But that's the thing, in majority cases, it just feels easier to flip a switch than to say "alexa... Switch off living room fan" and wait for a response to confirm it heard me correctly.
Why I won't buy smart bulbs or smart switches ever...
- Thread starter lockhrt999
- Start date
More importantly, what problems were you able to solve? Like some members here remotely running their pumps or charging the batteries.
I too wanted a smart bulb to lighten up my room in the morning to wake me up like an alarm. But that smart bulb (smitch) rarely did its job.
superczar
Skilled
I think the catch is that you need to go all in to actually see the benefits.
the list for me will get long but let me at least spell out a few.
Practically all nodes in my house are connected to a central server.
- House lights follow the sun , they will start coming on in a short while from now as the external ambient light drops - hit peak brightness by the time it gets dark. Then step down after dinner time and off by sleep time
- Hot water supply follows the seasons
- Any additional action can be performed by asking homepods or alexa speakers (I don’t use google - too cumbersome and slow)
- e.g. adjusting HVAC temp while lazing doesn’t need me to hunt for the remote
- HT room lights dim down when I switch it on - darken when I play and brighten when I pause
- Multi room audio streaming/ can make music follow if I move from kitchen to living room
- Single window app to monitor home cameras and/ or switch anything on/off
- power consumption tracking and charting, temperature patterns tracking and charting
One major gotcha - I took a decision long time ago to keep all processing on the LAN if I am in the house. That significantly helps with latency annoyances and /or internet outages. This also addresses your point @gourav
Obviously Internet comes in play if I am out of the house but that’s a given.
Alexa is the only exception which takes the cloud route (hence I prefer homepod for voice commands)
khalil
Disciple
Does your smart bulb has alexa or google assistant support. Try to schedule it using alexa or google app.
I have a wipro smart bulb, got it for cheap when I bought alexa. wipro app is okay. i use schedule option, it works fine. But whenever bulb gets reset, i need to reschedule it. Now i just use alexa routine.
I think these are unrelated. I'm currently in the process of house renovations and I'm making similar arrangements.
Your setup is quite an extensive one. You have left no stone unturned. I'm too fed up maintaining whatever gadgets I have in the house. Sometimes it feels like I'm spending more than a few hours every week just to keep things running for everyone. My routers wants to reset itself whenever I go to Goa. I can't imagine what will happen when I make things smart.
I forgot to mention but that bulb went kaput just in a few months. Anyway, it did come with both alexa and GA support but the integration was so bad that it didn't work most of the times.
blr_p
Skilled
Agreed. So this is not the right use of the tech. Voice for a single ended off/on process gets old once the novelty wears off.
If the job was made up of more tasks then i think the value would be more. eg. switch on many lights at a fixed time and vary their intensity depending on time of day. Personally i have no use for such a functionality but it could work say in a commerical setting.
Or anything that is about timing so requires attention and needs to come on and go off after a defined period works well for automation.
It seems amazon is emerging as the clear leader in this voice assistant battle then.
Google and Siri will just remain on their respective mobiles.
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nRiTeCh
Skilled
Well I will be the only one who is never going to fall for that alexa and google assistant instead I will go for a custom made seal-designed smart home. Everything app and sensor controlled cum pre-defined profiles based on time of the day etc.
Currently oly have syska smart bulbs which do their job precisely like auto turning on during pre-defined times, dimming, profile change and turning off.
Only hassle is many times they wont turn on auto or even when I hit the switch it takes 2-3 times on/off play to get them work. Rest all good.
And, everything comes with its cons so anyone can track or spy you. Stay away from chinese crap is all what I could advice.
Currently oly have syska smart bulbs which do their job precisely like auto turning on during pre-defined times, dimming, profile change and turning off.
Only hassle is many times they wont turn on auto or even when I hit the switch it takes 2-3 times on/off play to get them work. Rest all good.
And, everything comes with its cons so anyone can track or spy you. Stay away from chinese crap is all what I could advice.
I have connected wiper bulbs and battern and atom berg fans to the tuya smart life app and then connect it to HomeKit via Homebridge server running 24/7 on a m1 MBA.
I don't use voice anywhere. Rather I have set scenes in the smart life app which I can trigger from my mobile. To avoid resets to the lights or fans, I have connected them to the inverter. So if EB decides to play with transformer on/ off switch, smart devices won't get reset
I don't use voice anywhere. Rather I have set scenes in the smart life app which I can trigger from my mobile. To avoid resets to the lights or fans, I have connected them to the inverter. So if EB decides to play with transformer on/ off switch, smart devices won't get reset
Hit the nail on the head. The only time I like using alexa is when I say good night and it turns off the living room light (if it's on), dims the bedroom light and changes the colour to crimson. Or when I say play community from netflix and it launches netflix on my fire tv and starts the show automatically.
sriharsha_m
Adept
After trying out various smart bulbs combinations, I've switched entirely to Philips Wiz system.
Wiz Smart Tubelights,
Wiz T bulbs,
Wiz E27 and B22 bulbs in several floor standers & diffuser housings.
Most of them run on schedules and the preloaded circadian rhythm schedules on wiz app is very handy to automate color temperature/brightness as the day progresses.
We use several physical wiz remotes to control the layered lighting and infact wiz remote is the most used one in our living room which is super handy in easily switching between modes/brightness levels.
Home automation is much more than smart bulbs and saves a lot of time/headache for most households. Many routine day to day tasks can be put on schedule and you can spend that time doing something else. Routines/scenes and what not.
Wiz Smart Tubelights,
Wiz T bulbs,
Wiz E27 and B22 bulbs in several floor standers & diffuser housings.
Most of them run on schedules and the preloaded circadian rhythm schedules on wiz app is very handy to automate color temperature/brightness as the day progresses.
We use several physical wiz remotes to control the layered lighting and infact wiz remote is the most used one in our living room which is super handy in easily switching between modes/brightness levels.
Home automation is much more than smart bulbs and saves a lot of time/headache for most households. Many routine day to day tasks can be put on schedule and you can spend that time doing something else. Routines/scenes and what not.
superczar
Skilled
Not necessarily unrelated.
Home Automation Covers Everything
When starting out on a project, it’s accepted best practice to try to avoid feature creep. Of course, we can’t all say that we follow this guideline completely every time. In fact, some…
This should also have a link to my github page - slightly dated but should still give you a picture.
On your second point, if there is one thing I have learnt in the last 3 decades of tinkering with tech - it’s very tempting to buy a low cost option esp when you want to try out everything.
Nothing wrong with it when trying - but once you realize that item X is important to you (e.g. your network stack), buy the best possible option you have for that segment.
Since we spoke of network stack, I was prone to change my router every year as I would keep searching for VFM options. Eventually opted for Orbi - expensive, yes - but got rid of all my networking woes.
Amazon is good - but Siri (and homepods) have a huge advantage of enforcing LAN mode unlike alexa which is exclusively cloud
(except one remaining legacy support for Hue hub).
In day to day usage , everyone in my family ends up using homepods over alexa because of the instant response - which in way ties up with your earlier point.
Waiting for a voice command to execute = might as well press a switch
Instant execution changes the game entirely
blr_p
Skilled
ok, i misread what you wrote earlier and got the opposite impression
Yeah a faster response is definitely better. So google & siri have this advantage over alexa.
Most opt for the cheaper option presuambly alexa over the others
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asingh
Super Mod
I got 3 Philips WIZ bulbs +1 Homemate WiFI bulb.
1. 1 Philips had to be returned after a week. Was defective. The process took 2 weeks of followup.
2. 1. Philips has a mind of its own and switches on / off at it whim and fancy. Also when dimmed via the app, it lights up full bright. So I use it as a dumb bulb.
3. 1 Philips always comes back on at around 2 AM. So again using it as a dumb bulb.
4. Homemate one is working decent.
I liked how these bulbs could be scheduled to dim at specific times, and be turned on at 6:30 AM, and turn off at 7:15 AM. But as stated above they fail to follow all this.
It is a failed tech.
1. 1 Philips had to be returned after a week. Was defective. The process took 2 weeks of followup.
2. 1. Philips has a mind of its own and switches on / off at it whim and fancy. Also when dimmed via the app, it lights up full bright. So I use it as a dumb bulb.
3. 1 Philips always comes back on at around 2 AM. So again using it as a dumb bulb.
4. Homemate one is working decent.
I liked how these bulbs could be scheduled to dim at specific times, and be turned on at 6:30 AM, and turn off at 7:15 AM. But as stated above they fail to follow all this.
It is a failed tech.
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raksrules
Elite
Happens with alexa too. I had linked it to my Onida Fire TV Edition TV. It used to work 50% of the time. If I said "Alexa turn off fire tv", it would do so but then if I said "Alexa turn on fire tv", response is "I cannot find any fire tv'. The turn off is just like screen shutoff and in background things are working I know.
Now alexa is in its right place, in my drawer doing nothing.
If the fire TV has just been switched on, but not powered on, it might not be connected to the network, hence this fails. Happens with me too. That's why turn off works more reliably than turn on. This is the problem with wireless connections, wake over wireless needs the device to be powered on in low power state with the wi-fi active. For this reason, I've set my TV to power on automatically when switch is turned on, which happens automatically at 8:30 in the morning using Amazon plug.
Mostly echo speakers are a decorative item in most Indian houses. That's why I prefer the Echo Flex, it has a USB port, so doesn't completely occupy a power socket, still leaves scope for charging devices through it. I have an Echo Flex which I bought during sale as combo with Amazon Plug for 1750 and an Echo Dot which I bought used for 1000 rupees. If either of them goes Kaput, I'll probably not even bother replacing it given how much prices have gone up now.
sriharsha_m
Adept
I extensively use the Wiz system as well and didn't find any issues as such. I faced the same situation as you had mentioned, but it turned out to be a configuration on the app.
- By default, all the bulbs were in wiz click mode, where they switch between the selected options if you turn off/on the switch once/twice.
Hence regardless of the settings on the app, if the bulb is switched on/off or if there is a power outage, it falls back to the Wiz click modes,
the default being warm white at full brightness from the following screenshot.
- Switching this to the last status fixes this and turns off the wiz click feature.
Wiz click is more for people who don't want to use the app and just want two configurable modes with physical switch toggle.
- Power outage recovery is in global settings for some reason and doesn't show up in individual bulb settings.
Once enabled, it prevents bulbs from turning on after a power outage.
One can use the app to turn them back on or toggling the physical switch for the second time would turn them on in last used mode.
- Another feature is the fade in/fade out, which can be a boon or bane depending on the usage.
It helps in creating a theatrical dimming effect with the fade settings, but the issue with this is, say you have a circadian rhythm enabled and turned on the bulb in the middle of night.
It turns on in last used mode with full brightness before switching to the schedule due to this delay setting.
- If anyone's using a Wiz system, I highly recommend getting the Wiz physical remote accessory.
- The only problem is that you can pair the remote to a room and not a bulb as such. Once paired to a room, it controls all the wiz devices configured for that room. It comes with the basic turn all on/turn all off feature and brightness controls.
- Then there are 4 customisable keys, where one can map the desired modes for each key in the app and then use remote to switch among the 4 mapped modes.
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superczar
Skilled
is HDMI control (HDMI CEC) enabled on the ATV and TV?
Also, you need to ask Siri to turn on the Bedroom TV (or whatever name you have given to the ATV device) and not Apple TV
Oh, maybe i did not phrase it correctly.
What I meant was google is 100% cloud and so is alexa (almost)
That makes them slow because :
Command -> cloud interpretation -> cloud request from Google/ amazon server to device cloud server -> device cloud server sends request to the switch/bulb through a quasi VPN tunnel they maintain with the devices on your LAN
WIth homekit
command -> Local or cloud interpretation -> LAN command to LAN device (bulb/switch/whatever)
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raksrules
Elite
But I turned off the fire tv using alexa and the TV was not physically turned off at all and it is low power mode connected to Wifi. I checked in my router too.
Wow. When I said an extensive setup, that looks like an understatement now. You basically have your own ecosystem with your own proxmox server running and managing your whole setup. And for the most part you are not relaying on any outside service. It'd take someone weeks to setup things like that today. As you mentioned yourself, an update brought down your systems for a day and half. For me, the damn updates are already breaking regular things like mobiles, computers or TVs. Maybe, yeah, windows, android are less reliable but it's too late to change the ecosystem now.
This happened with my smart bulb too. It was actually concerning as I sometimes use darkness as a cover for privacy.