Fill my house with tech...

[wibble cb]

My oven has wifi, which sounds utterly useless, yet I find myself turning it on while still on the way home, so it’s ready to go when I arrive, it’s not sexy, but it’s actually pretty good.

I also scare my wife with the google doorbell camera as well , she never fails to jump if I turn on the mic and talk to her.

[RizzoTheRat]

Pixel Pusher said:

Electric can opener.

Well.. all the good ideas are taken..

I got an electric corkscrew from my work secret santa. Its really good

[TotalControl]

Technotronic said:

Mine:



I have Unify WiFi access points hardwired throughout my house and outbuildings.

The cabinet also houses the Philips Hue bridge, into the network switch, a network drive, network connected CCTV system controller, and the bridge/receiver for the digital wireless thermostats in all the rooms.

The router is sited in the cabinet as well, but with the router WiFi turned off and connected straight to the network switch.


The tech that I have, that I find very useful and use all the time is:

Ring Pro 2 doorbell (hardwired)

Philips Hue - Automates all the table lamps around my house and all the external house and garden lights. The 240v circuits such as external lighting all have Zigee switches which link to the Hue system faultlessly. It all changes seamlessly with changing sunset/sunrise times, and the App is great for remote control.

The multiple wifi access points - Means I can be anywhere in the house, garden, garage, outbuilding etc and have full '5 bar' wifi reception without any speed drops.

AirPlay 2 - I have Bose HomeSpeaker 300 units all round the house in different rooms, and they sound absolutely fantastic. I can play any music off my phone/iPad/laptop all over the house, or in certain rooms only. Use it every single day.

Alexa - My Bose units are connected to my Alexa account, which then links to Hue, Apple Music, Amazon, etc. I can walk round the house and say 'Turn on my outside lights' or 'Play my favourite playlist in the kitchen' and it all works.

Edited by Technotronic on Thursday 11th April 09:52

Loving your setup. Something I'm aching to do when funds allow.

Mine is just spaghetti junction.

[AC43]

FMOB said:

I think the most useful items I have are the smart heating system and the security camera, everything else is a pain in the preverbial.

Yes to the automated heating (Honeywell for me) and cameras/doorbell (Hik, great when you're away). Plus Unifi wifi.

For audio, I still buy new old stock Chromecast Audios. So I can have fantastic traditional amps and speakers with modern inputs. Best of both worlds.

[mrmistoffelees]

Stuff I've got that I like:

Honeywell Evohome. I think it's a bit marmite for some people but for me it's absolutely brilliant, given many rooms in the house go unused on certain days/for lengths of time.
Hikvision CCTV
Ring Pro 2 wired doorbell
Sky Q with wired (ethernet) connections.
Nintendo Switch
Sonos in loads of different places
Solar with batteries, EV. Yesterday we generated 35kwh, the house uses about 12-15 a day so dumped a load to the car but even then at the height of summer there's just way too much.
Lifex lighting for external lighting
10 gig fibre to the shed.
E Paper displays in the kitchen with things like when the bins are due to go out (https://openepaperlink.de/).

All of the above is tied together through code I've written myself so I have a far too in depth knowledge of what everything is doing and why.

Probably Victron for the Solar/battery/EV stuff for closer integration as that's not great, Sonos Amps and in ceiling speakers instead of Sonos One. That's about it.

Obligatory rack photo.

[biggiles]

Technotronic said:

I have Unify WiFi access points hardwired throughout my house and outbuildings.

Technotronic - I had that same Netgear switch. I know there are multiple versions of it, but I found mine SO unreliable. Now on a tp-link managed switch which "just works".

OP - stick small Alexas in each room as a starting point...

[DodgyGeezer]

this is a great thread - however, there is an obvious (to me!) question: namely how much of this is doable by someone with the DiY skills and technical know-how of a piss-up chimpanzee and the patience of an irritable silver-back?

Given the above are there any companies people would care to recommend? (I can't believe I'm the only one with the complete lack of requisite skills/patience)

[Actual]

DodgyGeezer said:

this is a great thread - however, there is an obvious (to me!) question: namely how much of this is doable by someone with the DiY skills and technical know-how of a piss-up chimpanzee and the patience of an irritable silver-back?

Given the above are there any companies people would care to recommend? (I can't believe I'm the only one with the complete lack of requisite skills/patience)

The trouble is that you are hearing about some very impressive and extreme smart home installations and some require their own server and software programming.

You couldn't go wrong if you made a start just using the IKEA DIRIGERA Smart Hub with their huge range of smart lights and their range of other smart devices is increasing. Use Amazon Alexa for voice control and if you add some other brands of smart devices then use Amazon Alexa to make them work together.

One drawback of IKEA is that If This Then That (IFTTT) is not supported but they will support Matter and by saying that I've just made it too complicated for a beginner.

[Baldchap]

Love me a rack photo.

Mine's at the point where I'm seriously considering ripping it all out and starting again in terms of cabling. It's mega untidy now. Everything works though. Got AC and two UPSs off camera.

Overall view (audio top, IT bottom)

[url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/F6nAHC7u[/url]

Close up on the IT stuff. Got Unifi cameras and switches, Dream Machine Pro router, Draytek modem, a WD NAS that is unused, and two Pis, one acting as a NAS and one running PiHole and recursive DNS for ad blocking & privacy.



We have quite a bit of access control here and there that I'll get a photo of later, but it's a work in progress and makes this look neat!

[mikeiow]

FMOB said:

The OP is about to disappear down a rabbit hole, do not do it!

Save yourself from the insanity and death by AA batteries.

If it is too late then I would judge things on how much time they actually save you allowing you to do something more interesting instead.

I think the most useful items I have are the smart heating system and the security camera, everything else is a pain in the preverbial.

I half agree with this....then I also agree that SONOS is a fabulous home speaker system (we have them in 5 rooms, great for individuals or indeed parties!)....& then Tapo is a nice system for automating a few sockets and lights (& bulbs).
& then I also feel a decent TV/projector makes for a nice vibe....we have a 10' screen and an UST projector that makes for a good home film, but normal big TVs are good.

We have blink for security - door camera is laggy, but ours if the Blink v1, I imagine the latest (or Eufy, etc) would work well enough. Try to avoid getting tied into subscriptions!

Sorry for the situation, but good luck

[Baldchap]

Baldchap said:

Love me a rack photo.

Mine's at the point where I'm seriously considering ripping it all out and starting again in terms of cabling. It's mega untidy now. Everything works though. Got AC and two UPSs off camera.

Overall view (audio top, IT bottom)

[url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/F6nAHC7u[/url]

Close up on the IT stuff. Got Unifi cameras and switches, Dream Machine Pro router, Draytek modem, a WD NAS that is unused, and two Pis, one acting as a NAS and one running PiHole and recursive DNS for ad blocking & privacy.



We have quite a bit of access control here and there that I'll get a photo of later, but it's a work in progress and makes this look neat!

This is the access control stuff for one of the external doors to a part of the house third parties sometimes need to access.

Unifi Access controller with two PoE switches powering external cams and lights. Battery backup as this has two locks rather than one (the controller is on one of the UPSs in the tech cupboard so this battery just does one lock).

It's secured beyond this so even if this fails there's an external door between this part and the main house.

Also got a few of these hidden about to prevent kids, visitors and dogs being where they shouldn't. The ones internally are far neater and hidden away. This is the one on the wife's dressing room...



I may have a problem.

[mikeiow]

DodgyGeezer said:

this is a great thread - however, there is an obvious (to me!) question: namely how much of this is doable by someone with the DiY skills and technical know-how of a piss-up chimpanzee and the patience of an irritable silver-back?

Given the above are there any companies people would care to recommend? (I can't believe I'm the only one with the complete lack of requisite skills/patience)

Well: all the bits I posted are VERY straightforward for even you to ‘install’ !!

Once you get to racking equipment, popping a home NAS with wired cameras everywhere, or indeed going down the rathole of HomeAssistant, then I agree you need a serious interest (& handy skills) to deploy yourself.

I’m all for simplification these days…

[paulrockliffe]

AC43 said:

For audio, I still buy new old stock Chromecast Audios. So I can have fantastic traditional amps and speakers with modern inputs. Best of both worlds.

Same, an absolute travesty that they were discontinued, but I have 10 of them so I'm ok. Use home assistant to turn the amps on and off when the Chromecasts start/stop playing and they work perfectly.

[durbster]

DodgyGeezer said:

this is a great thread - however, there is an obvious (to me!) question: namely how much of this is doable by someone with the DiY skills and technical know-how of a piss-up chimpanzee and the patience of an irritable silver-back?

Given the above are there any companies people would care to recommend? (I can't believe I'm the only one with the complete lack of requisite skills/patience)

A very good question.

If anyone wants to dip their toes into something that's a bit like Home Assistant then Smartthings is good option. If you already having some smart devices and hubs running that are supported, all you need to do to get started is install the Smartthings app.

You can't do as much with it as you can with HA but it's free, easy to use and if nothing else allows you to manage some / most of your smart home devices in one place, rather than relying on separate apps for everything.

[donkmeister]

Baldchap said:

Love me a rack photo.

SNIP

You are either:

1) an engineer frustrated at the lack of hands-on contact an engineer actually gets with the equipment they engineer,
2) a scientist working in engineering, or
3) an IT guy who has been promoted to the point that he doesn't actually do IT anymore
4) some combination of the above.

Am I close?

Interesting earth arrangement, I've never seen them glanded into plastic conduit before, looks neat.

[Baldchap]

donkmeister said:

Baldchap said:

Love me a rack photo.

SNIP

You are either:

1) an engineer frustrated at the lack of hands-on contact an engineer actually gets with the equipment they engineer,
2) a scientist working in engineering, or
3) an IT guy who has been promoted to the point that he doesn't actually do IT anymore
4) some combination of the above.

Am I close?

Interesting earth arrangement, I've never seen them glanded into plastic conduit before, looks neat.

Ex Sysadmin (retired from IT now a Grubby Man), so probably 3.

[Scabutz]

Baldchap said:

donkmeister said:

Baldchap said:

Love me a rack photo.

SNIP

You are either:

1) an engineer frustrated at the lack of hands-on contact an engineer actually gets with the equipment they engineer,
2) a scientist working in engineering, or
3) an IT guy who has been promoted to the point that he doesn't actually do IT anymore
4) some combination of the above.

Am I close?

Interesting earth arrangement, I've never seen them glanded into plastic conduit before, looks neat.

Ex Sysadmin (retired from IT now a Grubby Man), so probably 3.

Happens to the best of us. Used to be a developer, now director of engineering. Built a flight sim in my spare time. There is open source software you can use off the shelf to interface, nah fam I'll spend months writing my own thanks.

[mikeiow]

Baldchap said:

I may have a problem.

Whilst I obviously have admiration for the efforts and skills deployed, all of those racking pictures and masses of boxes in houses fill me with horror
& that is after a lifetime in ‘tech’

I even prefer white goods to have minimal stuff: give me what I need, not a thousand things you think I might want!

I was always of the school of thought that “less is more”, & the fewer moving parts, the better….x100 when those moving parts are not physical, but involve scripts/programmes etc. There comes a point where bits fail…

OP: have you taken any ideas from this thread to move forward?

[thepritch]

mikeiow said:

I even prefer white goods to have minimal stuff: give me what I need, not a thousand things you think I might want!

I think exactly the same. My favorite quite us ‘just because you can doesn’t mean you should’.

I’m a designer, and amongst my peers I’m not the only one to think this. However, we are often asked by product planners or project leads to use or include certain tech that you just wonder ‘why?’ ! I’m all for improving and creating better things but better doesn’t always mean ‘more’.

[Baldchap]

thepritch said:

I think exactly the same. My favorite quite us ‘just because you can doesn’t mean you should’.

I’m a designer, and amongst my peers I’m not the only one to think this. However, we are often asked by product planners or project leads to use or include certain tech that you just wonder ‘why?’ ! I’m all for improving and creating better things but better doesn’t always mean ‘more’.

If you have a requirement, it isn't just 'can'.

Tech is for solving problems.