My aunt was visiting for a few days and ended up getting to my place way earlier than expected. I was at work, couldnt leave right away and she had to sit outside with her luggage until i could get home. Felt pretty bad about the whole thing, especially since she called me like 4 times asking how much longer id be 😭

Now im thinking about getting a smart lock so i can let family in from my phone when something like this happens again. id still want a regular key as backup because i dont trust myself to remember to charge or change batteries. The whole point is avoiding another situation where someone has to wait outside for me.

For those who have smart locks, has the remote unlock ever failed when you needed it? thats the one thing holding me back from getting one.

Hey! I have ASD but am v good at masking. Recently I realised I was really overwhelmed and I want to work to make my life easier. I love systems for efficiency or making lil changes, but i am new here and feel there’s things I am not thinking of.

If anyone has any suggestions for someone who wants to start implying more things like this in their house of what worked for them or etc etc.

I am looking for an outswing automated door opener that meets the following criteria:

• Activates with a fob or button.
• Allows people to open the door even without the fob (manually by pulling)
• Has hardware that will not be visible on the outside of the door.
• Ideally under $200 and available in the U.S.A. Used would be fine as this is for a home project.

I don't have wiring running to the location but could figure something out, though ideally no major wiring requirements. The door is light and mostly hollow core, so it doesn't need much power behind it.

I used to run nest protect. After it got discontinued, I swapped in a set of x-sense smart smoke and CO alarms, and they got put to work pretty quick.

Last week, I was out of state for work when my phone lit up with a push notification that an alarm was sounding. The app showed which unit. Nobody was home, and I was hundreds of miles away, so before that, I'd have just sat there stressing.

But now I have an optional fire dispatch add on. After the alert, I asked my neighbor to check the place. He confirmed something had been smoking in the house, then I just needed to confirm the fire in the app. Not long after, the monitoring side called and sent a truck. I feel lucky that I have this setting rather than just hoping a neighbor noticed.

A few months ago I bought a Shelly Gen4 Presence sensor, direct from their store on Aliexpress.

It worked well, though I noticed it did occasionally run VERY warm.

While it was being powered off the USB-A port on a multi port USB charger, the charger has always worked perfect well and delivered consistent voltages. I needed to use a longer USB cable (2.5m) to reach the area I was placing it, and as such it looks like there was a slight amount of voltage drop on the cable, but nothing crazy, and it seemed to be working fine until the day I stumbled upon it's smoking corpse.

Shelly are now fighting me on this and claiming that just because my charger can do 100w using a usb-c to usb-c cable, they are confused and think it's somehow possible for it to do 100w over a usb-a to usb-c cable, despite the attached picture of a USB multimeter demonstrating that port / cable delivering.... 4.87W!

They also tried to claim that the 5v/1A charger spec in the specifications of the sensor was a maximum amperage for the charger 🤦 This seems laughable to me, as I don't recall the last time I ever saw a 1A USB charger for sale, and it's my understanding that a device will only draw as much current as neccesary.

Edit: I just noticed on THEIR website they recommend a multi port 65w GaN USB charger...

https://www.shelly.com/products/shelly-presence-gen4-white? - On the right with 'pair with'

I've also seen a number of other complaints of these running very warm, and suspect it may not be an isolated issue. It was kept in an air conditioned environment, away from any direct sunlight or other sources of heat.

Bought a new fridge recently and first week no matter what we did it was too hard when scooping ice cream we bumped the degrees up one degree twice. Then our ice cream was like melted as scooped it out too soft. We left the 48 return window for appliances. Bought a govee temperature sensor and now we need to know what looks normal so we know if we need to return a fridge again because we are still getting constant fluctuation though not as big. I did put one in our outdoor freezer and it stayed within a degree the whole time so the 5+ without us opening anything is concerning. But maybe I need more data? Please help.

I am setting up motion-activated lighting in two rooms and want to run my plan by this sub to see if I am missing better options, especially since my house runs on Google Home.

For the utility room, I am planning on a flush-mounted WiZ SuperSlim ceiling light paired with a WiZ battery motion sensor. Mostly because gemini offered it as an alternative to Philips.

I want it to trigger at a low brightness when I walk in, and have an option for high brightness for normal utility room business.

For the hallway, I want to keep my existing pendants, so I am looking at standard smart bulbs paired with a separate smart motion sensor linked through Google Home routines. My main concern is latency - how noticeable is the delay between detecting motion and the bulbs actually firing?

Any alternative hardware recommendations would be hugely appreciated

Like many of us im sure, this started with a small fix to replace the drive belt on this old gate motor. Next thing you know im installing a wifi controller, connecting it to my ring cameras, auto closing based off my phone location, and auto open/close for door dashers. Yes it was vibe coded but i am software engineer. Full details on how I did it here https://danielyaa5.github.io/gate-opener-widget/

I've been diagnosed with ADHD for almost two years now, and one thing I really struggle with is remembering to finish all the little chores around the house. Honestly, home automation has helped me a lot with this.

I usually start things with good intentions, but it's easy for me to get distracted halfway through and end up leaving a bunch of stuff unfinished. Laundry is a good example. I'll throw a load in the washer and completely forget about it, sometimes for hours. Cooking is similar. I'll finish dinner, notice the mess on the floor, tell myself I'll clean it up after eating, and then completely forget about it by the end of the night.

Recently, my husband set up a few simple automations around the house, and they've made a real difference. We get a notification when the laundry is done, the lights gradually dim at night, and our robot vacuum runs while we're both out of the house. Before we leave, I pick up any cords and small things on the floor so the robot can run without getting stuck. It mainly cleans the kitchen and dining area since those are the spots that tend to get messy the fastest. Coming home to clean floors instead of having another chore waiting for me has made my evenings a lot less stressful.

These little changes haven't completely transformed my cleaning habits, but they mean I don't have to keep so many unfinished tasks in the back of my mind all day. Maybe our home automation isn't perfect yet, but it's already made a real difference in my everyday life.

Just bought a ring doorbell. I have an android phone and lots of Google home speakers. Is there still no way to make Google home chime when the doorbell is pressed. Seems we should have some workaround, hopefully

Hey,
our Kasa Thermostats are all working fine in the whole house without adapter. Only in the living room the pin is too short to fully close the valve so it stays on even in summer mode.

The adapter which comes with it does not fit and is a tiny bit to small (the one with 2 screws at both sides). I tried to put some small piece of the pin just inside. It is partially working (valve is now closed) but its sending me an error.

What do you recommend here?

Best regards!

Hey All,

First Zooz device here and I've got a ticket open with their support but I'm trying to see if there is something wrong with my unit or if there's a firmware bug.

After powering the device on/plugging it in toggling the master/endpoint 0 entry does physically turn both outlets on/off and their status for the sub nodes (endpoints 1 and 2) change to match.

However as soon as you control either endpoint 1 or 2 directly the master toggle will still physically turn them on and off, but the status no longer matches reality on the sub entries, until you power cycle the unit.

Anyone else seeing this behavior?

Hello everyone, I am working on a project to build a connected house. I have two goals: controlling my house through voice (I have some Philips Hue lights, for example) and listening to music. For the moment I just did some search related to Google but if you have recommandation it will be very appreciated !

For Google I am strugc Audio and the Home s supported on the Nest conversation will com the Nest Audio does n problem, as I am just the audio quality of the given that technical reviews suggest the Nest Audio is better?

Hello. I am looking for a way to integrate blink public charger in home assistant so that it can notify when charger becomes available. Or maybe if someone is familiar with other way to get notifications? The app doesn’t have this option to notify the user about the charger availability unless you keep checking from time to time.

We just bought a house and are planning some renovations. We want to take down the old blinds and replace them with motorized ones.

The main thing I’m stuck on is whether to open up the walls and run cables for PoE shades. The wiring quote is within our budget, but I’m not sure how much difference it would make compared with battery-powered shades in everyday use.

I’ve seen SmartWings recommended quite a bit here, so they’re on my list. Are their PoE shades worth doing the extra wiring for, or would battery powered ones be enough?

Thanks for the advice!

I just moved into a new place, and a lot of my devices are connected to the internet. But the front door lock is the one thing I don't want to depend on the cloud for.

Cloud services can raise prices, get discontinued, or go down unexpectedly. I can live with my lights not working, but I can't risk being locked out of my own home.

I'm still using a regular keyed lock right now, but I'm planning to switch to a smart lock. I'm currently looking at the lockin veno series. Ideally, I want unlocking, access logs, and alarms to work locally as much as possible, without relying on a cloud platform. I'm torn between the Pro and Plus. Both of them have person and package detection features, but the Pro version has more local storage capacity.

My family is coming to stay with me starting the day after tomorrow, so I'd like to get this sorted out soon. I'd appreciate any advice!