Thread: Smart Homes

I've just installed some smart lightbulbs throughout the house. They are those 40,000 hour LED types, and mine have the wifi receiver built into them so there's no need for another signal transmitter box. The bulbs just pickup the wifi signal from my modem/router.

The brand I got is LIFX. Apparently Phillips do them too (though Phillips need a transmitter). They weren't cheap, but they are hella fun!!

I control them from an app on my smart phone. I can group them (e.g.: lounge room, bed 1, bed 2, study, rumpus etc) and control the groups or I can control each bulb individually. So obviously you can turn them on and off, dim them, change their colours (watching a horror movie in the lounge room with blood-red lighting is weirdly fun).

I can even set them up so that certain lights come on when I approach my house, and turn off when I leave the area (using my android phone's GPS). I can also set them to turn on or off at certain times which makes them good for when we are away. Although I can also control them when I am away from my phone too, so long as I am connected to the inter webs.

Apparently lights aren't the only smart home devices. You can get smart smoke detectors, smart central heating thermostats, and if you buy smart power plugs you can turn any appliance you like into a smart device controllable remotely!

Anyone else got any smart home devices?

James.

That sounds like it could be FUN!

With the right sound effects on the player timed with lights going on and off in the house you could really make the wife and kids miss you during those night shifts :<0)

Nope,i just use the switch on the wall.

I like them for many reasons, but a good one is security especially for my wife when she arrives home at night. I've put the control app on her cell phone as well so she can control them from afar.

There's a tonne of what they call "recipes". They are small programmes (that you can make yourself as well, quite easily in fact) that basically go "IF this THEN do that". So I made the one where it says "if my or my wife's phone is within X km radius of our house, turn on the outside, garage, and living room lights" (if they are not already on).

Other people have made ones where the lights pulse if they receive an email (why you'd do that is beyond me), or they've linked it to their smart smoke detector so the lights in the house come on full brightness if the smoke alarm goes off.

A nice looking one I haven't tried yet is a sunrise-effect with the bedroom lights to wake you up instead of an alarm.

I can also see uses for smart electrical plugs for reducing electricity costs etc.

James.

Most of my home automation is a bit older..

The lights in the home theater go dark when you press play on a movie, halfway on when press pause and all the way on when you push stop...

The phones are connected to a PBX but the it's just for fun now, it was more useful before, it would do call hunt when Bluetooth was detected or not.

While I 'seem' to need to use this 'Technological Terror' called a 'Computer' I do try to keep my life fairly simple. If I need a light turned on, I push the switch to 'ON'. If I want the light off, I turn the switch to 'Off'.

Sometimes the 'Technological Terrors' can go wrong. While this isn't an actual event, I find it Very Interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2e2Qx8yT9Q

What's a rumpus?

And that sounds cool. Interesting possibilities.

Originally Posted by holli4pirating

And that sounds cool. Interesting possibilities.

Yes, playing with other people's homes can be a lot of fun

I put a "smart" fan and light in my old toilet.
it was an asbestos walled room so the only place I could put anything was in the window (which had the laundry on the other side, I am sure Aussies will he familiar with the verandah on verandah type of building style that you get with older cottages), so I knocked out the glass, ran a feed to the window, framed the whole lot up with timber and gyproc, cut in anew extract fan put on a light and controlled it all with a motion sensor, it was set up so that when you opened the door the light and fan came on, if you didn't move around on the toilet it would go off on you, and the first place I put the sensor meant that the motion of the fan kept turning it back on.
Not exactly smart but as close as I am going to get.

James, with your lights does it mean that if the lamp blows the whole thing is scrap or can you replace just the LED? I know in theory LED's last 50,000 hours or so but in practice that isn't always the case.