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Black Friday planning thread.

Stoner

Have we started one already?
There was a good one last year.

I'm looking at hue gu10s and a few taps?

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Black_Knight

Bit late to the thread, but if anyone has previously bought stuff on deals/prime day, it might be a nice idea to try include those prices, so other can gauge when something is/isn't a deal.

Personally i'm not after much. It's been an expensive year.
Wouldn't mind a set of E14 bulbs for the bedside lockers and a google home mini, that's about it.

Previous prices:
Hue Starter kits: £89.99 on prime day (30% off)
TP Link HS100: £16.19 on prime day
Hue motion sensors: ~£16 on prime day I think
Google Home: £99 from PC World
Philips Hue White Ambiance Personal Wireless Lighting 5.5 W GU10 LED Twin Pack Spot Lights - Think these were ~£25-£30 on prime day.
Amazon Fire Stick - £29.99
Amazon Echo - £80
Amazon Echo Dot - £35

Pique

I'm after Netatmo Presence and TRVs.

Stoner wrote: »

I only have Philips lamps and hue go.

BTW You should double check that these will work with the Echo Plus, it seems to be only Hue bulbs from what I can tell.

Review of the Echo Plus is up and it doesn't look great for what you are looking for:

https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/10/16631956/amazon-echo-plus-alexa-smart-home-review

But at the same time, the Plus’ capabilities with those gadgets are limited. For example, many Philips Hue lights support a full color spectrum and can be adjusted with the Hue app. But the Plus can only adjust their brightness and turn them on or off. To be able to change their color, you need the Hue Bridge, which defeats the purpose of connecting them through the Plus to begin with.

I'm sure it will improve in time, but it might be a case of always playing catch up with the Hue bridge.

wexfordman2 wrote: »

Any indications on where yo get a google home as part of a black Friday deal ?

I see us prices for them, but anything that can be bought in the UK or here under black Friday deal ?

I'm waiting on the same, but nothing yet.

wexfordman2

Any indications on where yo get a google home as part of a black Friday deal ?

I see us prices for them, but anything that can be bought in the UK or here under black Friday deal ?

SemperFidelis

I'm going to add a new NAS to my list, QNAP or synology and a POE switch.

and maybe a small comms cabinet to put them in.

irelandrover

The only thing i need is a smart thermostat. Looking for one that has connected TVRs.

Im sure ill end up with loads more Hue products i dont actually need.

copacetic

lordgoat wrote: »

Hey guys, been avoiding this forum for a month but... getting keys to new house tomorrow hopefully and yes the fun can really start.

I plan on putting in a decent wired network to start - Probably Ubiquiti, have it in work and it's really solid and I like the UI alot. So I'll be keeping an eye out for their stuff in sales as well as a big roll of cat 6!

Smoke/Carbon monoxide alarms - Thinking Nest but any other recommendations?

Thermostat - I know it's Gas Heating and there's underfloor but no idea on if it's plumbed in zones yet so need but again thinking Nest

Oh and a belt sander!

I have Heatmiser controlling 4 underfloor zones, one upstairs radiator zone and hot water. Has been very good. Although if already plumbed they’ll have put in some kind of control system anyway, usually underfloor is well zoned.

Have 5 nest protects and they are fine, except some issues with one in the kitchen which really should juts have a heat sensor, but couldn’t do that as required all units to be linked.

SachaJ

tonc76 wrote: »

Currently a twin pack available for £180 on Currys UK site

When/if they hit £80 each I’ll be in!

tonc76

bk wrote: »

- 2 x Hue GU10's (need to think about White Ambiance or Colour based on the recent Halloween fun!)
- 1 more Hue Motion Sensor
- 1 more Hue Wireless Switch
- Google Home Mini

I'll keep an eye on, but if the price is right:
- Nest Protect
- Logitech Circle Cameras
- Netatmo Smart TRV's (don't really need them, but you know!).

Nothing really major left to get. Mostly I'm waiting on the Xiaomi gear to arrive to play with.

Currently a twin pack available for £180 on Currys UK site

Nest Protect is hands down best for smoke alarms.

You may have to do a bit more research due to the underfloor heating.

lordgoat

Hey guys, been avoiding this forum for a month but... getting keys to new house tomorrow hopefully and yes the fun can really start.

I plan on putting in a decent wired network to start - Probably Ubiquiti, have it in work and it's really solid and I like the UI alot. So I'll be keeping an eye out for their stuff in sales as well as a big roll of cat 6!

Smoke/Carbon monoxide alarms - Thinking Nest but any other recommendations?

Thermostat - I know it's Gas Heating and there's underfloor but no idea on if it's plumbed in zones yet so need but again thinking Nest

Oh and a belt sander!

SachaJ

bk wrote: »

I have the original, absolutely brilliant, best streamer on the market IME (I also have a Fire TV and Roku/Now TV). I highly recommend it.

It is missing Now TV, C4 On Demand and the Irish players (which aren't on any streamer anyway), but everything else is their and works extremely well.

I have both the 2015 and 2017 models. Excellent devices

Stoner wrote: »

I'd look at the new shield too

I have the original, absolutely brilliant, best streamer on the market IME (I also have a Fire TV and Roku/Now TV). I highly recommend it.

It is missing Now TV, C4 On Demand and the Irish players (which aren't on any streamer anyway), but everything else is their and works extremely well.

Stoner

I'd look at the new shield too

Stoner

I didn't say I'd get rid of all the others,

I only have Philips lamps and hue go.

I'd have to keep the lightwaverf hub

I could drop the smartthings hub and possibly the Philips hub

There's no way I'd go all in with Amazon either.
I've stopped using fire stick and fire TV

Ideally one unit would do all these things. Smartthings had a good apprach, but updates to different hubs would render the little code tricks useless overnight. It was great with lightwaverf for a while with hue, lightwaverf, Ring all hooked up, good with SONOFF too
Yet they still link hubs not functions

PreparationH

kenmc wrote: »

Yeah I've played a fair bit with ESP8266, and Arduino; I've got arduino sensors (running on ATTinys) sitting doing temp measurements and using RF433 to tx it, they're on a pair of AA batteries for over 2 years at this stage. Similarly in the garden, a rain sensor only wakes up when the rainbucket tips and sends a 433mhz tx message. This guy (https://nathan.chantrell.net/tinytx-wireless-sensor/) has loads of useful information on this stuff.

My ESP8266s have been a bit more problematic though, even running from mains they seem to go off into the boonies and never come back till i remove/apply the power again.

Course it might be that i tend to buy the cheapest of cheap ones from dx.com and ebay via china - have a couple of nodemcus which are more reliable but not yet finished playing with them... wonder if the esp32 is more reliable...

Yeah there's only two ways to wake up an ESP8266 from deepsleep as I'm sure you already know and even then they are problematic. It seems deepsleep was never it's strong point. I'd definitely go with the NodeMCU 8266's, they're far and away the best imo.

What are you using your ESP's for?

I've just taken delivery of one of these https://hackaday.io/project/12843-esp-soil-moisture-sensor but simply cannot find the time to program the fecker... I need to sacrifice a few lunchtimes. Not even sure I know how to connect to it yet!

kenmc

Yeah I've played a fair bit with ESP8266, and Arduino; I've got arduino sensors (running on ATTinys) sitting doing temp measurements and using RF433 to tx it, they're on a pair of AA batteries for over 2 years at this stage. Similarly in the garden, a rain sensor only wakes up when the rainbucket tips and sends a 433mhz tx message. This guy (https://nathan.chantrell.net/tinytx-wireless-sensor/) has loads of useful information on this stuff.

My ESP8266s have been a bit more problematic though, even running from mains they seem to go off into the boonies and never come back till i remove/apply the power again.

Course it might be that i tend to buy the cheapest of cheap ones from dx.com and ebay via china - have a couple of nodemcus which are more reliable but not yet finished playing with them... wonder if the esp32 is more reliable...

PreparationH

kenmc wrote: »

I got this one https://www.maplin.co.uk/p/48w-mains-solder-station-n34fb a couple of xmas's ago, does me fine for what i use it for. Replacement tips are cheap and easy to get. Don't think it was that expensive when i asked for it though

Re that HiGrow wifi thing, how long is it supposed to last with that battery? I'd be sceptical of any sort of battery life.

Cheers for that, that's a nice looking iron!

Right now I'm only starting with the ESP32 but I'm interested to see what the Ultra Low power co-processor's (ULP) needs are. The block diagram for the chip is below:

F8YZ7TYJ5SFYD6X.MEDIUM.jpg

From what I can see the ULP consumes 0.15ma in deep sleep mode

Andrews Spiess does a very detailed video on it here where you'll find all this detail and whole lot more.

My read on this is it depends one what you are doing with the ESP32. If you're taking readings every 5 minutes from a sensor then there's going to be the following overheads:

Wake up time
Reconnect to Wi-Fi/Bluetooth
Read sensor/s
publish MQTT
re-sleep

So it entirely depends on your usage.

Stoner wrote: »

What engineer in there right mind would want four or five hubs like me if one could do the same job!!

It is unfortunately the "if" in that statement that is the issue. While at the basic level they might do the same (turn on/off lights) these all in one hubs seem to offer far less functionality then going with separate hub and official apps.

As an example, with the Echo Plus, you can pair Hue lights with it. But you can't pair the Hue motion sensors or dimmer switch, so those become useless. And it won't work with the Hue app and all it's scenes and automations it suspports. And it won't work with IFTTT, Yonomi, Stringify or Google Home.

That seems like a lot to give up just to get rid of one hub if you have the space.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely agree with you in ideal world. I'm just not sure it we will ever get to this ideal. It will always be a trade off IMO.

copacetic

bk wrote: »

I already have an Echo. Though I think I'm going to go all in on GHome. The Echo is currently in the bedroom, plan is to replace with a GHome Mini and move it into the kids room.

I'm not sure what I'd use the zigbee radio in it for. I already have Zigbee in the Hue Hub and the Xiaomi hub when it arrives. I suspect the next project is to set up Home Assistant to interface with those, maybe get a zigbee/zwave dongle for that. But that is for the future, not Black Friday.

i've the little echo that i've not setup yet, apparently google available on my sony TV now, so going to give it a try..

I have piles of GU10 from Osram, work well, although integration between them and philips is ropey.

kenmc

PreparationH wrote: »

[*]Some kind of decent "third hand" for soldering and maybe even a new soldering iron (any tips?)

I got this one https://www.maplin.co.uk/p/48w-mains-solder-station-n34fb a couple of xmas's ago, does me fine for what i use it for. Replacement tips are cheap and easy to get. Don't think it was that expensive when i asked for it though

Re that HiGrow wifi thing, how long is it supposed to last with that battery? I'd be sceptical of any sort of battery life.

PreparationH

/waves to all... long time reader/first time poster.

Small enough black friday list for me...

4x HiGrow ESP32 Wi-Fi sticks
SQUIX latest touch screen weather station
After that it's a whole bunch of "bits", A/D converters, wind gauge for my environment monitor project etc...
Some kind of decent "third hand" for soldering and maybe even a new soldering iron (any tips?)

I've got a lot of programming to learn now too (never my strong point) MQTT for ESP8266 and ESP32 using an RPi as a broker. If I could only find the time!

I've bought Rui Santo's ESP8266 Home automation book so I hope my coding will improve!

Stoner

What do you think I do with all my hubs so!

Obviously one device if it can operate correctly is the way to go.

What engineer in there right mind would want four or five hubs like me if one could do the same job!!

TitianGerm

My list for the coming months

Hue strip,
Hue white ambience bulbs,
2x Hue Sensors,
Amazon Cam,
Echo Spot,
Nest Thermostat (coming from Electric Ireland)
Best Protect (for the living room where we have a stove)

I'm not sure if I need much else

SemperFidelis

I'm mostly interested in it for indoor air quality monitoring (CO2, temp, humidity). We had a lot of mould when we moved in and while its a lot better now (with mechanical ventilation) I'd like to be able to monitor.

I will hopefully be able to set up a smart switch/relay to boost the ventilation if the indoor air quality drops below healthy levels.

beanian

SemperFidelis wrote: »

Netatmo Weather station

What purpose does this serve? The geek in me wants one I just cant figure out what i'd use it for

Stoner wrote: »

Echo Plus won't be there yet

Five or six hubs does not make sense either though.

Like SachaJ, once setup I never touch them again, hidden away with a load of other equipment in the study/server room.

Compared to the massive server, NAS's and AV gear I've in their (plus boxes and boxes of cables), a few hubs aren't even noticeable.

I get that people living in a very small apartment (I live in an apartment and still have plenty of space for them) might benefit, but I really don't think it is worth worrying about for most people. I don't think the trade off is worth it, not at the moment anyway, it might change in future.

SemperFidelis

Google Home
Home mini
Fridge
Netatmo Weather station
few nest protects

SachaJ

Stoner wrote: »

Echo Plus won't be there yet

Five or six hubs does not make sense either though.

Stupid question maybe, but why does it not make sense? I’m thinking along the same lines of HomeSeer was the controller of multiple separate ecosystems. The number of hubs doesn’t bother me in the slightest as they will all be in the equipment rack.