Smart Home Tour 2024!

[@bromide999]

I have been watching KZbin for 15+ years and I’ve watched a lot of videos as I love to research before I buy. Now I can honestly say that this has been the most enjoyable and informative video I have ever watched in those 15 year. The down side is that you have cost me a small fortune with upgrades and new purchases but well worth it (I’m like you with my wife) 👏🏼👏🏼

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

Thank you so much, this is one of the nicest comments I’ve ever had and was really great to read.

[@cals.9269]

Phenomenal tour ! I am blown away by how cool this house is. Many thanks for sharing.

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@tarkadahl1985]

3:43 that door sensor on the letter box is brilliant

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

It's so useful! You're in another part of the house and someone posts something through the door, you get an alert to go fetch it. Contact sensors are much smaller than that one now so if I did this again I might use a small Aqara one instead to be more discrete.

[@skoodledoo]

I have a basic Smartthings setup. I live in a house with a door directly on pavement with no doorbell. The front door is in a porch that I can't hear anyone knocking from in other parts of the house. If the door sensor detects vibration (a knock) without it opening, it plays a doorbell sound on my speakers around the house. If the mail flap sensor is opened, it plays "you've got mail" on the speakers. Such a simple thing, but OH MY GOD it makes a huge difference.

[@ionlywanttrains]

Wow! Great to see both the simple front end (nice simple switches, voice and automations) and the more complex back end how you link it all together.

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

Thank you very much!

[@DanEVSolar7]

Great video and also love the sticker in your TV cabinet. 😁

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

Isn’t that where everyone keeps their DanEVSolar stickers?

[@davidcoates6768]

Wah loads of tech stuff, even more than I was expecting. Thanks for showing us it all!

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

And there’s plenty more I didn’t get chance to show :)

[@lordstevewilson1331]

Poor girl, dad is so obsessed with cutting power and heating she has to sit in the house with a hoodie on. Bad bad dad. 😂

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

Haha she says she agrees with you

[@MrPurle]

That was nowhere near as OTT as I had envisaged! 😀 Lots of well thought out, useful yet unobtrusive additions - properly smart. Having seen yours, I feel I now need to "up" my bathroom automation game... 😀

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

Motion detected in the bathroom could be misinterpreted if not careful :)

[@chrisholland4952]

I cannot wait to start making my home more “smart”. This has taken smart home up another level.

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

Best of luck, it’s a fun hobby for sure :)

[@richchapman5011]

Just subscribed as, for some reason, I’ve only just found your channel. Enjoyed the content tremendously and about to binge on old episodes. I understand about how hard a conservatory can be to automate as in the UK it’s either too cold OR that hot that everything melts “when” we get the sun.

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

Welcome! I hope you enjoy the other stuff too.

[@AndyKennedy]

I spent £600+on the IKEA thermal blinds and had nothing but issues with them too. Often they don't respond, they have strings in which get messed up a lot, some mornings I've come down and they've managed to tangle themselves up ABOVE the bar somehow! 🤦🏻‍♂️ If you still have issues, try delaying the blind commands on H assistant so one closes 10 seconds later or something, they seem to get confused when multiple commands sent at once I've noticed.

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

Thanks for that tip, I'll give it a go. At the moment I have the two kitchen blinds grouped and control them as one, but I'll separate them out in the automations to see if it improves it.

[@StHabibiJohnsonAhmedFranklin]

Came for tech, stayed for the norty torty!

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

Haha that little pest gets everywhere :)

[@wyx087]

Can you show us how you did the button? Which integration for your Bosch? I’m using Home Connect Alt integration (Home Assistant HACS) for my Neff dishwasher. I think Neff, Bosch are all using Home Connect. But I can’t figure out how to set the delays in HA.

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

It's a bit out of date now because the way you authorise the Home Connect Alt integration has changed, but I did show this in this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mmXEfoGsitOAiNU

[@wyx087]

@@SpeakToTheGeekTech Brilliant. Got it working with help of your video. Thank you so much, I can now delete the Home connect app and use something via HA.

[@homegadget-mark]

Great tour, always interested to see how other smart home users set things up.

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@SmithyScotland]

It's god to see what smart tech is actually used beyond the original video.

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

There’s so much more too but it was going on a bit. Editing that video I kept remembering all the things I’d wanted to say but forgotten

[@rozowyrower1]

How do you connect the motion sensor to turn lights on /off please?

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

I use the automation that I demo in this video kzbin.info/www/bejne/hoHYopKhfKecmbc

[@rozowyrower1]

@SpeakToTheGeekTech thank you

[@roguebullet4220]

My dream, my wifes nightmare 😂

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

You've got to keep the tech hidden and ideally still operated totally manually when needed!

[@01mememememe]

very insight full, thanks

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

Glad it was helpful!

[@kigtod]

Very interesting and yes, I was also curious to see your house and how to locate the burglar alarm control 😉! I have the same model dishwasher as you so I might try the remote button schedule trick as I have an unused ‘long press’ function on an existing Sonoff button I have in the kitchen. One bit of smart technology I’ve just implemented is to use the Home Assistant Waste Collection integration to show which colour bin to put out and when. I display this on my home-made central heating controller which uses Blynk IoT and I use the HA RESTful interface to talk to it.

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

I’ve recently done the same for waste collection in my area… not got it very reliable yet but hopefully I’ll crack it

[@DavidBond668]

Wow you have invested a lot in tech. Lots to learn from. I might look into Eufy scales as like my eufy robot hoover. 🎉

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

Those scales are extremely good value I reckon. Please use my links if you do buy, the affiliate earning really help! I haven’t tried a eufy vaccine yet but they seem pretty solid from the reviews, it would be good to compare to the SwitchBot ones I have.

[@janetmorris6792]

Never saw your home assist panel in the tour, I want a Home assist panel but have to go through all that programing gaff

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

I don't have a panel as such, I've tried to keep as much of the tech as subtle as possible and a glowing control screen would stand out. You can shout at Alexa or Siri, or use the app on our phones to control things, or stuff just happens automagically. I might create a control panel, I have seen several examples of nice looking ones in other videos but nothing that makes me think it'll fit in nicely with my home. Apart from e-ink. I may be working on some e-ink ideas :)

[@JurassicJungle]

Interested to know what your base "phantom" load is with all of this gear.

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

Very good question :) I wondered the same thing - I monitor the whole of my server rack which uses 65-70 watts. Most of the other devices around the house are tricky to monitor but they tend to drawer almost nothing most of the time (probably 10 watts total from experimentation). I have a high baseload but it’s from the server rack and computer equipment rather than the various other gadgets scattered around. I am working on a whole home energy monitoring video but that’s probably a March release at the earliest

[@JurassicJungle]

@@SpeakToTheGeekTech I was a beta customer for E.ON a few years back and we have Zwave sockets that we used for all appliances and a whole home meter. It was very interesting to see where power was used and what you could change. For us there were some surprises like a Tivo box we hardly used which used 70w most of the time. We got rid of devices like that. Our home is 100% electric so we do use a lot but I also have so many small devices it does add up.

[@MartinHiggs84]

Nice, a mmwave sensor will know if someone is in the bath or not to keep lights on.

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

Yup I could do with a few of those but they are all (?) mains powered so I’d need to divert power from somewhere to deal with that.

[@Richardincancale]

2:36 What’s the thing that looks like a plastic loudspeaker box just above the kitchen(?) door?

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

I had to go and look to find out! It’s the indoor siren for the old alarm system. All it does is bleep to warn you if the system is armed and you need to quickly enter the PIN to disarm it.

[@Richardincancale]

@ Thanks! Sorry to disturb your Saturday morning peace!

[@TheRatty2e]

Love the home made energy alert, could you do a video on how you did it?

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

Yup, it was one of my early ones. You can just use a regular RGB LED bulb if you want, but I obviously decided to make it more complicated! kzbin.info/www/bejne/fGbclIhtn9-je9k

[@noz3m]

Ive been running deconz II for a few years now, all works fine. Where are you upgrading to?

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

I currently use the Conbee II with zigbee2mqtt not deconz, but I plan to switch the Conbee II over to an SMLight controller still in zigbee2mqtt

[@constructioneerful]

Be great to see a Give Energy ev chargers home assist integration special? Any sign of octopus tariff integrating with it?

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

I've already made one of those - this method is the one I still use to this day: kzbin.info/www/bejne/q3PQo5RoeLySa7M but I think there might be a pre-made integration now that does the same thing. You can of course use GivTCP to control it locally but I haven't found that method particularly reliable myself although I do know others using it without issues. And no, there's no sign of Octopus adding it to IOG yet, but honestly with the extra hour now available on normal Octopus Go and its associated export rate equalling IOG there is very little difference between the two tariffs for most people. You'd save a little bit with IOG compared to OG but it's a couple of pounds a month rather than the tens of pounds it was previously.

[@wilson87j]

Git some good inspiration. Cool video. Fir your bathroom though look at shower humidity on the hime assistant community. Ive got the motuon sensor, but use a sensor made up from 2 humidty sensors. Ine in the bathroom and one in my bedroom to look for a change in humidity and thats turned into a binary sensor so when humidity is detected in the bathroom, it turns the fan on and light until the humidity is back to normal. It does make you feel like youre in the future! Although now a days a presence sensors probably better 😂

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

I did try a humidity controlled fan but found that it would turn on at very inconvenient times. I’m sure things have improved since then so perhaps it’s worth another try thanks

[@wilson87j]

@SpeakToTheGeekTech mines been set up a few years now. I had false readings when only using one humidity sensor in the bathroom as you know the UK has a humid climate, but I did find something that compares the rise between 2 humidity sensors and that's been pretty solid!

[@Paulruk]

How are you finding the Reolink cameras, had 3 of them and 2 of them let in water within a year. Slowly replacing them in dahua which I’ve had a couple for 2 years without any issues. Also how much did your solar setup cost and have you worked out how long to pay it off? Had octopus quote me £8k and about 9 years to break even. Thanks

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

So far they seem to be great. I haven’t had them a year yet though so time will tell on that issue.

[@UpsideDownFork]

Crikey! Whats your base load with all that stuff? Does it add up to any meaningful consumption?

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

Too much! That old alarm system on its own pulls about 30 watts and I would love to replace it at some point. My server rack in the garage draws 65-75 watts continuously too. The Echo and Sonos speakers pull about 50 watts total between them. It all adds up and means we have a high baseload but I consider that partially the price I pay for my hobby. As a consequence you are aware that I also use that hardware to try and minimise my energy consumption in many other places around the home so the net effect is less than it would be otherwise. Honestly, there's a lot more tech in the house than shown in this video, I just forgot / ran out of time!

[@nickosullivan5456]

Can you clarify why ufh is so expensive when you have solar heat pump and battery. thought this would be cheaper with all your kit?

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

The underfloor heating in the conservatory is a 1.5kW electric one and separate to the heat pump unfortunately.

[@nickosullivan5456]

@SpeakToTheGeekTech thanks moving house soon and was hoping to put ufh in. you have a lovely house don't think I will be doing my house on that scale .👍

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

Thank you, that's very nice of you to say

[@tarkadahl1985]

30:26 "hello daughter" 😂

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

We’re very formal in this household. She only ever refers to me as “father”

[@M3Benn]

cameras in arms reach is such a no no.

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

Yeah, two are out of arms reach. The one on the shed is vulnerable yeah, but that shed is going this year so I’ll have to come up with a better solution when that happens. Difficult to put the doorbell out of arms reach though cuz nobody can reach it then :)

[@AlanS-uu5sy9vy8o]

Wow, you must have a very tolerant wife 🤔🤔

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

I’ve just shown her this comment… she made no comment

[@brianrussell6988]

What does your wife think about all this tech?

[@SpeakToTheGeekTech]

I try to keep it as hidden as possible as you can hopefully see. But if it doesn't work it gets called Stupid and I know I've failed :)