The story of #48
Discussion
A post today by RichTT in his excellent thread Full House Refurb log - Work in Progress - Dark to Light has reminded my that there was one thing I had missed out of this story - the elctronics!
I've always been a big fan of tech, and back in the day some of my favourite bits of 'Tomorrow's World' would be stuff about the House of the Future. It was admittedly a very 80's view of the future, but there were things like curtains that would open at the touch of a button, and robots that would bring you tea! It made a big impression on me as a young lad.
Fast forward to 2 years ago. My offer had been accepted and the lawyers were doing their thing, so I was in full on planning mode. If you've been following this you may recall I had a pretty good idea what I was going to do re decor, and furniture and stuff would come later. But which way to go to make #48 into a smart home?
Whatever way I decided to go, a good net portal was needed. Fortunately, Virgin had already prepped the area with their cable network, so that seemed like a no brainer. (It has turned out very well - 2 years later and it's proved to be a very reliable, stable system, as well as being very fast.)
This pic shows the cabling, unearthed when I did my garden.
Through wall, underground to splitter box, then the left cable through wall and under carpet to sitting room for the VR6 TVbox, and right cable up the wall to what will be the office for the router.
This was done before the carpets went in so it was a straightforward install, the carpet guys could easily work round it. (White co-ax along the door saddle and around the skirting.)
And upstairs in the office. The Virgin router has been great, with a good strong signal with plenty of range.
PC installed, and the first speed test. 210Mbps!!!
I worked at Maplin, so had access to many brands and a good idea of how it all worked (or not!). This was also a bonus because of the staff discount!
I was mainly looking to automate heating and lighting, possibly some security. And with a voice activated front end. I was looking at Hive, Nest, Alexa, Google Home, Philips Hue, Tp-Link, Ring.
Starting with the front end, I didn't know what would suit me better, Alexa or Google Home - so I got one of each. TBH, there's not a massive amount of difference. GH sound quality is a bit better than Alexa; but Alexa has an Aux Out. Voice responsiveness is very similar - both can miss hear you, or just ignore you from time to time. But it's not that often. In the end I went with Alexa. It seemed to work better with the other smart home stuff, and was slightly cheaper at the time. So in the sitting room, and bedroom I have Alexa dots, another one in the garage connected to a small hi-fi, an Alexa full size in the office, and Goole Home in the kitchen.
This is new as of 5 minutes ago - writing this post made me realise that the Google home was sitting there doing nothing, so I moved it to the kitchen and swapped an Echo Dot to the garage! Cabling still to be tidied and neatified!
Bedroom dot feeding audio into a Pioneer studio monitor system. Neat and very simple, and works really well.
So, voice control is sorted, on to the heating. It's a choice really between Hive and Nest. Function-wise, they're pretty similar - there are only so many ways you can turn heating up or down. The Nest controller is a lovely thing, using the input dial is a pleasure, it just feels so well engineered. I wouldn't call the Hive thermostat ugly, but it's no looker. Mind you, a normal thermostat isn't beautiful either! In the end I went with Hive for two main reasons - less expensive than Nest, and (spoiler alert!) as I'd decided to go with Hive lighting it made sense from an ecosystem point of view. There was already some sort of wireless system in the house, fitting the Hive was very straightforward.
Not designer looking like the Nest, but looks well enough for what it is...
Onto the fun part of the system - lighting! As mention above, I'd decided to go with Hive. If money was less limited it would have been Philips Hue, because those bulbs do such pure and intense colour, they are just gorgeous. I could have gone with TP-Link, but their colours weren't as intense. The Hive was a good middle ground of both price and colour intensity, and of course there was that whole ecosystem thing as well. One reason for this was that some bulbs would be normal cheap LEDs, but smartified (if that's not a word, it is now!) by using a smart mains plug, again from Hive. The thing that got me thinking along those lines was that I wanted to automate my lavalamp, which of course uses an old fashioned filament bulb.
The plan was for main lights in each room to be 'simple' smart bulbs, nowt fancy, just on and off-able. The fun and interest would come from many smaller, coloured bulbs, as in the picture above of the bedside table.
The light behind the plant in the corner is a smart colour bulb, whilst the lava lamp and the lamp in the conservatory are both on smart plugs.
Reflected in the picture on the right of the Brooklyn Bridge is a tripod light with colour changing bulb, the light on the display shelves is a lump of Himalayan rock salt with a halogen bulb in it - which is on a smart plug. One command will turn on all of these!
I just took a better photo of the rock lamp, because it hasn't come out very well in the photo above, and it's a beautiful thing..
That just about covers the main bits, there are some odds and sods. First of which is a Nest smoke alarm. The previous owners must have been paranoid about fire, there were detectors everywhere! The one on the landing had actually been wired in to the mains, and so installing a Nest one was very easy. It's always seemed a bit odd to me, but a normal smoke detector does no good if there's no-one in. The Nest one will notify me wherever I am, and will automatically test itself every month. Good bit of kit.
Not so good was my experience with a Ring doorbell. I love the idea of pretending to be in if you're not, or vice versa, of it being a sentry on your front door. It just wouldn't work for me. From my front door to the office upstairs is only a few meters, but it would constantly lose connection. I swapped it for the Mk2 model, but had the same experience. It would work fine for a few days, then drop its connection and have to be reset. In the end I gave up with it, got a refund and went with a non-smart, ordinary wireless doorbell. Which has worked flawlessly. Are there any reliable video doorbells out there? Because I would definitely have one if it worked properly..
I've always been a big fan of tech, and back in the day some of my favourite bits of 'Tomorrow's World' would be stuff about the House of the Future. It was admittedly a very 80's view of the future, but there were things like curtains that would open at the touch of a button, and robots that would bring you tea! It made a big impression on me as a young lad.
Fast forward to 2 years ago. My offer had been accepted and the lawyers were doing their thing, so I was in full on planning mode. If you've been following this you may recall I had a pretty good idea what I was going to do re decor, and furniture and stuff would come later. But which way to go to make #48 into a smart home?
Whatever way I decided to go, a good net portal was needed. Fortunately, Virgin had already prepped the area with their cable network, so that seemed like a no brainer. (It has turned out very well - 2 years later and it's proved to be a very reliable, stable system, as well as being very fast.)
This pic shows the cabling, unearthed when I did my garden.
Through wall, underground to splitter box, then the left cable through wall and under carpet to sitting room for the VR6 TVbox, and right cable up the wall to what will be the office for the router.
This was done before the carpets went in so it was a straightforward install, the carpet guys could easily work round it. (White co-ax along the door saddle and around the skirting.)
And upstairs in the office. The Virgin router has been great, with a good strong signal with plenty of range.
PC installed, and the first speed test. 210Mbps!!!
I worked at Maplin, so had access to many brands and a good idea of how it all worked (or not!). This was also a bonus because of the staff discount!
I was mainly looking to automate heating and lighting, possibly some security. And with a voice activated front end. I was looking at Hive, Nest, Alexa, Google Home, Philips Hue, Tp-Link, Ring.
Starting with the front end, I didn't know what would suit me better, Alexa or Google Home - so I got one of each. TBH, there's not a massive amount of difference. GH sound quality is a bit better than Alexa; but Alexa has an Aux Out. Voice responsiveness is very similar - both can miss hear you, or just ignore you from time to time. But it's not that often. In the end I went with Alexa. It seemed to work better with the other smart home stuff, and was slightly cheaper at the time. So in the sitting room, and bedroom I have Alexa dots, another one in the garage connected to a small hi-fi, an Alexa full size in the office, and Goole Home in the kitchen.
This is new as of 5 minutes ago - writing this post made me realise that the Google home was sitting there doing nothing, so I moved it to the kitchen and swapped an Echo Dot to the garage! Cabling still to be tidied and neatified!
Bedroom dot feeding audio into a Pioneer studio monitor system. Neat and very simple, and works really well.
So, voice control is sorted, on to the heating. It's a choice really between Hive and Nest. Function-wise, they're pretty similar - there are only so many ways you can turn heating up or down. The Nest controller is a lovely thing, using the input dial is a pleasure, it just feels so well engineered. I wouldn't call the Hive thermostat ugly, but it's no looker. Mind you, a normal thermostat isn't beautiful either! In the end I went with Hive for two main reasons - less expensive than Nest, and (spoiler alert!) as I'd decided to go with Hive lighting it made sense from an ecosystem point of view. There was already some sort of wireless system in the house, fitting the Hive was very straightforward.
Not designer looking like the Nest, but looks well enough for what it is...
Onto the fun part of the system - lighting! As mention above, I'd decided to go with Hive. If money was less limited it would have been Philips Hue, because those bulbs do such pure and intense colour, they are just gorgeous. I could have gone with TP-Link, but their colours weren't as intense. The Hive was a good middle ground of both price and colour intensity, and of course there was that whole ecosystem thing as well. One reason for this was that some bulbs would be normal cheap LEDs, but smartified (if that's not a word, it is now!) by using a smart mains plug, again from Hive. The thing that got me thinking along those lines was that I wanted to automate my lavalamp, which of course uses an old fashioned filament bulb.
The plan was for main lights in each room to be 'simple' smart bulbs, nowt fancy, just on and off-able. The fun and interest would come from many smaller, coloured bulbs, as in the picture above of the bedside table.
The light behind the plant in the corner is a smart colour bulb, whilst the lava lamp and the lamp in the conservatory are both on smart plugs.
Reflected in the picture on the right of the Brooklyn Bridge is a tripod light with colour changing bulb, the light on the display shelves is a lump of Himalayan rock salt with a halogen bulb in it - which is on a smart plug. One command will turn on all of these!
I just took a better photo of the rock lamp, because it hasn't come out very well in the photo above, and it's a beautiful thing..
That just about covers the main bits, there are some odds and sods. First of which is a Nest smoke alarm. The previous owners must have been paranoid about fire, there were detectors everywhere! The one on the landing had actually been wired in to the mains, and so installing a Nest one was very easy. It's always seemed a bit odd to me, but a normal smoke detector does no good if there's no-one in. The Nest one will notify me wherever I am, and will automatically test itself every month. Good bit of kit.
Not so good was my experience with a Ring doorbell. I love the idea of pretending to be in if you're not, or vice versa, of it being a sentry on your front door. It just wouldn't work for me. From my front door to the office upstairs is only a few meters, but it would constantly lose connection. I swapped it for the Mk2 model, but had the same experience. It would work fine for a few days, then drop its connection and have to be reset. In the end I gave up with it, got a refund and went with a non-smart, ordinary wireless doorbell. Which has worked flawlessly. Are there any reliable video doorbells out there? Because I would definitely have one if it worked properly..
Edited by Schmeeky on Wednesday 1st May 15:27
Good job on the media / electrics install. I wish I had 210 mbps speed... i'm averaging 4.3 mbps and that's the fastest I can get for the time being.
I've got the NEST Hello and it's been great, even with crappy internet speed. The other day the postie rang the doorbell and whilst sitting in a cafe 20 miles away got him to leave the package for me in a safe place.
I've got the NEST Hello and it's been great, even with crappy internet speed. The other day the postie rang the doorbell and whilst sitting in a cafe 20 miles away got him to leave the package for me in a safe place.
Gassing Station | Homes, Gardens and DIY | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff