Right now, I am using a Wink Hub, but I am thinking about upgrading to Smart Things for the Action Tiles interface:
Hm don't know what those are or what they do, and I checked the web site.
Right now, I am using a Wink Hub, but I am thinking about upgrading to Smart Things for the Action Tiles interface:
Tell you what- got a Philips Hue color set for Christmas, and it's a life-changer with Alexa. Voice controlled color lights in every room sounds weird at first, but then you wonder how you lived without it. Scenes, music sensitivity, moods...very cool tech!
Yeah - I thankfully wasn't invested in anything else and did some research and decided on SmartThings from the beginning. Admittedly, a lot of the other hubs have good support, but the online community for SmartThings is fantastic and the out of the box ability of the hub is pretty good, with significantly more granularity than Alexa routines, IFTTT, etc. I've looked into actiontiles and may get it at some point, but my plan for my smart home is to have it actually "smart" and therefore everything is automatic, or voice activated. My alarm on smart things activates and deactivates based on presence, my patio lights activate based on time of day & contact sensor, my living room lights are voice controlled, etc etc and I've only dipped my feet in a tiny bit. I'll probably add a raspberry pi control server at some point so I can have additional smart things functionality through non-zigbee and Z-wave devices, but I need to brush up on my coding first.I am a big fan of the Alexa VUI system. The voice recognition is stellar. I currently have 3 types of units:
1. Amazon Echo (living room - integrated speaker; note - the 2nd-gen Echo has bad reviews on the speaker)
2. 10" Fire HD tablet (kitchen - the 10" HD is the only model that offers hands-free Alexa, super useful when your hands are messy from cooking)
3. Echo Dot (in every other room - luckily snagged them on that Whole Foods mega-sale for cheap; also including bathrooms, which are wirelessly connected to Bluetooth speaker/nightlight/exhaust fan combos)
Right now, I am using a Wink Hub, but I am thinking about upgrading to Smart Things for the Action Tiles interface:
https://www.actiontiles.com
Wink is a smart home hub, similar to Samsung SmartThings, Homekit, etc. Smart home hubs interface between your network and zigbee / z-wave devices. For some devices, additional "bridges" are required, such as the hue bulbs (which can be ran on their own without a bridge, but is recommended to use bridge), the harmony remotes, etc.Hm don't know what those are or what they do, and I checked the web site.
Wow. I had no idea this existed. Thanks for the heads up.