I bought my wife a HomePod for Valentine’s Day. The HomePod has just come out, I hadn’t figured out a good gift yet, and I thought that if she didn’t like it, it could be easily returned.
After a day, the question wasn’t was it goi g back, but she “maybe we should buy another one?” Since we were carti g it back and forth between rooms.
That was the point I decided to look into automating some lights around the house. It started with a couple of Hue standard LED white bulbs. It’s now blossomed to more than 20 devices with more in the planning stages
I have Lutron Caseta dimmers, Leviton Decora switches, Hue floods in white and color and a Lutron motion detector I have not put in yet.
Everything seems to work very well. I get the occasional device not responding issues, so I dug an airport express out of a box as a bridge repeater to try to improve the WiFi signal to some devices.
Set up is ridiculously easy, and seems to work very well. My experience with Siri voice control is generally pretty good. Biggest issue seems to be me forgetting what I called a particular device.
I’m planning on adding dolor bulbs to my front porch, rear patio and 3 floods in the kitchen. I like being able to set subtle color highlighting, and of course it will enhance Holliday decorating. Next step is to add some 3-way switches (using the Leviton decora switches) I’m also going to convert a 3-way back to 2-way so I can use a Lutron dimmer.
After the lighting, I’ll go after security cameras and thermostats. Ceiling fan caontrols seem rather sparse for HomeKit at this point. Hunter fans have some options.
What I’m really enjoying about this is that installations are so simple, and the HomeKit app seems so robust. The fact you can tell real time if a device is on, off or off-line is fantastic. The only hard left is some wall switch installations. 3-way, 4-way switches seem bewildering at first, but there are excellent articles on the web to demystify them. Of course there nothing like trying to do a simple job like replacing a wall switch and then finding out what a crappy job the contractor did in installing it.
I’m hoping HomeKit keeps going and getting better. So far, all my devices are both HomeKit and Alexa comparable. I just bought a $40 Alexa to play with, but it’s still sitting in the box.
After a day, the question wasn’t was it goi g back, but she “maybe we should buy another one?” Since we were carti g it back and forth between rooms.
That was the point I decided to look into automating some lights around the house. It started with a couple of Hue standard LED white bulbs. It’s now blossomed to more than 20 devices with more in the planning stages
I have Lutron Caseta dimmers, Leviton Decora switches, Hue floods in white and color and a Lutron motion detector I have not put in yet.
Everything seems to work very well. I get the occasional device not responding issues, so I dug an airport express out of a box as a bridge repeater to try to improve the WiFi signal to some devices.
Set up is ridiculously easy, and seems to work very well. My experience with Siri voice control is generally pretty good. Biggest issue seems to be me forgetting what I called a particular device.
I’m planning on adding dolor bulbs to my front porch, rear patio and 3 floods in the kitchen. I like being able to set subtle color highlighting, and of course it will enhance Holliday decorating. Next step is to add some 3-way switches (using the Leviton decora switches) I’m also going to convert a 3-way back to 2-way so I can use a Lutron dimmer.
After the lighting, I’ll go after security cameras and thermostats. Ceiling fan caontrols seem rather sparse for HomeKit at this point. Hunter fans have some options.
What I’m really enjoying about this is that installations are so simple, and the HomeKit app seems so robust. The fact you can tell real time if a device is on, off or off-line is fantastic. The only hard left is some wall switch installations. 3-way, 4-way switches seem bewildering at first, but there are excellent articles on the web to demystify them. Of course there nothing like trying to do a simple job like replacing a wall switch and then finding out what a crappy job the contractor did in installing it.
I’m hoping HomeKit keeps going and getting better. So far, all my devices are both HomeKit and Alexa comparable. I just bought a $40 Alexa to play with, but it’s still sitting in the box.
