Hi guys,
What are your thoughts on integrating smart home services?
Is it just a fad or will it provide real convenience and joy to my life.
Moving into a 10 year old home. Wanting to integrate as many smart home things but not sure if its worth it.
Can I get much done with a budget of say $5k-7k
More importantly, are there company's out there who specialise in doing eveything for me so I don't have to go and spend weeks upon end researching?
The first question you probably need to ask yourself is what are the things you want your smart home to do? What are the parts of your day you want to automate? Write a bit of a list of what you want, and then it will be a good starting point.
If its just lights, thats probably something you can do yourself quite easily.
If its more crazy (like only charging your car when your producing excess solar power) - yea there should be companies out there who will set up the whole system for you.
Smart homes are awesome - when they solve a problem for you. When they are showing off a trick - they are a fad.
Being able to say "ok google turn on party mode" and your lounge light starts strobing - imho - is a bit of a useless fad you will show off to people once or twice.
But having things like a humidity sensor in your bathroom that controls your ceiling fan so it reduces mould? Awesome.
A friend of mine has a system which works out the temperature, and location of the sun, and lowers / raises the blinds on his east / western side of his house to let in, or block out the sun. This helps him lower his electricity bill for heating and cooling, without any effort! Thats providing real convenience and joy!
This.
I am building a home, planning to use the sun/blinds part in it.
Also, there will be cabling throughout the house, a plex server that is accessible by all tvs via cat6, a garage door that - when opened by me - will disable the alarm, planning to install a purple-air sensor on the outside, aircon will be connected to wifi, allowing me to cool down the house before i arrive.
Planning to get a few of the indoor air quality sensors from Ikea and modding them, connect it to wifi air purifiers (got a kid with asthma), light switches will all be connected as well as i am soooo over telling the kids to turn the effing lights off. Automate to turn off when light outside.
For me, it will be convenience, perhaps saving power at the same time.
Moving into a 10 year old home. Wanting to integrate as many smart home things but not sure if its worth it.
If you plan to live there for a long time, then do it….
You can always remove it all at a later date.
I think to start the things I want to do is
1 - smart lights and smart switches - to be able to turn on via app and voice commands for entire house
2 - smart garage door opening
3 - smart locks for front door
not sure if theres anything in my initial venture into smart devices
thoughts?
Light switches will require a neutral wire. Check if this is at the switch before you embark on this.
If not, your sparky will need to run extra wiring, it can be costly.
Yes, it should be installed by a sparky. Also, check certification, a lot of the aliexpress stuff might not be properly certified. If your house burns down due to electrical issues, we all know insurance companies will look at anything to avoid paying out.
Light switches will require a neutral wire
'depends' on the smart switch, many neutral free versions around now. Have a look at
https://www.ikuu.com.au/products/trade/switches/
zigbee or wifi versions, no neutral required.
thoughts
IMWO, its not hard to turn lights on as I walk in the house, or open the door or use the garage door opener as I drive up to the house. Certainly not worth spending money on.. if it was from scratch on a new house, i still dont think I'd bother..
But your not keeping up with the Lee's
YMMV
thoughts?
All those are easily removable if you have to. So do it.
Smart switches might not be required because you can use alexa/home assistant to switch your lights.
If you're handy, and have a power point (you should do) then from my cursory look this is pretty easy to DIY
May require a locksmith to my understanding - I did look into upgrading ours at the time but I'm still on the fence about it as dont trust it.
or am i better off geetting smart switches installed all around the house and using normal lights for the house?
can the smart switches still use phone/voice/app controls ?
yes, you can use z wave switches behind the wall plates and use them as a normal switch, or a smart switch with app / google
only if you want to leave all your light switches on all the time and only use google
You can - but smart switches are game changing.
Smart lights you can only control "smartly" when the wall switch is set to on. So if someone turns off the switch, you can't turn them back on.
Its also significantly cheaper to get 1 smart swich and dumb lights.
(Also you can diy the smart switches but pretty sure you legally need a licensed electrician)
i think that sounds better - happy to get an electrician so i dont burn the house down.
Would I get a separate smart switch for every switch in the house - for example every bedroom?
Can I have like an ipad type screen thing somewhere in the house that controls all these other switches.
also how much is a smart switch - compeltely lost - like is it $100 per switch or $1000
@bigballerbrand: maybe start by looking at something like SAL SDD350BT G2
uses BT mesh tech, but can be used with a gateway to extend app control to outside of the house as well.
Mech itself is about $80ish retail but sparky might be able to work out a better price if hes doing the sourcing and install
@Jimothy Wongingtons: $80 is fine, i'll probably only need like 7 or 8 of them.
is there something that has a screen on it that i can mount to the wall that can connect the entire house lights switches. or does that kinda thing not exist?
just picturing a screen mounted to the wall as I walk in that I can control what lights to turn on etc.
@bigballerbrand: There's a few major ways that you can do things:
- Apple homekit (and homebridge)
- Google/Alexa
- HomeAssistant (hass.io)
They are not mutually exclusive. I have a raspberry pi4 running home assistant for most of my stuff, but there's also an appletv running homekit.
You could mount an ipad or other tablet on the wall. See https://community.home-assistant.io/t/hadashboard-tablet-har…
I prefer mine in my hand, so i don't have to walk to the wall :P
I'd recommend watching a couple of this guys youtube videos: https://youtu.be/-_vtoUmkot4
Although North American based many of his points apply generally to smart homes. e.g. smart switches are better than smart bulbs for family acceptance. There is nothing worse than fumbling for a phone to open an app to turn on a light in a room you only needed to be in for a few mins, or trying to get your visiting family to use Alexa/Siri to turn on lights or whatever.
thanks, been watching those videos and they're very helpful.
Definitely getting smart switches as opposed to light bulbs I think.
Start with the wifi switches (zwave, etc), try use one technology as best as possible. Don't go miss mash.
Stick to either Google or Amazon echo system.
Then later integrate with HA, then you become a expert.
Key to smart home is amount of sensors you got, then it becomes automated.
whats HA ? lol
what do u mean by sensors too? lol im so lost
HA - home assistant ( as I said it's the pro step ) lol
Sensors like motion sensors/ light sensors/ gps so you can use their information to trigger your automation.
have you heard of lutron casetta? would they be ok for me to use as smart switches all around the house?
@bigballerbrand: Not really, I would go for something like Shelly wifi switches and electrician to wire it for you.
I dont want something on wifi though coz that will clog up my wifi no?
also are the shelly ones actually a new switch interface coz i dont like the old boring switches?
@bigballerbrand: It won’t clog up your wifi traffic wise.
You should be able to connect about 250 devices on a standard network (subnet 255.255.255.0). I doubt you have this many.
@bigballerbrand: 1) wifi don't clog up, I probably have like 20+ wifi devices no issues or you could always get a dedicated router. Or use zwave (slightly expensive)
2)with Shelly or zwave, you can have whatever face plate you wish, even push button or tap.
I did a fair bit of smart upgrades to my old house.
Smart blinds that opened at sunrise, closed at sunset
Smart roller shutters at the front
Philips hue lighting - so much easier than smart switches and you can DIY
If you need a smart switch get a plug and play tplink
Smart aircon
Google home to control everything
Chromecast to turn on and off tv
Smart switches to control portable heater and some lamps with fancy globes
Smart solar inverter with smart meter to monitor solar production/consumptions
In my new house I am taking it easy as we're going to do a major reno in a couple of years (then I'll go nuts)
But now we also have a smart washing machine and dryer.
I homebrew so have a smart homebrew kit and hydrometer.
Smart cameras as well.
I'm addicted
I invested in some smart switches and they were great for a while, but a mesh wifi upgrade that self selects 2.4 or 5ghz stopped them working. They only work on 2.4ghz. I found the workaround once, but every time the power goes off it resets and I lose connections again. I’m sure it’s fixable, but its’s easier to go back to manual switching.
Takeaway - if you are unsure what you are doing it can go wrong, or need pro support.
I've done all these things with cheap discount offers from varied different places. Works great, requires 25 apps from different people…. ouch… but fortunately Google and Alexa easily combine the lot. You can then have your Google home or Alexa spot devices or their fancy screen based versions wherever you want. Can also use the respective apps/ assistants and easily control them all. Or just by speaking into your phone.
My suggestion is you go to Bunnings and use their range which mostly all use the GRID CONNECT app. That would make life a lot easier. You can start with a few simple items like individual lights like bed lights. Then move to lounge and dining lights and group some (6 downlights for instance), add your Google TV to it, a blutooth blaster to turn aircons on and off etc… remote garage door lifter - easily fitted to existing electric door and very affordable… don't worry if some bits don't use the same app either, but try keep uniformity there to avoid future confusion
You'll find you will use Alexa and Google 99% of the time, especially the Google nest is very handy with simple light and camera controls for all smart lights and cameras. Integrates with security cameras too.
And yes, your family and anyone staying in your home can still use your lights manually, and they will be only mildly annoyed with you!!!
One suggestion, don't buy all at the same time or you'll be overwhelmed. Just do a few each weekend. No rush. Enjoy! It is easy!
A few thoughts based on my experience:
For me, I use:
Another thing: if you're not in a rush, wait for the Matter standard to mature. That ought to simplify things a lot.
Probably could get someone out and do it. I would only do it via a recommendation from someone in know though