rmiles7721

Ten Things You Can Do With HomeSeer Home Automation

rmiles7721March 11, 2017Home Automation

I’ve been a pretty loyal HomeSeer user for the last 17 years or so, ever since I got into Home Automation. While there are plenty of pros and cons about it, mainly because it’s paid and everyone wants free beer, that’s not what this is about. I’ll touch on that later. One of the things I like about it so much isn’t even part of the software itself. It’s the user forums. The HomeSeer forums are for user to user support (the devs are also somewhat active there as well and monitor it) and it is one of the oldest home automation forums currently online. Over the years the support from the company has been hit and miss for me but I can almost always find the answers to what I need in the forums.

Anyway, here are a few things you can do with HomeSeer.

  1. Voice Control – While there is a skill for Alexa (which I use extensively now and love it) Homeseer has this baked in and I’ve been using it for a long time. No need to worry if the CIA is listening in because it’s all local. I have found (at least with the hardware that I currently have) that if you have a decent microphone array the voice recognition works very well. It’s only so-so with regular PC microphones.  Using plugins and scripts you can have it function as your own Jarvis with custom responses.
  2. IFTTT support – Even though I prefer to make sure that everything important is 100% local control I like being able to tie IFTTT in with my system. Like Alexa, it adds a lot of value to my system. I also use a few Hue lights and Wemo devices (my coffee maker has Wemo built in) and even though it’s easy to add them in to my Alexa I also like to have my home automation system keep track of an control things. TV show ready to download? Turn my desk lamp red and sends me a text (this can be done without IFTTT actually but that’s what I am using it for.) Last person leaves the house (tracked with the life360 app)…turn down the heat and make sure the doors are locked. I have started using the MQTT protocol as well and am in the process of removing IFTTT from stuff like this.
  3. Cameras! – I am a nut about this and have been since my oldest daughter hit her teenage years. Currently I have about ten or eleven feeds going and a couple more cameras installed. With security cameras you have several choices. Spend a ton of money on a system with compatible cameras or be like me…get whatever is on sale on eBay. Homeseer, using the HSTouch plugin has support for Foscam right out of the box but I chose a more complicated solution. I have seven hardwired cameras all connected to an old Samsung DVR. It’s a Walmart piece of crap basically, at least the software is. I also have two Foscams and a couple of webcams up and running. Everything is password protected. The thing about each of them is that they all have a feed. Rather than using a separate app on my phone to view them I use the Blue Iris software to pull all the feeds into one central place. I can view them all via web browser, the desktop software or the Android app. There is also a Blue Iris plugin for Homeseer. It allows me to have the cameras double as motion detectors to switch on lights, send me notifications, etc. I can also use my actual motion detectors and door/window sensors to tell Blue Iris to start/stop recording, send notifications to my phone and more.
  4. Media control – I am currently using HomeSeer and several Globalcache IR controllers to operate my televisions and dumb audio receivers. Yeah, just as easy to use a remote but I can tell HomeSeer (or, more often than not) to “turn on FireTV” and it switches on my television and change the HDMI input to FireTV, If I say “turn on movie time it does the same but dims my lights and turns on the LED strip backlighting that’s behind the TV
  5. Tell us if someone is at the door – I really like the idea of the Ring video doorbell and things of that ilk and while I will probably pony up the cash eventually to get one I am currently using a combination of Blue Iris and a camera and motion detectors to achieve the same results. I haven’t really been interested in adding it in but I also have a Chromecast hooked to a set of speakers on the front porch so the wife can listen to music out there and I could add in a message for visitors if I really wanted to. “Get off my fucking lawn!” I also have a Z-wave device hooked to the doorbell so that when someone rings it several lights flash and Homeseer hollers “someone is ringing the doorbell”. I think everyone in my house is deaf so this has come in handy with the pizza delivery and UPS several times.
  6. Control the thermostat – I looked at Ecobee and Nest when my thermostat finally crapped out last year and ended up opting for a Honeywell Z-Wave thermostat. Not only is it cheaper but being Z-Wave I am able to control it with Homeseer. It offers me the ability to control with Alexa but I also set the schedules from my HA system. Not only that but if someone has left a window open it will turn off the air (or heat) and tell everyone that a window is open, please shut all the windows and try again. I control the temp based on the time of year, time of day, occupancy in the house as well as the local temperature. Yes, you can use IFTTT and Nest (for instance) to do the same thing, but I prefer to be able to use the local temperature from the weather station on my back deck rather than the temp from a general area. It never matches the temp at my house anyway. Internet down? Some asshat hit the wrong key over at Amazon? Doesn’t matter. Thermostats are system critical and should never be trusted to the cloud.
  7. Tell me when the laundry is finished – This is a big win. My washing machine is plugged into a Z-Wave appliance module that monitors the energy usage so I know when it’s finished running and a couple of computers tell us when it’s complete and a couple of lights flash. I am looking forward to Amazon adding in the ability to push notifications as this will be one of the first things I add to it. I don’t currently have my dryer hooked up but it’s on the list.
  8. Monitoring of STUFF! – Just about anything can be monitored using plugins or scripts and events. Power usage, Internet usage, lights, doors, windows, RSS feeds, web sites, occupancy, the list is endless. I use a combination of text messages and emails to notify me of different stuff around the house.
  9. Actually turn stuff OFF – Most modern appliances such as televisions, receivers, computer gear never really turn off. Even when you turn them off they still continue to draw a minuscule amount of power. If you really want to be green just add an appliance module and have them completely cut off. The cents start to add up over a period of time.
  10. Control TV/Internet usage. Back when my son was in high school and still living with us everything on my network was hard wired (no wifi.) He tended to stay up late playing Soldier of Fortune and probably surfing porn sites. I had his network connection run through a switch and Homeseer automatically cut him off when the timer ran out. The same thing could be applied to televisions. Plug it into an appliance module and set a certain number of minutes per day usage. Overrides can also be added in so that you don’t get inadvertently cut off in the middle of binging on the Walking Dead.

There are a lot of other things NOT on this list and some pretty amazing things I’ve seen/heard people do. Control of holiday lighting (damn, I still need to get those icicles off my front porch), starting your vehicle, intercoms, weather reports and news, automatic animal feeding, etc. You also get what you pay for. I’ve seen quite a few different home automation systems and hubs come and go over the years, particularly in the last five to ten, but Homeseer is still here for me. Staples Connect? Dead and discontinued. Revolv? Nest purchased them and shut it down. If you were customers that purchased either of these in the last couple of years you are shit out of luck. Homeseer was originally designed to work on Windows but now it also runs on Linux and the Raspberry Pi.

Why Your Home Automation and IOT Shouldn’t be in the Cloud

rmiles7721March 4, 2017Home Automation

Updated 3/12/17 – It was mentioned that the Nest Thermostat does not work without Internet connectivity. That’s not entirely true. The thermostat does continue to function as normal, it is the remote control features that won’t work without Internet.

Last week’s little “hiccup” with Amazon AWS servers and a large portion on the web basically going down because of it sucked for a lot of people. There were a lot of websites that were down and reports of people sitting in the dark because they couldn’t control their lighting, they had no access to their media, etc. First world problems, right? What about folks that couldn’t turn their heat on in the middle of winter and had pipes freeze? That’s a bigger deal. I don’t know if that actually happened but the outage did effect Nest thermostats. I’ve made this point before and the incident with AWS just goes to prove it.

Don’t get me wrong. I have an Echo and several Dots scattered throughout the house in addition to a single Google Home in my kitchen. I extensively use IFTTT and also have a couple of Wemo’s (one is my coffeemaker) and Hue lights. They are nice accessories in my overall system but the system isn’t dependent on them. They are just value added things.

My lights are all locally controlled as my Home Automation system is hosted on a PC in my basement, but a Raspberry Pi would work just as fine. It runs it’s own web server as well so I can access it locally on my phone if that’s how I want to do it. Most of the lights are normal bulbs as I use Z-Wave (and a few remaining X10) switches that can also be turned off and on manually. Wow, light switches you turn on with your hand? Whoulda thunk it.

I use HomeSeer Speaker on a couple of PCs and while it doesn’t work nearly as well as Alexa, if I really wanted to go back to local voice control I could. Even though the girls all use Pandora or Play Music, the same stuff that’s in my Play Music library is also hosted on my Amazon Account for redundancy and oh, by the way, I also keep a duplicate on my Home Automation server as well. The Echo and Dots work just fine as bluetooth speakers with or without Internet.

I considered for about five minutes getting a Nest Thermostat or Ecobee before I said fuck it and spent slightly LESS money for a Z-Wave Thermostat I purchased from the Homeseer store. It’s a win/win for me. Cheaper and not dependent on the Internet or the vagaries of a company going out of business or deciding to kill off support for their hardware.

My heat lamp in the chicken house turns off and on based on the outside temperature which I get, not from IFTTT or Internet based weather service, but from an Oregon Scientific temp sensor. I have a couple outside and two or three more scattered throughout the house so if one craps out I’m still good.

Worst case scenario, the PC in my basement bites the dust? I perform an automatic backup of it every single night onto my personal PC and another copy is kept offsite just in case it temporarily goes offline.

Bottom line is that while the “Internet of Things”, IFTTT, Stringify, Google Home and the rest of the stuff in the cloud are all cool, awesome addons to a system they should not form the basis of your HA system. The Wink Hub and other hubs that are dependent on the Internet should not be your only control over your HVAC, lighting, media, etc. Before you go investing in Smart Home stuff think about it and get what you pay for. If you don’t or can’t spend the money on something like Homeseer or Control4 that’s fine. There are plenty of open source options. They may take a little more work to set up and have slightly less support options but they are just as robust.

Google Wifi Update

rmiles7721March 3, 2017Reviews

SO I’ve been using Google Wifi for a couple of months now and wanted to sort of update my initial review.

I picked up the Google Wifi two-pack from the Google Store back at the beginning of December. Overall I was very pleased, at least initially. Setup is easy and without getting into benchmarks or testing it’s pretty fast. Prior to using the mesh network I had two different wifi access points and an extender and still had problems getting a decent signal in some areas of my property. This seems to have been solved by switching to Google Wifi so I was pretty happy.

While the Pro’s up until the last week or so have outweighed the Cons I ran into some issues almost immediately that I have had to work around. For the most part I use static IP addresses on my network. My Home Automation PC, My CCTV server, the BBS computer, not to mention all of my IR controllers and cameras all have static IPs in the 192.168.1 range. Unfortunately Google FORCES you to use a range of 192.168.86. That’s a major problem as I’m not going to change 50+ items, batch files, python scripts, etc.

When I first installed the Wifi network I had my switches and router connected through them. I ended up having to change that so that my Internet connection goes through my router and wired switches ran the Google Wifi hubs from those. That basically means that I had to create two separate networks in the same house. A pain in the ass because I had to expand my subnet mask in order to let devices on each network “see” each other.

Once I had all that set up every seemed peachy until earlier in the week. Google apparently had some sort of issue earlier in the week that effected Google Wifi and OnHub devices and took a great deal of them offline. You aren’t able to manually specify updates, that is controlled 100% by Google. Unfortunately something they’ve done fucked up a large portion of them. There’s no way to backup network settings and people everywhere had to factory reset their hubs and add them back in. It doesn’t take long but it’s still stupid.

Since then my wifi hub that sits in the master bedroom has had to be factory reset twice more. Three times in the past week is a bit much. Every couple of days it just starts flashing red. When I did a search as to what the flashing red light means over at the Google Support site it just says

Wifi point has an issue. If your Wifi point continues to pulse red, please contact us.

What the fuck? That doesn’t sound good. Anyway, I have sent Google Support and email and hopefully will hear back from them soon.

Alexa Can Now Control Wink-Compatible Smart Locks

rmiles7721February 28, 2017Home Automation

Recently Amazon has added smart lock capability to it’s Alexa smart home API. I’ve been patiently waiting for the fine folks at Homeseer to update their skill so that I can start doing the same without having to say “Alexa, tell Homeseer to lock the front door” etc….

Anyway, Wink has beaten them to the punch and you can now control or check the status of smart locks from Schlage, Kwikset and Yale.

In the past I’ve written about my Wink hub and how much I hated it because it was unreliable, would lose it’s Internet connection and several other problems. About five weeks ago I did a full factory reset on it and moved it to a new position in the house. Since then it’s been rock-solid. I run my Z-wave network (including door locks) from my Homeseer controller so unfortunately it’ll be a while before I have that capability unfortunately. I am considering using Wink as a secondary controller but there are issues with that such as Alexa duplicating devices so I’m putting it off for a while.

Anyway, if you have a Wink hub and want to connect your locks to Alexa go check out the article over on the Wink blog for directions.

State of the Smart Home?

rmiles7721February 26, 2017Home Automation

So I’m browsing around the other day and came across an article over at Wareable. Haven’t ever been there but I’ll probably stop back by and check it out occasionally.

Anyway, the article is titled “The State of the Smart Home” and they attempt to give a brief history of home automation over the last 45 years. I say attempt because it was obviously written by someone who doesn’t know squat about Home Automation or smart home devices or just decided they didn’t have time to devote to it.. Now don’t get me wrong, later in the article there are some really good points about smart home devices and home control but there really isn’t much about HA. Of course you can’t really say much about the history of home automation in three short paragraphs, which is what the author has attempted to do.

Back in 1966, while everyone else was busy watching the World Cup and debating whether The Beatles’ Revolver was bonkers or brilliant, engineer Jim Sutherland was at home in Pittsburg, quietly creating his ‘Electronic Computing Home Operator’

…some other stuff….

It would be another 44 years before the designer of the iPod, Tony Fadell, took a similar step towards revolutionising home automation with his groundbreaking Nest Learning Thermostat. A wave of launches followed – Samsung announced its SmartThings ecosystem in 2012, though arguably its thunder was stolen by Philips’ Hue lighting system. Belkin’s WeMo app-controlled plug socket arrived at CES in 2013, and by 2014 any tech brand worth its salt was talking smart home, from LG with its HomeChat textable appliances to Apple and HomeKit.

 

44 years? Really?

I will say this. One thing the article mentioned is that it’s still a niche area and they are definitely correct about that, it’s just all the rest of it that’s wrong.

In 1975 the first widespread, general purpose Home Automation products were released. It was called X10 and for the most part it used electric wiring for controlling and also RF transmission.  A lot of other types of control have come and gone in that time including ethernet control, RS-485, IR, Bluetooth, Zigbee (Wink, Hue, etc…), C-bus, Insteon (built upon X10), UPB, xPL, EnOcean and Z-wave, not to mention probably 20 other protocols that I can’t think of currently. I came late to the game and started getting into the hobby in early 2000.

X10 had it’s good and bad points. One thing I can say about it is that even though I have moved on to mostly Z-Wave devices and a smattering of quite a few other technologies I’m playing with, I still have several X10 modules that I purchased in 2000 and they still work just fine. 17 years. I doubt there’s anything I’ve purchased in the last five that will still be up and running in 2034. Maybe my X10 modules.

By 2012 there were supposedly over 1.5 million households that had HA systems installed. Yeah, that’s a niche but a pretty decent sized one.

Back in 2,000 I was using wireless technology, voice recognition, infrared and scheduling along with true home automation; devices and parts of the house that react to different things (motion, time, light, heat, etc.) I say true home automation because most of the products offered are really just home control, not automation.

The article says that 2017 is the year of Voice. I would agree 100% with that. While I have used VR and text to speech all along, it’s so much easier now. The Amazon Echo, and to a much lesser extent Google Home, are awesome and have helped to turn my system into something that the whole family wants to use. The Wife Approval Factor (WAF) has gone through the roof with Alexa.

I think what really bugged me about the article was that it (and most of the other ones I’ve now read there) is about gadgets. There’s really nothing about making your home a true “smart home”. Having a smart home isn’t about having to use 20 different apps on your phone in order to control everything. As a matter of fact, you shouldn’t ever have to take your phone out of your pocket unless you just want to (or are accessing it remotely). Not only that but most of the products they talk about force you to rely on the cloud. What happens to all of your gadgets and apps when your Internet connection goes down? Mine keeps humming right along, minus a few non-necessary items (Alexa, Wemo Mr Coffee, etc).

 

 

Enable System Wide Immersive Mode on Android Without Root

rmiles7721February 22, 2017Android

Several game and apps in Android the last couple of years implement what is called Immersive Mode. Basically your navigation and system bars disappear so that you can enjoy full screen mode. Google made this possible starting back in version 4.4

I used to use an app called GMD Full Screen Immersive Mode to force it when I wanted to use it but it unfortunately breaks the keyboard when you are using it. There’s also an ADB command that will trigger it but up until a few months ago everyone thought that you have to be rooted to use it. I personally stopped rooting my phones around the time I picked up my Nexus 6p, so around a year ago. It’s just not needed and I’m a huge fan of Android Pay, which is unusable if you are rooted.

XDA has an article up describing how you can enable system-wide immersive mode on demand, without root. Go check it out here.

 

Project Fi Testing Voice over LTE support

rmiles7721February 21, 2017Android

Apparently some Project Fi customers have noticed improved voice call quality over the last few weeks. That’s because Google has been testing Voice over LTE for some users. It was announced four days ago over at the Project Fi Help Forum.

Hi everyone,

Some of you have noticed this already, but over the past few weeks we have been testing VoLTE with a subset of Project Fi users.

A few advantages of VoLTE are:
higher quality calls over data – without using any of your data allocation.
faster data browsing during an on-going call
faster call setup

You can tell you’re making a VoLTE call because your signal indicator will continue to display LTE instead of falling to H [HSPA] when you make or receive a call.

We will continue to keep you informed as we progress with our testing.

Thank you!
Alena
Project Fi Community Manager

Unfortunately I’m not one of the lucky few yet who are getting to test this. If you happen to be a Project Fi customer you can tell if you are a tester by looking for the signal indicator to continue displaying LTE when you are on a call.

VoLTE lets you use your data to make a call, without using your data allocation. It also means that you’ll be able to use faster data browsing even while you are on a call, such as when you are looking up contact info online or need to look up directions.

You can also go into your settings – data usage – cellular networks and there will be a new switch for you to turn it on.

Currently Project Fi is limited to the Google Pixel and Pixel XL, Nexus 6p, Nexus 5x and Nexus 6. VoLTE support for Fi is limited to when you are on T-Mobile’s network since it’s the only US partner that fully supports VoLTE. No telling when Sprint or US Cellular will get on the bandwagon.

 

 

 

 

The Guitar

rmiles7721February 21, 2017Site News

Several years ago the wife received as a gift a really nice acoustic guitar from a friend of her’s that was going through a divorce. She likes to tell the story about it as it belonged to one of the three or four men that she hates the most and truly wished harm to come to them. This gentleman belongs to a list that includes Kim Jong Il. Wow.

Anyway, the guitar is pretty awesome, like you might find at music stores st louis.

It’s currently being used by my eldest daughter, who taught herself how to play. She’s pretty good at any type of musical instrument that she wants to play.

Sponsored Posts

rmiles7721February 21, 2017Reviews

It’s been several years since I’ve done so but I am probably going to start doing sponsored posts (or just sponsored links inside some posts) to help defray some of the costs I incur running my site as well as other things. I made pretty decent money while I was heavily doing it. I don’t see it taking over the site like I did before as I prefer writing the how-to’s and reviews and I really don’t want it to take away from what I prefer,

Verizon Offers Unlimited Data Plan

rmiles7721February 12, 2017Site News

Hell has officially frozen over.

I ditched Verizon a couple of years ago after the salesman in the Carrollton, GA store outright refused to sell me a phone at full price so that I could keep my grandfathered plan. While I do have to keep an eye on my data, it’s never really been a problem and I haven’t looked back.

Anyway, as of tomorrow, February 13th, Verizon will again be offering an unlimited* data plan for $80 a month. Not too bad actually. Unfortunately they are saying that customers that use over 22GB of data in a month will have their connection throttled in case of network connected.  I guess that’s like alternative news. Alternative unlimited.

You can also add a connected device, such as a tablet or the Wear 24, for an extra $5 a month.

The other thing is that Verizon is calling this an “introductory plan” so I’m not sure how that will effect existing customers. You can get more information at Verizon.