New House Stuff Discussion

[orionz06]

I realize that there’s a certain level of comfort with this kind of tech for many here that I’ve wandered beyond. Feel free to not bother telling me I’ve invited the man into my house or whatever. I get it. Understand the risks. It should be pretty clear by now that, while I understand the risks, my tolerance therein for many things is a bit higher than the collective here.

Sometimes things working well is just worth it. Appreciate the input on all of the devices, certainly leaning towards LG for washer/dryer just to get the notice that things are done.


We might wind up with a Jenn-Air refrigerator, so that's cool, but if not, we'd likely see what the smart stuff could do for us.


Still trying to figure out cameras and doorbells. We have a front door, basement door on the garage, sliding glass door in living room, and a back door on the porch (to the same deck as the slider). I figure garage and front door 100%, perhaps just a camera on the back doors as the geography to get there should preclude most of the honest people from being there.

[Erik]

I went with skybell for the doorbell based on reviews at the time and have been satisfied. I don't know how well it plays with other systems though as I haven't done that.

I have blink cameras and don't love them. I find them to be not 100% on activation and I think they are expensive for the quality of the service.

[RJ]

I think the last of my connected devices/capabilities is the camera system. I say "camera" with a pinch of salt, because I'm just leveraging a couple older iPhone 6's we have knocking about with the Presence app:

https://www.presencepro.com/

This app allows you to associate one or more iPhones in a network, using their built-in camera as a recording device. The app's operational concept is much like a traditional "alarm" system, with "home" and "away" modes.

After downloading the app on each device, you create an account. I have only opted to use the "free" service, which band limits the video (i.e. smaller res, I'm not sure what it is but it isn't fantastic) and offers small storage allowance. I'll include a couple screens, but it is fairly straightforward.

This is the main control screen. I've added an older phone, renamed "Watchcam_1" in the General Settings. You can see it's "available" and on the menu of remote cameras. Adding more cameras just adds another line. In this setting, I am "at home" or in the green.



Leaving the home, you switch to "Away", which triggers a 30 second countdown on the remote cameras. After this, they have a simple edge detection algorithm (movement) which will trigger a recording. You'll also get a notification (I get an email) with a link to a clip. It's also possible to remotely talk back and forth to the camera.

I set Watchcam_1 up facing the pool. This is what you see on the main app, from that remote camera:



So I'm going to try this out and see how it works. It's free, and I have a use for some older phones I had laying around.

[XXXsilverXXX]

Actually nvm to late she bought something completely different…

[RJ]

Insulation question: My attic above the two-car garage has like zip for insulation. Plus it's open to the rest of the house, i.e. the insulated part to the garage is open for air to flow. I have whatever is code for attic vents, but no powered vent or turbine.

The garage has a passive 6" circular vent to a upside down U in the roof, presumably for CO and exhaust gas outlet. And I have a gas water heater, with a ducted flue out of galvanized sheet.

So with all that, is there any major problem if I shoot some loose-fill insulation up in there? I've never done that, but as a yute I helped my dad on all sorts of renos, and have spent many a unhappy summer putting down fiberglass insulation rolls in between joists in houses, sweating my you know whats off.

Lowe's has this "Attic Cat" concept, which is a rentable machine plus loose fill Owens Corning. It is R19.

Anybody use this stuff?

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Owens-Corni...rrier/50370322

[RJ]

I wanted to come back around to the house camera topic.

I've tried the "Presence" app, as well as another free option, but concluded these hobbiest level solutions aren't up to what I wanted.

After looking over the market, I found this option by "Arlo" pretty appealing.

https://www.arlo.com/en-us/doorbell/...-doorbell.html

I would plus up this doorbell with a couple more cameras, one on the lanai and one in the garage. So overall I'm looking at mid three figures. I will do the install, since it looks pretty straightforward.

Pros I can see seem to be battery powered, meaning I don't have to run cables, or Cat 5 to each camera; the system seems to have a notify feature with two-way comms (Mrs. RJ likes this) and the video is advertised as 2K (I'd be happy with 1080p to be honest.)

I'm not after a whole house DVR type situation, it's more for motion detection ("hey there is someone on the Lanai. Oh, ok, it's the pool guy") than playback.

Anyone use Arlo, and have any experiences you can share, positive or negative?

[Tensaw]

Arlo (Pro) is legit. Have used it for two years to monitor a residence that is 10 hours from me in SW Virginia. Using the free five camera set-up. Battery life and transmission range of cameras is great. If it gets really cold, that sucks battery life, but they can be plugged in as well. Software and system is easy to use. Alerts hit my phone in almost real time. I have Hughes Net at the house there and is works okay for the Arlo. There have been some software glitches along the way, but overall, a great set up for the cost.

ETA: The audio part of Arlo has been little used by me and is just okay. There is a lag, but that may be due to slow internet.

[luckyman]

Quick update on house related stuff….
Under encouragement from my wife to get rid of my “outdated looking” home theater audio equipment (I personally would have never thought of judging audio equipment by its looks) I just gave my bass, 3 speakers, and Denon amp/receiver to my gardener who has been charging us way below market rates for years. Got a Sonos Arc. No extra speakers or bass to begin with, just the sound bar.

Installation was trivially easy. Turned on the Game of Thrones into to test. Initial reaction was somewhat disappointing, was maybe not quite as good sounding as my old system. Then I remembered there was an “auto-tune” feature utilizing my iPhone. Holy cow, this thing is awesome!
Side benefit is for whatever reason the Logitech Harmony smart remote control is now much more reliable, no longer have the issue where it would sometimes get out of phase on the on/off toggle.

Other quick notes:

Still haven’t made any decisions on furniture, other than tentatively deciding to go up to a king bed. Which isn’t trivial, we just bought a nice queen mattress a couple of years ago.

Goggle Nest for thermostat, front door camera/bell, and an extra camera mounted above the garage door was kinda expensive, but just works and the cameras have good auto-detection systems, so I’m mostly happy. Only current weakness is when I try to talk to the front door via my iPhone my voice comes out a little garbled; haven’t bothered to try and troubleshoot it yet.

And I can continue to confirm that Samsung appliances suck. Especially the refrigerator.

[rob_s]

So I saw this in a link and clicked on it thinking “this’ll be a stupid/funny thing to post in the house stuff thread on PF” based on the “bespoke” in the product name.

But now I really want one.

https://custom.homedepot.com/custom-...661-Navy-Steel

[RJ]

One thing about Sonos I don't like is that it does not seem to have the ability to split the speakers into logical "rooms", which would be incredibly useful.

Coming back to the Sonos, I confirmed the new App has the ability to group by "Room", so we picked up another pair of Sonos One SL bookshelf speakers at Costco yesterday. I put them in the back bedroom and Master, and attached them to the existing network.

Install was easy, you have to enable BT on your install device (iPad in my case) as the speaker emits tones to the install device as part of the setup/confirmation. The new speakers run on the high speed (5GHz) side of my network, interestingly. After a brief update of the firmware, they appear as "rooms".

So it was pretty easy to set up a group including these two and the original Sonos (2018) unit we have in the Living room. I noticed when the TV comes on, the Toslink activates and the LR detaches from the group to play whatever's on the TV, but the two other speakers in the bedrooms continue to play whatever channel was assigned (Pandora in my case), which I quite like.

Sound is pretty good for mono, the Sonos products are well put together.