Smart Home Gizmos

G G · 09-19-2020, 05:13 PM

Hey friends. A couple years ago I got into putting up cameras on my property. I live on 5 acres and on the same 5 acres is my Grandfather and Grandmothers old home that I own as well. No one lives there but it's pretty much ready to host someone. My uncle comes down a couple times a year and stays there. Across the road from me is my Dad's place but he currently doesn't live there. He has a pretty big commercial metal shed that he built himself and it has a garage section and three more "rooms". I have currently about 15 Wyze Cams over all three places. The Wyzecams are great and I had to build a PtMP wifi network to carry internet over the entire property. I have 7 access points over the three homes so I have internet on the whole property and at my Dad's place.

The Wyzecams work pretty good, but it looks like they are going to have pretty steep subscription fees for person detection before it's over.

All computers in my House are Apple, as well as iPads, and iPhones. So I am starting to get into HomeKit. I bought two of the Eufy cams for outdoor, and have two indoor ordered, plus the Eufy Doorbell cam. The doorbell cam isn't HomeKit compatible yet, but will be soon (I hope).

I also found a guy that had a pile of Leviton HomeKit light switches for about 19 bucks a piece which they normally run $39 on sale.

For the last several years we were using Fire Sticks for streaming. A month ago I bought two Apple TV 4k's to get the streaming in the Apple ecosystem, two Home Pods and placed one in our house and one in the shed garage so I could listen to Apple Music while over there working on something.

The HomePods and Apple TV's are all hubs for the HomeKit functionality.

Got the switches wired over the last several days and it's pretty cool to voice control the lights with Siri. Thought about getting some Phillips Hue lights but we don't really care about the colored lights and are happy just to use the switches to control the on and off.

Probably going to buy an Ecobee3 Smart Thermostat with a couple of the room sensors to place in different rooms so it can average the temps to get a better experience with cooling and heating.

I usually tend to go way overboard with TMI, but was wondering if any of the BOTL's here use any smart home devices with Apple HomeKit and what devices do you have or like or don't like.

The only thing that I dislike with HomeKit so far is the 5 camera limitation that Apple has on the HomeKit Secure Video.

09-19-2020, 05:13 PM	#1
G G BR549 Join Date: Oct 2008 First Name: Greg Location: Taylor, FL. Posts: 12,723 Trading: (10)	Smart Home Gizmos Hey friends. A couple years ago I got into putting up cameras on my property. I live on 5 acres and on the same 5 acres is my Grandfather and Grandmothers old home that I own as well. No one lives there but it's pretty much ready to host someone. My uncle comes down a couple times a year and stays there. Across the road from me is my Dad's place but he currently doesn't live there. He has a pretty big commercial metal shed that he built himself and it has a garage section and three more "rooms". I have currently about 15 Wyze Cams over all three places. The Wyzecams are great and I had to build a PtMP wifi network to carry internet over the entire property. I have 7 access points over the three homes so I have internet on the whole property and at my Dad's place. The Wyzecams work pretty good, but it looks like they are going to have pretty steep subscription fees for person detection before it's over. All computers in my House are Apple, as well as iPads, and iPhones. So I am starting to get into HomeKit. I bought two of the Eufy cams for outdoor, and have two indoor ordered, plus the Eufy Doorbell cam. The doorbell cam isn't HomeKit compatible yet, but will be soon (I hope). I also found a guy that had a pile of Leviton HomeKit light switches for about 19 bucks a piece which they normally run $39 on sale. For the last several years we were using Fire Sticks for streaming. A month ago I bought two Apple TV 4k's to get the streaming in the Apple ecosystem, two Home Pods and placed one in our house and one in the shed garage so I could listen to Apple Music while over there working on something. The HomePods and Apple TV's are all hubs for the HomeKit functionality. Got the switches wired over the last several days and it's pretty cool to voice control the lights with Siri. Thought about getting some Phillips Hue lights but we don't really care about the colored lights and are happy just to use the switches to control the on and off. Probably going to buy an Ecobee3 Smart Thermostat with a couple of the room sensors to place in different rooms so it can average the temps to get a better experience with cooling and heating. I usually tend to go way overboard with TMI, but was wondering if any of the BOTL's here use any smart home devices with Apple HomeKit and what devices do you have or like or don't like. The only thing that I dislike with HomeKit so far is the 5 camera limitation that Apple has on the HomeKit Secure Video.