How has SmartThings affected you?

Just thinking tonight as I was walking around my house. I live alone so there’s 3/4 of my house that doesn’t get used. So unlike some people @bamarayne I’m looking at you :wink: . I’ve not bought enough devices to outfit the entire house, just the rooms I am in a lot.

But walking into the back bedroom and the light didn’t just turn on… I got a bit frustrated having to actually turn on the light. lol. Total #firstworldproblems . But ya know thats what we do here…

With all the crap we have given ST… I still do like that all this crap is automated for the most part.

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My wash and garage door open notifications have never failed. The people have many times. It’s made a difference in so many ways.

Convenience, yes, like a car is one as was recently observed.

SmartThings allowed me to explore the practical possibilities of home automation at a low cost. It also introduced me to the Phillips hue bridge, the Logitech Harmony, IFTTT, and the echo, none of which I probably would’ve tried as soon if they hadn’t had SmartThings integrations.

SmartThings also taught me that “proof of concept” isn’t enough at my house –– we need reliability, stability, and low maintenance requirements, and we’re willing to give up some features, or pay more, to get that. That was an important lesson before we started investing a lot more money. :sunglasses:

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SmartThings has made it possible for me to make my home what I always wanted. I’ve seen every episode of every genre of Star Trek that exist… more than once… I always wanted lights to just come on, to be able to talk to the house and it talk back, doors open and close (I haven’t done this yet).

I just really enjoy all of it!

Now, I’m just trying to figure out what to do with all of the stuff that I’ve got stashed in the garage!

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You need pocket doors for this.

This seems like something Maxwell would do, with the TV lift mechanics he has/had.


I’ve learned a lot about what I do and do not want out of IoT. I’ve learned it’s strengths, it’s weaknesses, where improvements are needed.

It has frustrated me, it has surprised me in many ways.

It does some cool stuff for sure.

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I’ve said it many times, that when I started this journey, all I wanted was to be able to turn the lights off in my son’s room, from my phone, when he was not at home.

Two years and nearly 200 devices later, my home knows which rooms are occupied, who is home, when to open the garage door, when to monitor the premises, when to dim the lights as we like when watching TV, when the clothes and dishes are washed, when we work from home or in the office to adjust the temperature accordingly.

And all, thanks to SmartThings’ little hub that cost me 99 dollars. One of the best investments I’ve ever made, not only because it gave us comfort and convenience but also a mostly enjoyable hobby.

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Agreed on all the above posts. My goal was Star Trek, my reality is SmartThings and Alexa. Goal Met!

Except the wooshing doors…

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BTW: door openers are easy, they’re just expensive. There are a lot of them on the market for people in wheelchairs, although I don’t know of any to integrate directly with SmartThings.

The most important thing is to understand the number of safety features you need for an automatic door. It has to work when the power is out. It has to be slow enough not to kill somebody who gets hit by it, but fast enough that it doesn’t drive people walking through it crazy. A safe speed is going to be about the same as waiting for your garage door to open.

Drive has one for $300 that doesn’t require any wiring (think roomba with a groove in the middle of the door goes in ) And has its own motion sensor option, but it’s super super slow.

Skylink has several different models for between $200 and $500 that are very popular. They have pocket button remotes which you could hack pretty easily. These are nicely engineered and are very popular for people in wheelchairs.

They also have a pushbutton control that goes with the door opener, again probably hackable. Certainly easy to build an actuator that would push this.

You guys know how I am about safety features: if you want to hack a door opener, start with the skylink. :wink:

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You can do that with an aeon doorbell and Core, make it make the sound each time a contact sensor opens. This is useful to drive your family crazy. Right up @bamarayne’s alley.

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Even better…

http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/e9b8/

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Holy shat JD, that’s not a door chime, that’s birth control.

100% proven effective.

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Dude… I’m so going broke with this hobby…

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This hobby freakin rocks!

I just installed my last set of Osram gardenspot mini’s a few minutes ago… My house is the coolest in the neighborhood! I can’t wait for the next holiday!!! My blooms light up the gables, phillips strip lights in the windows, and the gardenspots out front!

There are so many things I still want to get done in the house… I’m really working on the programming… tweaking and getting it just right. I finally got the master bedroom just right. The lights come on when you are exactly 1 - 2 steps from the door!

Oh, and the bathroom lights! Holy crap I just made some cool stuff. I go in there in the morning and the lights are dim… I take a shower which wakes me up and when I step out the lights all go up a bit. Then when I leave they go back to the setting for whatever mode the house is in… even if the mode changed while I was in the room… I’m lovin IOT!

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Tell, me about it. I keep untracking the deals category but somehow I end up ‘stealing’ best deals. Soon my garage will look like @bamarayne s garage!

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Smartthings got my whole family interested in home automation.

Before Smartthing I had nests, wemo switches/sensors and a standalone alarm system. I was the only one programming them and using them remotely and none really cared.

Now the kids use echo to control lights/TV and enjoy event/time based voice notifications, my wife loves the security features including presence based alarm activation and other automations and I have fun optimizing automations and increasing energy efficiency of our home. We are ready for the future!

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My wife likes the announcements when folks arrive at the house (presence). That and when the baby is sleeping and someone arrives they get a text message telling them she is asleep and to come in through the garage… which just happens to have opened for them as they were reading the text.

She also likes being able to tell Alexa to announce dinner time, or tell the kids to go to bed, or to come downstairs, or bring down the laundry or a bunch of other things.

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Did I mention the Star Trek panel can play either the door whoosh sound or the red alert sound? And it has a motion sensor on both sides?

just sayin’… :wink:

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Well, seeing as I haven’t gotten my hub or any devices yet (that’s the plan for Saturday)…it’s affected me by sucking away my time as I search, browse, search again, and read about all the possibilities…

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Oh, you ain’t seen nothing yet!

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Speaking of… I need two of the Osram Gardenspot mini 3 foot extensions… have you seen any deals on them?