gfunkdave

Nope, whatever I get, my fiance will like. Ease of setup and reliability are important.

Most modern access points that are not bare bones models are dual band - they have 2.4 and 5 GHz radios.

If 2.4 is flaky, it's almost certainly interference from other wifi networks, cordless phones, bluetooth, or even microwave ovens. Changing the channel will help. In general, there are only three 2.4 GHz channels: 1, 6, and 11. This is because the channel you select is actually just the center of the actual frequencies used, and they bleed into each other. So channel 6 actually occupies what are called channels 4-8. The 802.11 wifi standard understands these things and will filter out interference caused by other networks on the same channel, but can't filter out things that are not on exactly the same channel. So an AP set to channel 6 will filter out other networks on channel 6 but will only see networks on channels 4,5,7, and 8 as noise.

IsleOfMan

I'm watching the topic fairly closely as I'll be building a new relatively large house (~5000 sq ft finished including finished portion of basement). I have X10 throughout my current house and won't carry any of it over, mainly because of the phase-out of halogen bulbs in the coming few years.

I'll likely do something along the lines of Wink but I'd really like to see some more compatible camera options other than Dropcam... otherwise I may keep the surveillance portion separate.

I plan on automating most/all light switches along with basic Good Night and Good Morning scenes, along with some other custom scenes for the living room, master bedroom, kids rooms (Almost Bedtime warning), and theater (dim on play, raise on pause, full on power-off, etc). I considered using bulbs instead of switches

I like the look of the Wink Relay and might put one central/kitchen on the ground floor and another in the basement/theater.

cblaisd

Scott, got a switched outlet today from Amazon (motion detector/camera comes next week).

Amazed and pleased at how easy it was to set up the outlet. Very slick.

Thank you.

cblaisd

What is the difference between this

http://www.belkin.com/us/F7C029-Belk...FRJlfgodghgAPA

and this

http://www.target.com/p/belkin-wemo-...FehDMgodJCYAmA

Could the former safely be used to control a radiant space heater (the kind that looks like a little radiator on wheels). Or the latter, for that matter.

gfunkdave

The insight switch includes features that can send push notifications to your phone to tell you how much power you're using. The regular one doesn't. They are both rated for 1800 watts.

cblaisd

Thank you. My 1500W heater should be good to go, then.

chgoeditor

I'm just getting started with home automation, and am using a SmartThings hub, which uses the Z-Wave and Zigbee protocols. So far I have a couple motion detectors, multi-sensors, light bulbs and a front door lock, but I'd like to invest in additional components over time (particularly when they're on sale). I grabbed the GE Link lightbulbs last week when Target had a buy one, get one 50% off sale that I found out about thanks to a Kinja Deals post on Lifehacker. Does anyone have any good blogs or sites they follow that focus on these kinds of things and could tip me off to sales on other sites?

ou81two

What's the real benefit of that? Old school thermostats had the ability to use vacation mode. I don't think your house looks any different when you're gone. I've never gotten the need or benefit of this. It seems like there's a lot better and more profitable things that people could do with their time.

gfunkdave

What's the real benefit of home automation, you mean? For me it would be little conveniences like being able to make sure lights are off or the garage door is closed.

As for better things to do with one's time, I think home automation becomes a hobby for people.

ScottC

It is fun.

TIGA31328

I have been looking into Home Automation and I have setup a few standalone things, Lights, Garage Door, etc. Looking around I think that the SmartThings Hub system is the best option(http://www.smartthings.com/), it allows you to utilize cross-platforms so you could do a lightbulb from GE, a door lock from Schlage, and window and door sensors from someone else, but it all works. I am holding out though, they are rumored to be releasing their Smartthings 2 unit next month(it is going to allow non-cloud based controls, big issue with their current hardware is that if you have no Internet you cannot control your devices, even though you are on the same network).

I have not found any good home automation cameras, I use the ones I like and have them in an app on my phone, and also use Zoneminder to record and monitor them for me, and there is an app for that as well, and you can have it send notifications to you too.

The 'Wink' app is nice as it allows you to do some cross-platform control, they also offer a hardware hub but reviews on it are too up and down for it working consistently, but you can still control some hardware natively with the app, no hardware required.

-Patrick

tmiw

I use WeMo switches (just in my living room and kitchen) and a Nest thermostat and smoke/CO detector in my condo. IFTTT is set up to turn off all lights when Nest goes away and turn on the living room light when I come home and I run Skylark on my iPhone to set the Nest's status based on geolocation. For the money it works fairly well.

The only problem? IFTTT is pretty slow to react to changes in the Nest's status, taking up to 10 minutes or so sometimes to turn on/off the lights. I've been meaning to write up an app that runs on the router, listening to the Nest status changes and controlling the switches accordingly but if there's an alternative to IFTTT on the App Store that supports both Nest and WeMo I'm willing to try it. Or a way to make IFTTT respond faster at least.

chgoeditor

If you read the SmartThings community forums, you'll see that a lot of people are excited about the Homeboy camera, which will offer free cloud-based storage. A few early adopters on that forum got an early release version and seem very happy with it. Preorders are available for the next batch, which is expected to ship in May.

I bought the SmartThings hub despite knowing that the new model is due in Q2. If I decide I can't live without it, I figure I can sell my existing hub on eBay.

ScottC

If you do pick SmartThings, I'd highly recommend the ACTion dashboard instead of the SmartThings one. It is much faster, tablet friendly and refreshes more reliably.

http://community.smartthings.com/t/a...3-is-here/8149

http://www.smarttiles.click/

ross123

The home is now a couple of years old and its worked out very well. For me the advantage was that I travel weekly and can control the temp of the house, setting the thermostat to 85 during the week and then down to 78 when i hit the airport. The thermostats the builder installed did not allow that.

A second benefit was for the workmen in my house. After the house was built I had a designer and a lot of work done. It allowed me to control entry to the house remotely by unlocking the door and turning off the alarm rather than willy nilly handing out keys.

Now that everything is done I still use the door functionality to leave my keys at home and take a taxi to the airport and be able to lock/unlock the door without the key (it has a keypad and is also net accessible) plus the thermostat control gives me the flexibility I want. I do have a lamp module that I can control and its nice to be able to turn it on from the garage from my phone so that the house has some light.

I chose the Pulse system from ADT. For the overall cost of a free plus the alarm monitoring I was going to get anyway, it worked out very well. I haven't thought of expanding the system much more than the lights, thermostats, door, camera, plus the motion and window sensors for the alarm portion but it works out well for my lifestyle.