Tipps69 Posted October 8, 2017 Report Share Posted October 8, 2017 Now let me start by saying that I don’t really understand how all this ‘smart home’ stuff works, I see the adverts for Hive & the likes but really don’t want to be fixed into paying someone a monthly fee for the pleasure of controlling my lights (turning them on or off or changing colours etc) or to control the thermostat in the house, or to be able turn things on or off throughout the house without physically having to go & press the plug or button on an appliance. I have an iphone, I have an Amazon Alexa but I don’t have anything to be able to use with them to turn these appliances into ‘smart home appliances’, is it as simple as just changing the lightbulbs throughout the house & changing the plugs / sockets throughout the house? Or do I need to pay an outside company to be able to run such technology? I can see that you can buy ‘smart sockets & bulbs’ from most shops / Amazon etc But is that all I need to do & similarly for a thermostat to control the heating? I don’t want to go out & buy lightbulbs or sockets if I still have to use an outside company (Hive etc). So can any of you kind people with a knowledge of such technology advise me please. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richwwtk Posted October 9, 2017 Report Share Posted October 9, 2017 5 hours ago, Tipps69 said: Now let me start by saying that I don’t really understand how all this ‘smart home’ stuff works, I see the adverts for Hive & the likes but really don’t want to be fixed into paying someone a monthly fee for the pleasure of controlling my lights (turning them on or off or changing colours etc) or to control the thermostat in the house, or to be able turn things on or off throughout the house without physically having to go & press the plug or button on an appliance. I have an iphone, I have an Amazon Alexa but I don’t have anything to be able to use with them to turn these appliances into ‘smart home appliances’, is it as simple as just changing the lightbulbs throughout the house & changing the plugs / sockets throughout the house? Or do I need to pay an outside company to be able to run such technology? I can see that you can buy ‘smart sockets & bulbs’ from most shops / Amazon etc But is that all I need to do & similarly for a thermostat to control the heating? I don’t want to go out & buy lightbulbs or sockets if I still have to use an outside company (Hive etc). So can any of you kind people with a knowledge of such technology advise me please. There's no monthly fee, apart from your internet connection. It really is just replacing your current stuff with 'smart' devices. The stuff isn't cheap though, the Philips Hue system for example is a minimum of £15 per lightbulb, plus you need the controller up front (although I believe you can get an Amazon Echo with it built in now). Hive, and other such names, are just brand names for various systems, not a service you pay a monthly fee for. Not actually done any of it myself though, so don't take my word as gospel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tipps69 Posted October 9, 2017 Author Report Share Posted October 9, 2017 2 hours ago, richwwtk said: There's no monthly fee, apart from your internet connection. It really is just replacing your current stuff with 'smart' devices. The stuff isn't cheap though, the Philips Hue system for example is a minimum of £15 per lightbulb, plus you need the controller up front (although I believe you can get an Amazon Echo with it built in now). Hive, and other such names, are just brand names for various systems, not a service you pay a monthly fee for. Not actually done any of it myself though, so don't take my word as gospel. Thanks for that Rich, I did numerous google searches about it last night & there was a bit on there that said Hive offer a service for £6 p/m, that gives you a certain amount of light bulbs & plug sockets & in theory you would start making your money back after a year. But as I said I just don’t want to get stuck into paying a monthly contract. I’m also a little confused (even more so) with regards to the fact that I have quite a few 3 bulb strip lights & how it would work on that as although they are 3 bulb spotlights, some of them only use 1 bulb at a time so have 3 separate switches to turn each individual bulb on (is this making any sense?) while other 3 bulb strips are only controlled by 1 switch for all 3 bulbs. I’d also assume that the major money saving side of things is through the thermostat but I assume that isn’t something that an unqualified electrician / heating engineer could fit? I don’t know about making things easier, it’s confusing the living daylights out of me just trying to figure it out :laugh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richwwtk Posted October 9, 2017 Report Share Posted October 9, 2017 18 minutes ago, Tipps69 said: Thanks for that Rich, I did numerous google searches about it last night & there was a bit on there that said Hive offer a service for £6 p/m, that gives you a certain amount of light bulbs & plug sockets & in theory you would start making your money back after a year. But as I said I just don’t want to get stuck into paying a monthly contract. I’m also a little confused (even more so) with regards to the fact that I have quite a few 3 bulb strip lights & how it would work on that as although they are 3 bulb spotlights, some of them only use 1 bulb at a time so have 3 separate switches to turn each individual bulb on (is this making any sense?) while other 3 bulb strips are only controlled by 1 switch for all 3 bulbs. I’d also assume that the major money saving side of things is through the thermostat but I assume that isn’t something that an unqualified electrician / heating engineer could fit? I don’t know about making things easier, it’s confusing the living daylights out of me just trying to figure it out Not sure it's yet at the making things easier stage, which is why it's not really mainstream and the norm just yet. It all seems more gadgety than anything else to me right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tipps69 Posted October 9, 2017 Author Report Share Posted October 9, 2017 37 minutes ago, richwwtk said: Not sure it's yet at the making things easier stage, which is why it's not really mainstream and the norm just yet. It all seems more gadgety than anything else to me right now. I guess I’ll wait to see if anyone has any positive experiences of using such systems before taking the jump myself, like everything, I expect the costs will come down as more suppliers come onto the market. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Major Isewater Posted October 9, 2017 Report Share Posted October 9, 2017 10 hours ago, Tipps69 said: Now let me start by saying that I don’t really understand how all this ‘smart home’ stuff works, I see the adverts for Hive & the likes but really don’t want to be fixed into paying someone a monthly fee for the pleasure of controlling my lights (turning them on or off or changing colours etc) or to control the thermostat in the house, or to be able turn things on or off throughout the house without physically having to go & press the plug or button on an appliance. I have an iphone, I have an Amazon Alexa but I don’t have anything to be able to use with them to turn these appliances into ‘smart home appliances’, is it as simple as just changing the lightbulbs throughout the house & changing the plugs / sockets throughout the house? Or do I need to pay an outside company to be able to run such technology? I can see that you can buy ‘smart sockets & bulbs’ from most shops / Amazon etc But is that all I need to do & similarly for a thermostat to control the heating? I don’t want to go out & buy lightbulbs or sockets if I still have to use an outside company (Hive etc). So can any of you kind people with a knowledge of such technology advise me please. I don't see too many benefits to be honest . You can programme your thermostat anyway . As for the lights , if your home , it's not to hard to get up and switch them on or off . The only benefit may be to fool would be burgulars that there's some one home when there isn't. I'm not convinced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taz Posted October 9, 2017 Report Share Posted October 9, 2017 11 minutes ago, Major Isewater said: I don't see too many benefits to be honest . You can programme your thermostat anyway . As for the lights , if your home , it's not to hard to get up and switch them on or off . The only benefit may be to fool would be burgulars that there's some one home when there isn't. I'm not convinced. Table lamp plugged into a timer also does the trick... The more we rely on "smart" devices, the more dumb people will become. I'm just waiting for the day when I see a headline in the paper "I was burgled after someone hacked into my house". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tipps69 Posted October 9, 2017 Author Report Share Posted October 9, 2017 39 minutes ago, Major Isewater said: I don't see too many benefits to be honest . You can programme your thermostat anyway . As for the lights , if your home , it's not to hard to get up and switch them on or off . The only benefit may be to fool would be burgulars that there's some one home when there isn't. I'm not convinced. I fully understand where you’re coming from, I could see the benefits of the video doorbells that you can speak to whoever rings the bell & you can answer without being there & you can alert any potential burglars into thinking that you’re home. As I said in my original post, I have an Amazon Echo / Alexa & to be fair I hardly use it now, the novelty has worn off & I just wondered what it would take to make more use of the device or my iPhone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Major Isewater Posted October 9, 2017 Report Share Posted October 9, 2017 After much investigation we invested in making Isewater Acres a ' smart ' home . Everything was connected but sadly Mrs Isewater deleted our house . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nibor Posted October 9, 2017 Report Share Posted October 9, 2017 It's all very new and nobody has really found solid uses for it yet. Some ideas are: - security. eg alarm system that notifies you and lets you look at camera feeds, maybe unlock doors remotely. Facial recognition for trusted people maybe. - sensors for things going wrong like gas, carbon monoxide or water leaks - checking what's in the fridge or out of date remotely for when you're shopping on the way home with mini rfid chips on products It's early days and connecting everything to the Internet has the feel of a solution looking for a problem to solve at the minute but I suspect that will change in 5-10 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tipps69 Posted October 9, 2017 Author Report Share Posted October 9, 2017 23 minutes ago, Nibor said: It's all very new and nobody has really found solid uses for it yet. Some ideas are: - security. eg alarm system that notifies you and lets you look at camera feeds, maybe unlock doors remotely. Facial recognition for trusted people maybe. - sensors for things going wrong like gas, carbon monoxide or water leaks - checking what's in the fridge or out of date remotely for when you're shopping on the way home with mini rfid chips on products It's early days and connecting everything to the Internet has the feel of a solution looking for a problem to solve at the minute but I suspect that will change in 5-10 years. I got a new mini cctv camera that can connect to my iPhone & it’ll alert me if there’s any movement in front of the camera & allow me to watch the live video feed plus I can abuse them live down the microphone! Mind you, if anyone’s going to break in, they may want to do it soon before Inca gets any bigger because the camera will be the least of their worries if the Rottweiler decides she’d like to protect her property!! But at least I should have it all on cctv. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 10, 2017 Report Share Posted October 10, 2017 18 hours ago, Nibor said: It's all very new and nobody has really found solid uses for it yet. Some ideas are: - security. eg alarm system that notifies you and lets you look at camera feeds, maybe unlock doors remotely. Facial recognition for trusted people maybe. - sensors for things going wrong like gas, carbon monoxide or water leaks - checking what's in the fridge or out of date remotely for when you're shopping on the way home with mini rfid chips on products It's early days and connecting everything to the Internet has the feel of a solution looking for a problem to solve at the minute but I suspect that will change in 5-10 years. Hive & Nest are getting there. Hive not far off a leak detector - http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/141398-hive-teases-future-launches-of-hive-leak-sensor-and-hive-active-hub-devices We have Nest smoke/CM alarms + Thermostat in work which will alert me any time of the day should anything bad be going down. At home when we moved earlier in year the previous owners had installed had Hive installed. I really like it and have slowly added devices to it. When you start using the recepies option on hive you can turn it into a real powerful system. So when you have a door sensor and a lightbulb you can tell it to ping the light on as you open the door when its past x o clock. I've also got door sensors on the garage doors so if anyone opens them post 8pm it'll alert me. The only thing Hive lacks at moment is a smoke/CM alarm device.. wish they'd hurry up with one of those.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tipps69 Posted October 10, 2017 Author Report Share Posted October 10, 2017 2 hours ago, Tomarse said: Hive & Nest are getting there. Hive not far off a leak detector - http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/141398-hive-teases-future-launches-of-hive-leak-sensor-and-hive-active-hub-devices We have hive smoke/CM alarms in work which will alert me any time of the day should anything bad be going down. At home when we moved earlier in year the previous owners had installed had Hive installed. I really like it and have slowly added devices to it. When you start using the recepies option on hive you can turn it into a real powerful system. So when you have a door sensor and a lightbulb you can tell it to ping the light on as you open the door when its past x o clock. I've also got door sensors on the garage doors so if anyone opens them post 8pm it'll alert me. The only thing Hive lacks at moment is a smoke/CM alarm device.. wish they'd hurry up with one of those.. Tom, is this Hive stuff a monthly payment system or just buy what you need & use it for the cost of purchasing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 10, 2017 Report Share Posted October 10, 2017 19 minutes ago, Tipps69 said: Tom, is this Hive stuff a monthly payment system or just buy what you need & use it for the cost of purchasing? Just a one off payment for installation. You can pay for hive live but I don't see the benefit. Nest is the same. I think the camera stuff may have a monthly fee if you want it to save the video to cloud etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tipps69 Posted October 10, 2017 Author Report Share Posted October 10, 2017 21 minutes ago, Tomarse said: Just a one off payment for installation. You can pay for hive live but I don't see the benefit. Nest is the same. I think the camera stuff may have a monthly fee if you want it to save the video to cloud etc. Cheers, I was more interested in the turning on / off of lights & appliances etc rather than cameras, as mentioned I have a small CCTV camera that alerts my phone & plays live pictures if there is an activation & once my Rottweiler grows up that should be enough of a deterrent for any would be burglars. I just really want to try & make more use of my Alexa as it’s currently doing very little. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
One Team In Keynsham Posted October 10, 2017 Report Share Posted October 10, 2017 I have no interest in smartening up my home, but my colleague here has done a lot with it: his mum lives alone back in England, and has advancing dementia, but refuses to go to a home, and as an only child, he is left with dealing with it from 4,000+ miles away. He has in the past year set up various items that are all web accessible: a video doorbell, smoke alarms, various webcams, thermostat, call interceptor etc: clearly not the same as being there in person, but more than once he has been able to turn away people who had turned up to scam him mum, and has been able to do things like locate her handbag via viewing stored footage when she had no idea where she had put it down. Does show there is something more in it than accommdating a lazy bastard who just can't be arsed to get up and turn off a light. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Major Isewater Posted October 11, 2017 Report Share Posted October 11, 2017 20 hours ago, Tipps69 said: Cheers, I was more interested in the turning on / off of lights & appliances etc rather than cameras, as mentioned I have a small CCTV camera that alerts my phone & plays live pictures if there is an activation & once my Rottweiler grows up that should be enough of a deterrent for any would be burglars. I just really want to try & make more use of my Alexa as it’s currently doing very little. Careful they don't steal your Rottweiler. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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