Your Christmas Wishlist of Devices!

I have the next size up in my kitchen and everyone loves it. I have an NFC tag on the fridge, so all we do we swipe the phone and have our fave radio station playing. In the good ol’ days when the dogs were barking using TTS, that speaker served us all kinds of reminders, from the laundry is done to don’t forget to take the trash out. Maybe one day, when @slagle seals the deal for the new TTS its glory days will come back!

Check out this prank on Tim :smile:

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@mxrugg …these are the good ol’days I am talking about…:smile:

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Your assessment looks good. :sunglasses:

As far as video for the front door, the following topic has a lot of discussion. Different things work for different people. Skybell has just this week added an IFTTT channel, which improves the possibilities for integration with SmartThings. In my own case, I got the Kuna and I’m very happy with it even though it doesn’t integrate with anything else. But it just happened to fit what I needed.

As far as Sonos, many people have them and really like them. They have some unique technologies.

As you search the forums, it’s very important to know that Smartthings originally used a TTS (“text to speech”) service that allowed you to create pretty much any spoken message that you wanted to and use it with Sonos. It was very popular and worked for about a year.

Then, something happened. A lot of rumors about what it was but in any case the end result was the only messages that had been created during the previous time period Could still be used. It didn’t mean you had to have created that message, just that it had to already be somewhere in some database that smartthings was accessing. But there was no way to create a brand-new message.

We still don’t know for sure if that was a technical issue or a business partnership issue or what but it continues to be a problem today. In fact some of the original smart apps were withdrawn from the marketplace.

All of which means you can find a lot of old topics and videos talking about doing things that can no longer be done with the current system. So you just need to be aware Of that while you’re doing your research. But that’s what community members are talking about when they talk about TTS.

Yea I understand I have had SmartThings for a long time although wasn’t a kickstarter so yea! I just got very busy with work for awhile now and HA fell into a hole that was buried which I’m now trying to dig back up with a bit of vacation that I have now haha!

@fstbusa thanks for the video, it will help tremendously for setting up the messages!

@JDRoberts yea that thread you mentioned was the one that I was following and even posted a few times in there wondering about Kuna as that looks incredibly tempting but just that upfront cost of around $330 to get 2 light fixtures (1 with camera, one without) is holding me back as my wife will not allow different fixtures there. To make matters even worseeeeee, we have 2 additional fixtures by the garage as well so that’s a total of 4 fixtures that would need to look the same and ouchhhh, adding all that up, not worth it :frowning:

The custom message video is one of the old TTS ones. That smartapp is no longer available.

Ahhh yea! Guess I didn’t look into it enough, sorry! From checking out the link you mentioned it seems that @SergioDJ posted a solution by setting up a new SmartApp and using the SmartThings “Speaker Notify with Sound” template for a new app that “seems” to fix the issue so that custom messages can now be stated (aka Laundry done) when a sensor has not detected vibration anymore?

Earlier in the thread before @SergioDJ mentioned his post, @SBDOBRESCU had concerns about not using anything else until SmartThings brings back the official application so is this the official one you guys are referring to?

There is another app mentioned in the last post but just wondering your guys opinions since you actually have SONOS speakers haha!

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EDIT: Nevermind.
And 20 characters

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Nevermind, it doesn’t work or neverming, you don’t want to share it does. …ha, ha, ha!

I don’t want to share that it works.

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I just got confused lol.

All I see from your previous post is…

I retracted my statement to preserve my ST ecosystem

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You can still install the Sonos Notification from ide, and you may be able to even set new messages, although as JD mentioned earlier, some messages are playing if they have been cached at one point in the past, before the service broke. I have had success with both, but is not a long term solution as sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. My family became dependant on some of the reminders and when it doesn’t work, we forget to do things. So untill it’s officially fixed, I decided to not invest time in this. Most likely when the official app comes back, there will be changes so you’d need to start over.

This is what I am doing.
I have multiple messages that work, custom messages. I’ve only had my ST setup for a few weeks.

Has anyone tried what @SergioDJ mentioned in the link that @JDRoberts provided to see if it works with your SONOS or no?

That might be something completely different though!

There are several options, I know @ule did a lot of work, but honestly I didn’t have time to try them.

A lot changed for me this year as we moved houses and during the transition I decided to move from Wink to ST. (Yes my purchase agreement stipulated taking the connected themostat and lock with me). Since getting the ST v2 hub I have invested even more.
I had to swap my myq win the move so the linear garage door opener will be under the tree for me. I also convinced someone to get me a z wave door lever for my garage service door ( I plan to incorporate this into me ‘off to work’ habit). I am also hoping for the harmony home hub and remote. I already have a harmony one but the touchscreen delay is really (unnecessarily so) bothering me, and the HA buttons onboard do not hurt.

I am also looking for Alexa under the tree so I can incorporate spoken commands. I am mostlooking forward to harmony + Alexa integration.

January might be an interesting month at our house as the wife gets on board with all the change that is about to happen. I am so looking forward to next week.

And because I couldn’t help myself I got the Osram LED strip to add to the kitchen cabinets while I am off next week (and the wife is at work).

And now I am reading that some of you have LED strips on the bottom of your beds. I am so close to another Amazon order…

I have a problem. And I blame all of you.

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I highly highly recommend Alexa and never put it on my list above because I already have it hehe! She, wow calling a machine a she haha, can control about all the lights in most of house as well as with the help of the community (mostly @MichaelS with his SmartApp) she is also able to trigger routines such as “Bedtime”. Some of that is just as easy with your phone app but the idea is to eliminate the need on a phone app “around the house” and use your voice as my wife is definitely not going to use her phone to turn on the kitchen haha!

Hardest part with Alexa is adapting to not hitting the light switches to turn the bulbs off. There are the zwave wall outlets but I believe they require a neutral wire which we don’t have everywhere and I know one can be put in but yea! There are also switch guards to put on top of the switches to prevent accidental toggling of the switches but those can be crazy expensive for the magnetic ones that you can take off if need be (instead of using screws)…least what I saw was around $5 each which is ouch!

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I second the vote for Alexa. It’s now the main method of on demand light control at our house. Everybody likes it.

We use childproof switch locks to remind people not to use the switches except in an emergency. I got my switch locks at Home Depot in a pack of 6 for $5. No magnets, they use screws. But you can find them at a variety of price points if you look around. :sunglasses:

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Yea I’m looking for the magnet ones and that’s where they get you unfortunately! :frowning:

It’s already hard enough convincing my wife to use Alexa to control the lights and if I took the approach or using the switch locks held in with screws I think that might make her a tiny bit more upset! These things take time to get used to so figured the magnetic ones would work haha!