How "Smart" is your home?

I was implying that our house was dumber than yours. We have a couple motion activated solar lights. No Phone, Cable or Satellite. Only WIFI is the cell hot spot for the laptop.
My mistake.
 
I just added a wet cat food feeder so hopefully my cat with disassociate me with getting fed in the morning. Goal is for him to stop waking me up an hour or more before feeding time.
This worked for me with my now-gone cat. She would wake me up every morning around 4am for a feeding. I got the auto feeder and set it for 3:30. She no longer woke me up. However, if she was sleeping on my bed at the time the feeder went off her vaulting off the bed within 1 second of her hearing the noise from the feeder might wake me up now and then. She learned fast what that noise meant. Good luck to you.
 
Have three Alexas in the house (master BR, Kitchen, Study), the one in the master BR is set up to turn on/off lights and TV.
 
Last home had about 43 smart devices.

Almost all lights. Initially, it was where she wanted to add a 4th switch into kitchen (switch by each entrance) with a dimmer. As far as I could find there is not a 4-way dimmer switch / so it had to be smart. Then added a “dummy” smart pico switch for that 4th switch. Then, it was with under cabinet lighting - where traditional lighting with a physical switch was not practical - (adding cabinet lighting where nothing was there).

Overtime / ring motion, garage door openers, thermostats, etc.

There are things like - wanting to control light separate from fan on ceiling fan by 2 switch by bedroom door - but it was not wired that way (was 1 switch with just 1 hot wire to fan). But using product (Bond) you convert a ceiling fan to smart fan and that can be done. Then add that 2nd “dummy” smart switch to change light on/off that technically just runs a smart routine.

Sometimes, smart options are only viable option where physical option is too costly or physical technology not possible.

We’ve come to embrace smart options as they may be only option - or only reasonable fiscal option.

In new house, things like controlling a pool, irrigation sprinklers, garage humidifier, greenhouse exhaust fan, etc - using outside temperature, humidify or rain forecast/actual - only option is smart technology. Starting a hot tub while eating out dinner, to have it available when you get home. Only running sprinklers if it has not rained in couple days and not in forecast. Turning on exhaust fan in greenhouse if inside greenhouse temperature is above 100, turn on heater if temperature is below 45, etc
 
I have a smart garage door opener, doorbell with camera, irrigation system, front door lock, and a smart thermostat. I am able to control all of these with my "smart" phone. It does make life easier and for that reason alone is worth the extra initial cost. Being gone for long periods of time, the ability to control some functions at home from afar is a plus.
 
All we have is a WiFi thermostat, useful to monitor or adjust temperatures when away.

We had a nanny cam to keep an eye on my wife's 91-year old dad when he was living with us (for peace of mind) but he's now in a retirement home and it's unplugged.
 
A lot less than a few years ago. Going in the opposite direction. All that remains is a WiFi thermostat, three ring cameras and an Alexa in the kitchen. The Alexa in the kitchen flips through pictures for us and is mostly used as a timer for cooking, lol.
 
We have a pretty Nest centric house. All this stuff is Google/Nest:

- 3 outdoor cameras
- 1 indoor camera
- 8 smoke detectors (interconnected, if one goes off, they all go off and announce the location)
- 5 thermostats (the house has zones, so we can have different temps for kitchen, living room, master bedroom, etc)

We also have a Rachio smart lawn sprinkler controller. It will limit/skip waterings based on recent rainfall. And skip if the temp is below 35.

I enjoy having these things. Future? Maybe add some water detectors and replace the garage door openers.
 
Fiber internet was added down our road at the cabin so we'll probably connect to the internet in summer.

We have a mini-split that has Wi-Fi capability so we'll be able to turn the heat or AC on before we go out.
 
I use Home Assistant to operate some lights. But I don't have much automated other than some on/off settings.

Earlier this year I replaced a old programmable thermostat (LCD screen) with an old fashioned Honeywell Round manual thermostat. Since the temperature setting rarely changes unless going away overnight, the more modern and sophisticated Nest, Ecobee, etc. did not offer much value. When doing some research it seems they use the cloud and/or don't integrate directly Home Assistant so I had no interest in them. Instead I plan to buy some more temperature/humidity probes to capture readings from different locations in/outside the home.
 
When doing some research it seems they use the cloud and/or don't integrate directly Home Assistant so I had no interest in them.
Interesting. Although I an 100% local with everything else, I went the other way with thermostats. Let me explain.

I had my "smart" WiFi thermostats before I had Home Assistant or any other smart devices. Monitoring my heating system is critical in my environment. Unfortunately they do require connectivity to the vendor's (in this case, Honeywell) cloud servers. But there is a Home Assistant integration which allows me to control them via the HA interface, even though it still goes from there to the vendor's cloud.

I'm actually OK with this. The thermostats keep doing their thing even if the WiFi is down, and I can still view and control them if HA is down. But when everything is working, the integration puts everything together in one place. Sort of the best of both worlds.
 
Not our home but the tortoises have a wifi camera, and heater in their winter shed. Since they are out wandering the ponderosa during the day. I can see when they go in in the evening and close them up for the night.
 

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9 Wyze cameras in the house, outside and in my workshop
Alexa in my office
YoLink leak detection
Rainbird app to control sprinklers
Ring doorbell
Garage door and front door apps
Ambient weather station
 
I set up a wifi extender from the apartment, out on an extension cord draped over a tree limb. Added an inexpensive battery wifi camera with an app out by the driveway where it comes up from below.
It is on a miserably slow ( speed test sub-10 Mb/sec) DSL but it seems stable enough. The app complains and fails about 40% of the time to give me a live view, but it pushes motion events to the cloud reliably.

Amazon.com

It comes with free 3 day rolling cloud storage and works without an SD card onboard. I was so impressed for ~30$ I ordered two more and will place them at the house itself.
It pushes a notification but no sound unless I subscribe. On high sensitivity It records weather and light changes about 8 times a day so far. Totally cool with that. It has caught a random dog that I had never seen before so it is plenty sensitive.
 
We have the following:

  1. Amazon Alexa in the garage, kitchen and living room
  2. Ring cameras
  3. Wi-Fi Leviton built-in light switches in two areas
  4. Wi-Fi controlled low voltage landscape lights
  5. Wi-Fi connected garage door opener, that I can close remotely if I forget after I leave the house
  6. Smart Washing machine and dryer (tells us when laundry is done, and when the drum needs to be cleaned)
  7. Denon HEOS music systems (2)
  8. Logitech Harmony Hub smart remote control for home theater
  9. Wirelessly controlled subwoofers (4)
  10. Rain Bird 8-station sprinkler controller (wi-fi with app)
  11. Wi-fi laser printers
 
I'll admit I've always been a bit of a gadget guy and that hasn't changed in my retirement.

The last few weeks, I've been adding to my home security and automation gadgetry.

What have you done to add smart devices and automations to your home? I'm always looking for new gadgets that add value to my life.
Our refrigerator: A regular Maytag Dumb top-freezer unit.
Our TV: A 15-year-old Samsung 32" Dumb TV. No internet connection
Our phones: 4 Bakelite rotary phones from 1957-1984 plus a 10+ year-old cordless phone with built-in answering machine. No smart-phones
Our Thermostat: A Honeywell programmable thermostat. It's not "smart" at all.
Our game console: A 20-year-old Nintendo Wii. We got it 3rd hand as a gift.
Our source of movies: A Magnavox combination DVD player/ Hi-Fi stereo VHS player/recorder. Six drawers full of DVDs and a few VHS tapes.
Our music players: An AM/FM stereo with CD player. Two iPods. A couple of iPod docking stations. Music on USB flash drives for the vehicles that do not recognize an iPod. 700+ CDs.
Our Internet Access: Two Laptops. 300Mbps Fiber Internet with wireless router.
Our garage door opener: Turn the handle and lift manually.
Dishwasher: Don't own one. We wash dishes by hand.
Coffee Maker: We don't drink coffee.
Washer/Dryer: 20+ year-old Whirlpool stackable unit.
Water Heater: 20+ year-old GE dual-element electric.
Furnace: 4-year-old Lennox forced-air-natural gas. 20+ year-old A/C condenser. Not "smart".
Smart lights: None.
Smart outlets: None.
Home security: Nosy neighbors.
Cameras: Only two digital cameras for taking photos.
Weather Station: An indoor-Outdoor thermometer. Not "smart".
Alexas or Siris: None.
Room sensors: None.

Probably more that I don't know about. We enjoy our simple life.
 
What's next? I've been looking into adding "smart" to my garage door opener.

This. In the summer I'm always in and out of our third garage door. Sometimes forget to close it. Once we got a knock at the front door about 10:30 p.m. and it was our neighbor letting us know that the garage was open. The knock scared the crap out of us. Now the door is scheduled every evening to close.

When I'm done riding my bike I can open the garage door from the app instead of parking the bike and going all the way around to the side door.

For a while there Amazon was delivering all our packages in the garage using the smart key I provided them. Amazon has stopped doing that.

It's a nice assurance to be on vacation and check the app to see that the garage doors haven't opened since we left.
 
I agree. The smart garage door opener was just...because it's there. I do use it if I go out on a walk- don't have to bring a house key or the manual control.

Two other items (I knew I'd forget one or more): my insurance company (State Farm) offered me a Ting device that you plug into an outlet and it monitors the flow of electrical current to detect abnormalities. Pretty boring. Once in awhile it tells me there was a power failure when I already figured it out. And, most puzzling, I used to fill out marketing surveys for e-Rewards till I got tired of being kicked out 90% of the way through the survey. Occasionally I got a product to test, usually something inexpensive like toothpaste or paper towels, but a few years ago I got a Keurig Duo coffeemaker. During the test period I had to connect it to my Internet via an app. After a few months they told me I could disconnect. I got to keep the unit. I guess they'd learned enough about my coffee-making habits.
Don’t dis da’ Ting! It is not home automation, it is home protection against electrical malfunctions, such as transformer problems, loose wires, etc. It is cheap insurance against electrical fires, which is why State Farm offers the device for free.

My brother died in a house fire caused by electrical faults. I encourage everyone I know to get a Ting, if possible.
 
Everything has voice control and phone interface
  • 8 Amazon Echos - provides whole home audio including garage
  • 7 Blink wireless outdoor cameras
  • Blink doorbell camera
  • Smart switches for outdoor lights so can be automatic on/off at dusk/dawn
  • 3 smart garage door openers
  • Philips smart lock for front door
  • Amazon smart thermostat
  • Various smart outlets for lamps
  • 13 Automatic window shades throughout the entire home. Main areas open and close automatically. Bedrooms are on demand.
  • The cooktop and range hood connect to network
  • GPS collar for the dog that alerts when she leaves the property
The window shades are the bomb! I highly recommend them.
 
I am investigating DC lighting for the new house, and that could get really smart.
 
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