Looks like Google Assistant on the Pixel is finally getting proper home functionality, without having to have Google Home. Up until now you could issue commands to the Nest, for instance, from your phone if you had already set it up on the Home. For instance, I already have a few Hue lights and a couple of Wemo devices (only one switch) that I have set up through Google Home. Now though you can do it through assistant, which is awesome.
If you open Assistant and go into the settings, Home control should be there. Since I already have a few devices set up through my home these already appear for me but you can add devices from Nest, Hue, SmartThings, Honeywell, and WeMo, create rooms, and assign a device to each room. Not too bad. Unfortunately Homeseer is not in the list but they are working on it and hopefully will be there shortly. Currently I’m using a workaround with Tasker and Autovoice to coomunicate with Homeseer, as well as IFTTT although that’s a lot slower than HS with the Tasker plugin.
Not everyone is seeing it yet apparently. I have a Google Pixel XL running the Android 7.1.2 beta, with the Google app 6.12.19 and Play Services 10.2.98
For the last few months I’ve been using the Google Pixel XL. In the past few years I have used quite a few smart phones. In reverse order my daily drivers were the Nexus 6P, Nexus 6, Galaxy Note3, HTC One M8, Galaxy Nexus, HTC Droid Incredible & the Incredible 2, Blackberry Storm, Samsung SCH-i730 and the Blackberry Pearl. I may be missing a phone or two in the list as well, IDK. Probably my favorite devices up until now were the Nexus phones and the Blackberry Pearl.
My biggest issue with the Nexus line was that the cameras have always been underperforming and slow. Until the last couple of years if I was going on a trip I always had to make sure that I carried my dslr with me. That’s changed now.
I can say without a doubt that the Google Pixel is an awesome phone. It’s responsive, fast and the camera is even faster. With one or two exceptions it’s the best phone I’ve ever owned.
The interface, for the most part, is the generic Android desktop. Google elected to replace the Google Now Launcher with the Pixel Launcher. There isn’t a lot of noticeable difference there and I like it. I’ve played around with several home replacements such as Nova (one of my favorites) and Lightning Launcher but I always seem to go back to the simplicity of the one that came with the phone. I am not a real huge widget person and I only use two screens, one with a few icons and folders containing my most used apps, and the Google screen. If Google would open up the API for smaller developers such as Nova to integrate that into it I would probably go back to using Nova but that’s something for an entirely new post.
As I mentioned above, I really like the camera. It’s super fast and takes great pictures, better than any phone I have owned, even better than the Samsung phones I’ve used. With other phones I usually have had to wait a second for the phone to focus and then another after I’ve “pushed” the button for the picture to actually take. That’s way too long and half the time the photo I’m trying to take is no longer there. With the Pixel XL it’s just point and click, which is exactly what I cell phone camera should be.
One of the other things that I am pleased with is that I don’t have to root my phone anymore just to be able to do stuff, or get rid of unwanted bloat. Up until the Nexus 6P I have rooted every single phone I have owned. I love using Tasker to automate stuff and do more with my phone and until the last year or so have always had to hack my phone in order to do so. With the 6P and now the Pixel XL I haven’t had to do that. With the fine grained permissions that have been added to Android the last couple of versions it’s much easier to get it to do things now. Not to mention I love Android Pay and it’s not possible to use a rooted phone and use Android Pay without a lot of workarounds that I don’t really want to mess with.
There are a couple of issues I have had with it that I want to make sure and mention. They aren’t killers for me but it wouldn’t be fair to leave them out.
The biggest problem I had was that the Pixel was freezing several times per day, just completely locking up on me. When I received the Pixel I did the account and app transfer from my 6P and it started within a week. After doing some research this has been a semi-common problem with folks and the solution seemed to be to remove the Life360 app. WTF? I went ahead and did a hard reset and made sure not to install Life360 (which everyone in my family uses) and that seems to have done the trick. I am not particularly satisfied with that answer and after having left it off my phone for the month of December and most of January, I put it back on about two weeks ago. I have had one freeze up since then, just the other day, but other than that the problem seems to have gone away. Not sure if it really was Life360 that was the problem, or maybe a combination of that and the transfer I did when I first got it and all of the apps I had installed.
One other issue I have been having is with disconnecting from data after a phone call. It doesn’t always happen so I am not sure what’s causing it. I have been a Project Fi customer for about a year and a half now so depending on my location I’m connected to T-Mobile, Sprint or U.S. Cellular. The issue seems to be when I am connected to the Sprint network. I have to repair my connection or switch to another carrier (or just reboot) in order to fix the problem. Like I said, it’s not a major issue but one to be aware of. I use an app called Signal Info and one of the few widgets on my desktop allows me to repair or switch my connection.
So I spent a couple of paragraphs about “issues” but here’s the real deal…I consider myself a power user and with Tasker and a few other apps and plugins I push my phones pretty hard, so I have never owned a phone that didn’t have issues. So far the Pixel XL has been able to deal with things more smoothly than any other. Really starting to look forward to the Pixel 2…, particularly if they add waterproofing.
Since 2005 or so I have always paid full price for my phone, but normally I purchased them from my provider. In the long run it’s much cheaper because you aren’t paying finance charges. From ’99 until maybe three years ago I was with Verizon and grandfathered in the unlimited data plan as long as I kept purchasing my phones like that. In 2013 I needed to upgrade my phone so I went into the Verizon store in Carrollton to buy a new smart phone. The salesman refused to sell me a phone and lied, telling me that even if I found a Verizon store to sell me one they would knock me out of the grandfathered plan. Of course it was a bald-faced lie at the time but I was so pissed off that I walked out, went across the street to AT&T and took all five lines and $400 a month to them.
Of course at that point I had to start paying for my data and was locked into a plan again lol. I went ahead and picked up an HTC One and used that until the Nexus 6 came out. For some reason I went ahead and decided to “upgrade” to the Nexus 6. After having to have it replaced five times I bought one unlocked from Amazon and started using that. Unfortunately that meant I was still paying for a phone I wasn’t using (which is in a box, ready for me to sell on Swappa or eBay.)
My line went month-to-month yesterday so I just finished canceling that line on the account!
Although I have had the line on AT&T I have had it forwarded to ad have been using Google’s Project Fi for the last 18 months. Maybe a little longer. While the coverage isn’t quite what my wife has I really haven’t had any problems with it and I live in a semi-rural area. I keep a pre-paid Verizon Hotspot for those times that I might not have coverage through Fi (which uses T-Mobile, Sprint and US Cellular towers.) My daughter has been off of AT&T and also using Project Fi for a few months now as well.
I now have three lines left on my AT&T account. One goes to month-to-month in February, one in June and one sometime in 2018. Ugh. Whar’s funny is that my bill from them will drop to somewhere around $300, maybe a little higher. I have two on Project Fi and my bill is a third of what I am paying AT&T.
Regardless of what provider anyone uses I can tell you that the nicest feeling in the world is to not be locked in to some jack-ass provider that’s holding your feet to the fire with their shitty plans. Buy your phones outright and go month-to-month. If you really want to save money shop online every month for pre-paid plans. Most of them have deals and you can switch providers. I’m not going that route since I really like Project Fi (which, knowing Google, will disappear at some point in the next few years) but if you do, just set up a Google Voice account so you can use the same phone number for all of them. You can actually use Google Voice to ring on your mobile and landline (does anyone still have one of those?) at the same time.
So a few weeks ago I cracked the screen on my current Nexus 6. Very slightly cracked. Not even enough to both OCD me. Unfortunately the crack spread last week and then I had two cracks. I decided to replace the screen. It’s tedious but not too difficult if you are careful.
Took me a little while to take the phone apart but I was almost finished and separating the digitizer from the LCD when my big old fat fucking cat decided it would be the perfect time to jump up on the counter scattering all my tools and parts. In the process the digitizer managed to get ruined 🙁
So a $12 repair job now turns into a $150 repair job. Ugh. Luckily I’ve got my old AT&T Phone so I’ll use that until I get the new parts in at some point during the next 7 days. Luckily my contract with AT&T isn’t up yet so I have not switched 100% to Project Fi.
It was good practice. Now I just have to hope I can remember how to put all that stuff back together lol.
So in Part I I touched on most of the hardware I’m using and some of my software. I keep coming across stuff I missed and I’ll mention some of that here.
So on to how all this works together. Down among the creepy crawlies that inhabit my garage and basement along with my son’s defunct 1990 Firebird lives the brains behind my house. Homeseer. It’s a piece of software that I’ve been using since 2000. I have tried probably 50 or 60 different packages over the years and also some dedicated hardware solutions (such as the Wink Hub) and not a single one of them can do everything that Homeseer can. Nothing even comes close. Unfortunately that also means a bit of a learning curve. You can just set up the hardware, the software and a few plugins and actually have a pretty decent automated home but for the depth of control I like it takes a bit of time (16 years worth lol)
A small portion of the 500+ devices shown on the web page of my automation software.
Homeseer is extended using plugins (as well as VB scripting if you want). The plugins I am currently using are
BLGarbage (this just helps to keep things running smoothly)
BLRF – for X10 RF signals
Blue-Iris – controls and receives information from Blue Iris, which is running on a PC in my bedroom. This is the heart of my CCTV security.
EasyTrigger – better event triggers. More on events later.
HSTouch Server – for touchscreen clients including Android and iPhone smartphones, windows clients (my Asus touchscreen) and tablets.
JowiHue – Sends and receives information to my Hue Bridge. This is the part that failed in the video in part one. That or the bridge itself. It definitely is not as reliable as Zwave lighting and while the Hue lights are cute they will end up being replaced.
NetCAM – Allows for snapshots of my network cameras. Now that I’m using the Blue Iris plugin I’ll be retiring this soon.
Random – Using this with some of the other plugins and text to speech so that when Homeseer talks with us it will use different phrsing and words and not always sound the same. I haven’t really done much with this yet. Never enough time.
Restart – Allows me to restart Homeseer if needed without having to remotely log into the server.
RFXCOM – I touched on this one earlier. It pulls in info from my Oregon Scientific weather sensors (including the ones that aren’t connected to the base station due to compatibility. Some of the sensors have died over time so I have replaced them with cheaper ones, which the base station doesn’t read. I upload all of my weather data to Weather Underground and WeatherBug. The software that I use for that (VWS) sends most of the info and I use a VB script to send the missing info that RFXCOM picks up. RFXCOM also receives the RF signals from my old X10 security sensors that I haven’t repleaced yet.
SCBULLET – A pushbullet plugin. I have it set up but not doing much with it yet as far as notifications
Tasker Plugin – There is so much I could say about this. I saw a quote from someone on the Homeseer forums that goes something like “Tasker, for a Home Automation enthusiast is like hitting a drug addict in the face with a big bag of crack”. Tasker is awesome. When I go to listing some of the things I’m able to do we’ll touch on Tasker.
TextSeer – a simple receiver for sending controls to homeseer over the web. While I can use JSON to do the same thing, TextSeer allows me to use HTTP GET with my BBS software and other stuff. It makes it very simple.
UltraGCIR3 – this allows me to control my IR stuff. TV, receiver, etc.
UltraMon3 – Monitors stuff on my network. I have this running but don’t really use it as much anymore. I have switched to a more robust set of scripts and local control over each computer in the house.
VWS – pulls in the info from my weather station.
The Oregon Scientific Base Station. The VWS software is running on my PC and sends it’s info to services in the cloud as well as to CSV format which the VWS plugin reads
weatherXML – Weather information but much more than that. Alerts, maps, etc.
X10 – While X10 is very old, not 100% reliable and a bit outdated, I still have switches and motion sensors that have worked for the last 16 years. In the past I’ve used the X10 CM15 controller, the Applied Digital Ocelot (I think this one died due to a lightning strike several years back) and am currently using a TI103 X10 controller. One of the reasons I am moving over to Zwave is that even though I have a coupler wired into my breaker box and another one plugged into my dryer the X10 does not always seem to send the signals to the switches and other appliances. For instance, if you open my side door (which we let the dog out of at night) my side and front porch lights come on and will then turn off after 15 minutes of no motion. My front porch is Zwave and always immediately responds. The side porch is X10 and sometimes it’s immediate, sometimes it’s four or five seconds and occasionally it just never switches on. That’s a no-go as far as I’m concerned for an automated home. It’s also the reason I don’t want my shit cloud controlled. When you hit the light switch it should just immediately come on. There should never be a delay.
XBMC – I use Kodi on my bedroom PC occasionally and this allows me to control it when I do. More on that…
Z-Wave – I used to use an Aeon Labs Zwave controller but updated last year to a Homeseer Zwave Smartswitch+
Kinect – This plugin is actually running remotely on the Asus touchscreen in my living room.
Alexa plugin – I mentioned that Homeseer has Echo support built in. It does. What this plugin does is allow me to use ANOTHER instance of Alexa on my bedroom PC without having the Echo in there. It runs remotely like the Kinect plugin. I can have as many instances of this as I need. With it getting warmer there will be stuff we’ll be working on in the garage (where my Homeseer server is) and I will probably install Alexa on that too. The only caveat to having software instances of Alexa rather than the Echo or Dot is that it doesn’t support media (Pandora, etc) but there are workarounds for that.
I think that’s all of the plugins I am currently running so here are some of the things the system does.
There are currently two (really three) voice recognition systems at work in my house. One is Alexa. As seen in the video and countless other ones on Youtube the recognition is awesome and there is a lot of stuff you can do. “Alexa, tell Domino’s to order my Easy Order” worked great last night when it was just me and Tootsieroll eating dinner. Obviously I can also control my lighting, TV and somewhat my thermostat. It does have it’s limitations though. I currently have 581 devices attached to Homeseer. Not all of those are hardware obviously. Some are virtual devices that control other ones. The Echo (Alexa) can control stuff that is able to be specifically controlled by Off, On, Dim or it can set heating or cooling to a specific temperature. You can’t chain commands with it.
The second voice recognition system I use is Homeseer itself. I have a little piece of software running on each PC and laptop called HomeSeer speaker. It acts as a remote text to speech client for Homeseer and can send announcements to all or specific clients. I can also turn on the recognition so in addition to “Alexa”, “Jarvis” lives in my house. With Jarvis I can tell Homeseer to turn on the air in 15 minutes and set it to 72. Or I can set the virtual device “Alarm” to “home” in twenty minutes. There really isn’t much I can’t do with Homeseer Speaker. The problem with Homeseer Speaker’s voice recognition that I’ve found over the years is that it sucks balls. It’s an awesome idea and a great back end but the implementation is so fucking awful it’s basically unusable. That’s why, even though Google Now and Alexa work through the Internet, I use them anyway.
That brings me to the third one I mentioned above. I use Tasker on my Nexus 6 as do my wife and youngest daughter. My oldest has an iPhone so she’s shit out of luck. With Tasker and a couple of plugins I can say “Ok Google, turn on the TV, change to FireTV, lock the front door (yeah, I found one on eBay that hopefully will be here soon) and dim the living room lamps”. Yeah, that’s where the awesome sauce kicks in. Can’t do that shit with Alexa. It does mean that your phone has to be with you but who doesn’t always have their phone. Or does it? On my todo list is adding Tasker to the two Nexus 7s in my house so we don’t have to have our phone with us. Oh by the way, my Moto 360 is also connected to Tasker through my phone so as long as it’s in range and they are both connected to wifi, I can just talk to the watch like Dick Tracy.
That’s Me!
Some of the other things Homeseer does?
If it’s between November and March and the temperature is under 59 outside the heat kicks on the a specific setting, It’s a little lower at nighttime. From May to October it’s the air that kicks on but as I mentioned earlier, only if the windows are closed.
When you open the door to the basement stairs the lights kick on in the stairway as do the ones in my basement and garage. If it’s the garage door the same thing. They cut off after fifteen minutes, IF no motion has been detected. If I flip the lights on, off, on they are overridden and will stay on until I cut them off.
If it’s nighttime and motion is detected outside by any of my motion detectors the flood lights and porch lights cut on until no motion has been detected. Same thing if Blue Iris detects motion on the cameras. Lights on. When I open the side door at night the porch lights come on and then go off fifteen minutes after no motion detected. If the front door is opened at night the foyer light, front porch lights and driveway floods come on and then will turn off fifteen minutes later if there’s no motion. That’s particularly useful when I leave for work at 6:15am and my hands are full.
When the washing machine is in use and then stops (watts in use) it tells everyone in the house, hey, the clothes are finished. Put them in the dryer. Once it has been out of use for a period of time it completely cuts the power to the Zwave switch. You know that most appliances still use a minute bit of power even when not in use. Not my washing machine. Or my daughter’s monitor for that matter, which she tends to leave on. Eventually most of my appliances will be hooked to Zwave switches as well. Even if I just save 50 cents or a dollar a month when you have 50 items running, TVs, monitors, washer and dryer, etc…it all adds up.
If motion is detected in the house when we aren’t at home it sends the wife and I email alerts along with pictures. If the basement windows are opened it sets off and alarm and starts flashing lights around the house. If my CO/Smoke detector in the kitchen (the only connected one I have so far) goes off it of course sounds, but my basement alarm sounds, all the lights start flashing off and every speaker in the house starts shouting shit about fire or carbon monoxide and it also sends us emails and text messages.
My basement control center. After 16 years of hooking shit up it’s embarrassing the wiring mess I have down there. On my todo list for this summer is to clean it up and rewire everything.
When I get close to the house my driveway and porch lights come on at night and the system announces Daddy’s home. It drives my dog nuts.
If we are on vacation and motion is sensed anywhere outside random lights go on and all the outside lights go on. It also sends the obligatory emails and text messages along with pics.
I’m in the slow process of writing a series of Alarm Events so we can set an alarm when we leave to trigger other events.
I have a counter set so it has started tracking when we change the HVAC filter and it will tell us when it needs to be changed.
Less automation but more information, Homeseer scrapes my BBS for info and I can see who is logged in, how many calls I’ve had and other various info. It also pulls in a few RSS feeds so I know when the last show has been updated and I can download the torrents, pulls in horoscope and also news feeds. It’s supposed to read me the top headlines when my alarm is dismissed in the morning and also tell me if it’s a holiday but I’m debugging that I guess.
If there’s a NOAA weather alert for the area it announces it to everyone.
That’s most of the items currently. 90% of it happens whether there’s internet connection or not.
I have a streaming music server on a Raspberry Pi and my entire music library on an NAS. It runs Subsonic, a streaming server. It doesn’t get much use but that’s mainly because I have set up obvious clients for everyone. Unlike Pandora, iHeartRadio, Play Music or Amazon, no internet needed. There are clients but I just mainly use the html interface and can cast it to any of my chromecasts oh by the way.
Subsonic web interface login
There are a thousand other things my automated home does and can do that I can’t think of at the moment but the stuff above gives a good general idea anyway.
Some things in varying stages of completion I have that will be added shortly include,
A smart mirror. I actually have all of the materials next to my desk for this. Basically it’s a see through mirror with a Nexus 7 behind it that supplies pertinent information for day, camera feeds, etc. Voice controlled. There are more intensive projects out there that I’ve seen that use a raspberry pi and touchscreen monitor but I went the cheap route. Still a wow thing. I haven’t decided when I’m going to place it.
A Raspberry Pi based emulator running Nintendo and Super Nintendo games to mention a few. That’s 90% complete. I thought I had an old NES in my basement that I was going to gut and put everything inside but I can’t find it (I think it didn’t survive a rare spousal purge of crap) so I’m going to gut my old Nintendo Xbox 1 and put everything inside.
Mounting my projector to my bedroom ceiling and running the wires (I am thinking about living room actually). It will take the place of my bedroom television. It has HDMI inputs so I can hook in my chromecast. I have a ceiling mount and another FireTV stick on the way (my poor poor discover card.) I will also be able to control it with IR and in turn run it via voice or touch screen control via phone. The extra TV I’ll either hook to my desk or set up a gaming station next to my daughter’s computer in the living room and hook up the unused Xbox 360. Nobody here does a lot of console gaming but it’s nice when there’s company.
Front door. I managed to get a steal on a Zwave motorized deadbolt. It’ll be here eventually and I’ll add it into my system. Probably have it unlock when I drive up. Not trigger by motion but by our phone’s proximity. Nice to be able to remotely let people into the house as well without having to give them a key. It was an open box deal but I can return it if it doesn’t work.
A software based alarm system. I mentioned I was working on that but it’s a long way from completion. I’ve barely touched on the capabilities of Blue Iris as well as the scripting that Homeseer provides so this will be a fairly robust system. I’m not willing to pay monthly fees for monitoring so this is the next best thing.
Incorporating using more JSON into the interface so I will have more control of the automation aspects through the BBS, my web site, and all of the internal stuff. We use Plex in addition to Kodi because it just works well with browsers as well as the FireTV Stick. I have eventghost on most of the computers and will be adding more control over/from that as well.
More/better voice control options.
Touch support. I have rudimentary touchscreen clients on our phones and in the kitchen but I need to update the screens and provide more control.
I have a shit ton of old stuff I need to sell that I haven’t had the opportunity to list but will soon. If you’re looking for any of this stuff let me know and we’ll work out a deal. This includes an iPhone 5 no idea the size, HTC One (AT&T), Samsung Galaxy S3 (Verizon), Two Moto X (original, 2012 I think), an Ipod Touch and a Gameboy Color. Automation stuff includes an Applied Digital Ocelot and SECU16-IR. I think the IR controller is good but I haven’t been able to get the Ocelot to work. Many x10 switches, lamp and appliance modules, door/window sensors, in-wall switches, universal modules. Some are defunct but most are still in fine working order. They are from various manufacturers. Mostly X10 but some Radio Shack and a couple others as well. Most of that I’d prefer to just sell as one lump deal but I will consider selling seperately. A couple of netpads. Slow and Old. Considering throwing linux on them and using as netcams if I don’t sell them.
SO I’m a big gadget geek. As far as phones, while there is nothing wrong with Apple products my personal preference is for Android. The platform is much more extensible and I can do 1,000 more things with my Nexus than I ever would be able to with Apple. But…this isn’t about that.
I came across and article this morning entitled “The Perfect Smart Home: What our editors are using” over at Android Central, one of the sites I frequent. Each of them lists what they are using in their smart home and why. The question I had when I read the article is what about each thing makes their house smart? Each of the items, in itself, is pretty neat and I own several of them. The problem is that by themselves none of them make the house smart, at least not by my definition of the word. There are a couple that come pretty close, mainly Smarththings, but even that has it’s limitations. Most of them are limited by being able to connect to the Internet, for starters. What if you lost your internet connection? Most of the folks using these products are shit out of luck, including if you use Smartthings. From their web site:
Any locally executing SmartApps or Device Type Handlers still send events to the SmartThings cloud. This is necessary so that the mobile application can accurately reflect the current state of the devices, as well as perform any cloud-required services (e.g., sending notifications). In the event of an Internet outage, the events will be queued and sent to the SmartThings cloud when Internet is restored.
So what am I using? First off, bear in mind I’ve been using Home Automation for 16 years now and have used some really good (and some really crappy) products. For the most part I try to get things off of eBay or cobbled together from the parts that seem to inevitably collect around the desk of a gadget enthusiast.
Before I go into my set up we need to touch on why I don’t think a bunch of awesome gadgets make your house smart and what does. To begin with, it’s the controller. To have Home Automation, as opposed to Home Control, your house needs to do shit without you necessarily directing it to. All of your stuff also needs to work together. For instance, if one of us turns on the AC and there is a window open my house (HomeSeer) immediately turns it off and says something to the effect of “There is a window open, I have turned off the HVAC. Shut the windows and try again.” Eventually I’ll add logic which will cut it on once the window has been closed but for now we have to tell HomeSeer to turn it on once they are shut.
Here’s a quick video I shot right after I ready the article.
You’ll notice in the video that I am also using Alexa, which was mentioned in the Android Central article. I managed to get the Echo and remote while they were only being introduce to Prime members, for $99. If I had realized how cool it was I would have preordered another lol. As it is, I have an Amazon Dot coming sometime next month. That’s a piece of hardware Amazon is introducing to current Echo owners. It uses Alexa technology but insted of being a big speaker you hook your own speakers up to it. You’ll also notice my living room lights didn’t do dick when I told them to. I’ll touch on that a little later as well.
So here’s the hardware I’m using and then I’ll go on to describe what each piece does and how it fits together.
In my basement:
My basement control center. After 16 years of hooking shit up it’s embarrassing the wiring mess I have down there. On my todo list for this summer is to clean it up and rewire everything.
refurbished Dell Optiplex workstation. It runs the heart of my home automation system, the software Homeseer. Attached to that I have,
RFXCom receiver. It receives signals from my Oregon Scientific weather station I received for Christmas a few years ago. It also receives signals from a few other weather instruments as well as X10 security devices. I used to have the X10 Door/Window sensors on everything as well as a couple of glass break sensors. I’m now down to 4 window sensors as it’s an unstable and outdated technology that doesn’t always work. I have a shitload in a box I’ll be selling on eBay shortly if anyone is interested.
W800RF32 receiver AND a MR26a receiver for redundancy. These two pick up X10 RF signals from my few remaining X10 motion sensors as well as X10 remotes and stick-a-switch things. The W800 also receives X10 security device RF but I’ve found the RFXCOM and homeseer plugin does a better job. I am also slowly replacing the X10 motion sensors with Zwave as well. The timeline on that is just when I find a good deal on eBay or when they go on sale for deep discount at my local Home Depot.
HomeSeer Zwave Smartstick+, this is what controls most of my lighting. Zwave devices are slowly replacing X10 for reliability reasons as well as speed.
A shitty Samsung SDR-4001 CCTV system I picked up at Walmart a couple of years ago. Currently has four cameras attached. It’s locked down and you can’t access it with anything other than old versions of Internet Explorer and the Samsung software. However, I recently found a program that will pull in the video feeds. Blue Iris. More about that shortly.
Zwave door/window sensors on all the windows and the back door. Zwave light switch in the basement and a couple of GE Link light bulbs in the garage as well as the basement stairs.
Aeon Labs Zwave energy monitor directly attached to the breaker box.
In the living room:
Amazon Echo. Alexa. As Phil noted in the article I linked to, Alexa is one of the most exciting things to come out in the area in a long time. She’s sexy. So much so that they are literally flying off the shelves and besides being able to buy them through Amazon they are also available at Home Depot and Best Buy to name a couple. The voice recognition is so much better than the other system I use (part of Homeseer) that the devs from Homeseer added support. The one and only downfall to the Echo is that you have to be connected to the Internet. So I have redundancy and also use the Homeseer voice control as well.
really need to get that wiring cleaned up lol
A Global Cache GC-100-06 IR controller I got for a steal off eBay last week as a matter of fact. In the past I have used the USB-UIRT, eHome IR receivers (Windows Media Center) and an Applied Digital SECU16-IR (attached to the X10 controller I was using at the time.). The Global Cache controller works over the network and is a small form factor among my components.
Don’t mind the wires lol. I need to straighten that mess out.
The overhead light/fan is a Zwave switch. Lamps are Hue bulbs (just white, no color). While the Hue bulbs are pretty cool and I will probably eventually get a couple to play with, they are overly expensive and not 100% reliable. Again, something else that depends on the cloud.
Honeywell Zwave thoermostat
Xbox 360 Kinect (minus the Xbox360 which is put up on a shelf somewhere) connected to an Asus touchscreen laptop.
Foscam IP camera
JVC AV receiver and Vizio 42″ TV. Both controlled by the GC100-06 and Homeseer or obviously their own remotes. Hooked into them I have a Chromecast, a Chromecast Audio and a FireTV stick. The Chromecast Audio and FireTV stick are probably the two coolest things I’ve added over the last year besides the Echo. I used to have a huge Windows PC running BeyondTV and later, Windows Media Center. Now you can’t even see the devices I use.
Two of my last four X10 Window sensors.
Various Zwave motion, security and environment sensors.
Almost forgot, a Wink Hub (like Smartthings) and the only thing it still controls, a Quirky Pivot Power Genius
In the Kitchen:
Two more GE Link bulbs
Zwave light switch for the sink lights
Chromecast Audio attached to a pair of speakers that sit on top of the cabinets.
Petsafe Wireless Fence.
a couple of X10 lamp and appliance modules which control the pet’s water fountain and the lights inside my china cabinet.
mounted on the wall next to my light switches a Nexus 7 with a few things running, Homeseer HSTouch software, Google Play Music (to cast audio to the speakers) and IP Webcam Pro which in turn is picked up by Blue Iris, as are the rest of my cameras in the house. I’m actually going to be replacing this with an old iPad at some point soon.
In the bedrooms I have mixed Zwave and X10 lighting, another Vizio TV that’s controlled by a Global Cache itach IR controller, various X10 and Zwave motion sensors, door/window sensors, etc. In my laundry room there’s a GE Link bulb and a Zwave appliance switch plugged in to my washing machine and then the wall. It monitors energy consumption as well as some other stuff that I’ll touch on in part II of this article. Yes, I’ve managed to write so fucking long that I just decided I should split this up into two parts.
There’s a Wemo switch hooked to my upstairs Wifi Router (there’s another on in the basement. due to wifi connections I had to create two networks. The second one is basically just working in Access Point mode). I have it controlled through IFTTT and in turn, Homeseer (which also allows for built-in IFTTT integration).
Another Chromecast attached to my bedroom TV and a Chromecast Audio on my bathroom speakers. Once I get the Echo Dot I’ll stick the Chromecast Audio upstairs for the girls.
So how does all this crap fit together and what can it do? You’ll have to wait for me to finish typing Part II.
Seems like such a simple thing. I’ve been trying to find an app that would let me remote control my Nexus 6 and my Nexus wall-mounted tablet from my PC. Not as easy as you might thing.
I checked out VNC first simply because I’ve used it before. No go unless you are rooted. Then did some searching on el Goog and looked into Teamviewer and Airdroid. Both work fine for mirroring and Airdroid will let you control if you are hooked to the PC via USB but that’s fucking useless for what I wanted.
Vysor is a pretty good app and I trust the developer as well. I’ve got it installed for later use but again, you have to have the device hooked to the phone.
Desktop Capture showing control of my phone over Wifi.
FINALLY found one with Mobizen. Initially I thought it would be simply screen mirroring with no control but once you’ve given it admin access in the security settings it works just fine.
A couple of weeks ago I gave in and ordered a Google Cardboard kit. If you aren’t familiar with it, cardboard is the VR headset that you can make out of… You guessed it, cardboard. Well, a few other things as well.
You can find directions on how to make it here as well as links to vendors who sell the $25 kit if you aren’t as handy or if you’re lazy like me.
Some pics of the kit…
The directions from the company I got it from, DoDoCase, aren’t all that clear but they do have a YouTube video up with step by step.
The finished project.
One thing I found was that it’s big enough for a regular phone, but the screen itself on my daughter’s Moto X just wasn’t really big enough. My Note 3, however, was the perfect size. Problem is its and extremely tight Fit. Unless I left the case on it was constantly adjusting the volume due to where the buttons sit. With the case on I had to bend the top flap a good bit for it to sit in there. Now that I’ve put one together I’m pretty sure I could use the miscellaneous parts and get my own cardboard except make it bigger so that the Note 3 will fit in.
I have played around with a couple of the apps you can download from the play store. Hang gliding, Google Earth tours and stuff like that. It’s pretty cool and it’s almost as much fun to watch someone else hold it up to their head and move around as they are doing stuff. Like a drunk Stevie Wonder.
So a few months back my old laptop that ran Homeseer, my home automation software, finally died.
I’ve used it for quite a long time and mostly ignored it. I’ve been running Homeseer for about 13 years now and ported my setup from a couple different PCs but always managed to save my configuration through the transfers and upgrades. This time I don’t have a backup unfortunately.
I’ve invested a lot of time and money into the system over the last decade and a half. Most of it is x10 hardware but there are a few other kludges in there as well. My weather system, a zwave module or two and a boatload of scripting. The last five years or so I’ve deactivated a good bit of it but left the core system up and running that I didn’t have to tinker with.
After my system died I figured it was time to move on to some newer technologies. Zwave is supposed to be more reliable and it’s wireless so I wanted to make sure that I could use something that was compatible with old and new. Homeseer is but I also wanted a dedicated controller as well.
After reading some (obviously not enough) reviews and docs I settled in the Vera 3 from MiCasa Verde. Quite a few of the other Tasker users I communicate with use the Vera and there is a plugin that let’s you communicate and hook Tasker up with it. Pretty cool.
The Vera (the lite version and the 3, which is what I purchased) are pretty cheap for HA hardware. According to their web site it’s compatible with Zwave, insteon and x10. I figured it would be a win/win. Something to help me move into new territory but still stay on a budget.
I received my unit last week and immediately set it up. Several things I noticed right off the bat. Initially you go to getvera.com and create and account, which redirects you back to the home network and finds your vera(s). This has its good and bad points which I’m not going to get into.
Anyway, I set up my account through them, found my unit and started the setup. I was able to add my one Zwave module with no problems but that’s where the ease of use ended. You’re supposed to be able to go to apps.mios.com and browse/download apps from there. Sort of like the Google Play store. Not a bad idea at all. Unfortunately even though my Vera was linked to my account when I tried to go to the external app store it told me I had no units linked to my account. The answer from their text support? Download the apps from within the Vera interface. That’s fine and dandy but NOT what I was trying to do. I guess that’s not something they are trying to fix.
Another glaring omission is there are absolutely NO help files or documents to access from the Vera. Apparently a previous firmware upgrade in the last two years broke the links and they just haven’t bothered to fix it. Tech support did say they are working on a new release within the next two weeks that fixes the issue. We’ll see I guess.
I’m tired and have to work in the morning so will finish the second part of the review then…
