Home automation

Five Free Home Automation Tools

rmiles7721March 14, 2017Home Automation

So you’ve spent all your money on a crapload of smarthome devices and don’t have anything else to spend on software, or you just like tinkering with stuff and discovering how and why they work, or maybe you’re just a fan of not supporting developers for their hard work and want something for free. Actually that was sort of snide. There are plenty of people that support developers but also like open source software, myself included. Any way you look at it we’ve got you covered.

Here’s a short list of free and/or open source home automation software.

First off is Eventghost. Eventghost is not actually strictly HA software and was not designed for that. What is it then? EG is a Windows based automation tool. It can use different input controls such as infrared, wireless remotes, game controllers, keyboards or input from remote devices to trigger macros. It could be used to control a media center computer but it’s also possible to use for a hell of a lot more than that.

My personal use is sort of as a middle man. There is an Eventghost plugin for HomeSeer that I use for the two to communicate. I also use the MQTT protocol for the same thing. I set up some of the cheap Chinese miLight LED light strips in my kitchen. For some reason the app I use with it won’t communicate with the Wifi hub so I set it up on my personal PC and let EG make sure it’s constantly running. I also have an old Snapstream Firefly remote set up and Eventghost intercepts those commands and forwards them to my FireTV as well as to Homeseer. I also use it with Tasker and Autoremote so that I can control my PC remotely if needed. That’s currently about it. I used to use a convoluted system of macros so that Homeseer would know exactly which HDMI input was on and turn on/off the correct virtual devices via my Globalcache IR devices. Currently that is disabled until I have time to really work out how I want it set up.

Anyway, it supports just about any type of PC connected remote receiver you can think of, tons of built-in program controls as well as hardware via serial port, over Ethernet and USB. For a semi-complete listing you can check out this list.

 

Domoticz is an HA system with support for quite a few devices and additional support for 3rd party integrations. It was designed with an HTML5 front end so can be accessed via desktop and mobile. It’s pretty lightweight as well and can run on the Raspberry Pi  as well as OSX, Windows and Linux. The source code is available on GitHub and is released under the GPLv3.

Home Assistant is available on GitHub and is released under an MIT license. It can be run on anything that will handle Python 3. It supports quite a few commercial and open source devices and hubs and also allows you to integrate with Alexa and IFTTT. I’ve been toying with the idea of running HomeAssistant as another secondary (tertiary I suppose) controller in addition to HomeSeer just because of the amount of stuff it supports and will control. I’m only really familiar with Python 2 but I do know that 2 and 3 can run concurrently from what I understand.

OpenHAB is popular among open source folks that are into HA. There is a large support community and it’s written in Java so will run on just about anything, including the Pi. It supports hundreds of devices and software and also has Android and iOS apps. OpenHAB’s source is on GitHub and is released under the Eclipse Public License.

Open Source Automation is the last one we’re looking at today. I’m not very familiar with OSA yet but it looks promising. It runs on Windows only and doesn’t appear to be open source, only free. There seems to be a wide range of plugins and more in development.

Do you use any of these or something else? There several other free programs available, some of which have been around for a long time as well.

Today’s Home Automation Deals

rmiles7721March 13, 2017Home Automation

Funny that I wrote about these earlier but Homecontrols is currently having a sale on a few items including Vera. You can pick up the VeraEdge for $69.95 and the VeraPlus for $119.95. That’s a $30 savings over Amazon’s price for the plus. The Zipato Z-Wave RGBW LED Light Bulb is on sale for $39 (that’s $20 off) and there are a couple of other items as well.

HomeSeer also has some items on sale as well, mainly open box and refurbished items. I shop there and have purchased several open box items without any issues. Looks like they currently have about 20 items on clearance including a couple of Global Cache products that I really want. Just not the right time to be spending money considering my upcoming trip.

Smarthome  also has some decent deals as well. I’ve used them in the past but not in the last few years. Never had any problems with them either. The carry quite a bit of Insteon products, which makes sense as the parent company for both is Smartlabs. The Smarthome store isn’t limited to their own products however, and they usually have a pretty large inventory.

Home Automation Hubs and How to Pick One

rmiles7721March 13, 2017Home Automation

As far as home automation hubs go, the sky is the limit… as far as cost anyway. There’s a pretty large range in what they can do and it all depends on what you want to do and how technical you are as well.

If all you want to do is control a few items and don’t mind having to open different apps then you are probably good to go just buying those items and possibly even a Google Home or Amazon Echo in order to control them via your voice. Neither of those are true hubs as some web sites claim but for simplicity I’ll include them in the list as well.

Since I brought it up, lets start with Amazon’s offerings first. They range in cost from the original Amazon Echo priced at 179.99, the portable Amazon Tap for $129.99 down to the Echo Dot for $49.99. Each of them has it’s own slightly different characteristics but they all allow you to play music from Amazon Music, Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio and TuneIn (sadly Google Play Music is not included.) They can answer questions (using Bing), read audiobooks, give you the news and weather and for our purposes here, control smart devices including devices from Wemo, Phillips Hue, Nest and Ecobee and allow you to connect to hubs such as SmartThings, HomeSeer, Wink and more.

The service also allows you to access “skills”, over 10,000 at last count, most of which are useless junk but there are a few gems there.

I don’t want to fail to mention that if you own a FireTV or FireTV stick you can also access Alexa that way as well with one of Amazon’s voice remotes.

 

Next up is Google Home. Like Alexa, Home is not an actual hub but does allow you to control home automation hubs as well as individual devices. Currently the list of compatible items is shorter than Alexa but Amazon had a two year head start in the area and is currently firmly entrenched in the market. I’m a pretty big Google fanboy and have a Google Home sitting in my kitchen but thus far the Echo and it’s usefulness blows away Home for my family.

Home allows you to play music on Spotify, YouTube Music, Pandora and more. Not Amazon Music of course lol.

While Alexa uses Bing for it’s search engine, Home naturally uses Google. While there are some strange things you can find using Google search I have found that it’s more accurate and inclusive than Bing (fake news aside…)

Home allows you to connect to the Honeywell and Nest thermostats, Wemo, Phillips Hue and Samsung SmartThings. Using IFTTT (Alexa also supports IFTTT as well) you can control ANY other hub or software that has IF support as well. That’s how I have my Home set up to connect to HomeSeer currently.

If you are a Chromecast fan Home will also allow you to control those as well.

 

Next up is the Samsung SmartThings Hub for about $99. A true HA hub, SmartThings is compatible with Alexa voice control as well as Google Home, Leviton Z-Wave switches and modules (as well as those from other manufacturers), Phillips Hue devices, Sylvania smart bulbs, Netgear Arlo and Ring Doorbell, Schlage and Yale smartlocks, thermostats from Honeywell and Ecobee, Bose soundsystems, Keen Home Smart Vents and a ton of other connected Samsung appliances and devices just to mention a few.

There is a dedicated mobile app to access SmartThings as well. I can’t say how well it works as SmartThings is one item I haven’t tested yet.

You can set rules for what you want your devices to do based on time, other device activity (such as motion sensors, etc) and can monitor cameras and other security items.

The SmartThings Hub contains ZigBee and Z-Wave radios and also allows you to control IP based devices. There is also a pretty active community of SmartThings users as well.

I wouldn’t mind hearing from satisfied SmartThings users as to what all it can do as the only ones I know have ditched the platform looking for more robustness in HomeSeer.

 

A hub I am familiar with is the Wink Hub and Wink Hub 2. I own the original Wink Hub and while I had a lot of problems with it early on I think that had more to do with my Wifi network than anything. Since I upgraded to Google mesh networking my hub has been rock solid. While I do use HomeSeer as my main software, it’s mobile interface is crap. I have Wink set up as a secondary Z-Wave controller and use the Wink mobile interface to operate my lights. The app is very simple and elegant and just what the family needs. While setting up a complicated home automation network can be confusingly intertwined it should be simple to operate for it’s main users. If it’s faster to just get up off the couch and do something, why bother to automate it?

The original Wink hub is compatible with devices from GoControl, Nest, Quirky (now defunct), Kidde, Honeywell, Cree, GE, Dropcam, Kwikset, Lutron, Rachio, Philips, TCP, Schlage, Chamberlain and Leviton as well as more.

Wink Hub can control devices that use protocols such as Z-wave, ZigBee, Lutron ClearConnect, Bluetooth Low Energy, Wifi and Kidde.

Currently my Wink Hub is controlling most of my Z-Wave devices, some GE Link lightbulbs and a Pivot Power Genius power strip.

Wink and the Wink Hub 2 are also Alexa and IFTTT compatible as well. I use both to make sure that HomeSeer and Wink are in sync with each other. The original Wink Hub can be found on Amazon for about $60 (you can find it at Home Depot for $50 or less occasionally although they may have run through their stock by now) and the Wink Hub 2 is $96.

The Wink Hub 2 has a faster processor and more memory (512 mb vs 64 mb) so will run faster. The Wifi radio is apparently more powerful as well. A couple of things it has that the original hub does not is auto-discovery of devices and an Ethernet port.

Out of the few hubs I have tested I have to say that I am very pleased with Wink’s products.  While it does not offer quite the level of control and automation I am used to, for an entry level system (and about 95% of the users out there) I would definitely recommend Wink.

 

Next in line is the set of Vera Hubs. My experience with the Vera a couple of years ago was less than pleasant. The software was buggy as hell and I had a very hard time pairing Z-Wave devices with it. X-10 support was less than stellar and the tech support was crap. I guess “less than pleasant” was an understatement.

Anyway, it appears that they have upgraded their hubs and you now have three selections to choose from, each going up in cost based on how many devices you want to control. The VeraEdge lets you control up to 75 devices and supports Z-Wave, the VeraPlus 125 and has Z-Wave, ZigBee and Bluetooth support and the VeraSecure up to 200 and supports the same protocols as the others as well as includes a backup battery. If you have more than 200 devices I guess you’re shit out of luck. Including Virtual Devices and Times, etc I currently have 565 devices in my system.

Vera does have a pretty active community and there are quite a few plugin authors as well allowing for supporting more products than those listed above.

 

Last but not least comes the ones I am much more familiar with… HomeSeer. (yes, that is an affiliate link lol)

HomeSeer started out strictly as software but over the last 20 years has branched into their own line of hubs, switches and sensors. They also sell many other quality products over at their online store. Unlike Samsung and possibly other companies as well, HomeSeer is based in the United States.

Since we are talking about Hubs today let’s take a look at their offerings. As far as all of the hubs I have gone through these are by far the most expensive. You get what you pay for.

The lowest priced hub is the HomeTroller Zee S2. It runs on a Raspberry Pi3 and allows for the use of five plugins, or drivers (Linux based.). technologies it supports includes Z-Wave, Insteon, X10, UPB, PLC-BUS and Modbus. Specifically it support all brands of Z-Wave lighting, Philips Hue and LiFX, Thermostats including all Z-Wave,  Ecobee, Nest and HAI Omnistat, all brands of Z-Wave door locks, Audio solutions from Sonos, Russound, Denon,  Onkyo , Security systems from DSC, Ademco Vista and Elk M1G, Media from iTunes, Windows Media Player, DirectTV, Kodi, Pool/Spa devices from Goldline, Pentair and Autelis. It has 4 USB ports, Ethernet, wifi, a line out Audio port and HDMI. It runs for $199.

All their controllers offer Alexa and IFTTT support

The HomeTroller-SEL and SEL-PRO range from $399-$699. They are built on Linux and support all Linux plugins including all of those listed above. They offer 2 and 4 times the amount of memory and a 32GB SSD instead of the 8GB SD card that comes with the Zee S2. They also have VGA in addition to the HDMI port.

The two top of the line models that HomeSeer offers are the HomeTroller S6 for $899 and the S6 PRO for $1199. Both of these are Windows embedded systems and in addition to the plugins and controllers listed above also add the ability to control items from Lutron Caseta, Lutron Radio RA2, Marantz, Pioneer, GE Concord 4. They have a mic in (for voice recognition) and line out and instead of a VGA port it includes a DVI port in addition to the HDMI that all of them offer.

A more complete listing of plugins and technologies Homeseer supports can be found here.

Aside from the different technologies available HomeSeer has a very robust events system as well as scripting. Some of my events include:

  • if the temp (from my weather station) is less than 46 degrees, turn on the heat lamp in the chicken house
  • if the wattage from my washing machine is above 2.5 watts and drops below that it sends us a message and flashes some lights letting us know the cycle is complete. It also tells me via the speaker client running on the PC in my bedroom and in the living room. Once Amazon allows for push notifications that’ll be one of the first things I add to Alexa here.
  • If I tell Alexa to turn on FireTV it runs on the television, changes the HDMI input to the correct one (in my bedroom.) If the TV in the living room turns on, the JVC receiver also turns on (or off)
  • If there is motion in my yard and it’s after sunset the outside lights come one and then turn off five minutes after no more motion is detected. Which ones come on depend on where the motion was. When I open the door in the morning my foyer light, porch light and driveway lights all turn on for 15 minutes.
  • My air conditioner is old and sometimes will kick the breaker during the summer in high usage. If the temperature goes above a certain setting it sends all of us and email and text so we can reset it.
  • If the doorbell is run and we are at home, lights flash and the speaker client lets us know someone is there. If we aren’t at home it just kicks on a few lights and sends us a text.
  • Overall I have a couple hundred scripts running. Most are pretty simple but some are fairly involved.

One thing I almost failed to mention is the mobile interface. Homeseer does have their HSTouch plugin, included in Pro versions and available for purchase as an addon as well. There are clients for iOS, Android and Windows. There are a lot of people that swear by it. My own experience with HSTouch is less than stellar. I found it buggy, unresponsive and a pain in the ass to use. The designer is also difficult to use and non-intuitive. It all seems like beta software that was never finished and anything you say to the developers falls on deaf ears. I keep hoping that they will eventually move to an HTML5 model and update their mobile apps to be on par with other hubs. Until then I’ll keep using Wink or one of the several 3rd party solutions. That having been said, HS is still the strongest HA software packages I’ve used and mobile access aside it’s still the best.

These are not the only hubs available but they seem to be the most popular. Do you have one that isn’t listed that you prefer? Let me know.

 

 

How to get into Home Automation on the Cheap

rmiles7721March 12, 2017Home Automation

Unless you’re like me and spend the next 17 years picking up odd bits of equipment here and there and slowly build up your Home Automation system, one of the biggest barriers to getting introduced to Home Automation is the cost. It’s most definitely not a cheap hobby. If all you want to do is pick up a few lights to amaze your friends (home control, not automation) then it isn’t too bad. If you truly want to make your home smart it can be quite prohibitive.

In that vein of thought here are a few ways to get introduced to home automation (HA) that won’t break the bank.

 

Cree  Connected Dimmable LED Light Bulb At just under $15 per bulb these are one of the more affordable controllable light bulbs. No color changing and no extra bells or whistles. They require some type of external hub in order to control (which we’ll get into on a later post)

 

Philips Hue White A19 Starter Kit An excellent purchase and good way to get introduced to HA. It’s also compatible with most, if not all, hubs and software (some via plugins) if you want to integrate your system later. These are the basic white LED bulbs but they also include the Hue bridge meaning you can control them via an app on your phone, through the meethue.com website and with Alexa (or Google Home.) Just under $70.

 

INSTEON Home Control Starter Kit An older home automation protocol, Insteon is more reliable than the old X10 stuff but still pretty relevant. At $49 this is a good way to get starter. This beginner’s kit includes the Insteon hub and two dimmer modules. Just plug your lights in and set up the hub and you are good to go. I went straight from X10 to Z-wave and never had much experience with Insteon but know quite a few people who did and they are very happy with it. This hub allows you to set up automation scheduling and expands to let you add both Insteon and Nest thermostats, light bulbs, switches, ceiling fans, etc. It is also compatible with the Amazon Echo and can be controlled via your phone.

 

Echo Dot (2nd Generation) While not a true HA device the Echo and it’s smaller cousin the Echo Dot allow you to control connected HA devices via voice as well as a ton of other things, some pretty neat and others….that are quite useless. $49.99

I have the original Echo as well as four Echo Dots scattered through the house and while I like to talk a lot about not counting on the “cloud” for your HA system, Alexa is probable the most important and useful piece of equipment I have added to my set up in the last decade. Most HA hubs and software are compatible with Alexa as are most of the connected devices. If you just want voice control of a myriad of devices and apps but want to tie them together without true automation the Echo Dot is the way to go. Over $100 cheaper than the original echo makes it a great purchase.

If you only want to use it for voice (and speech responses) it can be used as is. If you also want to be able to play music I recommend connecting it to a set of speakers via Bluetooth or the 3.5mm jack.

Controls lights, fans, switches, thermostats, garage doors, sprinklers, locks, and more with compatible connected devices from WeMo, Philips Hue, Samsung SmartThings, Nest, ecobee, and others.

There are also several other cheap ways to get into the hobby including Wemo switches, TP-Link plugs and others but these are a good start. Next time we’ll talk about Hubs and a quick intro into actually automating all of the devices you’ve managed to pick up.

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.

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.

Google Home Review

rmiles7721February 10, 2017Android, Home Automation

So I set up Google Home a couple of weeks ago and figured it had been up and running long enough for me to give a preliminary review.

So far the WAF factor (as well as children) has been meh…

Don’t get me wrong. I love gadgets. I love Google stuff. I was a big fan of the Nexus program and now am using the Pixel XL. I have several Chromecasts scattered throughout the house and am on Google Wifi. For the time being though (and maybe only temporarily, I don’t know) Alexa is kicking Google Home’s ass at my casa. Maybe because we’ve been using the Amazon product for two years now and it definitely has a place in our home. I have an Echo in the living room and three Echo Dots in other rooms. I also use Fire TV (a lot more than my Chromecasts the last few months) and they have become an extension of my home automation system (Homeseer). I can control all of the lights with Alexa as well as my thermostat, TVs, audio receivers, my CCTV system, my coffee maker, etc. Can’t do that with Home, not easily anyway.

There are workarounds. I have Autovoice set up and can ask Google home to “tell Autovoice to…” but that’s such a pain in the ass. “Alexa, turn on the TV” just comes naturally.

I don’t use very many skills with the Echo, so won’t even compare how many are available. Most of them are crap anyway.

As far as setup and ease of use, Google Home is awesome. It was painless to set up and quick. Currently I have it in my kitchen (one of the places I DON’T currently have an Echo or Dot. I spend the majority of my time in our bedroom though, so it’s not getting used as much as the other devices.

The speaker itself is decent. I’m not an audiophile so don’t have anything to complain about as far as volume and range and all that other stuff. It sounds good to me so that’s all that’s important. I like Google Home for playing my music. That’s one thing I don’t normally do with the Echo. My wife and daughter listen to Pandora all the time so Alexa is good for them. I’m not a huge Pandora fan, or spotify for that matter. I prefer listening to what’s in my own library and all 18,000 songs are on Google Music. A very small portion of it is on Amazon so if I’m listening to music it’s through Google Music casting to one of the Chromecast Audio’s here, or through Google Home.

I also like the integration with other products. Keep for instance. Except for my oldest daughter, who has an iPhone 6, we all have androids here and there are a few Keep notes that we share with each other. Our menu and grocery list are two of them. I can use workarounds and IFTTT to get that stuff from Alexa if I want but it’s a pain in the ass and as anyone who uses IFTTT can tell you, it’s not instantaneous. Usually it’s fairly quick but occasionally there’s a delay of up to an hour. With Google Home if I add something to the shopping list it’s immediately added to a Google Assistant Shopping List in Keep. Now if I could just get the wife to use THAT one instead of the one she keeps creating and sharing.

There’s a lot of other stuff I could be doing with Home, particularly with Tasker, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. As I integrate it more fully with my system I’m sure I’ll start to like it more and more. Whether the rest of the family can get used to saying something besides “Alexa…” remains to be seen.

Google Assistant on the Pixel Gets Home Control

rmiles7721February 9, 2017Android

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

IFTTT Integration Coming to Apps (Already Live in Some)

rmiles7721August 11, 2016Home Automation

IFTTT has been working with developers over the last few months to directly add integration into apps so that you can unlock and potentially activate recipes from the apps rather than the web site or the IFTTT app itself.

Integrations with Abode, Awair, BloomSky, Foobot,Garageio, LIFX, Qapital, Roger, Skybell, and Stack Lighting are live today and Automatic, Emberlight, and Ring Video Doorbell are in development so should be live soon. Currently the only one I use is Automatic so that will be nice. All of the other home automation apps listed above pretty much require cloud support (as does Automatic) in order to link it up to your home automation system and while it’s a nice add-on, being dependent on something in the cloud to automate your home is a really bad idea IMHO.

Occupancy and Presence

rmiles7721July 1, 2016Home Automation

One of my projects within my smart home is to be able to monitor home occupancy as well as specific room presence. While the two are similar they end up being very different things. Occupancy is pretty basic. For the house itself I currently have three modes. Home, Out and Away. Away means we are on vacation or won’t be back for some time. Occupancy can be triggered by presence in the house, geofencing on our phones, pir sensors in and around the house and network mac addresses detected.

Presence detection is a bit more involved. I am currently using pir sensors as well as activity on certain devices. For instance, if Eventghost detects keyboard use on my PC in the master bedroom it’s a 75% that the Master Bedroom is occupied. I say 75% because I access it remotely on occasion. That’s where the pir in my bedroom comes in, as well as a relatively inexpensive iBeacon I recently purchased to start playing around with. There are IOS and Android applications for detecting iBeacons so with my phone, if it’s in range of the iBeacon, Tasker will send a message to Homeseer that I’m in the bedroom. So if the PIR detects activity in the bedroom AND my PC is in use someone is in the bedroom. If both of the above are true AND my phone has sent a message to Homeseer then it’s a 99% probability that I am there. I also have an Automatic in my car and use it with IFTTT so plan on adding that in the mix as well, increasing that probability.

The reason I have been starting to dabble with occupancy and presence is because I have been slowly adding a couple of different profiles in my home automation. If nobody is home (i.e. we are on vacation) I want certain things to happen. Lights randomly coming on, the temp set a little bit higher, TVs and stereos off, etc. If we are at home then I want a different set of events going on. Lights on at night when there is motion, etc.

This is really an ongoing process but it’s slowly but surely getting done.

Earlier this evening I cam across Dream Green House. There are a lot of really good ideas there for anyone interested in Home Automation, some of which I have been using for years and some of which allow me to clarify a few of the projects I am wanting to work on.

Speaking of projects, here is a current list of things I am in varying stages of:

Replace the LCD and Digitizer on my Nexus 6 that I use on Project Fi. My screen cracked recently and then there was a cat “accident” lol while I was replacing the LCD and the digitizer was ruined. I have a new one arriving Tuesday.

Finish Projector Screen Frame (provided tommorow is not a very long day at work it’ll be finished before tomorrow evening)
Mount Echo on ceiling (I picked up a custom ceiling/wall mount on Etsy a while back and it’s just waiting for me to hang it. While the Amazon Echo has pretty awesome mics mounting it from the ceiling will allow it to pick up even better. I already have all the tools and hardware, just need to get it done)
Set up events to switch basement speakers. Currently I have a two-zone receiver in my basement hooked up to speakers in the basement as well as my back porch. I also have a Global Cache IP2IR down there to control it. Just need to set up a couple of HomeSeer events that will allow me to change zones if someone wants to, for instance, play music through the Chromecast (hooked to one of the inputs on the receiver) through the back porch speakers. I have everything I need for this, just haven’t gotten around to it yet.
Finish occupancy for all phones – mqtt, owntracks, etc. This is more time consuming and intensive because it means multiple events, virtual devices, etc. I will be completing it one person at a time so this one will take some time.
Setup Mystic on RPi 2 or 3 move to basement. Currently the Bulletin Board System I am using is Synchronet. I have it running on a Windows laptop stuck inside a TV cabinet in my bedroom. It’s slowly dying. I plan on using a Raspberry Pi 3 and put it in my basement. I currently have everything I need for that (except time).
Setup (may need new one) Emulator on rpi. I picked up a bunch of different parts for this over a period of time and plan on scrapping the inside of an old OG Xbox and mounting everything in there. I was going to use my RPI 2 for that but ended up using it for an instance of Alexa so the only thing I’m lacking is picking up yet another RPi.
Magic mirror for bathroom. Another soon to happen project that I have most of the parts for. I was originally going to use a Nexus 7 for this (and still may). I have everything I need for this although lately I’ve been toying with the idea of using yet another RPi and the LCD from the laptop that my BBS is currently using.
Fix living room lighting. When they built my house the electricians did a SHIT job. The wires are not obviously standard or marked, making it difficult to find the neutral or traveler. I installed a Zwave threeway in my living room and while I can control the overheads from the MAIN switch (or remotely), the remote switch doesn’t work and I have no idea why. I had to step away from this for a while because I was getting so frustrated. I picked up a wiring book/tutorial thing a while back and I’m going to read it a couple of times prior to tackling this again).
install other z-wave switches. I have three or four Z-wave wall switches that I haven’t installed, including another threeway for the stairs off the foyer. Need to get these mounted.
set up temp controller, redo wiring around house. Several years ago I used a 1-wire network of Dallas/Maxim temp and humidity sensors in every room in my house. The controller (a Midon Design Temp05) died on me about eight years ago and I never replaced it. Most (but not all) of my wiring and sensors are still in place and I picked up a used Temp08 a couple months ago. Going to hook that back up.
Look into hooking up cell phone to Homeseer. I want to be able to use HS to send/receive text messages and phone calls on a GSM phone. Currently I am using email to SMS but if for some reason my Internet connection is down that’s useless. It also is slow at times.
Look into setting up cell phone for BBS. I want to hook up a GSM phone to allow connections to the BBS as well. Currently it’s Telnet or HTML but it would be nice (and nostalgic) to allow dial-up connections again.

Fix my daughter’s RPi Amazon Alexa. I set up Alexa on a Raspberry Pi 2 a few months ago but was not very happy with the end result. Need to redo the entire setup. While this is at the bottom of this specific list it’s actually much higher on my todo list.

Fix Apple Homekit integration. I currently have a homekit bridge running on my HA server but for some reason it’s not working right. I am not all that knowledgable about anything to do with iPhones or iPads so this is a bit of a learning curve. In addition to wanting my oldest daughter to be able to control the lights using Siri, we have an old iPad first generation that I have loaded a touch screen interface on and need to mount in the kitchen. My current plan is to jailbreak it and add Siri to this as well.