My home automation project is paused because of FedEx

Wiki Projects & Stories
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So according to FedEx, my shipments from my Amazon seller, and Ikea were both delivered at 3:07 P.M. yesterday. According to my 3 Ring cameras, and the Ring camera from one neighbor, and the Nest camera from another, there was no FedEx delivery vehicle on our block all day yesterday.

And no goodies to be had or installed…

I initiated a lost delivery claim with FedEx immediately (I was on the phone with them by 4:30, there were people home at the time fo the claimed delivery etc…

Oh and FWIW, at least UPS / Amazon deliveries send you a pic of the item on your porch to prove it was there… FedEx, no soap.

Ikea was a royal pain to get through to, but once I did, they agreed to go ahead and reship my missing items, 5 Ikea Tradfri smart plugs, and they are refunding my shipping fee of $9.00.

The Amazon seller is being cooprative, but is pending the FedEx missing package investigation service. I have informed them of the video footage available for review so we will see how they respond to that.

The missing items there are 8 A19 Sylvania Smart + Dimmable cool white 60 watt equivalent bulbs.

I was clued into @TheSmartestHouse and the sale they are having on the Zooz (?) dimmable smart Zwave switches. I went ahead and ordered the switches i Need from them, 3 of them for now, at a great bargain price of $24.99 each. Nice…

I bet this will all come in at the same time and leave me scrambling to install.

The good thing is that for now, moving forward once these are installed, I can automate all but 3 visible from outside the home lights, and those spaces WILL have visible lighting managed by the smart plugs. So when configured, with an alarm event being triggered, the sirens (for now excluding the sirens on the Ring cameras) and lighting visible from the outside of the house, including lights visible through all windows, will come on. Which is one of my highest priorities with the automation / security project.

It is frustrating however, waiting on these items to be delivered, especially after I had thought the waiting was over for at least the smart plugs and bulbs…

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That blows. I know how it feels to be waiting on items and then they don’t arrive when their supposed to. Hope you get it worked out.

What rule engine are you planning on using? If not webCoRE, then now would be a great time to get it installed and read up on how to use it. It’s awesome and has means for backing up and copying rules.

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I am on the ADT SmartThings Security Hub and am using ADT Tools 2 for my light / siren actions. These are additions to already implemented lights / sirens…

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I had the hardest time forever with Amazon’s delivery service. There is a house around the corner about 200 ft away that has the same street number as ours that the delivery driver kept being directed to by whatever mapping service they use. After 3 customer service calls, i finally got directed to the right department at Amazon and was able to get their map updated.

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The problem is that my house number is the same on about 4 similarly named streets in my neighborhood. So to pull a bit of a BS name but give you an idea, let’s say I live at 120 Chesterwood street.

In my neighborhood there would be 120 Christerwood, 120 Chesterglen, and 120 Chesterdown streets.

So if the driver isn’t paying attention, I have about a 25% chance of getting my deliveries.

For the most part they get it right, but when they mess up, they really mess up. The problem is USPS, and UPS are both pretty good at admitting their delivery people messed up. FedEx on the other hand won’t admit to any problem on their part and say I need to report a theft due to porch pirates, even though I have proof they never delivered. I hate to have to argue this out, and honestly would NEVER use FedEx if I was given the choice.

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I’ve had the same issues with FedEx but no problems with UPS or Amazon delivery service. FedEx actually delivered three big heavy boxes of dishes to a neighbor a couple houses down the street that I was waiting on for Thanksgiving. And those people just happen to be on vacation that week or out of town. I filed a missing packages claim and they made me file three separate claims because there was three separate boxes with three separate tracking numbers. It was a PITA. Then two days later I was letting my dog out in the morning and I just happened to notice the three boxes on my neighbor’s porch. Walked over and sure enough they’re my dishes. Correct name and address, just delivered to the wrong house.

Probably looked a little weird a dude taking three heavy boxes off of a neighbor’s porch at 6:30 in the morning but whatever. I try my hardest to not use FedEx if I actually want to get something.