Home Options for a Smart Secure Home

[FelicityW]

I resisted the Smart Home for years until I finally realized that being able to say “Alexa, where’s my phone?” could save me hours and “Alexa, turn on/off light” saved me from tripping over something in the dark. The other things like “Alexa, what’s the weather?” are nice to haves but not necessary. I don’t need a joke a day and all the other fluff. I would like to add some lights and perhaps some other items like a security camera, but nothing that requires a microphone. And if it did, I would expect to all exist on my secure home network.

I really feel like Apple missed the boat on this (where are the locator tiles???) but perhaps they are doing something cleverer than those that have beat them in this segment.

What I want is a way to restrict use to my network. Or something that only turns the microphone on as needed. I like to ask for music, but I am happy to have it restricted to my library. I don’t need to ask questions that need the internet but can be performed with resident apps through my network. I understand there will be restrictions, but they are likely to be worth the security. Am I paranoid about unauthorized eavesdropping? Not paranoid, just a realist.

I know there is a way to do this, but since I resisted the Smart Home concept for so long, I am behind the knowledge curve. For the sake of the exercise assume I am system agnostic, although I will not purchase anything from Google or Facebook.

And lastly, knowledgeable assessment of Siri v. Alexa. I drank the koolaid in 1984, so being outside the Apple ecosystem is not my natural state.

Thank you.

 

[waw74]

I'm pretty sure all voice assistants require internet access to work, as some of the processing is done on their servers. It's just a matter of who you trust more to maintain your privacy... Tim, Jeff, or Sergey.

Siri is by far the worst at "general knowledge" questions. There have been times I've asked about store hours "what time does the Best Buy in union square open"
Alexa - "10am"
siri - "which one" and then rambles off a list of stores, with just street addresses

For Siri if you're doing it on a watch, Mac, phone, iPad, or aTV, you can limit her to listening only when you wake her with a physical button press. HomePod I think you can too, but it's not usually in arms reach.
you can also control your lights and devices from the home app on all your apple things, if you want to press a button instead of talking.

Apple's contribution is homekit. It's a communication standard that allows devices to talk to the home app.
They leave it to others to develop the actual devices. which is kinda smart, they only maintain fairly simple software, and leave it to others to physically design stuff. Meaning the designers have to get approval for the electronics in the various countries they are sold in. Plus if a manufacturer says "works with homekit" and puts the homekit logo on the box, apple gets a fee.


for home control, siri + homekit is pretty solid, I don't have too much experience on the Alexa/google side
siri will let you say "turn off all the lights except for the bedroom." You can also leave out a singe light instead of a room. another you can say is "dim the bedroom lights by 10%" and every light will be set to 10% below it's current level.


if you just want to do bulbs, both ikea and hue are pretty good.
Ikea is cheaper and has quite a few form factors including wall panels, but I don't think they have any full color options, and most (all?) of them only support 3 steps of color temp, as opposed to a slider in hue.
Both use a hub that needs an ethernet connection, and then use wireless (not wi-fi) to connect to the bulbs
With both, you need to be mindful of the switch, since if the switch is off, the bulbs can't turn on.
At least the hue bulbs let you set a "power on" look, so if you turn the switch off for a second, then back on, they'll come on at either a specified look, or whatever they were before. (although if your power "blinks" this can lead to all of your bulbs turning on) it also means they are pretty easy to convert into a really expensive dumb bulb if others in your house don't like talking to the lights.

another option is home assistant, it's a more full featured home automation software, and it allows you to add it's devices to homekit. It opens your options up tremendously, as it supports z-wave, you will need an always on computer (a Pi will work) and a z-wave usb stick though, but those are typically under $50.
once you have z-wave, there are tons of compatible wall switches you can use to replace your standard wall switch, making your existing lights "smart." and still allowing for local control if you don't want to speak. There are also door locks and sensors for temperature, motion, and water leaks.


If you add a home hub (appleTV, HomePod, or iPad) it gives you access to all your devices remotely, I'm not sure how it actually connects , it does not open a port in your router though. And I'm already trusting apple to secure my phone and computer, so why not my house.
A nice feature of remote access is that it allows you to set up location triggers. "as I drive up my street, turn on the outside lights"
they also allow "turn the outside lights on at sunset" to work if you're not home, as they run directly on the hub.