Smart House?

mel123

Hi all

Currently I am refurbishing my new house and I want a smart house for lights and speakers mainly.
So from doing some research on here, I have reached the conclusion that the best thing is to use smart switches rather than smart light bulbs (open to different opinions).

My question is, can I have one app/hub for everything, and what is the best? For example i dont want to have say some smart lighting from lidl, then buy some on amazon/aliexpress and have to go in to a different app to turn different ones on. Or use Alexa for some and not others.

Currently in my house i have Hive smart heating and a couple of bulbs for when i go on holidays. Ill be taking the Hive with me (for the heating, dont mind about the bulbs). I also have an Echo dot which i dont use currently.

Am i better off buying a google nest (i see a bargain alert for these at the moment)? Or a couple more Echo dots for around the house, and then either option do i go Philips Hue for light switches and some strip lights?

wexfordman2

A lot of this depends on how much of a refurb you are doing, does it include rewiring ?

From the perspective of a single hub, I thing the best solution is something like Home Assistant, which can run on a rasperrry PI and pull all yuour different systems in to one. For example, in my house I have a mixture

1) Velbus lighting system for all lights
2) Comfort Alarm system for security and PIR motion sense to activate/control lights
3) Philips Hue (with a mixture of philps hue bulbs, ikea and also some lidl lights all working to the hue hub).
4) Some wifi plugs and adaptors
5) Smart curtains (wifi)
6) Nest thermostats, nest protect and doorbell
7) Unifi network
8) Oilpal oil tank monitoring
9) Solar PV
1) Various different cast devices, smart tvs etc.

All of the above I have linked in to Home Assistant, which will work as your single app/interface and allow you to control them and apply logic/scenarios etc (ie if alarm is armed to night mode, then dont activate motion sense lights in some areas at nighttime), or if you arrive home after dark and the alarm is armed to away mode, turn on the outside and some interior lights when you arrive in the driveway).

My samrt assitant, is Google home, distributed around the house, with a range of different speaker types dependent on the requirements for sound quality etc.

Now, I could link all of these in individually through their own accounts to google, but instead, I have them all linked to Home Assistant, and that is linked to Google home.

Pretty much 90% or more of the above different systems and protocols have linked in to Home Assistant. I would suggest exploring that first off in your current setup.

How much further you go, and what types of systems you put in for lighting and heating etc, depend on what type of a refurb you are doing etc.

mel123

Thanks for the advice, i will look into all this info, very helpful

Nelbert

wexfordman2 wrote: »

A lot of this depends on how much of a refurb you are doing, does it include rewiring ?

From the perspective of a single hub, I thing the best solution is something like Home Assistant, which can run on a rasperrry PI and pull all yuour different systems in to one. For example, in my house I have a mixture

1) Velbus lighting system for all lights
2) Comfort Alarm system for security and PIR motion sense to activate/control lights
3) Philips Hue (with a mixture of philps hue bulbs, ikea and also some lidl lights all working to the hue hub).
4) Some wifi plugs and adaptors
5) Smart curtains (wifi)
6) Nest thermostats, nest protect and doorbell
7) Unifi network
8) Oilpal oil tank monitoring
9) Solar PV
1) Various different cast devices, smart tvs etc.

All of the above I have linked in to Home Assistant, which will work as your single app/interface and allow you to control them and apply logic/scenarios etc (ie if alarm is armed to night mode, then dont activate motion sense lights in some areas at nighttime), or if you arrive home after dark and the alarm is armed to away mode, turn on the outside and some interior lights when you arrive in the driveway).

My samrt assitant, is Google home, distributed around the house, with a range of different speaker types dependent on the requirements for sound quality etc.

Now, I could link all of these in individually through their own accounts to google, but instead, I have them all linked to Home Assistant, and that is linked to Google home.

Pretty much 90% or more of the above different systems and protocols have linked in to Home Assistant. I would suggest exploring that first off in your current setup.

How much further you go, and what types of systems you put in for lighting and heating etc, depend on what type of a refurb you are doing etc.

What solar PV have you got and what integration have you got in HA?

wexfordman2

Nelbert wrote: »

What solar PV have you got and what integration have you got in HA?

When I said 90%. the solar pv is the bit thats not fully working yet. I have a givenergy system, there is a guy who has a partial integration of givenergy to home assistant, I am able to pull some data in and graph it, but havnt got beyond that point yet, and its not 100% reliable.

https://flows.nodered.org/flow/59aeea054adc466bf85e044fa8f3d3e2

https://community.home-assistant.io/t/givenergy-battery-inverter-home-power-things/266291/8