I have had the Flume 2 smart water monitor on my watch list for the past year. Its regular price is $250 but it sometimes drops to $200. On Prime Day it dropped to $150 so I pulled the trigger. The device basically monitors your water usage so you can see where and when you are using water. It is kind of like the Sense Energy monitor but not quite as slick. The big selling point of the product is that it can detect leaks, which will allow the product to easily pay for itself if you can avoid major damage or save some money on your water bill if you have a leak that you did not know about as was the case with me (more on that later).
The product consists of the monitor itself as well as a bridge that needs to be plugged in within the line of sight of the monitor. It also comes with a tool for removing water meter covers and gloves as apparently some water meters are outside and installation can get messy. My water meter is in my basement so installation was very easy. I downloaded the app, took a picture of the face of my meter to check for compatibility, plugged in the bridge, adjusted the rubber straps on the monitor, and strapped it to my meter. The app then asked me to run the water while it calibrates and about 30 seconds later I was up and running. The app almost immediately notified me that there was a leak detected and was losing .04 gallons a minute. I figured the most likely culprit is my sprinkler system which I confirmed by turning off the water to my sprinkler and Flume was no longer detecting a leak. So now my question is how much is this leak costing me. So .04 gallons a minute is about 2.5 gallons an hour and 75 gallons a month. I pay $6.85 for 1,000 gallons of water so the leak will consume 1,000 gallons in a little over a year so it is not costing me much. I turn the sprinkler system off for the winter so the leak will take 2 years to get to 100 gallons. I will eventually get it fixed but I am in no big rush to have my lawn torn up for a small leak. The good news is I know it is there and can continue to monitor it in case it gets worse.
I am a data guy, I just love data, reports charts, and analytics. So I was really looking forward to what I could see about my water usage. Flume uses AI to detect what appliances are using water and can break down usage between indoor and outdoor usage. The reports themselves are OK. Nothing like the real-time interface that Sense provides. There is some customizations in there as well such as monthly budget which I haven't had a change to play with yet. Below are a couple screenshots from the mobile app. The same data is available by logging into the web app.
When I first started looking at Flume they were charging a monthly fee for access to some of the data that you can see now for free. I don't think I would pay for this data even if it was only a couple bucks a month. I do get a bit concerned about devices like this that are only making money on the price of the hardware. If they go under I am left with a useless device but it was pretty cheap so a risk I am willing to take.
A couple minor aggravations with the product. First, I get a notification every night that Flume has detected a leak in my system, not a huge deal just a bit of an annoyance. Second, when my sprinkler runs I get a notification of a high flow rate. My Rachio notifies me when the sprinkler is running I don't need Flume to do it as well. Would be nice if there was some integration between Flume and Rachio but none that I can see at this point. Lastly, there is nowhere in Flume that I could find where I could enter my water rate. Would be nice to see how much it is costing to run my sprinkler or take a shower. I did forward this suggestion to Flume for future functionality so we will see,
Overall, for the price I paid, I think Flume is a pretty cool product. It immediately detected a leak in my sprinkler system which I can now continuously monitor in case it gets worse. I also now can see if any major leaks or issues are occurring before they cause major damage to my home.
This was another Prime Day pick up. I have been using it for a couple months now and it seems to do a pretty good job monitoring my air quality. I do have a couple other air quality monitors in my kitchen and bathroom but they do not measure as many factors as this product does. I originally installed this in my kitchen alongside my other monitors for accuracy and the temperature and humidity reading were the same. This monitor measures 5 air quality factors:
Temperature
Humidity
Carbon Monoxide
Volatile Organic Compounds - Used in the manufacture of paint, carpets, cleaning products
Particulate Matter - Dust, smoke, pollen
You can pretty easily find monitors for temperature, humidity and even carbon monoxide but at the price point of this device it is hard to find a monitor that measures VOC's and Particulate Matter. I will discuss the price point later in this post.
I ended up moving this air quality monitor to my in-law apartment in the basement where there is more potential for air quality issues. The basement can get a bit humid as we run a dehumidifier throughout the spring and summer and there is a gas heating stove that is run during the winter. We do have a Nest Protect down there as a carbon monoxide monitor but not a bad idea to be double protected.
The interesting thing about this device is it is useless if you don't have an Echo device or the Alexa app. There is no display on the device itself, the only way to determine your air quality is to ask the Alexa device or use the Alexa app. The monitor will give you an overall score, 100 being the best.
Above is the screen within the Alexa app where I can monitor my air quality. As you can see you can also see an hourly, daily and weekly history.
If you ask your Alexa device "what's the indoor air quality", this is what you will see.
If you tap see history, you can see an hourly daily or weekly breakdown. I would love to also see a monthly and yearly breakdown so I can see if my air quality is improving or getting worse from year to year.
The app will also send you alerts if any of the air quality factors get too high. I found this out first-hand when I was having my kitchen painted and I was alerted that the VOCs were high. You can also set up routines so if for example the humidity gets too high the smart switch for the dehumidifier turn on. That is a bit redundant for me though as my dehumidifier has this functionality built in. I may have a use case for this when winter rolls around for the fan on my basement gas heating stove.
This product retails for about $70 which I thought was a little expensive given I already have a couple air quality monitors. With the Prime Day sales I was able to pick this up for under $40. That was a price point I was much more comfortable paying but even at full price it is not a bad deal.
Some additions I would love to see with this device would be a widget for the Echo Show 15 so I could always see the air quality. One of my big complaints about the Alexa device is the User Interface, I know Alexa is a voice-first device but having to remember to say the commands correctly can be frustrating. My daughter reuses to use her Alexa dot and has unplugged it and my wife gets really frustrated when the Alexa doesn't understand her which happens pretty frequently. A better UI/UX would go a long way on the Show devices. I have been playing around a bit with the Apple Home App and what a beautiful app that is. Amazon should really take a close look at what Apple is doing with their Smart Home ecosystem. Something to post about in the future.....
With our kitchen remodel complete we got rid of our 1st generation Echo Show and replaced it with an Echo Show 15. I knew from reviews I read that the speakers on the Echo Show 15 were not great for music. The speakers on the 1st Gen actually sounded a bit better than the Show 15 and that was my wife's primary device for listening to music while working in the kitchen. So this gave me the perfect opportunity to upgrade our kitchen speaker. I considered getting another Sonos One speaker but a little more power and the ability to move the speaker around my home was really appealing.
The Sonos Move falls between the One and the Five as far as sound quality goes. But the Move has a couple advantages:
Battery Powered / Rechargeable
Wifi and Bluetooth
Alexa and Sonos Voice Control
Indoor / Outdoor (IP56)
Durable
I bought the Move for primary use in the the kitchen as I expect that is where it will live 90% of the time. But the option to bring it with me in another room or outside where I am working is a nice option. Sonos claims 11 hour battery life, I have not had a chance to test this out yet. It does come with a charging cradle but you can also charge it using a USB-C charger.
The wifi range on the Move seems pretty good, I have an acre and a half yard with a firepit quite a ways away from the house and the Move works fine there which is the furthest away I would probably be using it. I did do some range testing walking the perimeter of my yard and I did have one drop out at the far end of my yard but the speaker reconnected quickly when I got back in range.
This speaker is a tank, it weighs about 6.5 pounds, it does have a carrying handle built into the back of the speaker but you are going to get a workout if you are carrying it any significant distance. I like the rubberized base which will protect it from drops, although I have no plans to test the drop rating of a $400 speaker. It also has a IP56 moisture rating so getting caught in a rainstorm isn't going to ruin the speaker.
I have owned cheaper BlueTooth speakers which is a nice option when on vacation. Switching to Bluetooth mode is as easy as pressing the Bluetooth button on the back of the speaker and then connecting your device. You switch back to wifi mode by pressing the Bluetooth button again.
The Move come in black and white, I opted for the white version to blend in a bit more with my white/grey kitchen. Setup was very easy as it is with all Sonos products, I was up and running within a couple minutes. Sound quality is excellent, it fills my kitchen up nicely with sound and the larger speaker has plenty of bass.
Overall I am pretty happy with my Move, I have only been using it for a month though so I will update this post as I put it through its paces over the next few months.
When the Echo Show 15 was released about 8 months ago I knew I had to get one to upgrade my first generation Show which is really slow to bring up my cameras or do anything really. The product is really at the end of life as far as functionality goes. It was basically just serving as a kitchen clock and occasionally for viewing cameras, but that was getting unreliable and slow. $250 is pretty expensive so I decided to wait until Prime Day and see if it would go on sale. I was really lucky as it did go on sale and I was able to trade in my First Gen show, and got a gift card for the trade-in so the final cost was under $100, which was a no brainer for me.
This summer we were undergoing a kitchen renovation so it was a good time to rethink how we use technology and hopefully simplify things a bit. One thing we really wanted to do is clean up the messy bulletin board we had on the wall with the dry erase calendar that we used for managing our family's appointments and schedules. The echo show 15 has a sticky note widget as well as a calendar widget that would solve those use cases for us. I also liked the idea of being able to manage all of my smart home products from the smart home widget but that leaves a lot to be desired at this point, more on that later.
My major use cases for the Echo Show 15 are as follows.
Organization
Calendar Functionality
Smart Home Functionality
As far as organization goes I am really happy with how much cleaner the area looks now. The Show 15 looks like a picture frame hanging on the wall and definitely has a cool factor. See below:
I am most impressed with the calendar functionality. We were able to connect our iPhone calendars with Alexa so now all of our and our kids appointments show up right of the Show 15. This is really a game changer for my not having to remember when I have to pick up the kids from sports or whatever they have going on.
Unfortunately the smart home functionality / widget leaves a lot to be desired. The widget only diplays six of my favorite smart devices and there is no functionality to go into a full screen to see all my devices / rooms like you can in the Alexa app. Hopefully this functionality will be imporoved upon in the future.
Installation was pretty easy, they provided a sturdy bracket to mount the Show. My wife weng back and forth a bit regarding where to put the device but decided to mount it to tge side of the wood enclosure for my refirgerator. The issue with mounting ot there was the power outlet was on the other side ofteh wall. I was ablr to pick up some plastic raceway and run the cable down the corner of teh wall which looks pretty clean.
One major issue that I am experiencing is that I am no longer able to drop in on my Alexa devices. I was able to do this a couple months ago without issue but now it just attemps to connect but never does. I don't think it has anything to do with the Echo Show 15 and I am unable to drop in on my Echo show 5 either. I think it is some setting in my Alexa account that is preventing drop in but I have been unable to figure it out so far. I even posted on some of the Alexa support message boards but they were not much help/
Another think I am a bit dissapointed with is the number of widgets available in the widget gallery. I would hope as time goes by smart device manufacturers will create widgets for theor devices. It would be great to have a widget that shows my sense status real time.
I think overall this device has a lot of potentail. I am looking forward to using it more once the school year starts and my familie's schedule starts getting crazy again.
I have an old spotlight above my drive way that we never use because the switch is in the garage and it is not on a motion sensor. I have always planned to replace it with a motion sensor light but it is about 25 feet above the ground and I really don't like working on ladders that high anymore. It also uses 100 watt incandescent bulbs which are extremely inefficient so I was hoping to switch to LED technology.
As I was looking through Philips Hue product lines I found that they have some outdoor rated LED spotlights that are only 13 Watts so that solves the efficiency issue. I was hoping I could build an Amazon Alexa routine that triggered off motion on my Arlo security cameras which is possible but I could not find a way to have the lights trigger only at night.
Fortunately Philips Hue sells an outdoor motion sensor that does exactly what I need. Setup was fairly easy as it is with all hue products. The only confusing thing is I needed to setup the scene for turning the light on and off based on motion through the motion detector itself, not the lights. Once I had that figured out it was pretty easy. The only thing I am not sure about is I needed to set a time for nighttime behavior but I want the light to come on only when it is dark and that will change throughout the year I am not sure if that will need adjusting. The motion sensor is set to only trigger when it is actually dark out so the time range seems to be redundant. Just something to keep an eye on throughout the year. So far they have been working flawlessly.
The only complaint I have heard about the motion sensor is that you cannot or it is very difficult to replace that battery. That is pretty unfortunate for a $50 product, hopefully it lasts at least a couple years and by then they may have a new motion sensor with additional features. The sensor does have a thermostat built in which I am not too sure what to do with. I guess you could run some automations based on temperature but I can't think of a good use case for it. The weird thing is I can't find the temperature anywhere in the Hue app. It only shows in Apple Home, which I rarely use. Apple Home may be something I need to dig in and learn about at some point as it seems some smart products only integrate there.
Overall I am pretty happy with this solution. It is a bit pricey but that is what you get when you go with Hue products
This past winter I had a couple issues with water leaks in my basement. First my hot water heater pressure relief valve was intermittently releasing water, then a sink had a loose connection that was leaking water and during an ice storm water was backing up against my foundation and coming into the house. My basement also serves and an in-law apartment and is finished so any floods would be costly and extremely inconvenient.
So I decided it was time to invest in some type of leak detector. As I did my research I found that I had a choice of smart leak detectors or dumb leak detectors. The dumb detectors basically just sound an alarm when they detect water. This wouldn't do me any good if I am away from home or the leak is in some corner of the basement where I couldn't hear it.
I decide to look at the smart leak detectors and was surprised by the lack of products in this category. Moen makes a leak detector that is meant to be paired with their water monitor but its cost was about double what the other options were. I found a coupe online reviews for the Yolink water sensor. It was reviewed really well, expandable and fairly inexpensive. The only drawback that I could see was it needed its own hub and I was really not that excited to add yet another hub to my smart home but having a seemingly sharp increase in leak issues in my home I needed a solution so I pulled the trigger.
Yolink sells the system in a few different configurations based on your needs. I went with the hub and four sensors. But you can buy extra leak detectors in one or three packs. Setup was very easy. The app was intuitive and easy to add the hub and sensors. A few days after installing we had another ice storm and the app notified me that water was detected in my basement. I was able to resolve the issue before any damage was done, so the product basically paid for itself and then some.
I like that for under $20 I can add an additional sensor if I have an area I am concerned about. If you have a large home you don't need to worry about range with this product. It uses a wireless technology called LoRa (long range) and they claim a quarter mile range. This would be great for a barn or detached garage. They also claim a 2 to 10 year battery life. I cannot confirm any of this but I have not had any range issues and all of my sensors are still showing 100%.
Yolink also sells other products to pair with their hub such as motion sensors, door sensors, temperature and humidity sensors and smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. They seem to always be adding new products as well so I am sure I will me adding more components at some point.
It has been a little while since I have purchased any new smart home products. I am still really into building out my smart home it just seems that there have not been any new products that have tempted me to pull the trigger.
Recently my wife and I were discussing putting some Christmas lights up on the house buy I really have no desire to be up and down a ladder to install the lights so I decided to do a little research and see whet was out there for smart outdoor smart products that we could use as Christmas lights. There are a few products out there but I kept coming back to Philips Hue. Specifically their Lily Outdoor Spotlights. It took me a couple months to pull the trigger on these due to the cost. The whole setup with the bridge and 5 lights cost me close to $600 and that was with the 2 extra lights on sale. Smart home enthusiasts seem to either love or hate Hue products, usually the hate come from the price as their products are really expensive. But they are very high quality and the Hue app is very good and easy to use.
One factor that helped me to justify the cost was that my front yard is very dark, we only have front door lights and a spotlight that we don't typically use as they are just dumb bulbs. These lights will provide some nice interest to the front of my house throughout the year as well as holidays when I want to change the colors. I can also start adding hue lights to different parts of my home as I see the need.
I do have various smart light bulbs around my home from a few different manufacturers. Mostly from promotions from my utility that a did not pay very much for. The downside is I have a few different apps to manage the lights and a couple times a year one of the drops off and I need to re-add it and remember which app to use. Kind of a pain. Now I can replace those with Hue lights as they die off.
What I was researching the Hue Lily spotlights I read a couple reviews where people were saying the lights weren't very bright for the price. Most of the photos that I found online seemed bright enough but there weren't a lot of examples out there. Philips also offers a larger/brighter spotlight called the Lily XL but I decided to just go with the standard version.
Setup
The base kit comes with 3 lights, a power supply, mounting hardware, ground spikes, cables and T connectors. I decided based on the look of the front of my home I needed 5 lights so I purchased two additional lights plus the smart hub. The power supply that comes with the base kit can support 5 lights so I am good there. The hub can support 50 lights so that should give me plenty of expansion in the coming years. Setup was pretty easy. Based on some other reviews I connected the lights together inside near the hub and then took the string of lights outside to stake in the ground. The lights and hardware seem to be pretty high quality. Very easy, took me about an hour and a half to unbox and setup. Hopefully they will last through our New England winters. Right now the cables are just laying on the ground. I will probably bury then in the spring when I mulch my harden beds.
The App
The app is one of the best features of the Hue system. It is very easy to add additional lights, setup zones and schedules. Most apps are not as intuitive as teh Hue app. You can also setup scenes that have different lighting themes based on your mood or the season (Golden Pond, Artic Aurora, Moonlight, etc). I setup a custom scene for Christmas with green and red lights. My kids were having a blast trying out all of the different scenes. There is a lot to teh app and I have not had time to fully explore it but I am looking forward to doing so in the coming months. Below is a couple examples of my setup with the Christmas and Bright scene. The lights aren't quite as bright as the photo shows, my iPhone night mode is doing some kind of magic. In real life they are a bit dimmer but still bright enough for me.
Overall I am pretty happy with my purchase, as expensive as it was it will be worth it to me as long as they last 5 or so years. My only concern is that I am going to spending a lot more money on additional hue lights throughout my home and yard.
I recently upgraded my Comcast internet service to gigabit speed, with that upgrade I was told that I would need their new modem/router to support that speed. Unfortunately the new router only had two ethernet ports whereas the old one had four. This posed a bit of a problem for me as I had my computer, Arlo hun and Tesla solar panel communication module connected to the router. Not sure why their new router has less ethernet ports than the old model, but luckily the simple solution was to get a switch.
Luckily switches are relatively inexpensive and very simple to use and install. A switch is basically a way to extend the number of ethernet ports that you have access to. They come in sizes from 5 to 48 for home and small office use and even larger for larger business. The switch I purchased is unmanaged meaning there is no software to install and it provides no functionality for managing network traffic or security. Which is fine for my home use.
Setup was extremely easy. It is a powered switch so you need an outlet to plug it into. Then you run an ethernet cable from your router to any port of the switch. Then just connect any wired device to the switch via ethernet cable. The switch is fan-less so it doesn't make any noise which is nice if you need to put it in a room where you need quiet. It does have lights on it for each port but I have my switch behind a cabinet so the lights don't bother me.
The only aggravation with the switch was the instructions told me to download an app to register the switch but the app provided no functionality to register. Pretty useful device for short money that most smart home enthusiasts probably have or will need to have as you build out your smart home.
My home is around 30 years old so this means some of the original components are at or close to their end of life. The good news is many of the new replacement products are much more efficient and now have smart controls making them much easier to operate. I have 10 skylights in my home, luckily none of them leak but I know with a 30 year old skylight it is just a matter of time. One of the skylights in my master bedroom had a broken seal between the panes so I knew at least it's efficiency was compromised. Most of my skylights also did not have blinds, this made sleeping in difficult with the bright morning sun shining in on us.
We did a pretty major master bathroom remodel over the summer but did not touch the skylights. After the remodel was done our 30 year old skylights just didn't fit with our new modern bathroom. We became aware of a soon to be expiring 30% federal tax credit on the purchase of solar skylights and blinds. 30% savings is pretty significant and we knew we would need to replace the skylights eventually so we had a local company out for estimates. Total before the tax credit was around $15,000 and after the credit our cost will be around $10,000. I opted for two fixed skylights and solar blinds in my bedroom, a fresh air solar skylight and two fixed skylights in my master bath. The fresh air skylight is near the shower to allow for ventilation when necessary. Below is a promo video from Velux showing some of the smart features
The skylights and blinds have been installed for a couple months now but I just recently got all of the smart controls and app working. The guys that installed the skylights did a great job but they are roofers and knew nothing about the smart features or setting things up. They didn't really even know what components were needed. They left me just the hub and none of the sensors, I had to talk to one of the managers about it the next day and it took over a month for them to ship every thing to me.
Components
There are a lot of components that come with these skylights and blinds. Each powered skylight and blind has its own remote control. This is kind of unnecessary if you are using the app once you get them setup. Now I have a bunch of remote controls laying around that I don't use. So they sit in a drawer.
The kit also comes with a hub which is necessary for the smart controls and to tie the components together. Velux recommends one hub for each room which to me should not be that case. I am using one for my bedroom and master bath which seems to be working fine. Then there is the climate sensor which monitors the temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide levels and will open the skylights when the room needs to be aired out or will close the blinds when the room is getting too hot. This is pretty much the selling point of the smart features of this product, The last component is the departure switch which you can activate to close and lock the skylights when you leave the house.
Hub
Remotes
Climate Sensor
Smart Features
I have to admit that one of my reasons for investing in these skylights and blinds is for the smart features. Velux's marketing team says that the smart features will provide energy savings as well as improve indoor air quality, I doubt that any energy savings will even pay for a fraction of the cost of the skylights but every penny counts I guess. In the summer time I do notice that my rooms with skylights get really hot so having the blinds close automatically will definitely help. I am not sure I am sold on the air quality functionality but I will be able to better judge that in the summer when it gets more hot and humid out. Opening up the skylights a couple times a day automatically to air out the room doesn't seem like a bad idea. I think the best feature is the scheduling. I can set the blinds to open and close at a certain time of day. One issue we had with the skylights in our bedroom was if we wanted to sleep in on the weekend we couldn't as it was so bright. Now we set the skylights to close in the evening and open at 10:00 am. Velux also has Apple Home Kit integration so you can ask Siri to open or close your blinds and skylights. Unfortunately no Alexa or Google Home integration yet but apparently it is in the pipeline.
Setup
I think product setup is one of the areas lacking with this product. The online documentation isn't great, the paper manual that comes with the app wasn't very intuitive either. I will talk about the app later but it leaves a lot to be desired. I wish the documentation was all in the app and it just stepped you through setup. I eventually got it all setup and figured out. Part of my issue was that I missed the step that you need to pair the remotes with the hub to set up smart controls. You need to first set up rooms and then add the hubs, remotes and sensors to each room. This takes a while and gets confusing if you have 6 remotes. I had to go through the process a couple times to get it setup properly and I am pretty tech savvy. Once I figured it all out the it works just fine. Probably something that the installers should have helped out with but they are roofers and did not seem to know anything about or were interested in smart product technology.
App
The app is just ok. The main screen shows your rooms you have setup and there are buttons on the bottom for locking the skylights, Good Moring - opens all blinds and Good night - closes all blinds. If I click on my master bathroom, where I have the climate sensor installed, I get an additional screen with Temperature, Humidity and C02 levels. The setup menu is where I have the biggest issue with the usability of the app. There are too may menus and it is just not intuitive on where to change settings. I usually have to fumble around for a few minutes before I can find the setting I am looking for. The Settings include:
Home management - Lists Rooms, Hubs and details of each
Active Control - Lets you set schedule and room comfort levels
Quick Actions - These are settings for the three buttons on the main screen
Notifications
Guest Management - Give guest access to control your skylights and blinds
Install New Products
Create a new Home
Help
My Account
Rate Us
Some screenshots of some of the screens are below. One thing that kind of concerns me is that the solar blinds and skylights run on a battery. What happened when the battery wears out? Hopefully I can just replace the battery and don't need a whole new unit. Also since the battery is charges by solar what happens when we have a few days with no sun or the solar collectors are covered by snow. The documentation did say there would be days in the winter where the blinds may not work if they do not have a sufficient charge. If that is teh case there should be a battery indicator within the app that shows the battery level. I have many other smart products that use batteries and all have some sort of battery indicator.
Pros
Energy Savings
Smart \ Convenience Features
Clean looks
Tax Credits
Potential indoor air quality improvement
Cons
Price - These products are not cheap
Lack of some features - Solar Battery monitoring
Odd behavior - Blinds randomly close to cool the room in the winter
Blinds are a bit loud when opening and closing.
No Alexa integration
Fixed Skylights in our Master with Solar Blinds
Overall
I am glad a replaced my skylights when I did and was able to take advantage of the solar tax credit. The jury is still out for me on the smart features of this product. The scheduling has been the most beneficial, kind of a set it and forget it type of thing. The issues I have with the app are fixable but even if they stay as is it is usable. I really wish there was something in the app that gave me a battery level indicator but maybe that will come in the future. One last upcoming feature that I am looking forward to is integration with Amazon Alexa. I have my skylights integrated with Apple Homekit but all my other smart products use Alexa so that can't come soon enough. I think I will learn more about the product over the upcoming months as the weather warms up.
I still have 5 skylights in my home that need to be replaced. Unfortunately I won't be able to take advantage of the 30% tax credit. There is a 26% tax credit in 2020 and then it drops to 22% in 2021 so I need to make a decision soon.
A couple years ago I watched the below "This Old House" episode about a local company that developed a whole home energy monitor that uses machine learning to figure out how much electricity your home is using. Basically every device in your home has a unique electric signature that sense can pull out and identify. It is pretty cool technology that is still fairly new and while not perfect should get better as more and more people start using the device. As a owner of solar panels I have a device that tells me how much solar I am generating but I have no idea how much power I am using at a given time. To be able to drill into individual appliances may even allow me to change some habits and save some money.
The monitor is a pretty expensive piece of technology and add another $50 if you want to track solar output as well. Not to mention it installs inside your electrical panel so you will probably need to hire an electrician to get it installed.
I had the monitor installed in mid-July. It takes a couple days to start tracking your energy and then a another week or so before it starts finding devices. My home is a bit unique in that my mother lives with me in an in-law apartment which means I have two stoves, refrigerators. ovens, toasters, microwaves and washers and dryers. Not to mention two AC compressors which are my major energy users. My main goal in purchasing the device was to get a handle on where I am using electricity but also as I tech geek I just think the technology is cool and fun to plat with.
So after about a week of having the device installed it started finding devices. The "device discovery" process is not an exact science. Usually when it finds a device it will tell you it found a motor or a heating device and a confidence level. You need to go around your house and turn those devices on and off and confirm what it found then you can rename the device and provide more information to help sense. Sense did a pretty good job identifying my devices properly. It did find what it thought was three different vacuums none of which were vacuums that I own. I think some of the oddities that I saw were due to a remodeling project I had going on in my house, so Sense found a bunch of power tools that aren't really part of my home.
So after about months of discovery Sense has found about 26 devices. It has found most of my major appliances. It will not yet find any LED light bulbs that you have but it did find the incandescent bulbs in my refrigerator. It found my gas dryer, but not my washer yet. It also has not found any of the TVs in my house all of which are LED. Device discovery has slowed down over the past few weeks but I assume it will find a few more devices once the weather get cooler and I start needing to heat my home.
One interesting data point that sense provides is your "always on" or phantom power. This is the electricity used by devices like your tv, cable box, routers, phone chargers or any other devices that use a small amount of power but are always on. My always on number is under 250 watts which I think is pretty good considering the number of smart home products I have. This is probably and area that I can take a closer look at and save a little money by unplugging some of those always on devices while I am not using them.
The device does integrate with some smart televisions but not any of the ones I own. The also did recently announce integration with TP-Link smart switches and power strips. So if there low power devices in your home that Sense cannot detect you can plug them into the TP-Link device and name the device and it will show up in sense with its power usage. I theory this should help sense detect some of these devices in the future. I really wish Sense would provide a discount on these TP-Link smart switches as I would love to plug my entertainment center devices into smart power switch but for $70 I may wait for a sale.
The device is definitly a work in progess. I have had much better luck with device discovery than most. A friend installed the device a month or two before I did has less than 10 devices detected. In theory though as more people use the device the machine learning models should get better. I do have a concern about what happens if Sense goes under. Since all of the processing is done on teh cloud, if the company goes away so does all of my data and monitoring. But I guess that is a risk we take as early adopters of technology
When I purchased my home a few years ago one of the things I really wanted to do was install some speakers outside on my deck. I started purchasing Sonos speakers and components and really loved their platform so my hope was that Sonos had plans to add a wireless outdoor speaker to their lineup. Unfortunately as I did more research I came to the realization that Sonos has no plans to add an outdoor wireless speaker. I think the components inside a Sonos speaker are just to sensitive for outdoor use. As a workaround we have been bringing one of our Sonos Play:1 speakers outside or putting it in the window to get our music outside. This has been an Ok temporary workaround but not a great long-term solution.
Sonos' solution to outdoor speakers is their Connect Amp product and aftermarket outdoor speakers. The Connect Amp has been around for a while. It allows you to connect a turntable or CD player and you connect to any speakers you have. The Amp, obviously is not meant for outdoor use but if you connect it to a good pair of outdoor speakers you are good to go. The reason most people buy Sonos speakers is because it is so easy to setup and is wireless. So putting wired speakers on a Sonos product seems a bit silly but if it gets my music outside it works for me.
When I was researching options for my outdoor music solution I was really unaware of who made good outdoor speakers and was really not interested in some of the rock speakers that were popular a few years back. Eventually I cam across the Sonos / Sonance outdoor music streaming system. The system is comprised of:
Sonos Connect Amp
2 Sonos MAG06 Outdoor speakers
Xpress Audio Keypad
The system is sold on Amazon and BestBuy and retails for $1,200. It does frequently go on sale and I have seen it sell for as low as $600 which is what I paid. The Amp and speakers will run you well over $1,000 separately so if you can get in on sale it is a great deal. Speaker wire is not included by the way. When reading reviews some people were complaining that speaker wire was not installed but I think it makes sense not to include speaker wire as some installations will need longer runs and different wire gauges.
Sonos recently released a new Amp product that has twice the power as the Connect Amp as well as HDMI ARC inputs. I was considering this new product but it is quite a bit more expensive and the HDMI ARC would be useless as I am using the speakers outside. The new Sonos Amp is rated at 250 watts versus the old Connect Amp at 110 watts. Based on reviews I have read the power is sufficient for driving a pair of speakers. If you are planning to drive more than a pair the new Amp is probably a better choice.
My electrician was out last week and snaked the speaker wire through the wall and I am now up and running with the new system. I am pretty happy for the price I paid. The speakers are pretty large and seem to be high quality. I am a little concerned about how they are going to hold up through a new England winter but we will see how it goes. The sound is good and they work like just another pair of Sonos speakers. They are not going to blow my neighbors away but get sufficiently loud. The only odd thing I notices is that I need to have the volume in the Sonos app up to at least 50% to hear anything from the speakers. Once over 50% the volume gets exponentially louder and there is no need to turn it up to 100%. I was thinking the issue may be some setting in the app but I couldn't find anything. I searched through the Sonos community forums and found quite a few people reporting the same issue. It appears to be just how the amp performs with these speakers. As I mentioned before they get pretty load so it is not really an issue for me.
The only other thing worth mentioning is the Xpress Audio Keypad Remote that came with the system. It is kind of a redundant piece of hardware as I usually have my phone with me when I am outside listening to music, this keypad does less than the app does. I initially thought I would just sell it on Craigslist but it is kind of an obscure product and figured it would not get a whole lot of interest. So installed it and will use it going forward to see if it adds any value. It does provide the following functionality.
play/pause
track skip
favorites
volume up/down
The back is magnetic and you can mount it to your wall with provided double sided tape or in a Decora faceplate. It sets up as a wireless device, the process was a little convoluted but I was able to get through it in 10 or so minutes. The only issue I have had is if I put the keypad in my pocket I have accidentally turned the music on without knowing it only to find out hours later when I went outside. Unfortunately it only pairs to one Sonos/speaker device and there is no screen on it so you can't see which song or favorite station is playing. Might be more useful if I could toggle through all my Sonos speakers.
Overall I am really liking the system as a whole. Time will tell how well it hold up but I am going to really enjoy music on my deck for the rest of the season this year.
I was looking forward picking up a couple smart home products for this past Amazon Prime day. I area in my home that I have not automated yet is my garage doors. There have been a few times where I have forgot to close my garage door and it has stayed open all night. I have read a lot of mixed reviews of the MyQ smart garage door opener but at the end of the day it seems to be the best, most cost effective choice in the category.
I have two garage doors so I needed to purchase the add-on sensor to control my second door. Interestingly the add-on sensor cost more than the hub and primary sensor due to the Prime day deal that I got. I ended up paying just over $60 for both items.
The product consists of a hub that installs in your garage, is connected to wifi and needs to be paired with your garage door opener as well as a sensor that installs on your garage door to determine if your garage door is open or closed. The MyQ hub is manufactured by Chamberlain, one of the biggest garage door manufacturers and they claim they the MyQ hub works with most garage door openers manufactured after 1993. I have 2 identical Chamberlain garage door openers manufactured in 2016 so no problem, or so I thought.
To get started on installation you need to first get the MyQ app and set up a user id and password. Then you plug in and power up the hub, scan the serial number, connect to wifi and pair the hub and sensor to the device. Should be pretty straight forward given that I have Chamberlain garage door openers manufactured in 2016. The process went off the rails for me when attempting to pair the hub with my garage door opener. No matter how many times I tried I just could not get the hub to pair. I went through the process a couple times and was finally directed to contact technical support. Unfortunately this was the 2nd day of Prime day so I knew I was in for a long wait. After getting disconnected for chat support about a dozed times I decided to just call in. I only had to wait about a half hour to speak to a person. The friendly tech support rep had me go through the pairing process again using my phone, then again using the web portal and still no luck. She put me on hold for a few minutes and had me pair the hub as a light through the setup process and that seemed to do the trick. So after an hour on the phone with tech support I had a working smart garage door opener. I was able to repeat the process for my 2nd opener and the rest of the process was fairly pain free. Except for the next day when my wife came home and the remote openers in my car not longer worked. Although I think that may have been my own fault as I may have held the program button down too long one time and wiped out the codes for my remotes. We were pretty easily able to reprogram the remotes but it just added to the my frustration with the process.
I usually don't expect much from apps created by non technology companies but the MyQ app isn't too bad. The main status screen shows you and icon of your garage door or doors and how long they have been open. You can click on the doors to open or close them. This works fairly quickly the only aggravation is the LED flashing and beeping that comes from the hub when you close the door from the app. This is a safety feature as if someone is in the garage you could unknowingly close the door on them. I thought that is why all garage doors not have the safety laser but over not that big of a deal.
The next important screen is the settings screen where you can access History, Device Management, myQ Guests, Works with myQ, Alerts and schedules.
The History screen is pretty useful as it shows a log of when each door was opened. The myQ Guests allows you to invite people to have access to open and close the garage doors, I was able to invite my wife using this feature. I have an Alert set if my garage door is opened for more than two hours to notify me, probably the most useful feature for me at this point. There is also a schedule screen where you can schedule your garage doors to close at a certain time every day.
The works with myQ screen allows you link the hub with other smart home services like Google Assistant, IFTTT, and Apple Homekit. The Apple Homekit integration requires an additional bridge that you need to purchase. Interestingly no integrations with Alexa. I think there was at one point but they were removed for security reasons. One of the big complaints I have heard about the Google Assistant and IFTTT integrations is there is a monthly fee to use them. This is pretty much unheard of with other Smart Home manufacturers. IFTTT has geofencing functionality where you can set your garage door to open when you get close to home. This would be a nice feature but I am not going to pay for it. Hopefully Chamberlain will see the error of their ways and eliminate the monthly fees. But I think this is something you sometimes see when I non tech company gets into technology. They just don't see the value of providing these services as part of the product.
Pros:
Inexpensive
Easy to physically Install
Functionally does what is supposed to do
Cons:
Setup process can be a headache
Charge for IFTTT and Google Home integrations
No Amazon Alexa Integration
Overall Pretty happy with my myQ opener after he frustrations with getting it setup. The one additional integration that I have not decided whether I want to use yet is Amazon Key. This is Amazon's service that allows the delivery driver to unlock your door or open your garage to deliver your package inside so it doesn't get stolen. They sell a kit that comes with an Amazon Cloud Cam so you can watch deliveries but it did not go on sale for Prime Day so I opted just for the hub. Apparently you can turn Amazon key on without a camera but I am not sure I am comfortable with that, I also don't want to have yet another app to view videos from. Since I already own Arlo cameras I am considering getting an Arlo Q camera for my garage and trying out the Key Service. I will report back my experience here if I do.
I have been wanting to replace the 1990s era clock radio in my bedroom with an echo device since the Echo Spot was released. The issue was my wife refused to allow a device with a camera in the bedroom. So we have been holding off hoping that Amazon would release something new that would work for us.
Then a couple weeks ago Amazon released the new Echo Show 5 which seems to check most of the boxes that were preventing me from upgrading in the past. I pulled the trigger and purchased the Echo 5 the day it was released. Below are my thoughts after using the device for a couple days.
Price - For $89 this is a pretty good deal compared to the Echo Spot ($130) and Echo Show($230).
Sound - Obviously this isn't going to compare with a Sonos speaker but for a clock radio to wake up to it is sufficent
Size - This is a small device, about the size of a standard smartphone. But the form factor is much better than the Spot especially when viewing video which were cropped way down to be basically unusable. Not that I am going to be watching movies on the device but the larger size will be useful when streaming video from my security camera's
Privacy - This is the big addition that I think will make people who were hesitant to bring an Echo Show device in their bedroom consider it. The new Echo Show 5 does have a camera but also has a little shutter switch which will cover the camera when not in use. This definitely alleviated some of the fears that my wife had about using a spot as a clock radio.
Functionality - Think of this as a smaller version of the Echo Show. It looks very similar and has most of the same functionality just in a smaller form factor.
Clock Radio - One of the issues that I has with my existing clock radio was that the blue background of the led screen was too bright and I would have to turn it away from me while I slept. The Echo Show senses the brightness in the room and adjusts the display accordingly. When all the lights in my room are out the numbers turn an orange like color and is almost too hard to read but I think I just need to get used to it. I am on vacation this week so I have not used the alarm yet bit I have to assume it woks just fine as teh other echo devices do.
What's Missing - The Echo Show 5 checks almost all the boxes for me the only feature missing in my opinion is a battery backup. This is a standard feature on most clock radios. It is especially useful here in New England as we lose power a couple times a year, a battery backup would allow the alarm to still wake me up in the event of a power loss.
Overall I think this is a great device for the price. Amazon definitely listens to their customers and releases products that fix the problems in the previous models. Looking forward to getting to know this little device better over the next couple months.
A representative from Gosund reached out to me a couple weeks ago and asked if I would be willing to try out and review their smart plug. Of course I can't say no to free smart products so I agreed and had two of their smart plugs in the mail this weekend.
The plugs arrived in no frills packaging with a small user manual. I don't usually bother with manuals unless I have issues so I jumped right in to getting them setup. I do have one other smart plug from another manufacturer in my daughter's room to control her lights so I decided to install these in my son's room to control his two lamps.
Setup was pretty straight forward, I just downloaded the Smart Life App, registered with my email address, connected to my wifi network and discovered the plugs. It is a good idea to give each plug a descriptive name so you know what they are controlling. Next I needed to add the plugs to Alexa so we can control them with our voice. This process was fairly simple as well. I just needed to enable the Smart Life skill and link it with my Smart Life account and then discover the two plugs. The first time I went through this process it did not work. I found the issue was probably on my end, I missed the screen to link the accounts. Once I went through the process again the devices were discovered we were off and running.
To really make my son smile a set up a routine so when I say "Alexa, Goodnight [Son's name]", the routine turns off both lights and plays sleep sounds for 30 minutes to help him go to sleep. Pretty cool stuff for an 8 year old. Voice control is key for my kids rooms as they both have Alexa dot devices and I don't want them messing around in smart device apps changing my settings around.
The plugs also work with Google Home and IFTTT, I don't have a Google Home device so I was not able to test that out but from what I have read it works just fine.
The Smart Life app seems pretty advanced. There are all kinds of automations that you can setup based on temperature, humidity, weather, sunrise/sunset or time schedule. Pretty advanced for a free app. Most smart products at this price point don't have this level of sophistication. The only feature it lacks is energy monitoring, but most smart plugs that include this are three to four times the price and honestly would be overkill for a lamp with a 10 wat bulb.
So lets talk about the value you get for this smart plug. Do a quick search on Amazon and you will find that competing smart plugs are two to three times the price of one of these plugs. Get a four pack and you are paying way less that $10 a plug and once you buy one you are going to find a use case for more. I am already thinking of a couple other places in my home where I could use these plugs.
Overall great value for your money with these Gosund plugs. Check them out if you want to dip into smart automation without spending a ton of money. With the right automations you may even be able to save a couple bucks on your electricity bills.
