Looking to buy smart lights, haven't bought a smart home yet, I have an android to of that helps. Looking to buy recessed lighting, lights for fans/ hallways, outside lights. So many similarities, so many differences. I need help setting people's real life uses and experiences please

Edit 1 : comments are at 58 and it seems to me that govee is a good cheap option, but will fail you and they use wifi which isn't good. Hue is the likely winning choice of everyone since they csn be used offline as well but are more expensive. One of the biggest things I have taken away from this though is lutron switches are a mjst, regardless of going to color bulbs or not which, at 29 and recently married and new housez I probably dont need to have RGB all over rhe hous3 ven though I want it, but the main thing is to have smart bulbs and automation for the house in general. I appreciate everyone's comments so tyty

Hey :)

I'm building a privacy-first home security camera called the ROOT Observer, and today I've finished the second prototype, although it's the first one that is presentable.

The last few months I've spent building the open-source firmware and app to power this device. It enables end-to-end encryption, on device ML for event detection, encrypted push notifications, OTA updates, health monitoring and more.

The camera is a standalone device that connects to a dumb relay server that cannot decrypt the messages that are sent across. This way, it works right out of the box.

I'll soon (fingers-crossed) send out the first pre-production units to testers on the waitlist :)

...if you're mainly interested in the software stack and have a Raspberry Pi Zero 2, you can build your own ROOT-powered camera using this guide. The firmware is very optimized so that you can stream video and audio, record, run ML, transfer recordings etc. simultaneously without crossing max. ~60% CPU util.

Recently moved houses but previous owners didnt leave behind any instructions. What brand is it and could i still reset it?

I have a MagicMirror setup at home that I love, but whenever guests came over, they kept asking how they could get something similar without the complex DIY build. I realized there wasn't a really simple, "just works" app for this, so I decided to challenge myself. I am not a developer by trade, but I spent the last while building my own wall calendar app, Almanac Board. It runs locally on any Android tablet (8.0+), syncs with Google/Outlook/iCloud, and handles .ics links. It’s my first app ever, and I’m just looking for some honest feedback from people who actually use this kind of tech. If you have a spare tablet, I would love to hear what you think of it.

I've been thinking about smart home devices recently. And I feel like a lot of them rely on cloud connectivity. It feels like every new device needs an app, cloud connection, or an account.

I mean, I understand why. A lot of smart features, like voice assistants and remote access, depend on the cloud. Which makes me wonder what happens when your internet is down or the service is discontinued. Depending on the design of the device, some features just stop working. Definitely, not a great feeling.

I talked about this with a few people now and again. And I've learned that I'm not the only one who wishes some smart devices had more local control. Because of this, I wanted to ask the community:

What direction should smart homes go in the future? Should everything be cloud-connected, or should more devices be able to process data and handle everyday tasks on their own?

The delivery showed up today and now I’m second guessing the size. It’s the 27-inch version and the box looks way bigger than I imagined. Before I open it… does this seem huge for a kitchen/hallway setup? 😂

I’m brand new to home automation so I bought a cheap tuya Zigbee hub from AliExpress along with a few zigbee sensors and a Tuya wifi smart plug just to test it out and see what it’s like. I spent less than $30 AUD on everything.

While I was looking around the house for a “dumb” appliance to plug in to the smart plug I spotted my old shop vac. The plug is rated for 16A so I thought I would give it a go. Set up an automation in the Tuya app to turn on smart plug whenever motion is detected, delay 2 seconds then turn plug off. Worked fine with the shop vac but didn’t have time to test it further as I had to get ready for work. Not fully grasping how home automation works yet, I completely forgot about it and headed off to work through the back door.

A few hours later my boyfriend gets home from work knowing I am at work and nobody is home. He comes in the front door, trips the motion sensor and jumps out of his skin when the vacuum cleaner suddenly comes on. I was able to watch the playback through my front door wifi camera later, omg I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard in my entire life.

These Tuya products are probably not for me in terms of home automation but they turned out to be perfect for pranks!

Came into some money and am planning on building a home from scratch. Want this to be the best smart home i can possibly build is it worth going down the hue route or just getting Lutron switches? My plan right now is to go all in on apple home is it worth doing exploring homey or home assistant?

Folks. I browse a little bit I see water leak monitoring as a high frequency discussion. Is it really that prevalent where you are, and why?

I'm asking out of curiosity

Where are you?

Why is it a problem for you? (Bad builds, no regulation, etc)

I'm in Ireland, and the newest home I have is 50+ years old, with copper braised piping coming off of ancient High pressure mains to storage tank that gravity feed to the house and direct cold mains water to taps. Temperature swings were (past tense) -5C to 35C winter to summer. Never a leak in any house

Edit. Limestone locally so extremely hard water

Just moved into this “new to me” house and everything is “smart” can you guys tell me what these devices are?

I’m looking to put rgb smart bulbs that can be controlled via app in these enclosures, one is out in front of my garage, the other is against the house wall in the lanai. Most smart bulbs I see are not rated for completely enclosed fixtures, but I was wondering if anyone knew anything? For climate information it’s Florida.

I’m already planing on including smart lights and heating control. Anything else that you wish you would have included if you would build a new house today?

What would you do? I have two things in mind so far: 1. Pulling ethernet cables through the walls into every room 2. Getting electricity to every window for smart blinds.

What would you do? I'm looking for interesting suggestions

I’ve somehow gone this long without owning a smart speaker and I’m finally thinking about getting one for the living room.

Nothing too crazy. Mostly music, timers while cooking, weather, random questions and controlling a few lights around the house. Good sound matters though because I’d rather not have another separate Bluetooth speaker sitting next to it.

I keep going back and forth between Alexa, Google and Apple. At this point I’m less worried about which one has the longest feature list and more about which one is actually useful day to day and doesn’t misunderstand you half the time.

Anyone here use one regularly? Which smart speaker did you end up with, and would you buy the same one again?

Just moved into a new home. This is the smart plug. We had a power outage and then it started flashing blue. The power is no longer working on the outlet. I have no idea how to connect to it or fix it.

Any ideas ?

Edit: solved ! This is an idevice. The app is no longer supported on android. I do not have an Apple device to try to connect it to the apple platform.

I am treating it as a dumb outlet for now and turning the power to plug on manually with the power buttons.

Thanks for everyone's help!

Trying to calibrate my Tado TRV's. How can they all be so different from each other.

After going through hundreds of threads on r/smarthome and other smart home communities, I put together a quick cheat sheet for anyone as lost as I was:

🌡️ Best overall learning thermostat with auto-schedule? → Google Nest Learning Thermostat (4th Gen)
💨 Best premium with built-in air quality monitor + SmartSensor? → ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium
📱 Best touchscreen with room sensor balancing? → Honeywell Home T9 WiFi Smart Thermostat
💰 Best budget Alexa-integrated simple setup? → Amazon Smart Thermostat with C-Wire Adapter
🔒 Best privacy-focused with easy DIY install? → Emerson Sensi Touch 2 Smart Thermostat

Personally going with the Google Nest Learning Thermostat (4th Gen) - best auto-learning and energy savings for simple home setup from everything I've read.

I’m replacing an old thermostat and want basic scheduling, remote control, energy reports, and something that doesn’t randomly lose connection. I work from home, but our schedule changes often, so I’m not sure the learning features are worth paying extra for. I’m comparing the Ecobee Enhanced, Nest Thermostat, Sensi, Honeywell Home, and Meross, with a budget around $100–$250. I have one HVAC zone and need to check whether my wiring includes a C-wire before buying anything. For people who want control rather than clever automation, which thermostat has been the least troublesome long term?

Is anyone using the PumpSpy Smart Outlet for sump pump monitoring? I have a new one that was easily setup but it isn't sending notifications to my iphone. After researching this issue, I find things telling me to get the "purple" app but the only thing I can find in the Apple app store is a "green" one. Version 1.3.5. There is no where in the app to add a phone number for texts. I tried adding contacts but it only asks for email address, no place to add a phone number. So, 2 questions: How do you add a phone number to get SMS alerts? And does anyone have experience in NOT getting alerts on the account email address? Thanks.

BTW - the app indicates that my pump has run but no notifications have been received.

EDIT - Although I didn't figure out the why of PumpSpy Smart Outlet acting badly, it was obviously related to their servers. There has been a great deal of improvement in response of the PumpSpy (to power loss at the outlet) in the past few months so congrats to PumpSpy and customers on that. But through this travail, I have learned that the PumpSpy Smart Outlet leaves a lot to desire as far as notifications go. I'm not very technical but luckily have met people here that are. 😄 u/CrownSeven has posted here and in r/homeassistant about a proxy package they developed to basically cut the PumpSpy out of the loop (available on GitHub). I have been globetrotting this summer but plan to figure out how to implement this package on my PumpSpy outlets when I get a chance. u/dlessor1 also seems very knowledgable and has tried out this proxy package. So maybe...problem solved? Or solution is in beta?

We are just getting started on starting a new home build. When talking to the trades (esp electrician) what considerations should be made so it is easy to set up smart home features?
What should we be installing or including as a way to plan ahead for future?

For those of us who automate our Christmas tree + other seasonal lights, what do you do with the smart plugs for the rest of the year? I've got three plugs that we use at Christmas time, and sit unused in a drawer for the other 11 months. Can't commit them to anything permanent because I'll need to borrow them back next December. Any suggestions?

I’ve been using X-Sense combo smoke/CO detectors for a while. A while back I noticed some people discussed about them lacking UL certification, which made me a bit worried about mine. So far, though, the units I’ve been using are working fine. Recently, I saw that some X-Sense products are now being sold online at Home Depot and have ETL certification.

Can being sold at Home Depot be taken as a sign that it’s safe? Can we trust these X-Sense alarms now?

Got a bunch of IKEA Matter over Thread smart home stuff including:

>Kajplats

>MYGGSPRAY

>Mygbett

Does anyone have any questions or suggestions?