Yeah, I'm very much not into inviting too much else into my house. I'd love to have my cake and eat it too though, so there's that. The thing that scares me the most is the Texas/CA stuff where folks were saying that their thermostats were overridden. I dunno if that's true, but I know the potential is there, so I'll be prepared to disconnect at some point.
Think for yourself. Question authority.
The only good advice I can give is this-
Never buy a couch that's not comfortable to sleep on.
We wish to thank the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, without whose assistance this program would not have been possible.
Ars has a pretty detailed breakdown. I take some of their stuff with a heavy grain of salt but they usually get facts and technical descriptions correct, and usually cite as many sources as they can in their reporting.Originally Posted by orionz06
Grab your gun and bring in the cat.
Hmm. Do we know for certain that anyone who was opted out had their stuff tampered with? I'm not dumb enough to accept the one time credit, there are always strings with that stuff.
Think for yourself. Question authority.
I've signed up for a similar program here and the utility used it once so far this summer. Got a text or some other notification from Nest (don't remember specifics) notifying me of the planned change on thermostats that opted in, as well as the time range. We manually overrode the temperature once it was starting to get uncomfortable. I can see this being an issue if you fell asleep or otherwise didn't get a notification, but at least for us it's not like we're locked out of changing the temperatures during the time the utility is trying to cut down on usage.
Thermostat - Honeywell T6
This is the unit that came with the house. Setup was similar to the GDO. You download their app, then at the T-stat, you enable it's own little WAP network. You connect the phone to that WAP temporarily, then the T-stat communicates with the app to complete the setup. As part of that, you setup your Honeywell account logon, and connect the T-stat to your home network.
Like the rest of these IoT things, it works on the low band side (2.4 GHz) network.
This is a fairly low-end unit; it's typical in operation, with things like scheduling, vacation hold, filter reminder, and so on. All of this can be controlled from the app or via the front panel. Otherwise, it's pretty unremarkable.
If you enable the app to be always location aware and run in background, the T-stat has a Geofence feature, meaning it is aware of the user's entering and leaving the geofence. So for example you could set it up to change schedule from "away" to "home" just by walking in the door. I don't need that, and would prefer the app not to suck in data while it's not in use, so I haven't enabled that.
It is part of the Honeywell ecosystem, but in order to add a device, you have to give permission for the app to have Location Access to be "always on". Meh on that.
Also, so far as I can tell, the app does not communicate with the power company, as regards Demand Response Events (remote signals to lower/raise the house temperature). We are with Florida Power and Light, and that doesn't appear to be part of their service implementation, anyway.
FWIW….
RE: mesh
We use Eero. Could not be happier, although also don’t know what I’m missing. Parental controls, timeouts by device, guest passwords, coverage across my entire 1.25 acres including my workshop…. Zero complaints AND the customer support when I screw things up has been awesome.
Re: t-stats
We use Ecobee (yes sometimes I can’t remember the difference between ecobee and eero). I have had Honeywell and nest in the past, so I do kinda know what I’m missing. Which isn’t much. Went with ecobee because, at the time, they were the only one with remote sensors that include motion and temp. If installed correctly you can literally have the temp controlled by which room(s) have motion. There’s also the usual schedules (which can also be by sensor) etc.
Re: Cameras/doorbell
We have Ring, and at this point I’m too invested to switch. It’s ok, leaves some things to be desired, some stuff may be better, etc. again, don’t know what I’m missing with other devices but generally I’m happy enough with the Ring stuff. The newer your house, the easier any ca era system is going to be to deal with.
Re: smart locks (you didn’t ask but…)
I recent.y went with August. Have used Schlage and Kwikset. Love, love, love the August. Even has an Apple Watch complication. Can also add keypads that aren’t attached to the lock so you can mount them more discretely such that from the outside you don’t see a smart lock.
RE: smart home in general (again, you didn’t ask)
I am balls deep into SmarThings. We have a love/hate. One hate is that there’s not Apple Watch app. Another is that it’s been changing hands over the years. If I was starting from scratch today, given that we’re also balls deep in iOS, I’d like,yo just get HomeKit enabled devices and skip a hub-based system (zig bee or z-wave) altogether. When Alexa wants to work right, it’s very nice to say “Alexa, turn off the workshop lights” or “Alexa turn off the patio lights”.
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.
Does the above offend? If you have paid to be here, you can click here to put it in context.
Appliances
The Boss ordered LG appliances, and they each have the ability to connect to WiFi.
LG uses their "Thinq" app, which like the others, operates on 2.4 GHz band only. After downloading and registering for an account, setup is fairly straightforward. The appliance has a button to press and hold (e.g. "WiFi") to initiate the appliance local WAP. You connect your smart phone to that temporary local network, and enter the pass code, which is based on the Appliance S/N. After that, the app takes over, adds that appliance to your collection, sets up the actual house WiFi, then disables the temporary setup WAP.
LG allows you to group appliances into rooms. I only have a Kitchen and Utility room. The summary panel provides a quick status on each.
Our fridge is pretty basic, but you can set the temperature and a few other things via the app.
The fridge does react to Demand Response controls, but you have to opt in.
In practice, the most bang for the buck for the WiFi is the washer/dryer combo. The setup is the same as the fridge; establish a local WAP, connect it to the app via S/N. The dryer can "pair" to the washer, meaning LG provides for comms between them. This is used to tell the dryer what load to expect, based on what the washer just did.
In practice, what happens is that me (as the helper) gets told "put the clothes in the dryer". What's good about this system is that the dryer has already figured out what settings (perm press, HD, speed dry, etc.) to use, and all I have to do is press the "start" button. Mrs. RJ calls this system "husband proof" lol.
The other thing the app does is let you get notified when cycles are done, how long the dryer has to go, etc. This also seems more useful than you might think, once you start getting used to it. I like it so far.
My workshop window AC units are on ThinQ. I specifically was looking for units I could control remotely.
Currently they come on every Saturday and Sunday and run from 5am to 10am. The theory here is that even just as a storage unit, the contents will benefit from an occasional de-humidifying, and staring the units during the coolest part of the day means less overall load (turn them on at 3 and you’ll never get them down to below 80, start them at 5 and you can hold it at a max of about 77 all day long). If I’m going into the shop but haven’t gotten there by ten I can redstart them, and if I’m already in the shop before ten then I hear them shut off and can re-start them from my phone if I’m far enough away that I don’t want to walk over to both of them. Haven’t looked for an Apple Watch app yet…
I do wish that they integrated into SmartThings. Maybe they do and I’m just not trying hard enough.
Does the above offend? If you have paid to be here, you can click here to put it in context.
I wanted some decent shelving for my hobby room off the office, so I ordered a set of these from Costco online:
"Alera 4-Shelf Wire Shelving Rack | 48" x 18" 72" | NSF | Dark Gray (Black Anthracite)", $149.99 shipped. It arrived in about a week. I'm happy with the color I picked (dark gray = black anthracite) over the silver or black. I think it looks good.
https://www.costco.com/alera-4-tier-....11316772.html
I opted to assemble it into two sections, which fit nicely where I wanted it:
I'm still pondering garage options. I might leave the floor as is (plain concrete) or opt to try some of those gridded squares you see, not sure yet, but I can see ordering some more of these shelves for storage in the garage as well.
Reply With Quote