Home Automation/Networking

I tried to sort it out but it just wasn’t working, I have more cables now and they are made worse by the fact they have power bricks! (thanks Virgin) but yeah it’s impossible lol

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I’ve been buying the Hue lights since they came to the UK (5/6 years ago?) - I’ve had every room in the house fitted with them for the past year or so - But I’ve never really done anything about the “wife/kids” turning them off at the wall issue!

Until now… I’ve gone Home Automation crazy this week.

First I installed Tado for the heating - We are predominately an Apple house, so I wanted HomeKit support. Plus my wife has a tendency to turn the heating up to 25 degrees and leave it there… Which cooks the house somewhat!

With Tado, you get the main thermostat, but you also get radiator valves, so you can control the individual temperature of each radiator! In our case, my wife can turn on the radiator in whatever room she is in, and leave the rest of the house alone!

I then tackled the problem of Hue light switches! I found this chap online, who 3D prints “covers” for the remote, and I’ve just fitted 3 of these around the house! They aren’t as seamless looking as completely removing the switch, but I like the compromise these offer!

His eBay link is: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Philips-Hue-Dimmer-Remote-UK-Light-Switch-Adapter-Cover/263504928799?hash=item3d5a1e201f:m:mBJ7mnFQ8LbAalWmRmU1RvQ

Note: I have no affiliation with him at all, I just like what he’s created.

Lastly, I bought a couple of motion sensors for the halls - 99% of the time these are perfect. Very rarely, you’ll want to override it somehow, and then you’ll need a switch/app/remote.

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How to you rate Tado, I’ve got EvoHome and the radiator control valves loose connectivity every know and again, also the top floor of the house is a bit far for the controller too.

I’ve had it in for a week and so far it’s been absolutely perfect.

Once you’ve set it up with the schedules you want, it just does it’s thing! You can manually control it when you need to, but the idea is that it just works without you having to think.

Same of the EvoHome but i’ve had to replace a few of the radiator valves as the kids have managed to rip off the display panels!

Nightmare! No major dramas for me (yet) - I’m hoping it continues to work well.

The one thing I feel nest is missing, aside from HomeKit, is linked TRVs. Would be a much better system with these included.

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Those valves though :star_struck:
I didn’t know that was possible!

Just seen this on my news feed - looks amazing for the price!

https://www.wyzecam.com

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Seems too cheap to be true :man_shrugging:t2:

Looks like an Apple commercial…

I might get one if I can connect it to my NAS

Given the benefits I don’t get it’s profit model?

14 days free rolling video storage and $20 per camera. When others are charging a monthly fee and $100+ for the cameras.

The ‘about’ page is interesting, they basically say that the other camera manufacturers are extracting the urine on their charging practices.

A decent camera chip costs maybe a dollar in volume, the total BOM would come in at less than $10.

I’ll pick up a couple next time I’m in the US and see.

Agree on the hardware cost, but I’m skeptical about their “cloud”; if there isn’t a way to use this offline I wouldn’t trust it as personally I think their cloud service isn’t profitable and will eventually shut down.

How does the plastic feel on those?

I’m surprised it hasn’t been smoothed at all, that looks like it’s straight off the printer. Not bad for the price though, probably around 5 hours to print, at a cost of around £3.

I really like those radiator valves though!

You honestly don’t notice it on the wall - If you get up close you can see the “matte” finish, but if you weren’t specifically looking for it, you’d barely notice.

Also comes with screws and magnets - I’d hazard a guess the guy was making 50%, maybe less when taking into account shipping as well.

Can’t really argue with it, I haven’t seen any other workable solution that looks as good as this.

Which is why I want to connect to a NAS instead…

They look quite a good quality anyway, I started doing custom socket covers for a while but every so often a print would fail around 4 hours in and it became too much effort to keep going with.

I’m definitely going to look into the smart thermostats though they look really nice. I currently have the normal hive sensor kit (lights, sensors & switches). I’ve made some of my own switches with ESP8266’s but I only use them for lower voltage applications, I still don’t trust my electronics skills to happily switch lots of devices on sub £2 parts from China.

Personally I’d take the switches off and plaster over the hole then put those hue switches in.

I didn’t do that for a few reasons:

  1. Cost (I can’t plaster/wire the electrics), so it would have cost more to get someone out to do that.

  2. More importantly, I still wanted the ability to be able to turn the switch off if needed.

Agree that having the Hue remote flush in the wall would be the best looking option though.