Smart Devices

[Carson Dyle]

Looking at some light bulbs (a thread in Off Topic), I just realized how cool it would be to have network controllable lights in the house. Not sure what else I'd have a use for in the way of smart devices. Maybe a thermostat or coffee maker.

Are the smart devices themselves wireless? I figured they'd communicate over something like powerline networking rather than wifi.

 

[NutBucket]

They can use wifi, zwave, Bluetooth....almost anything really.

 

[Carson Dyle]

All wireless, though?

 

[DarkManX]

All wireless, though?

the "smart" functionality is pretty much always wireless!

 

[Kaido]

All wireless, though?

So basically, most consumer-grade DIY smarthome stuff is wireless. There are a half a dozen wireless standards, however, so you need some central way to control them. The controller depends on what hardware you buy & what you want to do. For example, Lutron sells smart light switches for $60 each that use a radio called ClearConnect. There are two hubs that support ClearConnect: Lutron's own hub & the Wink Hub. The Lutron hub can be controller by your smartphone & Logitech Harmony remotes, which is really handy. The Wink Hub can be controlled by your smartphone, but not the Logitech remotes, but also has extra features like radios for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Kidde, ZigBee, and Z-Wave, so it can talk to a lot more gadgets. The Smart Things hub by Samsung has even more programmability, but for example doesn't support Lutron Caseta light switches. I have a first-gen Wink Hub myself. Here is a basic list of what I have:

• Schlage Century touchpad deadbolt
• Chamberlain garage door opener
• Lutron Caseta light switches
• Honeywell thermostat
• Kidde fire & smoke alarms

Using my iPhone, I can turn all of the lights on or off, open or close the garage door, change the house temperature, lock & unlock the front door, and get notified (away from home) if my house is on fire. Pretty convenient, although everything is expensive ($100 hub, $60 per light switch, $130 for the garage door add-on, $180 for the deadbolt, $160 for the touchscreen thermostat, $50 smoke alarms, etc.). And that doesn't even include the things I want to add in the future, like remote-controlled blinds & drapes (VERY expensive, like $500+ per window), smart ceiling fans, motion detectors, wireless security cameras, and so on. I like the Wink Hub because it is simple & has broad hardware support. If you like to tinker, check out the SmartThings v2 hub, as it's more expandable & customizable.

 

[Carson Dyle]

I'm mostly interested in programmability, not turning off lights from my phone or knowing the temperature in my house while I'm on vacation. I'm not a gadgets-for-gadgets-sake person. If I couldn't sit at my desktop computer and easily set up a schedule for my thermostat, or a schedule for the porch and lamp post lights, I'd have zero interest in the system. The rest of that silliness is just absurd.

 

[Kaido]

I'm mostly interested in programmability, not turning off lights from my phone or knowing the temperature in my house while I'm on vacation. I'm not a gadgets-for-gadgets-sake person. If I couldn't sit at my desktop computer and easily set up a schedule for my thermostat, or a schedule for the porch and lamp post lights, I'd have zero interest in the system. The rest of that silliness is just absurd.

Wink offers very simple programmability (robots & schedules). What you're probably looking for is more up Smart Thing's alley:

https://www.smartthings.com/how-it-works

For example:

https://support.smartthings.com/hc/...-How-to-create-alerts-with-Smart-Home-Monitor

 

[Homerboy]

Saw really cool HVAC system on This Old House that was smart. It really was just replacing your existing vents with "smart" dampers and a hub that controls them all.
Allows you to basically set up HVAC zones in your house with nominal expense. The ToH dude was practically drooling over them.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Saw really cool HVAC system on This Old House that was smart. It really was just replacing your existing vents with "smart" dampers and a hub that controls them all.
Allows you to basically set up HVAC zones in your house with nominal expense. The ToH dude was practically drooling over them.

Now THAT _is_ damned cool. And a place where a wireless connection makes perfect sense. Were there separate thermostats for the vents in each room or were they on the vents themselves? If on the vents, that would be tricky for a number of reasons. The location of, say, floor registers, where the temperatures can be very different than in the living area of room. And the temperature of the vent itself while blowing hot/cold air will be much higher or lower than in the room, so shutting them off by a target temperature would be difficult.

 

[Homerboy]

It was SUPER cool. Designed (literally) but a missile defense engineer.

You has smart vents that replaced each vent in your house these literally were drop in units that took AA batteries for power (3-5 year life on battery)
Then a device that plugged into an outlet in each room that had a vent -- this read the air temp, humidity and air pressure of that room and directly controlled the vents
Then you had a smart-hub that plugged into your network and was the "brains" of the whole operation -- this is what each outlet device reported back to and what you logged into via smartphone etc.

But it was all programmable -- so you could set bedtime zones. Gone for the day zones. My son likes his room cooler than the rest of the house zone. Etc etc.They estimated about $3k for a whole setup, but that obviously varies on size of house and # of vents. And still WAY cheaper than retrofitting an existing house for zone controlled HVAC. Sadly, too pricey for me -- and I should probably worry about replacing my 70 year old windows before such investments.

It was actually on the "Ask this Old House" portion of the show. Trying to find video on their website.

 

[Homerboy]

https://www.thisoldhouse.com/watch/ask-toh-room-zones-wall-patch

There's the episode

 

[Carson Dyle]

Then a device that plugged into an outlet in each room that had a vent -- this read the air temp, humidity and air pressure of that room and directly controlled the vents

Seems odd that the thermostat would require an electrical outlet, as battery powered wireless thermostats are common.

 

[Aikouka]

And that doesn't even include the things I want to add in the future, like remote-controlled blinds & drapes (VERY expensive, like $500+ per window), smart ceiling fans, motion detectors, wireless security cameras, and so on. I like the Wink Hub because it is simple & has broad hardware support. If you like to tinker, check out the SmartThings v2 hub, as it's more expandable & customizable.

I also have Casetta switches, so naturally, I wanted to check out their blinds, and my shock was pretty much the same as yours. They're just too darn expensive!

Although, I'm much more against wireless cameras. Yes, wired are harder to install, but there's no worry about battery power with PoE.

Saw really cool HVAC system on This Old House that was smart. It really was just replacing your existing vents with "smart" dampers and a hub that controls them all.
Allows you to basically set up HVAC zones in your house with nominal expense. The ToH dude was practically drooling over them.

What about just using a Keen Smart Vent? I think the only downside to the smart vent at this point is that communication with other devices isn't really integrated yet, which means it can't talk to your thermostat to help control the temperature.

Seems odd that the thermostat would require an electrical outlet, as battery powered wireless thermostats are common.

Most thermostats that I've seen get power from the connection from the HVAC system. I believe it's the C wire. For example, if I shut my system off at the breaker, my Ecobee3 turns off.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Most thermostats that I've seen get power from the connection from the HVAC system. I believe it's the C wire. For example, if I shut my system off at the breaker, my Ecobee3 turns off.

When I had my furnace replaced a couple of years ago, I had whole house A/C installed, so was a wire short going to the thermostat and no easy way to run another cable. So we went with a wireless thermostat. It's pretty awesome. One thing I like to do with it is pull it off the wall in the living room and take it to my bedroom at night. Relatively low tech convenience, but sometimes those are better than gadgets.

 

[Aikouka]

When I had my furnace replaced a couple of years ago, I had whole house A/C installed, so was a wire short going to the thermostat and no easy way to run another cable. So we went with a wireless thermostat. It's pretty awesome. One thing I like to do with it is pull it off the wall in the living room and take it to my bedroom at night. Relatively low tech convenience, but sometimes those are better than gadgets.

To note, if you do go with a new thermostat, it may require a C wire. If I remember correctly, the Ecobee3 requires one, but there's an option to add a separate part to provide the power if you lack the C wire. The wireless thing does sound kind of cool though! Although, I guess with a smart system, that wouldn't be as necessary since you can use your phone.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

To note, if you do go with a new thermostat, it may require a C wire. If I remember correctly, the Ecobee3 requires one, but there's an option to add a separate part to provide the power if you lack the C wire. The wireless thing does sound kind of cool though! Although, I guess with a smart system, that wouldn't be as necessary since you can use your phone.

The Ecobee comes with a power extension kit if you don't have a C wire pulled all the way to the wall.

If you have a SmartThings hub, you can use an Ecobee and Keen smart vents to build a system like Homerboy describes. For all I know, that's what his video shows - haven't looked at it.

 

[shabby]

https://www.thisoldhouse.com/watch/ask-toh-room-zones-wall-patch

There's the episode

Only works with one thermostat so its pretty useless.
And the "get a quote" suggests its pretty expensive to boot.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Only works with one thermostat so its pretty useless.
And the "get a quote" suggests its pretty expensive to boot.

Yeah sounded like an interesting solution until I got to that.
No prices for anything listed any where too

 

[Homerboy]

Only works with one thermostat so its pretty useless.
And the "get a quote" suggests its pretty expensive to boot.

Yeah sounded like an interesting solution until I got to that.
No prices for anything listed any where too

If you watch the ToH clip/episode, he explains that for a whole house solution, it's roughly $3k (I think I even mention it in this thread.)
In reality it's not that expensive to "zone" out a whole house versus redoing the entire existing HVAC system.

 

[shabby]

This is another interesting way of zoning https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2EJLhZ939A

 

[Carson Dyle]

This is another interesting way of zoning https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2EJLhZ939A

It's interesting to read some of the comments for that video, as they bring up some potential problems. If each room in the house is potentially a zone, or even if just a few rooms were grouped into a zone, you run into the issue of the heating and cooling units being way oversized for some zones and the potential problems that go with short cycling the units.

I imagine it's be possible to design the control software to address the problems. I guess you'd set a minimum cycle time and then direct the remainder of the cycle's hot or cold air into into zones that most need it.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Keep in mind if you do any kind of zoning, you either want to limit how many can be turned off at a time, or have a bypass damper at the furnace that lets some of the supply air back into the return, the damper would open at a certain percentage based on how many vents are closed. Otherwise you will have too much pressure in the system putting strain on the blower and causing overheating of the heat exchanger. Or in summer, the AC coil to freeze up due to lack of air flow.

 

[shabby]

It's interesting to read some of the comments for that video, as they bring up some potential problems. If each room in the house is potentially a zone, or even if just a few rooms were grouped into a zone, you run into the issue of the heating and cooling units being way oversized for some zones and the potential problems that go with short cycling the units.

I imagine it's be possible to design the control software to address the problems. I guess you'd set a minimum cycle time and then direct the remainder of the cycle's hot or cold air into into zones that most need it.

I'd imagine a 2 stage furnace/ac would solve this issue, the 1st stage usually runs at 60% capacity so if you have around half of your registers closed it would be doable no? Anyway proper zoning is a luxury, all these "solutions" seem like dirty hacks.