My Beginner Automation Project

Jayop

Feck it I might as well start a thread and track everything I do. I came across this forum a while back and loved reading about all the things you can do, however even as someone who considers himself reasonably good technically the amount of new information you need to take on board for every aspect is mind boggling. Hubs, IR Blasters, remotes, voice control and the rest. Complicated doesn't even begin to cover it however with a few posts in the mega threads here that were very very helpful I decided to jump in today.

I'm starting with a very modest £200 budget that I have on Amazon.co.uk so for the first spend I'm restricted to Amazon.

The first thing I wanted to do was get an Echo dot and a few Hue bulbs for the living room, but then as I'm definitely going to be decorating the room soon I decided to hold off on the bulbs to see then what lamps/fittings I'd be buying rather than get the bulbs and be forced to buy lamps to fit them.

So having read a lot in the Harmony thread and asking a few questions I went looking for more on this.

Currently I have a Sony 40" TV that has only 2 HDMI ports and it's a pain in the face given I use 3 HDMI inputs on a daily basis. Thanks to help from bk and Setanta I got an idea of what was possible.

Current inputs...

1) Amiko Mini Combo Sat Box
2) Xbox One
3) Chromecast
4) Will be adding an android box soon, likely will add an Nvidia Shield


BK did say that I should get a HDMI 6x2 matrix but to keep it under budget I got a 4x2, I can upgrade later if required.

For now I didn't buy any long HDMI cables to hide the devices in another room because I'll want to test the IR range and the Xbox controller and headset range from the room I planned to put them in. I'll also have to run the cable from the Sat Dish up there so that's a job for another day.

All those devices will now go into the cabinet under my TV to leave a nice clear space.

I also ordered an Echo Dot, again got the Dot to keep the costs down. I have an old HiFi minidisk player that we use in the kitchen for the radio so I'll use that as an Aux for the dot as the sound is great in it. Despite the system being about 15 years old it's also compatible with the Harmony Ultimate.

Now onto the Harmony. Again, restricted by costs I couldn't get the elite and I didn't really want the basic Harmony companion so I went for the Ultimate. I managed to pick one up from Amazon Warehouse today for £117 which saved me about £20 and kept me on budget.


So then, total spend was...

Harmony Ultimate with Hub - £117
Portta HDMI Matrix 4 port 4x2 - £34.50
Amazon Echo Dot - £50
Parcel Motel for Dot - £3.50

Total Cost - £205


My thinking behind getting these first is that now I have the Echo and the Harmony I have the two main controllers that I'll use for all additional Smart tech so I can add things without having to worry about that cost again.


One question I do have with the HDMI Matrix, does that mean now that I could run a HDMI cable to a second TV and would be able to either replicate what I'm watching on the first one or watch a second device from my four connected independently?

bk

First of all, I think you made very wise purchasing decisions there given your budget. Pretty spot on what I would have recommended.

Jayop wrote: »

One question I do have with the HDMI Matrix, does that mean now that I could run a HDMI cable to a second TV and would be able to either replicate what I'm watching on the first one or watch a second device from my four connected independently?

Yes on both counts. You could run a second HDMI cable to another TV and watch any of the connected devices on that.

Just one point. If you are redecorating and that happens to involve opening walls, then that would be a good time to get long cables, etc. to put in the walls.

Bluefoam

The Nvidia replicates the function of a Chromecast, so that might free up a HDMI port for you.

Jayop

bk wrote: »

First of all, I think you made very wise purchasing decisions there given your budget. Pretty spot on what I would have recommended.



Yes on both counts. You could run a second HDMI cable to another TV and watch any of the connected devices on that.

Just one point. If you are redecorating and that happens to involve opening walls, then that would be a good time to get long cables, etc. to put in the walls.

Putting down a new floor and possibly a new fireplace along with painting/papering so hadn't planned to open walls, but it wouldn't be a huge thing for me to do. Painting already so don't mind that and my best mate is a plasterer so if I had to run cables I could get them tidied up at a handy cost.

The biggest concern I have with the decorating is that I have a standard Semi-d and the living room has the fireplace and Chimney in the middle. I'd absolutely love to mount the TV above the fireplace but we light the fire so I'm assuming you can't do that because the heat would wreck the TV.

I'll likely have to either put it on a stand or put it on a wall in the corner to the side of the chimney which would restrict the view from some angles.

Perfect scenario would be wall mounted with all wires buried in the wall. Kinda the point of getting the Harmony and the Matrix is so that you don't see the unsightly equipment and wiring.

Jayop

Also, I'm a little concerned about my devices like the xbox and sat box overheating if I put them in a cupboard. Is that a legit concern or am I worried for nothing?

Nelbert

Jayop wrote: »

Also, I'm a little concerned about my devices like the xbox and sat box overheating if I put them in a cupboard. Is that a legit concern or am I worried for nothing?

Legit concern for Xbox, less so for sat box but still an issue.... open back cupboard if possible will sort it though.

Jayop

Nelbert wrote: »

Legit concern for Xbox, less so for sat box but still an issue.... open back cupboard if possible will sort it though.

lol, that's not a problem. The cupboard in question is currently used as a toy storage unit and about twice a year I have to pull it out and tack the back of it back on. It's a double press with drawers in between so I can take off the back and either cut a hole with a jigsaw in the side I'll be using or just cut that side off completely.

Nelbert

Jayop wrote: »

lol, that's not a problem. The cupboard in question is currently used as a toy storage unit and about twice a year I have to pull it out and tack the back of it back on. It's a double press with drawers in between so I can take off the back and either cut a hole with a jigsaw in the side I'll be using or just cut that side off completely.

My advice would be cut off that side completely. More airflow the better. The Xbox has fans for a reason!

Jayop

Nelbert wrote: »

My advice would be cut off that side completely. More airflow the better. The Xbox has fans for a reason!

yeah and mine is the old version with the power brick. I'll probably still leave the brick out behind the TV for now.

beertons

Between your quitting thread and this, I now know where these new funds are being spent on. Subbed to both with interest. Good luck with the smokes, I've been failing to kick them for 20 years.

Jayop

beertons wrote: »

Between your quitting thread and this, I now know where these new funds are being spent on. Subbed to both with interest. Good luck with the smokes, I've been failing to kick them for 20 years.

Cheers beertons. A bit of motivation to quit if I can spend the cash on boys toys like this.

Jayop

I was reading a very interesting thread there, the "What is Automation" and the OP makes some good points. What I'm doing isn't in itself true automation although once I start to add IFTTT recipes it will be.

One thing I was really interested was one of the guys was talking about setting lights to come on automatically via Hue or Alexa checking with google for Dusk times at his location and then switching them off at a set time. That's brilliant. But, I was wondering would I be able to do some little projects myself like making a light sensor with a rasberry Pi and somehow connecting it to the system so that our hall light goes on and off depending on how much light is there.

Then things like motion sensors for the bathroom lights and extraction fans.

These are the lights that tend to be left on in my house when no-one is using them so a few quid spent would save me in the long run.

Nelbert

Jayop wrote: »

I was reading a very interesting thread there, the "What is Automation" and the OP makes some good points. What I'm doing isn't in itself true automation although once I start to add IFTTT recipes it will be.

One thing I was really interested was one of the guys was talking about setting lights to come on automatically via Hue or Alexa checking with google for Dusk times at his location and then switching them off at a set time. That's brilliant. But, I was wondering would I be able to do some little projects myself like making a light sensor with a rasberry Pi and somehow connecting it to the system so that our hall light goes on and off depending on how much light is there.

Then things like motion sensors for the bathroom lights and extraction fans.

These are the lights that tend to be left on in my house when no-one is using them so a few quid spent would save me in the long run.

With things like that it's either some hub based system or a lot of IFTTT recipes (assuming everything you have is compatible with it, not everything is).

I use a Vera Edge and have z wave enabled light switches around the house. I also swapped my boiler control with a z wave light switch.
Lights come on 2 hours before sundown. Heating kicks in 30 mins before we get home from work on weekdays.
This winter I found myself manually running the lights on scene earlier in the day at the weekends as our back room is east facing so goes darker earlier in the day.
I'm thinking of getting a z wave light sensor which will trigger lights in the back room if it goes below a set threshold. I also eventually plan to completely change the heating to thermostat driven radiator valves etc. And have room based heating (i.e beyond zone based).

The Vera is just one hub, many others can do similar but it's the one I've used.
At the moment you can hack together (on GitHub) a fake Hue hub which Amazon Alexa can talk to the Vera and harmony hub/s via.... native Vera / Alexa integration coming soon too.... So voice commands work great for "turn on the heating" "turn on the lights" "turn on the tv" etc.

It depends on your budget and what you want. The Vera seems to be one of the lower price z wave home controllers but I've yet to run into any limitations with it other than the non native Alexa and IFTTT integration but that's due to change at least on the Alexa front.

Jayop

Nelbert wrote: »

With things like that it's either some hub based system or a lot of IFTTT recipes (assuming everything you have is compatible with it, not everything is).

I use a Vera Edge and have z wave enabled light switches around the house. I also swapped my boiler control with a z wave light switch.
Lights come on 2 hours before sundown. Heating kicks in 30 mins before we get home from work on weekdays.
This winter I found myself manually running the lights on scene earlier in the day at the weekends as our back room is east facing so goes darker earlier in the day.
I'm thinking of getting a z wave light sensor which will trigger lights in the back room if it goes below a set threshold. I also eventually plan to completely change the heating to thermostat driven radiator valves etc. And have room based heating (i.e beyond zone based).

The Vera is just one hub, many others can do similar but it's the one I've used.
At the moment you can hack together (on GitHub) a fake Hue hub which Amazon Alexa can talk to the Vera and harmony hub/s via.... native Vera / Alexa integration coming soon too.... So voice commands work great for "turn on the heating" "turn on the lights" "turn on the tv" etc.

It depends on your budget and what you want. The Vera seems to be one of the lower price z wave home controllers but I've yet to run into any limitations with it other than the non native Alexa and IFTTT integration but that's due to change at least on the Alexa front.

I was probably hoping to go down the Hue Hub route and would have no problem with IFTTT. It looks like both the Echo and Hue Hub have IFTTT capability so hopefully I'd be OK there.

Looking at the Z wave light sensor I think I'd still need to get a Vera Hub along with the Hue Hub to get this to work so it wouldn't be a case of having the sensor talk directly to the hue hub, but rather to it's own hub then to the Hue.

It would be great if you could just get one central hub and all the devices would speak to that rather than have loads of independent one, all needing to be plugged in pulling power.

Kinda decreases the potential savings on power. Might be better just cutting out the light sensor doing it with an IFTTT recipe using either set times or googles dusk times for my location.

Nelbert

Jayop wrote: »

I was probably hoping to go down the Hue Hub route and would have no problem with IFTTT. It looks like both the Echo and Hue Hub have IFTTT capability so hopefully I'd be OK there.

Looking at the Z wave light sensor I think I'd still need to get a Vera Hub along with the Hue Hub to get this to work so it wouldn't be a case of having the sensor talk directly to the hue hub, but rather to it's own hub then to the Hue.

It would be great if you could just get one central hub and all the devices would speak to that rather than have loads of independent one, all needing to be plugged in pulling power.

Kinda decreases the potential savings on power. Might be better just cutting out the light sensor doing it with an IFTTT recipe using either set times or googles dusk times for my location.

Yeah there is no point going the z-wave route for just one device, if you've reasonable alternatives.
I use z wave instead of hue hub. Everything talks to it and Alexa tells it what to do so to speak.
It's very flexible though and easily expanded on. I initially bought it for heating control only with expansion in mind, got some gifts of cash and slowly expanded.

This year is last of the lightswitches around the house (and the lights out the back) and maybe a start on replacing radiator valves if budget allows.

Stoner

Most of the light sensors are on off.

I'm a big fan of keeping lighting control simple, however if someone has a horn linking it all together then so be it, there is value in satisfying that and there are great points to it

Some items in a house benifit from being hooked up more than others.

If you have a decent lamp say a Philips led dimmable you can add a sensor into your bathroom light very cheaply to do the following.

If it is on off control, no dimming it can have the following built in conditions.
Detect movement On/ off or detect movement and it's dark turn on/off the light. That sensor would cost about 25/30 euro. The lamp and subsequent lamp changes will cost 5 euro.

Or you could have it on / dimming to compensate for daylight, not worth the extra money on the sensor in a bathroom imo.

The fancy light switches are great in living rooms etc where you want a range of light scenes, so the switch can be controlled by a remote or an app etc, but some lights .

I've used the lightwaverf hub for some things for example it has a built in link to Google dusk and dawn info so I use that on a lamp in the porch, I think that is what you were talking about.

This is faster than IFTTT, but speed is not really an issue in this case , unlike switching lights on in a room.

The WeMo socket works off your WiFi so no hub. This might work for you as you could use this to switch a lamp via an IFTTT applet linked to the Google dusk to dawn conditions


Without opening up a can of worms about linking everything up. Take again the example of the bathroom light i offered above.

Will you ever want to have that being switched randomly for security, or would other lights do the trick, would you ever want to log in and turn it on ? Possibly never

But you might want that some where else.

Automation on the rad valves is great, I'm happy with it but it's expensive


Overall I've found many of the iot movement sensors to be pretty poor, as is the information on them. If I'm buying one for industrial use I get mounting height and range info to aid the decision, the technology in say a theben light sensor or a CT electronics unit is far better IMO than the units provided in the items I have like the smartThings sensor (pretty poor) the sensor on the Canary cameras (OK) the one one the nest protect (average) the lightwaverf units (OK)

Jayop

So everything arrived. I got the echo set up yesterday so that's all rocking. Ran into the normal problems with address not taking so ended up giving up on any address nearby and went for O'Connell Street in Dublin. I love it and the missus is mega impressed by it, mainly for hands free Spotify. I had it set up with my Spotify account so I'll need to change that to her one so she can access her playlists.

The Harmony I've unboxed but didn't have time to set up. Will do that tonight.

The matrix I set up for a trial run. Hadn't thought about getting another HDMI cable for the output (doh) but I nicked one from the young lads room for now that he doesn't use often. One thing about that model I got, the ports are insanely tight to plug the HDMI leads into and pull them out of. I almost wrecked my Chromecast by plugging it in and taking it out so I'll need to be really careful when I'm moving it.

Jayop

Managed to get pretty much everything set up last night. Got the Harmony set up with the activities to watch TV, Play Xbox, Watch Chromecast, listen to music. Took a bit longer than I expected, had the following issues..

1) As I mentioned, I got the Harmony from Amazon werehouse, someone else already had their devices programmed into it and I didn't have their password to delete them. After a bit of googling I figured I could factory reset the remote and the hub so did that and started over.

2) As I'm using a dreambox (Amiki Minicombo) setting channels really doesn't seem to be an option. For some reason Amika decided to have the zoom button as No0 on the remote, but in the all channels section, most channels start with a zero, like 0347 or the likes, so when it tries to change to a favourite channel it just zooms the TV. I'll try again leaving out the zero to see if it'll work.

3) I had to code the Harmony remote to have a button that wasn't preset, it's to switch between sports, movies etc more quickly. This wasn't on the button list so I had to teach it. Took a few tries but it has it now.

4) When I came down this morning the missus had already had the TV on. For some reason whatever she had done when I pressed the Watch TV activity it was switching on the chromecast. I added the activity again and it seems OK now but I hope it doesn't happen again.


Next on the agenda is to tidy all up. ATM it's all sitting beside the TV and a bigger mess than before so I'll try to get it all in the cabinet tonight.

Jayop

Having trouble setting up my harmony/alexa communication. I've done everything in the app a few times and it tells me that it's done but when I ask alexa to turn up the TV she says that it's not set up and she'll set info to my app which she doesn't do.

I'm sure there's info in the big threads so I just need to go digging at the weekend.

eddiem74

Jayop wrote: »

Having trouble setting up my harmony/alexa communication. I've done everything in the app a few times and it tells me that it's done but when I ask alexa to turn up the TV she says that it's not set up and she'll set info to my app which she doesn't do.

I'm sure there's info in the big threads so I just need to go digging at the weekend.

What phrase are you saying?

"Alexa, tell Harmony to increase the volume"

Jayop

eddiem74 wrote: »

What phrase are you saying?

"Alexa, tell Harmony to increase the volume"

Saying tell harmony.....

It's understanding me no problem but just thinks that it's not paired up.

eddiem74

Jayop wrote: »

Saying tell harmony.....

It's understanding me no problem but just thinks that it's not paired up.

I am sure you followed the instructions but just in case.

https://support.myharmony.com/en-us/harmony-experience-with-amazon-alexa

Jayop

Andrew here's what I meant on the pm I sent you. Imagine the first pic is at your eye level.

Jayop

eddiem74 wrote: »

I am sure you followed the instructions but just in case.

https://support.myharmony.com/en-us/harmony-experience-with-amazon-alexa

Lazy me still hasn't got around to doing this but I'll try tonight after work.

Andrew76

Jayop wrote: »

Andrew here's what I meant on the pm I sent you. Imagine the first pic is at your eye level.

Thanks for that reply and posting those pics. Much appreciated.

Yeah those lights are very bright indeed, would need to cover them with tape or something which I could live with.

Just checked and it's 5 devices I have (not 6) with 4 ports on the tv. Suppose I could just leave one connected directly to the tv and use the Portta for the remaining 4. Leave the optical cable from tv to soundbar as is. Think that might work.

Jayop

If you are ever going to go down the road of getting a harmony remote then having the things all plugged into the matrix might be better but not completely necessary. I suppose the one thing to consider is that the matrix gives you 2 outputs and by not putting all things through that you're removing the opportunity to route all your devices to the second output should you need it.

Oh and the hdmi ports in my matrix are insane tight so if you are using one then decide which ones I'm which slot carefully as switching them might break the plugs.