thoughts on smart homes (how much, washer, pool, AC)

[ground_pounder]

what's peoples thoughts on smart home tech?? I think that's it's neat that you can change the mood lighting command th oven to preheat or even cook your meal and have it ready before your home and same as for the dishwasher. I think it's neat that you can command your av system to play the movie or cd that you want to listen to or command it to play sxm or from a streaming source. I think that it's great that if you have a flood that you can tell a valve to shut off and it stops the flood from getting worse

[Pitt Chick]

What system do you have, that allows you to do all that?

[d2mini]

I'm still holding off, waiting for Rosie.

[Trespassers W]

I love the smart home idea, although what OP has described is quite advanced. I would be a little hesitant to let the smart home controller operate my oven unattended.

I am gradually building my smart home control system and so far have integrated light controls, thermostats, alarm system, pool control and security cameras. Cannot comment on ROI though, it is more like a hobby to me.

Some example scenarios:
1. if alarm is armed away: thermostats switch to "away", internal lights go off.
2. coming home: thermostats switch to "home", if it is dark outside - turn on the lights in the house.
3. turn ceiling fan on and off depending on the hvac status
4. notify me if there is a water leak (did not install the shut off valve yet)
5. "backyard party" scene: one button push turns on the backyard and pool lights, waterfall.
6. spa: one button push - preheat spa to 95 degrees, send push notification to my phone when ready.

The list is growing...

Next thing I am looking into - Amazon Echo integration for voice commands.

[399083453]

All that stuff has glitches..... I do enough tech support for my families computers, I'm not doing tech support for my home. In a nut shell....... that stuff never works right.

[Trespassers W]

Originally Posted by 399083453

All that stuff has glitches..... I do enough tech support for my families computers, I'm not doing tech support for my home. In a nut shell....... that stuff never works right.

It depends on many factors: the system you choose, whether it is dependent on cloud services, the components, etc. My system is little more than 1 year old and so far I didn't have a single glitch, never even had to reboot anything. But my build is not too complicated and it has some redundancy in critical areas.

[Brian_M]

Add in another guy who's spent decades in the IT industry who would NEVER have that in his own house. There are a few reasons:

Security. Anything that "talks" wirelessly can be hacked and/or blocked. This may not even be intentional, plenty of wireless signals in the air that cause interference. Link those things to the outside world (your ISP so you can access it from your phone) and you open a whole New level of security issues. Worst case is letting someone know when you're not home by the settings that are enabled when you leave. Could be as simple as having a specific light turn on that's visible from the street...

Complexity. When you add complexity, you add things to go wrong. With an industry in its infancy, there is a LOT that can go wrong. Heck, we're still in the Betamax vs VHS era right now... no one even knows what system(s) might be obsolete and unsupported in a years time.

Cost. I don't know about you, but money in for my house is tight enough. Maybe you're in the $200k+ income class and don't have to think about budgeting so much, in which case ignore this. But this stuff isn't cheap. At (last I looked) about 5 times the cost for a connected item vs a standard one, it gets stupid expensive to replace lightbulbs and outlets. I know you're not replacing them ALL, but it's not a cheap endeavor. And, again, we're in that Betamax/VHS stage, how much money do You want to sink into a technology that's not adopted/has no support next year?


Now, there ARE some things I've adopted. A motion sensor that (via hardwire) turns on all my exterior lights. A water level sensor that, if the hot water heater leaks into its catch-basin, turns off the water supply. A hardwired timer for my hot water heater (the thing only needs to be on/run for about an hour a day in my house). But these are all independent, not connected to anything beyond power.


I think it's funny/interesting/scary that the people who deal with technology, the ones who Were early adopters (I had a home computer in 1985~6, was online in 1992, had DSL to my home by 2000, etc...) now tend to be the most cautious.

[NYCresident2014]

I haven't gone overboard on the smart home, but I did get a wifi thermostat and I love it. It's just a simple Honeywell model that looks like a regular thermostat, not one of the fancy Nest units. It's great being able to get my house warm before I get home after being away for a few days.

This is also going to sound extremely lazy, and it is, but it's really nice being able to change the temperature while in bed instead of walking down the stairs to the thermostat. Sometimes we'll have the AC off all day but then half way through the night wake up and decide we need it, or similar with the heat. My house has steam heat so sometimes its nice to run the AC air handler for a few minutes to mix up the air in the rooms so it's nice for that too.

I've had no issues with it at all.

Now, the other thing I have is a Foscam HD wifi camera over my front door that emails me when I get deliveries and records to a hard drive when it detects motion. That thing is AWESOME, but was a HUGE headache for months while I worked the kinks out. I got one for my parents house and it has been the bane of my existence always trying to troubleshoot it. I'm still happy with my purchase but totally agree with the other posters about being too much work to get everything working.

[vision33r]

As a IT security consultant here's my smart home setup:

I have 2 Wifi routers at home. One that is made for all home devices such as cameras, sensors, and dumb devices that needs internet. I do have another set of cameras in the house that are only available for viewing if the hacker can figure out the software used as the cameras are not available directly thru the internet. It can only be accessed internally and I have to VPN into the house to get access to those cameras.

Another wifi router that connects only PCs, tablets, laptops and no devices.

These 2 routers are 2 different networks managed by home firewall software that I control what data can go through each network to ensure a hacker can't control my camera or devices unless they can break thru my firewall to do so.

I know this maybe a lot of details for someone who doesn't work in IT but the short summary is that I've taken all the enterprise IT network security best practice and implemented them at home not for job but for the sake of practicing for my next gig.

As for in-home security stuff, I have wifi climate control works great and it's not the over priced NEST product.

I have an security alarm system that has multiple modules for moisture, temp, and intrusion detection and gives me text for different conditions.

Waiting for smarter home devices like android OS in home appliances so I can program when to start the dish washer or rice cooker when I want to remotely without having to set a schedule manually.

[Trespassers W]

My overall strategy for the smart home system is that all components should be able to function independently (lights, home security, thermostats) and failure of one part should not affect the others. Also, I am trying to avoid cloud services whenever possible and use VPN for accessing my systems from outside.