is that you’re now not restricted to a single brand and their particular range of devices.

   My 2LDK has a combination of about 5 or 6 different brands with products that range from addressable LED strips for the AV cabinet to TV backlights, various lamps, controls for my fish tank, IR blaster control for the AC unit, thermometer/hygrometer, and probably some others I’m forgetting. All of those are added in to Google Home, and their ecosystem does the rest. You sometimes don’t get full granular control over some devices, but there’s usually enough to get basic stuff like timed lights for sunrise/sunset, location-based conditionals, and just general control.

9. I am under home assistant for smart stuff at home. Still studying the thing as there’s a lot to look for, and sometimes stuff can feel cool but are unpractical.

   What I have (Besides my home assistant running on a rasbberry pi):

   – **Xiaomi Mijia** temperature and humidity sensors: Flashing with the custom firmware is easy for begginners, they work with a watch battery and it should last over a year. It’s BLE meaning it doesn’t clutter my wifi causing interference all the time. Set the refresh time to once every 30sec or 1min and you’ll save even more battery. They cost like 400-600 yen each on aliexpress, are very small, have a screen. 200% would recommend. I have one in the freezer, so I can check how low/high it gets, and get an alarm if it’s close to thawing temperature aka someone forgot to close the door.

   ​

   – **Apple TV old gen**, mainly serves as a bridge for all the “homekit” stuff since we are an iphone family house. setup is also easy on home assistant, and with the homebridge integration you know have access through your phone to everything that’s not homekit certified (said temperature/humidity sensor appears on my iphone as if they were homekit certified)

   – **Wifi Smart bulbs** I bought cheap ones on [amazon.com](https://amazon.com) They work but I’m not 100% satisfied, mainly because their voltage operation is 110-240 volt, and you can see the lights flickers when the shitty kanto voltage drops to 100 ish volt.

   – **Smart plugs** I have 5-6+ smart plugs all around the house. One on the raspberry pi in case it crashes for some reason so I can reboot it remotely, one on my gaming computer to control how much my addiction is feeding Tepco, and a few here and there to set up Fan automations, control Aircon consumption (Thus I can tell the lady at home exactly how much THAT aircon has cost us last month).

   – **IP Camera** Used as baby monitor, nothing fancy just a Tapo C200. Works through home assistant and can see on the home app on the iphone too.

   – **Smart TV** Can send media to it from Home assitant or wherever I want since it’s chromecast/airplay enabled.

   – **Smart A/C** from daikin. it’s a nice aircon we have, but the smart part makes me wants to do crime against people working for Daikin. You cannot use their app unless you update the firmware every time there is a new one available. The app doesn’t work if internet is down (no local operation) and their updates actually removes features because they make sure you cannot use anything else than their app. There used to be a home assistant integration but they made it so it’S not functionnal anymore.

   – **Shelly 4i** You’ll need an electrician licence to set them up since wiring is involved, but basically it allows you to have any dumb swith function as both dumb/smart switch. Set up on our living room lights, and when the MIL comes she can push the buttons to turn on the lights, and I can still ask google/alexa/siri to turn them off.

   I like switchbot stuff, but they are just too freaking expensive for what they sell… Also I am looking for a system that will work even if my internet is down (target down the line is to have them work in a separate, offline only network)

   I have automations setup for small things like “If everyone has left the house, turn off all lights/Aircon”. or “First person to come back home, turn on the porch light”.

   I want to go the full control of power via the expensive route or the wi-sun definitely cheaper but “unapproved” route. will come in a couple years when I’m not lazy anymore.

10. I live in a tiny 1ldk and work from home, so none of this is necessary for me, but I’ve always been curious to set up smart home stuff.

    All in all how much do you think you’re in for for your current setup? Would love to have a ballpark figure of how much we’re talking here!

11. There are some air con manufacturers that have direct Google home integration that make a lot of this unnecessary