Smart Home crap, or something. (Was: Echo.)

[thesameguy]

Between Prime and iHeartRadio we haven't felt the need to get any more music sources. I think we listen to iHeartRadio probably 90% of the time. By the minute, playing music is the vast, vast majority of what Alexa does. As with you, apparently, she's in our kitchen which makes her very handy. Changing music or setting timers without cleaning hands is - for us - worth the price of admission. All the other stuff she does is just a huge bonus!

I really need to make a home automation plan. I'd used X10 since way back in the day, but when they added Wemo support to Alexa, I grabbed a few modules to replace the X10. I hate Wemo, I think it's awful, but she doesn't have a problem with it and now I'm invested. I need two more, and I'm about ready to just buy more Wemo instead of investing in something more powerful. I feel like my choices are either throw $100 on more Wemo stuff I *know* I won't stay with, or chuck out $500 on any grander solution. Hard to justify that $400 spread.

[Tom Servo]

Yeah. I have essentially zero home automation stuff and right now am trying to not spend so much money. I figure at some point we'll start moving into the home automation stuff (I'd love to have Echo be able to do things like run the dishwasher in the middle of the night for me), but that's a lot of money to spend for something I most definitely do not need.

[thesameguy]

I'm not too heavy into automation - the whole fascination with "scenes" is a little too much for me to wrap my head around. I'm sure part of it is that I live in an old house. If I had some modern wonder with recessed lighting and LED accents everywhere I'd feel differently, we're pretty old-school with, you know, like a lamp here or there.

I really like having Alexa turn lights on when we get home late, it's especially night when wrestling an exciting dog, etc. I want to add remote (and voice) control to the patio lights, as having Alexa turn them on when going out to the BBQ with a full cutting board would nice. Automating ceiling fans would also be nice - and this time of year when we do make use of a couple portable tower fans a voice-controlled outlet or two would be enjoyed. I think that's about as fancy as I get.

Wemo does all of this, however the Wemo lineup is limited and largely incompatible beyond Alexa. Also, Wemo has some highly annoying design flaws... if the power goes out, there's a good chance you lose your programming. Timers and schedules are only stored on the device that created them, so if you set everything up on your iPhone and then get a new iPhone you have to start over. Serious "how did this get out of testing" design issues.

I want to switch to something more widely supported, namely a Samsung SmartThings hub since it integrates most common protocols (zigbee, zwave, insteon, etc.) and has good platform support. Unfortunately, being an old house, I can't make use of a lot of this stuff easily. Most of the control devices require two wires at the box (because they need constant power) and this old house ain't got that. I need a broader plan, so that's why I've been dragging my feet. It's real difficult.

[thesameguy]

While noodling about automation the other night I realized a thing that would solve a lot of my "problems" is an automation device that could be embedded in a gang or ceiling box, bypassing the light switch and not requiring a formal outlet. In places where I'd like to use a remote-controlled switch but don't have a neutral wire, just embedding the controller in the box and losing a manually operated toggle would be totally acceptable. Quick looking shows there are projects were people gut OTS products to accomplish this, but I'm not sure I am up for that from a safety perspective. Something to look further into that may address old house issues.

[Tom Servo]

"I can't find 99 red balloons by 7 seconds on Spotify". Both Alexa and Spotify are dead to me.

[thesameguy]

It's on Prime Music.

https://www.amazon.com/99-Red-Balloo...econds+balloon

[Tom Servo]

Okay, I'll allow it.

It helps that it just played Minor Threat's discography for me.

[thesameguy]

Last week I took the plunge and ordered an Insteon Connected Kit from Amazon... well, some third party, but fulfilled by Amazon. It was $250, I couldn't resist at that price. Included in the package is:

An insteon hub
An Insteon thermostat
A Foscam wireless SD camera, rebranded as Insteon
A pair of Insteon plug-in dimmer modules
A battery-operated open/close sensor
A battery-operated water leak sensor
A battery-operated motion sensor

My initial plan was to hold out for one of the inevitable sales on a Samsung Smart Things hub, which is Insteon compatible but controls other devices as well, and apparently has better software. I still think that's a good idea, but the hub was included in this kit and the value of the parts made it a no-brainer. I may upgrade later, but I might not. For all the "Insteon hub software sucks" hoopla out there, it wasn't that bad to set up.

That bad... Plugged in the hub, set up account, updated hub, done. Plugged in both dimmer modules, configured them, set schedules done. Crawled onto the roof at 10pm, pulled a "C" (common) wire from the AC unit to the thermostat location, installed thermostat, set schedules, done. This all took about an hour, total. The fucking Camera took TWO HOURS to set up. The initial pass at configuration failed, leaving me with a camera that could not be connected to... the software reported it as "configured with a username and password" but it had not been. I could log directly into the camera with default credentials with no issue, but the Insteon software could not. Their website says to hold the reset button for 10 seconds to restore defaults, but that changed nothing. Digging deeper, Foscam's website says to hold the reset button for 20 seconds to restore defaults, but that changed nothing. I finally held the reset button for 30 seconds and, voila, I could reconfigure it. That was about an hour wasted on trial, error, and research. To be sure it was going to work this time, I configured it as wired - everything was hunky dory. Then I found out once configured as wired, Insteon has no way to reconfigure it as wireless. Dafuq? Spent thirty minutes in disbelief, trying to find some hidden configuration option and found nothing. I reset it again, configured as wireless, all is well. Linked my Alexa account to my Insteon account, now Alexa can control Insteon lights. And my thermostat. WHAT.

This weekend I am going to set up the motion sensor and maybe the open/close sensor. What's neat about these sensors is that they can trigger any Insteon device. The motion sensor can turn on a fan and the open/close sensor can turn on a light. Or send an email. Or make a chime. So cool I have no idea what to do with the water leak sensor now, but if my water heater was still in the bathroom that could have been super helpful... would have been nice to know about that leak before it spilled out onto the bathroom floor! But, now all the plumbing at Chez TSG is new and reliable, so I dunno. I am a little concerned about battery life for these devices, though - especially the motion sensor which uses a 9v. I finally got rid of all the 9v stuff at home when I replaced smoke detectors (10 year coin LiIon packs FTW!)... now I have them again. But, whatever.

TBH, Alexa makes this setup really sweet, but controlling everything I want to control with a smartphone is the best. Someday I might upgrade to a Nest, but I'm not convinced shiny design and "learning" is worthwhile. I am happy to hit a button on my phone to make it cold or hot. I don't need a doodad to guess what I want.

Most importantly, however is I am finally done with Wemo. That was some bullshit. Although after a seriously rocky start, it's been completely reliable all year. Doh!

[dodint]

Also, zero kids and a low cost of living really frees up a lot of resources for bullshit.

We call this "the Wisconsin plan" in our house.

[thesameguy]

We call it the no plan plan. That's how we do. Kids are yesterday's news. Home automation is the future.


Which is a weird irony, because my dad was way early with home automation, with X10, in the '80s, when I was a kid.