A New user to everything concerning smart homes (Egypt)

[Mohammed_Shaltout]

Hi Everyone,
First of all, I’d Like to thank you for this great forum and great members and please be patient with me as I’m New to all of this

I bought a New apartment and I’d like to start smart home and home automation system and I’d like to use smart things hub

I live in Egypt so everything will be imported overseas “Europe or USA” and my electricity is 220-240 volt so I don’t want to buy anything that I can’t use due to electricity

I have 2 bed rooms, A living room, Kitchen, Bathroom, a 3 piece reception area, 2 balconies

For Lighting, I need both physical and wireless control so I will go with smart switches
Concerning smart switches 1. which brand is best compatible?
2. I need an embedded switch if there is such a thing so that I use my own buttons for on and off
3. I need to be able to connect 3 light bulbs in every room and control them individually

Concerning the apartment door 1. I need a smart lock that can be unlocked with finger print from either side as I have children “can it log when the door is opened and closed”
2. I need a monitoring camera and motion sensor to monitor the door
3. Intrusion notification
Concerning every room I need to install Temperature sensor, Motion sensor, curtain opening and closing device

In the bathroom I’d Like to add a flood sensor

the devices I have and need smart control for are 2 TVs, 3 ACs, 2 PCs, electric Fountain, 3 Fans, Microwave

I need a sound system for the apartment and I have one of the PCs acting as a NAS And Home media server

I need children monitoring kits in the house, Fire alarm system

Concerning the costs, I know that these things cost, but I’d like to save whenever possible

Concerning installing the hardware, I’d like to install it on my own if possible

Please share your insights, Solutions and most importantly your recommendations for the pieces I need to buy

And Again Thank You for your help

[JDRoberts]

Welcome! Sounds like an exciting project.

One quick note for community members who are curious: Egypt uses the same Z wave frequency as Europe, 868.4, so that will be easy if you do end up getting any Zwave devices.

https://www.silabs.com/wireless/z-wave/technology/global-regions

That is the frequency that the smartthings hub which is sold in Egypt uses. So you just want to be careful that if you do buy any zwave devices, you buy the ones on that frequency, not the ones on the US frequency.

And it appears that Samsung Does offer some smartthings support in Egypt, although all of the images they use from the app are in English so I don’t know what languages the app is available in for that region.

SmartThings | التطبيقات والخدمات | Samsung

I’m not feeling very well today, so I will leave further discussion to other people. Good luck!

[Mohammed_Shaltout]

Thank you very much.
I’ll buy from Europe as there are no such products here in Egypt to buy them.
And I’m sorry that you are not feeling very well today.
I hope someone would help me with product recommendation.

[RBoy (www.rboyapps.com - Making SmartThings Easy!)]

@Mohammed_Shaltout

Concerning the apartment door 1. I need a smart lock that can be unlocked with finger print from either side as I have children “can it log when the door is opened and closed”

Fingerprint locks will be difficult to program through SmartThings. However if you lock reports the fingerprints through Z-Wave you can use this device handler [RELEASE] Universal Enhanced Z-Wave Lock Device Handler to capture the fingerprints usage and this [RELEASE] Lock User Unlock/Lock Door Notifications and Actions app to create custom actions to react to those fingerprints.

It’s better if you get a lock with both a keypad and fingerprints or keypad and rfid tags like a IDLock 150 or a Yale Connected/Yale Assure series so you have flexibility in programming through SmartThings using the Smart Locks app or this highly customizable app: [RELEASE] Lock User Management (LUM)

@Mohammed_Shaltout

2. I need a monitoring camera and motion sensor to monitor the door

If the intent is just to capture motion and report it you can use a bunch of option including the Samsung camera, Arlo, Ring, Foscam or Blink depending on what’s available there. If you want to see live video and get motion notifications then you options are more limited at this time to Arlo, Ring and Foscam I believe.

@Mohammed_Shaltout

3. Intrusion notification

You can use the STHM app in the smartthings app or you can use a custom app like one to create your own intruder alerts setup: [RELEASE] Security System: Intruder Alert with Actions

@Mohammed_Shaltout

Concerning every room I need to install Temperature sensor, Motion sensor, curtain opening and closing device

Try looking to a multi 4 in 1 sensor device instead of separate devices. Many times you may come across a contract sensor or motion sensor with a built in temperature sensor. The downside here is that the battery life is much shorter due to the temperature sensor.

[Mohammed_Shaltout]

Thank you for your reply
but can you recommend a lighting switch that is separated from the actual button that works with smart things like sonoff basic smary switch?

[RBoy (www.rboyapps.com - Making SmartThings Easy!)]

@Mohammed_Shaltout

lighting switch that is separated from the actual button

You can try a HeatIt Z-Push button which has up to 8 buttons which you can program to trigger actions like turning on a switch or something else. See here for the various models and features: [RELEASE] Heatit Z-Push Button (Official)