My Home Automation Addiction

I literally have a box full of stuff sitting in the garage


I automated everything in the guest room, 7 devices. That room isn’t even used!

I bought a hue iris two days ago simply because my wife wanted a green porch light


I bought a $3.00 green cfl bulb, but couldn’t pass on the iris at 50% off


I’m up over 150 physical devices now
 Lol

I love my addiction!

Well I guess you will soon find out just how true that statement is. If you really did eat all those Reese’s cups or not.

How many other people mounted a motion sensor and string of Hue lights on the bottom of the microwave so they light up the cooktop when you reach in to turn on the stove or put a pan on a burner ?

I haven’t done it yet, but I’m going to!

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I’m glad I’m not the only one who buys stuff they don’t use. Right now I am looking at 4 hue light strips, a box full of devices, and I have 6 hue bulbs and one hue bloom all in my bedroom. It’s a sickness! I need help! :wink:

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We must be like those extreme couponers with a pantry full of food and household goods, except we specialize in HA stuff. We’re just hoping one day to find a place to put them all to good use just so we can buy more stuff especially when there are deals to be had!

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I am not one of those who thinks that service dogs are psychic. Highly attuned to us, very observant, absolutely. But seriously, I think my dog is starting to show signs of a home automation addiction. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye::dog:

So the service dog trainer was over this afternoon and we were working on left and right with the flic buttons and it was going OK. Not great. And he sort of paused and just stared at her. And she says to me, “I think maybe he wants a bigger button.”

And coincidentally, this announcement came out this morning.

Which, no. He’s been doing just fine with the flic buttons for months. He just wants new stuff. :wink:

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It’s kinda a “funny but sad” type of thing isn’t it?

My most recent addiction was Iris motion sensors. I mean
c’mon!..the form factor alone makes it so much more useful than that ugly ST block of a sensor.

Every time i replaced the old with the new i got some sort of trivial satisfaction that the appearance was much more appealing. As it turned out they perform better too!


but what do i do with my ugly block sensors?..hmmmm
Aha!..off to the closets and garage they go!

It cracks me up! I laugh at myself as i feel I’m recycling or being “thrifty”
as if!

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My dogs don’t seem to care, but I know 2 of the cats are addicted. The cute little Iris PIR are NOT pet immune. Hence the cats all know the lights in the kitchen are supposed to turn on when they walk in. I sat here the other night watching the cat sitting in the kitchen doorway " playing with the lights" . Take a couple steps forward, lights come on take a step back and sit down. Wait for the lights to shut off and then repeat. During one of the " dark times" a couple weeks ago the lights did not come on, the cat stopped right in her tracks , looked up at the lights then turned and stared at me with a puzzled WTF look on her face .

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Home automation industry have seen a lot of growth especially in the past couple of years. There are smart door locks were you can unlock the door with the help of a key, it can even detect the owner’s presence via the bluetooth connection in your cellphone. Various Biometrics options like voice or retinal scans and even facial recognition have gone immensely popular especially while doing transactions online. Here are some articles I found online from protection plus security solution and the week that mentions some futuristic home security options http://protectionplus.ca/blog/three-futuristic-home-security-options/,http://theweek.com/articles/559371/7-futuristic-security-devices-right-now .

as far as HD or lowes deals
what do you all use to track that? Or do you just physically go to those stores all the time and notice the price cuts? I am fighting hard to not get into philips hue. Biggest issue I am having right now are all the hubs needed. ST, MyQ, Arlo, and soon the harmony hub

Do it! You won’t regret it!

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Ask in the Deals category, there are both Lowe’s and Home Depot threads there. :sunglasses::stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Ah a doh! moment. Thank you. I usually roam the slickdeals areas, but this way they are very specific. I subscribed to them thanks!

Muted it immediately! You don’t want to end up like @bamarayne with a garage full of toys that you never get ro play with. Mine is getting there too. Talking about HA addiction, that category trumps it all, trust me.

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I’ve had a pretty productive couple days, got almost 1/2 of 1 shelf of 1 rack of HA " deals" installed this week.

If you don’t care about Homekit compatibility you can still find some really good close out deals on Hue kits with V1 hubs. Biggest difference with V2 is promise of HomeKit.

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Oh I just use SmartThings. There aren’t any benefits to ST with the v2 hub?

I beg to differ. Zwave plus, more devices and some local processing just to name a few. And its certainly worth the extra 30 bucks when your going to spend thousands on a system. I thought I would start small in 2 months I have over 99 devices. Almost every light switch swapped, all windows covered, auto door locks, motion sensors, cameras, and few smart bulbs. Only reason I don’t have all switches is because they lack a nuturel wire.

Oh and both garage door openers!!

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An update: A generous friend sent my dog a gift of the Logitech pop button starter kit. I have to say it works well, and my dog did learn to use the new buttons in just two or three trials as opposed to the flics which took several days of training.

So dog wins again. :wink:

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What are you and dog doing with them?

Haven’t decided yet. :sunglasses::dog:

The gift included three buttons. They are easy to put on the wall or on the table.

We spent the first day just figuring out what the buttons can do and whether they were dog-friendly.

One nice feature is that the pop buttons can control Hue lights locally and SmartThings devices cloud to cloud and trigger and IFTTT recipes all with one push. That is, you can mix IFTTT recipes in with your other devices as a group.

But there is a noticeable lag of about two seconds for any of the cloud activities. The Hues are much faster. I haven’t tested it with the harmony hub yet.

At our house, the main purpose for buttons like this is to do something that we would normally ask echo to do but for whatever reason we want to do it more quietly. Or more quickly.

Anyway, we have lots of actions we might use it for, I just need to figure out exactly which ones. :sunglasses:

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