Hi all, I hope this is in the right place.
I am looking to start up grading my homeup to a smart home. I live in a busy home with 4 kids, I want to be able to monitor their web, gaming activity and safety and set up parental controls and access. I also want to be able to control lights heating etc to cut down my electric use to save money but also to make my home more eco friendly and reduce our carbon footprint. Is there a website or app that i can use to design/create my own smart home on.
I already have a few Samsung items, so will be using the the samsung hub as the basis of my system so items must be compatible with that.
Are you looking for something with floorplan views? Or just something that would suggest devices based on the problems you want to solve?
Meanwhile, the following topic might be of interest, especially if you’re looking for inspiration:
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There’s no app. But it sounds like you want a lot of things. Personally, I recommend starting with a good network infrastructure.
The Asus 5300 will do about 1/2 of what you want. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-ac5300-tri-band-wireless-ac-gigabit-router-black/5008900.p?id=bb5008900
But if you really want control over the network, you can individually specify firewall rules (turn internet on and off) and get a ton of meterics using a firewall (plugins provide web pages). The firewall goes between the modem and the router. It’s really powerful but requires a bit of learning about networking.
https://store.pfsense.org/SG-2220/
If you go with the firewall route, you can set up a DNS server and specify that as the DNS for all of the kids devices using an alias. Then you can block certain websites (youtube) or download a preset list. The firewall will be able to block ads for you and other things on its own.
After that, set up your smart devices based on cost and availability.