Philips Hue Spotlight and Outdoor Motion Detector

 

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

 

Philips Hue Lily Outdoor Spotlights

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.

MyQ Smart Garage Door Opener

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.

Arlo Pro Wireless Cameras

I started looking to get some kind of video surveillance system for my house about a year ago.  Initially I was looking pretty closely at the wired DVR based systems.  But there were a few characteristics of these systems that made me hesitate.  First, the need to hire an electrician to install the system.  I could attempt to install myself but the idea of crawling around my attic and up on ladders did not get me excited.  Second, I don't like the idea that all of the recording sit on a DVR in your home.  If a thief breaks in they can just steal the DVR and all the evidence.  Finally, most of the DVR based systems have really bad apps.  As a software developer I appreciate a nice user experience and most of these just do not provide it.

My must haves for a system were:

• Outdoor rated
• Wireless
• Free Cloud Storage
• Long battery Life
• Modern mobile app / website

So, I started looking at "smart" video surveillance systems, the two that really interested me were Ring and Arlo.  I initially was looking at Ring but two things swayed me. First, you needed to pay a monthly fee for cloud storage, I did not want to pay for cloud storage.  Second, you needed to hard wire the camera to your doorbell.  My doorbell was not working so that would mean hiring an electrician to get it fixed.  So I started looking elsewhere.

The original Arlo cameras looked very promising but I was reading some reviews about delays in recording.  Also the original Arlo cameras used regular batteries which would need to be replaced every few months.  So it seemed to me that the technology just wasn't where I needed it to be yet, I figured I would wait and eventually the tech would catch up.

Fast forward about 6 months, in November of 2016 Netgear released their Arlo Pro cameras.  These cameras provided everything that the original Arlo camera's plus rechargeable batteries that promised 3-6 months of charge.  I have had my Arlo Pro Camera for 9 months not and I have to say I love them.

There are a couple cool features that this camera system has that I have yet to use.  The base station has an alarm built that can be triggered by motion or manually.  Triggering on motion wouldn't work for me as it would not be fun to be woken up at 3am because a cat walked by my camera.  Where I think this could be useful is if someone breaks in, the camera would notify me and then I could manually trigger the alarm.  Hopefully I will never have to do this.

Another cool feature that I have yet to use in the USB storage.  Basically you plug a USB flash or Hard drive into the base station and all videos are saves on the device along with the cloud.  Nice feature to get more that 7 days history.  I need to pick up a flash drive one of these days so I have a backup.

The last couple features that I have yet to use are geofencing and  Arlo Smart.  Geofencing allows you to turn camera and notifications on and off when you phone enters and exits a predefined zone.  I keep my camera armed at all times and occasionally disarm them if I am working in the yard so I don't get a bunch of unnecessary notifications and videos.   Arlo Smart is a paid service that uses AI to categorize the type of motion detected as people, animals, vehicles and others and then allows you to choose notifications for certain categories.  They give you a 30 day free trial and then charge $3.99 per camera per month after that.  I think Netgear is missing the boat a bit on the Arlo Smart feature.  I as well as many buyers went with Arlo over the competition because there was no monthly fee.  Now they want to charge for a feature that to me is not really needed.  I don't get many false notifications and don't really care id a car or person pulled in my driveway, I still want to know.

Pros:

• Wireless - Easy Install
• Free 7 day cloud service
• Long life Rechargeable batteries
• Solar Panel for charging batteries
• Alarm Built into base station
• Works with Amazon Echo Devices
• USB Storage
• Geofencing
• Great App

Cons:

• System is a bit pricey
• non-continuous recording
• Video quality - not 1080p

Overall these cameras are exactly what I was looking for.  I have a two camera system.  Setup was a breeze.  I tool me under an hour to get both cameras set up.  Battery life is as promised.  The more activity the camera has the less time the battery will last.  My front camera that does not get much activity batteries lasted about 7 months.   My side camera that is very active batteries last about 2 months.  But now with the addition of the solar panel I don't expect to ever have to charge the batteries.

The cameras are great but they aren't perfect.  They are a bit pricey, a four camera system will cost you over $500 add a few solar panels and  mounts and you can quickly get north of $1000.  The product literature claims High Definition video.  The quality is not 1080p and think it gets compressed which lowers the quality even more.  I have seen competing camera videos that are definitely higher quality.  All in all though I will take the pros over the cons.

As of this writing Amazon announced that Arlo Cameras now work with the Echo Show so you can get a live feed of your cameras.  Just one more reason for me to love these cameras.