bamarayne
(Jason "The Enabler" as deemed so by @Smart)
1
Hi. My name is Jason. I’m a Home Automation Junkie…
I would like to say that I have no intention of curing my addiction. I am only going to feed it.
I have a good job, and I’m dedicating a portion of my earnings to Home Automation.
I am proud to say that my wife is my #1 enabler.
Tonight, she asked me if there was some way to automate the garage door so that she can get a text message to let her know that it was closed. And, that she could look on her phone and see that it was not left open when she goes to bed.
I responded that there most certainly is a way to do this.
I am now the proud owner of a NuTone NGD00Z Smart Z-Wave Enabled Garage Door Controller.
Lucky you!! Too many of us here do you have a very high SAF.
I will say that my wife is has been slightly more approving than I suspected of my HA addiction. She’s not a technophobe, not at all… but she’s also someone who does NOT embrace the bleeding edge of tech like many of us here! Her general philosophy is: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” She doesn’t see a need to change things as long as they generally work well enough. It one of the main reasons I’ve focused on switches vs. bulb in my house. If she didn’t have the ability to manually turn things on or off when the HA wasn’t doing it’s job, or just not doing it fast enough, she wouldn’t be happy.
That said, I have been surprised at some of the things that she actually LIKES and would be upset about losing. I’m sharing these here in case others anticipate low SAF: These are some of the things that she’s actually LIKED, and might be good things for you to look at if you want to expand your setup.
Z-wave lock. I was expecting a lot of concern like what if someone guesses the code? But surprisingly this was one of her favorite additions for three reasons: First, she likes to go for walks with the dog and hated having to stuff a key somewhere in her workout clothes. Being able to punch in a code appealed to here. Second, having the codes meant that the kids could always get in or we could too if we accidentally locked ourselves out. Third, setting the lock to auto lock after 30 seconds she always knew that the door was locked.
Voice announcements. Currently I use Ubi for this, but any of the Text-to-Speech solutions should work. She likes having voice announcements of certain things. For example when either of us come home there’s an announcement that we’ve arrived. I also have voice announcements (in addition to texts) if a garage has been left open too long. Or at night when we got to bed there’s an announcement if we’ve left any doors or windows open.
Power allowance for specific devices. She hates lights or electronics left on when not needed, but at the same time I’m lazy and hate to get up to plug or unplug things. SmartThings lets me cheat with a lot of this stuff… everything from turning off lights that I left on in the kitchen and dinning room or more “advanced” things like plugging my laptop power cord into a module so I can leave it plugged in but have the module cut power after 2 hours automatically. I’ve also connected my kids radios and lights in their rooms up with a similar “time out” setup so that if they leave the lights on or when they are listening to music at night and fall asleep those things will turn off automatically.
So those are the things that for me have attained the highest SAF numbers. I guess I’d encourage others who don’t have such a nice setup like @bamarayne here to post their biggest successes as we can all learn the best way to increase our collective SAF!
Smartlock had the highest xAF at our house. everybody sees it as having an immediate practical advantage for them. Nobody saw it as a toy like some of the other stuff.
My wife was the one that suggested having the outdoor lights on at night whenever either of us were coming home late. She was also the one who suggested some sort of notification for when the laundry was done.
I forgot about my Nest products. The thermostat was like me coming home with a diamond necklace. Same for the Protects. We have high ceilings on the main floor, and one day while I was away she called almost crying because our old smoke detectors wouldn’t turn off.
everybody sees it as having an immediate practical advantage for them. Nobody saw it as a toy like some of the other stuff.