set the channel description: all about smart home and/or iot
Starting this channel cause I didn't see an existing channel for smart home related discussions.
I just got smart plugs and I love them, despite how basic they are. Been trying to connect my existing home technologies like alexa, cameras, speakers, xmas lights, and tv to automate things. Wondering if anyone here has any experience in this space because it seems a bit intimidating getting into it
I don't have any experience either although I'm really looking forward to making my house super smart someday. Just haven't gotten super into it and probably won't until I buy a house. Excited to have a place to talk about it though!
Same. It would be cool if smart outlets had APIs and you could script shit with them 😬
I bet some of them already do. I also think it would be cool just to replace all of the outlets in the wall with smart outlets. That definitely adds a certain degree of permanence though haha
@keenin a lot of smart home hubs allow that! SmartApps from SmartThings comes to mind, as well as a custom IFTTT applet
Yea, I was thinking along the lines of IFTTT. I'm gonna have to look into that!
The website The Ambient seems to be dedicated to all things Smart Home
Those are the exact ones I got! Guess I'm getting two more lol
Bummer all the Seattle locations are already soldout
Damn, tried to post it as soon as I realized what it was. If you guys aren't set up to get the text alerts for the treasure truck, you might want to consider it. There have been a couple pretty cool items that have made it worth it for me.
I get the texts I just don't look at my phone as much as my computer during the day, so I saw your notification first 🙂
I was able to place an order for a pickup in Ballard, so I'll grab it on my way home. Were you able to get some?
I didn't actually try 😛 I don't really know what I'd do with them at the moment.
And I'm definitely not leaving the house because I'm expecting a new Monitor to be delivered today 🤩
Yeah I don't know what I'm gonna do with these ones yet, but I'll think of something. Maybe to trigger my Keurig machine in the morning or something. My current ones are only for my xmas lights. It's nice not walking around the place to turn on/off each set of lights. Now it's just a click of a button in my app, or voice control with Alexa. But since yesterday I just have IFTTT trigger them on when I get home, and off when I leave.
Voice control is an extra nice-to-have, but not needed. All the smart stuff uses apps primarily, and then Alexa can just be enabled to talk to those apps for you.
Curious to see how its wakeword recognition would perform vs Amazon and Google. Doesn't just shift the risk of false wakewords onto this little device rather than Amazon/Google?
Is the point of this thing just to have different wake words that are less common so the device doesn't listen?
It also omits emits white noise into the mic by default and only stops when it hears your wake word.
Sounds like it is prone to the same security concerns as the devices themselves.
Yea, even more so honestly. What if it learns that and is the wake word...
🤔 Wouldn't you just be able to recognize that it thinks and is the wake word and change it? This device is meant to be kind of silly, but I think the point is that it offers a non-cloud based solution to actively "muting" your smart devices when they aren't in use. Now, regardless of whether the company is being honest about whether the mic is on or not, you are masking the signal. You only become prone to eavesdropping if the Alias software mistakenly hears your wake word which is still an improvement from being vulnerable 100% of the time.
Also, it's open source, uses tensorflow (cool), and there are instructions for building it yourself with a raspberry pi and 3d printer (obviously optional) if you feel like making a fun project out of it. Here's the GitHub:
It's good to be skeptical of the tech, but I honestly don't see how this little add-on for your device does anything but reduce security concerns.
I could see that. My discrepancy comes from the article not explicitly saying you can tell it which word you want as the wake word.
It just says it learns it. Not sure if that means it could learn anything to wake the device or if it just learns to understand different enunciations of the same word. The latter would make more sense.
@keenin the article implies you can set the wakeword:
When you utter your chosen word, it prompts the Alias to whisper, “Hey Google,” to activate the assistant. And then Alias goes quiet, allowing you to communicate with Google or Amazon as you normally would.
You can train the Alias through local machine learning (no cloud here!) to learn how to wake the assistant to a unique keyword, disabling the static.And then:
Alias lets you train it to recognize “Hey Jim” or “Pizza party!” or whatever else you imagine.
I agree it seems like you are able to choose it, but they are also throwing terms around that imply it's not so straight forward.
Did you guys see the Training Alias section of the github? It explains how to train it and says you can use anything from a phrase to a random noise and reset it at any time.
This name does not necessarily need to be a word but can be a sound and any language. So be creative! You can always reset your name on the menu.You can also train it multiple times with multiple words or from different parts of the room.
Tip: it helps to record the name from different locations in your home.
@brandon Sorry - gonna pick apart your earlier comment a bit. I typed out my reply but Slack says it is too long. Breaking it up...
@brandon
I think the point is that it offers a non-cloud based solution to actively "muting" your smart devices when they aren't in use.
Alexa & Google Home devices use local processing for wakeword detection - no cloud involved. Otherwise there would be a continuous stream of audio being sent to servers. Local WW detection is used to determine when to start sending to servers for processing. It has to happen locally for all practical purposes ($$, and collecting all audio is a huge liability - we don't want data we don't need). This is why when your device isn't connected to the internet, it still responds to the wakewords (saying "hey i'm not connected"). This is also why only a handful of wakewords are available for you to use. Wakeword detection modeling is done with dedicated/hosted compute for these provided WW options and then the trained model and software to detect the wakeword simply resides on the device itself. No custom WW model training is provided on the device software (you can though do "voice training" which improves WW and ASR for your voice, but this simply tailors the existing model to your voice). This is the biggest different with this product here - it has model training software locally ,allowing you to train a new model for your wakeword of choice. I'm skeptical that its out-of-the-box model training capabilities using raspberry pi can provide better wakeword detection with lower false wake rates than Amazon or Google, but still neat for DIY-ers nonetheless.
@brandon
Now, regardless of whether the company is being honest about whether the mic is on or not, you are masking the signal.
1. The mic is always on for all these devices unless you manually press the mute button, which is a hardware implementation. Audio streams are processed (locally) to determine if your wakeword was said. If the model identifies a spoken wakeword, that is when it begins streaming the audio to servers for actual Alexa processing. It stops streaming once audio is no longer detected.
2. Masking the signal only matters now because the Alexa device now has two chances to actually begin recording you:
* the custom wakeword you specify and train with this Alias device
* the actual device wakeword (depends on how effective the whitenoise/static is at deafening the mic)
@brandon
You only become prone to eavesdropping if the Alias software mistakenly hears your wake word...
How is this different from the experience without the Alias device? Before it was only if the Alexa device accidentally detects your wakeword, but now instead it is if the Alias software detects your wakeword (and I argue that there are two chances now for a false wake). And I really think that Amazon/Google wakeword detection technology would beat this raspberry pi technology.
...which is still an improvement from being vulnerable 100% of the time.
How is anyone vulnerable 100% of the time with these Amazon/Google devices? The wakeword detection on them is done locally, just like the wakeword detection on the Alias device. In both cases your non-wakeword streams are processed locally on the device itself and then discarded when no wakeword is detected.
@brandon
Also, it's open source, uses tensorflow (cool), and there are instructions for building it yourself
Agreed. This is very cool DIY.
It's good to be skeptical of the tech, but I honestly don't see how this little add-on for your device does anything but reduce security concerns.
While it may help reduce security concerns, I'm not convinced it actually increases security. One could argue that it actually makes security more of a concern since:
* now there are two wakewords that could trigger false wakes
* you're betting that this Alias ML software has a lower false wake rate than Amazon/Google
Still cool, though. Just throwing out my 2 cents.
As a member of the Alexa team, I would totally expect you to have this knowledge and opinion. Totally fair and I think you make sound points. But this is totally targeted toward those people that
• absolutely don't believe a word you just said
• don't trust companies with their data
• and want more control over their privacy.
Arguably, these people shouldn't have the device in the first place but again, this is kind of a quirky fun project rather than an actual marketable product. They don't even sell them anywhere and aren't trying to!
As a side note, the argument about having two wake words instead of one is kind of pointless in my opinion since you are implying that the product doesn't work as defined (the whole point is that it disables the mic, otherwise it's just a hat for your Alexa). Using that line of reasoning, I could also imply that the Alexa device doesn't work as you have defined above as well.
Yeah, I'm for sure a lot more confident/vocal in this space than people who aren't in it. lol @ the first bullet point
I understand that it's not being marketed/sold right now, but for the sake of conversation... for bullet points two and three: isn't trust just being shifted from Amazon/Google to Alias? Wouldn't people have the same trust concerns with this other tech company/product?
As a side note, the argument about having two wake words instead of one is kind of pointless in my opinion since you are implying that the product doesn't work as defined (the whole point is that it disables the mic, otherwise it's just a hat for your Alexa). Using that line of reasoning, I could also imply that the Alexa device doesn't work as you have defined above as well.
• Sure, by arguing a risk of now having two wakewords I do express concerns over the effectiveness of its claims to deafen the Amazon/Google device. But all these device makers (Alias included) claim that audio streams are only opened once a wakeword is detected - and we know they aren't correct with their detections 100% of the time. So while the deafening probably works most of the time, I'm sure you could test it sufficiently to find examples where it fails. Either way, it'd be easy enough to prove/disprove its effectiveness if we had one to try out.
• Still though, by switching to this Alias device for wakeword detection rather than using the Amazon/Google detection the user displays a belief that Alias false wake rate is lower than Amazon/Google false wake rate. If Alias wakeword detection has a higher false wakerate than Amazon/Google, you'd actually end up streaming more of your audio to Amazon/Google - not less.
Edit: not sure why Slack requires a keyboard shortcut for bullets vs normal markdown syntax
Fair enough. Only hole I'd poke is that in your last point you still assume that Amazon is only recording what you say after you have used the wake word but this product is built on the foundation that they are recording you more than that. If Amazon is only recording you when you use the wake word than this product is completely pointless since it's sole purpose is to ensure that the mic only works when the wake word is heard.
Yeah I think that's what I'm trying to drive home: this secondary device isn't needed. It's based out of distrust (paranoia?). It doesn't make sense for Amazon to record anything else except for your clear wakeword utterances directed at Alexa. Not only is it crazy expensive to process all of these audio streams, but it's also a liability for Amazon to record anything other than what the customer would want recorded.
If you want some peace of mind, you can use a network packet analyzer like Wireshark to see when Alexa sends/receives data.
Wireshark that shit. Seems easy to disprove this common misconception of companies recording unwanted utterances.
Yeah, I think at this point we're on the same page and arguing the same point. All I was trying to establish is that this is for people who think they are being listened to or are otherwise paranoid. Does it seem necessary to me? No, not really. There is no evidence that Amazon is doing this and I don't have anything to hide. You guys were just getting really caught up on the speech recognition tech which didn't make sense to me since that's not the point of the product. Obviously, Amazon is going to have superior software. The point is that this is a barrier between you and that software.
I would consider this a parallel to putting tape over your laptop camera instead of trusting that the camera is off unless you are using it or the light is on. It doesn't look as nice with tape on it but a physical/audible barrier is obviously going to be easier to understand and have confidence in.
Good discussion/debate though. Learned a thing or two about Alexa along the way.
Good point about the laptop camera I cover mine with a sticky note hahaha
And if you worked with laptop camera tech, you might think that's ridiculous!
What's your opinion on a third party hacking an Alexa device and accessing the mic or other private information. The point about laptop cameras made me realize that Amazon isn't the only potential threat, although I haven't really heard news of anyone's smart device being hijacked.
Yeah I was going to say my laptop camera concerns come from viruses/hackers rather than the makers of the laptops and cameras.
I’ve never really thought about a bad actor hacking an Alexa device. I know very little about the device hardware and software. All I know is that it’s Fire OS.
Anybody use HomeAssistant to coordinate all their smart devices? I've been using an app on my phone but it's been buggy and it's going down in a few months so I was thinking of setting up a server with HA, but idk what I'll be getting into if I go down that road.
From what I can tell, it's an open source OS you can put on something like a rasberry pi to act as a control point and communication hub for most, if not all, of your smart devices. You can also design your own UI for it. I've seen some pretty cool ones on the subreddit that shows info like which lights are on, which cars are in the garage and their gas levels, live feeds of the kids' rooms, temperature of each room, etc. And all that can be displayed on something like a wall-mounted tablet so it's controllable from a hub. The one thing I'm not sure about it is how good it is at home automation, and that's what I'm most interested in.
I've heard of it, but I don't ahve enough smart devices to make it useful 🤷♂️
Yea, me neither. But, I was thinking it may be the kinda thing that you could set up and add on to as you accumulate more. I really just need something to turn on my living room lights for me tho so maybe that's overkill
Yea that's not a bad point. It's more painful to set it up and add everything at once, rather than incrementally.
Sounds useful. What subreddit did you see it on?
Well, it has its own subreddit. Just r/homeassistant I believe. I probably saw it on r/homeautomation tho.
Nice, they are fun for sure. I'm also just kind of a fan boy at this point because the company seems to be doing lots of cool things for a cheap price. They are releasing a new product called "Sense" which seems pretty cool. They are also getting into the smart bulb game which will pair nicely with the new sense product.
@brandon you know the price point on those sensors?
I liked Wyze because they are inexpensive home cameras. They are entering a semi-crowded market with the sensors and bulbs. Curious to see how they differentiate themselves and if it is again by price, what will they leave out in terms of functionality
The $20 sense kit comes with 2 trip sensors, 1 motion sensor, and 1 wyze camera attachment thing (not sure what this is for but maybe you have to have a camera to use the sensors).
The youtube video does a good job of explaining the sensors and how you might use them if you have the time to watch it.
2 sensors for $20 is awesome. If they make it a sensor that can be used with other SH products and not just their own I'm so game
Oh yeah I'll give that vid a watch. Only saw the link and their website said the pre-sale ended. Totally missed the video...
Yeah, it's actually 3 sensors! But I doubt they support 3rd party software at this point..
Yeah, for $20 I can almost guarantee I'll be buying a kit just to play with lol
And I have one camera pointing at my front door so I can see who is there. Then just one that has a view of my living room/kitchen
Definitely will get one for this price! The video is good, but still leaves me a tad confused about the seemingly required connection to a camera for two out of the three sensors. Either way, looking forward to it.
Edit: just got to the point in the video where the explain the camera bridge to have the battery sensors piggyback off its wifi connection
I have been looking at Wyze too. They seem like such a deal! Send pictures and descriptions of your setups 😄
I pretty much just use mine as a cat cam lol However, I've also used it to keep an eye on the crock pot while I'm out or set it up downstairs if the landlord is coming by to fix something and we want to see when he's there and what he's doing. If I had a public front door I would definitely have one pointed at that 24/7 as well.
I think I would want one for a cat cam for sure haha. I like the ability to move them around easily for short-lived situations like the examples you mentioned: the crockpot and landlord.
Yeah, it's super easy. You just have to have an outlet nearby. The cord is pretty long though.
True true. Forgot about good ole IFTTT.
#RIPstringify
Yea, Stringify and IFTTT were my set up, paired with Wyze Cams and some smart outlets. Turned on my lights for me. That's why I asked about HomeAssistant, since Stringify is dying. If you guys didn't figure it out, the thing you plug into a camera is Wyze's smart things hub that lets all of their devices connect and communicate. Like you said, they're entering a crowded market, and the current market situation is a ton of different hubs. Everybody has been gravitating to a couple main brands for hubs, but I think it makes sense for Wyze to produce their own hub. They're all about doing what the big boys do for cheap, which is why I like them. I do agree that it will be nice once all smart things work together, and it's getting pretty close with things like IFTTT.
Wyze Cams aren't amazing at movement, seems like they just check for pixels changing color or something which gives a lot of false positives based on shadows and the camera's own light correction. So, I am a bit curious how a dedicated movement sensor would work.
What cams are folks using nowadays? I'm reevaluating brand for one or two exterior cams. For these I'd probably be willing to cough up the monthly subscription for additional features to make it a more full fledged security cam.
I'm looking to re-up on my home security effort. Wyze cam v3's are looking pretty sweet. Maybe even the v3 Pans.
I don’t have any at the moment. Don’t have a strong need
I got it set up in a pretty good vantage point. I don't know why I didn't do this earlier. I'm always wondering if I heard someone pull into the driveway. Now I don't have to get off my butt to check 😆
I always wonder if I am hearing someone breaking and entering through my upstairs patio maybe I should put a camera up there for peace of mind lol
Sounds like a good place for one. And they're so cheap, so it's hard to justify not doing it, especially for peace of mind. Either that, or a window sticker that indicates you own guns.
I have a nest doorbell and nest floodlight that I use outdoors, and I have the subscription that goes along with it. It's definitely more of an investment than the Wyze cams but it's also better quality (hardware and software). Both of them are hard wired instead of using outlets which I think is another differentiator. If you are ok using outlets then maybe Wyze is a better value. Also, nice yard btw! Looks beautiful!
Thanks for the update! I thought you were all wyze, so now I need to rethink things 🤔
For these I'd probably be willing to cough up the monthly subscription for additional features to make it a more full fledged security cam.What makes a camera a full fledged security camera to you? Just curious
IMO a full fledged security camera is one that does constant recording saving everything to history, rather than just recording when movement or something is detected. And also has reliable audio recording. Obviously can configure storage TTL.
Whether something like that is needed for a home idk. I’d like it. Storage costs would be the primary consideration.
I’m pretty out of touch so maybe that is already common place for smart home cameras
Also for my opinion of a full-fledged security camera, I would expect to be able to configure the remote storage location rather than be forced to use whatever the provided “cloud” solution is. Ideally all cameras would support this
I'd hope any decent camera would allow constant recording, or at least timelapses. I think I set something up that did that, and then captured a better image when it detected movement, for like $30 🤔 but reliability was the weak point there. I also didn't consider audio, I wonder what sort of external (to the camera, i.e. standalone mics) solutions there are...
would expect to be able to configure the remote storage location rather than be forced to use whatever the provided “cloud” solution is. Ideally all cameras would support thisYet another reason I'm weary of subscription services for hardware, forces some reliance on an external service. I'd prefer everything to be closed-circuit, especially if I'm wanting close to 100% up-time.
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That would be pretty cool to have throughout the house if the sound quality was decent. Granted, it's a little wasteful to have a disposable speaker but LEDs last forever anyway so it probably wouldn't be a big deal. Especially since they are so cheap regardless.
Yea I have one and it is awesome. The only issue I have is that I can't connect multiple speakers in like a net. i.e. play the same bluetooth through them all at once
Oh, I see. Yeah, I was imagining them in a net. It'll be cool once they figure that out.
I bought a pack of 4 Wyze bulbs. They are working well so far. I like that you can set the light tone (i.e. more blue or more warm/yellow) to your individual liking. I mainly got them as a security measure, to make it appear as if someone is home turning the lights on an off occasionally. They even have a “vacation mode” that does it automatically, which was a pleasant surprise.
Not really, no. Set up a few Sonos speakers for multi room music but I’d hardly call that a smart home project
Same. I've got Google home speakers on each floor and the wyze cams are paired in my Google home app too but that's it.
How do you like the Google Home multi-room music experience, @brandon? Amazon Echo speakers also had MRM, but it sucked for a couple reasons so we switched to Sonos, which is way better than Amazon - especially if you are in the Apple ecosystem. Wondering how Google Home fares.
I've been happy with it. The speaker quality varies depending on the model you have. From best to worst sound, I have the home, nest, and mini. I can create speaker groups and there doesn't really seem to be any delay from what I can tell. I also just like them because they double as assistants (turn on/off lights, play/pause netflix, set timers, etc). What was your beef with the Echo MRM?
michael is so paranoid and hates google, he has officially removed using any of their products
he uses a razor (not motorola) phone and idk what os he uses. some open source thing
@brandon regarding Echo MRM: I had a Sonos beam as our only living room speaker. It only worked with our other echos in mrm via our FireTV stick. This is a newish feature and it SUCKS. You have to manually adjust the audio delay for each song so your speakers are in sync. What a crap experience lol. Also we use Apple Music and we couldn’t simply use Airplay to stream to the speaker groups. Also you couldn’t have multiple room setups for a single speaker. You couldn’t do a Kitchen+LivingRoom alongside a Kitchen+LivingRoom+BedRoom. A speaker could only be in one group. Shitty.
Sonos rocks. Awesome UX. Great sound. I can move my speakers to the living room at any time to setup stereo surround sound for the tv all within the app. No complaints.
Their speakers also come with both Google Home Assistant and Alexa available.
Sonos is claiming that both Google and Amazon stole their patented tech for speaker synchronization. Suing Google outright. I can’t speak to the Google experience, but if Amazon did steal their tech they straight up butchered the implementation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/07/technology/sonos-sues-google.html
@tiaalexa that’s next level fear and avoidance of modern tech/convenience lol
Oh wow, I didn't know that. Well good job supporting the real inventor then! Google has all of the features besides the stereo surround sound feature. That's really cool. I don't think that's a feature with the google products but maybe I just haven't found it yet.
You WFH warriors how about this Zen Work Pod for your home office?
These guys will making a killing with all the rich tech folks WFH these days
It does require that you have space for it though, which is tough for city dwellers
Time to move out of the city though 😉 We’re all working from home anyway
Interesting. They really make you invest in their business by buying a separate oven appliance that sets the temp and timer for you 😆 Also, that's a lot of foil and packaging to go through. But the meals look pretty delicious! Have you tried this service Kyle?
I have not! I thought the oven was required so I was just admiring it 😂
Actually for their 4th of July sale it’s only $149.... tempting
Awesome! How do you like it? Do have it run a on schedule? If so, when/how often?
For the most part I like it. There are a couple things that prevent it from 100% replacing some manual cleaning on my part, but overall it's nice to have.
It's great because I don't have to empty the vacuum after each run. It's completely hands-off-the-wheel apart from emptying the base unit once every 1-2 months. How frequently you need to empty the base depends on how often you vacuum and how dirty your floors are.
It builds a map of your home, detecting rooms. On top of the map, you can draw keep-out zones where it won't go. You can run all rooms or select specific rooms to run - adhoc or on a schedule of your choice. I personally don't have a schedule. I really should though. I just run it adhoc as needed, usually once a week. Because I have cats I usually need to do a quick sweep of a room picking up cat toys before running it. Although if we're out with people and folks wanna come back to our place I will usually run it before we head home and just hope that cat toys don't cause it to choke up and stop the job.
It's really really good with room edges and corners. I had an eufy RoboVac a few years ago and it couldn't do edges/corners very well.
For the bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen it works excellently and finishes each of these rooms in 10-15 minutes. I've attached my home map for reference.
It still works well in my living room, it just takes a really long time to finish because there is a bunch of furniture in my living room it needs to maneuver around stuff like table/couch/chair legs. So sometimes I find myself doing a run of the bedroom/bathroom/kitchen while I quickly sweep the living room.
My place is entirely hardwood floors. Because of that it is kind of loud. Louder than I would prefer. There is a strange, small section of carpet (3ft x 3ft) at the entrance of my home and it is much much quieter on the carpet.
I sadly am unable to do my office with it. I would really love to because it is just a square room with minimal furniture. But for some reason there is a 2.5 inch ledge into the office that the roomba can't climb/step. (My office is above the kitchen on the map, unknown to the roomba.)
The missing middle section in the bedroom is where the bed is and a hamper/bin thing at the foot of the bed. Looking at it now I don't know why it's not a perfect rectangle. We have boxes and shit under the bed so they must not be evenly distributed.
Personally I'd just invest in a dyson vaccum. They are amazing and so easy to use. Rumba's are okay but I am nit picky when it comes to a clean house and it just doesn't do the best job. Also you cannot have anything on the ground. Idk, there was more headache than ease when we had one.
i tend to agree with tia. you have to have a very specific type of home for the roomba to be 100%
Wow what a thorough explanation Kyle, thank you? For context, I am looking for something to do like 80% of the work for me. Since we got a dog, our floors need to be swept/vacuumed like every day haha. I am hoping a robovac will do enough such that I can at least only sweep/vacuum more like once a week or so. I totally understand that it will never do 100% of the work, which is okay by me.
If you have a dog - I will say the Rumba will not pick up as much as you think
Reason why I am pro dyson is because it makes vacuuming easier than "swiffering" your home
Thanks for the recommendations you two!! I will have to do some thinking
@tiaalexa what cordless dyson would you recommend?
Depends on the need... I have just the v8 and that works great but also I have only 1200 square feet. it's 40 minutes of battery life so if you want something with more charge then go up in versions
I hope this gets Philips Hue to lower their prices
https://www.reviewgeek.com/71168/wyze-opens-up-pre-orders-for-its-first-color-smart-bulb/
wow, i didn’t realize Phillps Hue’s were so expensive. I would sure hope this competition encourages them to lower their prices
Yeah, I love every one of my Hue bulbs but boy did I pay a premium for them. You are paying for the software too though.
Excited to see Wyze stepping up to the plate though. You can always count on them to create a budget friendly solution.
Totally agree Hue is a great product and experience. I’m somewhat skeptical that Wyze’s $35 bulb will have parity - at least at the beginning
And if you already have several hue bulbs when do you decide to splinter the smart bulbs in your home
Yeah, at that point you have to start using custom solutions instead of the first party software. Like ITTT or something.
Or maybe a different smart home thing.... I can’t remember
I used both IFTTT and this other thing for a while and I can’t remember which one died but now I use neither
Stringify! That's the other service I was thinking of:
Sorry for derailing this. That was buggin me
Plasma Bigscreen is an open-source user interface for TV’s. Running on top of a Linux distribution, Plasma Bigscreen turns your TV or setup-box into a fully hackable device. A big launcher giving you easy access to any installed apps and skills. Controllable via voice or TV remote.
This screams @r.taylor to me, but I wonder do you even have a TV Ryan?
I always hate the UI/UX that comes baked with tvs. This sounds promising!
Agreed. I don’t use my smart TVs native OS. Spyware up and down
Oh yes it is, I just thought you meant your current TV OS
Hmm, sounds like maybe that’s the path to your TV?
Installation
Simply download the Bigscreen image for the device you have, extract it so you have the raw .img file, then flash it to your drive using dd or a graphical tool. Then plug in the drive to your device and power it on.
Agreed. Sounds like they are not yet ready for a wide-release. From their FAQ:
What’s the state of the project?
Plasma Bigscreen is currently under heavy development and is not intended to be used as a daily driver.
Oh, and, yes, I have a TV lol it just goes through phases of very little use
set up a reminder “@spkaplan try out plasma bigscreen” in this channel at 9AM Monday, December 5th, Eastern Standard Time.
Has anyone used a TV (like a 40-55in) as a computer monitor before? Pros, cons?
I use a 34in ultrawide and then a 24in vertically oriented
I used a 42" 1080p TV as a monitor back at our Madrona house if you remember that. It works fine, just HDMI. Usually I prefer to have it as an auxiliary display though for media, while also having a more targeted monitor display for front and center. A screen that large is just a bit impractical if you have a shallow desk.
This is awesome. I need to get my HA server back up and running. Or maybe explore a cloud deployed option for fun (and stability) 🤔
This is going to be the tipping point that makes me go full smart light lol
Reminder: @spkaplan try out plasma bigscreen
Cool, HA use: setting a device's ring volume to max. I always have my phone muted since I get all my important notifications elsewhere, but have been slightly concerned about if I lose my phone or a loved one is trying to reach me urgently while I'm sleeping or otherwise distracted.
alias: Set Pixel ring volume to maxSetting up an automation like so sets the notified device's volume to max and can be called from mobile widgets, HA frontend buttons, or wherever else you want.
description: ""
trigger: []
condition: []
action:
- service: notify.mobile_app_pixel_6_pro
data:
message: command_volume_level
data:
media_stream: ring_stream
command: "100"
mode: single
Could also just set it up as a script if you don't need any automatic triggers
Not sure I’m following. Rather than toggling the ring/silent switch on your phone, you do it on your computer with this?
Or you have triggers but omitted them in your snippet here while sharing?
For when one does not have access to the phone, like
if I lose my phone or a loved one is trying to reach me urgently while I'm sleeping or otherwise distracted
My girlfriend can now press a button on her phone to set my volume to max so it rings when she calls
I didn’t realize this could be “installed” (if you will) on her phone
Tasmota + CloudFree + Home Assistant and never make an account again and have full control over the devices in your home. No accounts and your lights still work when your internet is down.
I don’t have smart home anything rn but this sounds useful so thought I’d share if anyone else is curious about Tasmota and CloudFree, which I’ve never heard of until now.
- Tasmota: free open source firmware that makes it possible to operate smart home devices without “connecting them to the cloud” (I assume this just means w/o internet connection)
- CloudFree: “providing tinkerers with the cloud-free gadgets they need.” Offers smart home devices factory-flashed with Tasmota firmware, and donates a portion of their profits to Tasmota developers to help support them
Edit: also mentioned was ESPHome, which seems like an alternative to Tasmota (?) since they have a Migrating from Tasmota section in their docs
The initial quote from someone is what got me curious:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36645574
Tasmota + CloudFree + Home Assistant and never make an account again and have full control over the devices in your home. No accounts and your lights still work when your internet is down.💯 What I've been saying since day one (or at least my brownbag a couple years ago)
I assume this just means w/o internet connectionLAN vs WAN, and why I hate @brandon’s idea of hosting HA with AWS or something. Means it works without an internet connection, yes, but also does not rely on a third-party maintaining a service (and your data)
also mentioned was ESPHome, which seems like an alternative to Tasmota (?)ESPHome is owned by the same people as HomeAssistant, so is pretty feature-rich when used with it. Tasmota still works fine though, and is probably what you'd use. I've only used ESPHome when building hardware myself.
Yeah, home assistant is the way to go if you want to DIY. Lots of hosting options, great docs, great open source community for plugins, etc.
I never got mine set back up after moving though, and haven't found the motivation and time to dive back in. I'm pretty embedded in the google/nest ecosystem, so I've just use Google Home for everything and it works great. The obvious downside just being that I don't have as much control over data privacy and UX, and I pay a subscription fee for some of the premium nest features.
Thanks guys! I'm mostly using google home as well. And I probably don't have the time or motivation I wish I did to set up something locally. Maybe in a few years when the kids are older 😄