Home Security and Smart Home
DavecUK CCTV is really good…you can actually see them breaking in and robbing you if you are not there…
True. One of our friends’ friend family were in India and they watched it live. They couldn’t do anything but to watch helplessly. By the time they managed to get the police and friends involved, the robbers cleaned out the property. Feel sorry but 😱🤣
LMSC By the time they managed to get the police and friends involved, the robbers cleaned out the property. Feel sorry but 😱🤣
You mean they didn’t steal the security cameras as well.
This will make you laugh
hornbyben Many thanks mate. No, we live in the Reading area. Please email me his contact details. I will email him any way. My email address is below my signature.
We are taking a two-step process.
- Address home insulation. Look at how we can make the property energy efficient. It looses heat as our home is > 40 years old. I think all doors and windows must go. We do want to look at some appliances as an utility alternative
- Look at beefing up the security - smart lights, smart blinds/curtains, simple enhancements as Dave suggested.
I do want our home automation to be Matter compliant.
The smart doors does appeal to us but not confident enough to trust it at the moment.
When you can, could you explain how you integrated ethernet cables behind the switches please? Perhaps, picture or two will help.
Appreciate all your detailed inputs and help mate.
Cheers!
LMSC I just sent you an email, so let me know if you don’t get it.
Regarding the Ethernet to the light switches this replaces the original wiring and is pulled through. I don’t have any pictures to hand, but I’m planning on changing some of my switches in the next few weeks, so I’ll try to remember to take a photo.
You essentially though just have an Ethernet cable running from the switch to the server. One core is powered at 24v (fed to all gangs in that switch), the other cores are attached to each gang as required (one per gang). In the server cabinet the wires from each gang are connected to digital inputs on the server. When you press the switch the server input sees the 24v and knows the switch has been pressed.
Your lighting wiring is similar, each light or group of lights are wired back to the server cabinet where relays sit. When the relay is opened the light is turned on.
I think they also do some relays that can sit in your back box and minimise wiring changes, but I don’t have any experience of these, so leave that to a professional to advise on that.
Having spent countless hours days looking at this for my home and the fact I didn’t want a fully wired cctv solution with a server storing all the data and service/maintenance costs I went down a different route ie a mixture of wired and wireless devices that store all of the data in the cloud so could be accessed remotely. Simplicity!
If your looking into home automation as a wider subject best advise is pick an ecosystem first and there really is only 2 main players that cover 90% of devices Google and Amazon
I decided on the Amazon route for cameras and doorbells and a mixture of wired and wireless devices etc this was primarily because I already use Alexa compatible devices and do a fair bit of automation already using Alexa and IFTTT
I use Ring and Blink for my cameras of which I have several in the front, side and back of my house. I know that if someone steps on to any part of my driveway the flood light switches on and starts recording. This has been quite useful when the postie puts parcels in a safe place
No solution is ever full proof or perfect.
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SouthMark45 Good to hear your thoughts. Thx.
Eco-friendly home efficiency and smart home automation are closed linked. We are going to do both.
I am not comfortable with both Google and Amazon ecosystems. I don’t trust them.
We are mainly Apple users. For wifi combo, we want to look at Matter standard compliant products; The matter also leverages Thread.
We are thinking of a stand-alone products like Laxone, Lutron, Crestron and Control4 for local access.
We would like to look at Apple home kit on a couple of Apple 4KTV as hubs as Thread border routers - no single point of failure. This will be offloaded selectively on icloud for remote access. Another good / efficient route is VPN, which will avoid all cloud and privacy concerns.
I don’t know at this stage if Home Kit can work through the stand-alone ecosystem. A lot of thinking is required. We will be calling a couple of home-automation experts for a consultation and a quote.
It is a twin project and needs to be looked at closely before starting the work.
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As a part of making the house eco-friendly, we are also going to consider installing renewables as a final choice - after addressing draught, insulation, replacing doors and windows.
What do you think is the best ?
Solar vs Wind turbine vs Heat pump (air or ground).
Please also recommend if you know good / reliable company that can advise us on the home efficiency aspect as well.
Thx
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LMSC I have Lutron switches throughout my house. They use a wifi hub attached to your router. I can control them from anywhere, including voice using (Alexa/Google/apple/etc). They get pricey, at about 50 a piece for dimmers, but they’re REALLY good. They also directly replace existing switches.
For cameras, I use the Ubiquiti UniFi products. Again, no subscription. I bought them due to the ease of setup, the incredible user interface, and the the accessibility. The cameras can also be accessed anywhere, they have motion detectors, and they have IR LED for night vision.
I also use their wifi access points and edge router, which are far superior to having a single router.
Did you integrate TV, Music and multimedia with Laxone? Is it compatible with 3rd party products - AVR, speakers, tuners, etc? What’s been your experience. Btw, I am already in touch with that gentleman! Thx for the contact.
Cheers!
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Lightwave rf are another option for lighting/sockets.
I’ve not installed any ubiquiti cameras before but their AP’s are top notch for the money and probably the best looking unit I install.
sorry just seen that you already have them 😁
LMSC The only thing I integrated was my projector, but that was just using the trigger output. My system detects when I turn it on and closes all the blinds and turns the lights off. Then when i turn it off it opens the blinds or turns the lights on (depending on if it’s after sunset).
I have a Sonos speaker in the kitchen that it can send to, but generally I just use that with Spotify. Personally, on the multimedia front, I didn’t see a use case for our house that was worth the cost.
Hopefully Rob will help. I actually spoke to him today about some additional lights I’ve ordered, and he mentioned that you’d been in touch.
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Baldrick Thx mate. Will take a look.
hornbyben My system detects when I turn it on and closes all the blinds and turns the lights off. Then when i turn it off it opens the blinds or turns the lights on (depending on if it’s after sunset).
That’s awesome.
In the first run, switches, selected sockets, some curtains/blinds, garden irrigation and radiators.
We do not want to replace all the curtains and blinds in one go. I think, we would look at the living room, kitchen, 2 bed rooms and leave the rest for costs reasons.
Who is your curtains and blinds supplier? If blinds, are they as effective as heavy curtains, which block cold and lights ?
Music can wait. We will integrate what ever we have - TV, radios, apple devices. We want to ensure it is compliant with 3rd party AVRs, speakers etc.
He may have to drop in eventually before he can provide an actual quote.
We will evaluate this over Thread-Matter-Homekit wifi based automation, although systems like Laxone appeal me a lot.
The toughest decision is opening the floors to lay bigger copper pipes if we take the Air Heat pump. Our chief concern will be the kitchen as it is only 5 years old! Even if we put radiators, which will be on the first floor, they would require bigger pipes.
If we do open, additional ethernet will be easier on the ground floor. We will also have to replace the boiler with combi or mega flow to take advantage of the opener floors!
Thx for the inputs.
hornbyben My system detects when I turn it on and closes all the blinds and turns the lights off. Then when i turn it off it opens the blinds or turns the lights on (depending on if it’s after sunset).
pff, that’s nothing…see here https://coffeetime.freeflarum.com/d/195-down-memory-lane/161
LMSC We used https://controlissblinds.co.uk/ for the blinds. We have a very modern aesthetic, so blinds are what we wanted. They’re blackout, but probably not as good as curtains as they don’t cover as big an area. We weren’t bothered about heat retention as we installed modern high insulating windows (the sort where the condensation forms on the outside).
I have no experience of air source heat pumps, but I’d be interested how it goes in the end.