OffalyMedic wrote: » What's the best IoT smart relay on the market at the moment for kitting out a new build with smart lights? Want to connect them to most of the lights so they can be grouped, automated, voice activated etc. Thanks
John mac wrote: » why do you want to automate the fridge ? its automatic as is . :eek:
Bluefoam wrote: » Whats the best home automation. I've heard of Strawberry Pi, if I buy that, will it automate my lights? ...and my fridge
Clareman wrote: » My neighbour decided to get a "smart" fridge, I think this is the 1, I really can't see the point but each to their own.
DeadSkin wrote: » When ordering from Aliexpress what delivery times do you typically see? I ordered some replacement parts for Roborock first week of January. Tracking says "Your parcel has arrived in the country of destination" been in Liege-Linehaul Arrival since January 19th. Cheers.
wexfordman2 wrote: » I irder d some motorised curtains a few weeks back, were supposed to ship from belgium, but seller contacts me saying that the warehouse in belgium couldn't ship to Ireland at the time (brexit and covid apparently), so offered to ship them from china. I agreed, got them within a week of him sending them, mightily impressed. But these things vary.
SierraTango wrote: » I've had everything from 2 weeks to still waiting for stuff from 12 December. All free shipping. To be fair it does always arrive well packaged. The tracking is iffy enough at times though.
Helpneeded86 wrote: » Lidl are doing a smart home sectionhttps://www.lidl.ie/en/c/smart-home/c1423/w2 Any thoughts?
2011 wrote: » I was very disappointed with the quality.
I'm looking to get a smart doorbell for my dads house. Ring seems to be well recommended but there's too many options for a technophobe like myself. I was looking to get him the wireless one but unsure on which model and if I need a chime to go with it. He has a chime in the house but how easy or difficult is it it to wire it up to the bell itself?
Also, any current offers anyone knows about would be very handy.
Thanks.
I have a gen 1 Ring for the past few years, and honestly, it isn't great. Not sure if newer models would be any better.
The delay on notifications to my phone is terrible - movement is well gone by the time it buzzes on my phone, and there's probably around a minute delay between someone ringing the bell and my phone notifying me. Last night, I'd greeted the person who rang, brought them through to the back of the house, after having a quick chat with people in the living room, and then my phone told me someone had rung the bell.
On the good side of things, it was very easy to install. I removed the old style doorbell button, wired the 2 wires to the back on the Ring, fixed it to the door frame and paired to the app. Very simple DIY job and (thankfully, due to the delay on the app) the inside chime that was there with the original doorbell, still bings when someone presses the ring button.
I have the original wired Nest Hello and I can’t fault it. Notifications are quick, picture quality is excellent as is facial recognition. I pay €50 per annum for 5 days recordings. All of my Google Homes act as the chime which go into silent mode at night.
Mine has good days and some bad days too. It has definitely not been as good as it was lately, I think it needs some TLC. It's fast to show me the view, the cast to a a device is working well now too. Again it can be slow on the notifications. It operates better then the gen 1 Ring I replace with it,
This popped up on my feed earlier, thought it might suit here.
personally I dipped my toe into automation with the lidl gear. had seen some views before I bought that it wasn't great, but to be honest it's still working away fine for me. I'll caviate that with saying I have nothing to compare it with, so while it's doing the simple stuff for me (hall lamp switches on at the same time as the alarm goes in the morning, radio in the kitchen turns on two minutes later, radio switches off when I should be leaving the house for work. Lamp off five minutes later. Light in the hallway turns on at dusk till eleven) I don't really know what I would be missing. Don't really want voice, it's an old house so heating system isn't really am option I'm to pushed about.
looks good if it works, i was hooked in on the first google on hub, had zigbee, z wave, RF, bluetooth LE etc but they never turned them on
it's all RF and Zigbee in my place (bar wifi), the one hub would be nice if it replaced the philips, ikea, smartthings, lidl ones. there have been a few of these one solutions over the years including the RPis own home automation offering but this is a bit different, I've 5 hubs at the moment, and two more that i don't use, if i saw it all in someone else's house I'd call it a bag of xxxx !
that said some of the kit is wifi controlled like my air purifiers and smoke alarms, speakers, door bell etc, but one ZigBee solution would be a good step forward
what have you connected the lidl kit to ? the philips hub or the lidl hub?
As, tbh, I knew little about this stuff, until I read about the lidl stuff I just use their hub. Had a spare RPi that I fully intended on setting up using... Yeah, still using the lidl stuff.
It's a good intro to the concepts, and does make you think about what would be nice to automate. I was hesitant in going further down the rabbit hole as we were expecting to be building a new house next year. Not sure where that idea is currently.
Had expected lidl to follow up with more gear at this stage, the app hints at what is to follow, but not heard about any up coming stuff yet.
The home assistant, if as you say it worked, could well be a game changer, brand 'loyalty' would be gone, you could get the best from each brand and it just worked.
I've put similar queries in other forums, DIY, Electrical, Plumbing etc. So thought I would post here aswell to get the views of the experienced posters..
Building a house at the minute and at the stage where I must decide on the wiring first fix. So from an automation point of view, what should I be looking to do now so that even if I don't include a whole lot of automation straight away, I can add easier down the line if want.
Any thoughts greatly appreciated.
For a new build, don't base it on smart light bulbs, put in a proper automation system, there are many, affordable ones, that if you have a r re asonable amount of technical savvy can install yourself with your electrician.
Loxone, cbus, velbus etc, l based.on cat5 infrastructure to the wall switch.
kind of incredible that not one IoT bargain alert was posted in the BA thread over black friday - and stoner even gave a prior heads up about keeping the posts about bargains not chat!
Lidl gear looks to be coming up again early December. Motion sensor and remote added from a quick look
local lidl cleaned out of the bulbs and lightstrips, but does have the floor lamp. It says a gateway is needed, but if you're integrating into a hue set up is that still the case?
does anyone have the floor lamps - is there decent light from it for reading at a couch for example?
Light will pair with hue ok. Picked one up Monday and no problems.
Light is good from it and adjustable cold to warm. Without the base it could be used as a lightstrip under or over kitchen units and the like. Worth the €40 IMO.
