Homogeneous or heterogeneous systems

Services & Integrations
1

Just curious to know what sort of systems people are using.
Does anyone use just one product line and control app ie Wyze only?

Or a single system married to what ever assistant product?

Or are you using multiple products lines in a hodgepodge addressing your perceived desires as you tool along in this infantile industry (raising 2 hands)?

Or are you completely insane and using a hodgepodge of devices/apps with a frankenstein of assistants a la google, alexa homekit/siri etc, because, well, you are as 1st stated, insane?

Where do you fall & what do you use?

In my case, 1 overlord (alexa, tho it is likely as intrusive or worse than google which I despise) with a farking bastaged system comprised of wyze, arlo, sonoff, shelly, tplink, wiz, teckin, feit, august, amazon, dilisens, zentec, sonos, & holmes/wemo.

As a result I have august, smart life, tuya, ewelink, tplink, sonos, wiz, wemo, & sonos apps to content with and NOTHING that works with everything.

Ifttt aint enough (missed by miles), stringify is dead (was promising), yonomi is useless (slower than dirt to add to the library and so so so limited!).

Anyone using a consolidating interface that marries most of their techs together?

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2

When I first started I went all in on one ecosystem, Lowes IRIS security system, they ended up shutting down and leaving me with nothing. I told myself after that I would use a layered approach so if I lost something there would still be things active.

I was able to use all my sensors in SmartThings, just had to get a hub, did that and that made my base system. Needed cameras as the ones I had would not work in SmartThings and were basically dead when IRIS shut down. That is how I found WYZE, although not a security cam I use them in my layered approach. I have added their sensors also, so basically I am using multiple different systems and brands inside the systems. I also use virtual switches inside SmartThings to tie WYZE to SmartThings.

This is what I have found works for me, obviously others will have different needs and wants than I do, but for me it works.

3

My system is pretty much like yours. I use one “overloard”, Alexa and have several. One Echo, one Echo Plus, one Echo Auto, three dots, and five Fire TV devices. All those are around the house and some in my camper. I have Siri, but don’t use it for any smart home stuff. I also have smart devices from at least a half dozen companies which include bulbs, switches, and dimmers. Cameras I’m down to 3 brands for Wyze, one Foscam, and one off brand. Two of the Wyze cams replaced Foscam cameras, but I still have one Foscam inside a birdhouse.
Edited to add: I also have a bunch of Wyze Sence devices and the lock is arriving tomorrow.

4

@WyzeJasonJ
Interesting, I keep steering clear of SmartThings because, A samsung, B hub.
Been concerned with an additional layer of latency, and again lack of inclusiveness.
So Wyze works with it? They make no mention of wyze in the works with lists.

@raym64
Would love to see how the lock compares w august (FYI they just announced a straight wifi version coming) I am jelly you got in on the initial offering (missed it by that much).

I too have a load of echos, 9 dots, a show 8, 3 FTV4Ks (sideloading one now with chinese language for my MIL so she can use a TV instead of ipad) and the theoretical one via sonos play1

Going to have to play with some sense devices in the near future.

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5

WYZE works with it if you get creative, you have to use a 3rd party being IFTTT, I have WYZE sensors that trigger a IFTTT routine that in turn flips a virtual switch in SmartThings and sets off my alarm for instance.

I did forget to mention I have an abundance of Google mini’s and one Alexa device, that I mainly purchased so I could help people troubleshoot Alexa issues

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6

I use Lutron for light and fan switches, insteon for in wall outlets, wyze bulbs-cams-outlets-motion detectors-sense and now deadbolt. I have a linear smart garage door.

I just use Alexa on my phone and I have fire tv and fire tv stick 4K to manage everything.

7

I’m pretty Wyze-heavy, but I’ve got a mix of things. Assistant-wise, I have Alexa and Google Home, but I mainly use Alexa. Alexa’s better at smart home stuff, in general, although Google can tell me the humidity from my Nest thermostat, and Alexa can’t, which is annoying. Google’s also better at general knowledge questions. Technically I guess I have Siri on my Mac and my phone, but I don’t use it for smart home stuff.

I’ve used IFTTT a little in the past, but I don’t regularly use it for much. Sometimes I’ll connect something to a text notification, but I don’t keep those going all the time. Usually just if I want to make sure I don’t miss something. (Which isn’t helpful anyway when IFTTT delays all their texts by hours and I get 12 at once. Ha.)

Mostly I use Alexa if I need to automate devices based on other devices.

Device-wise, I have:

  • 2 Echo Dots
  • 1 Google Home Mini
  • 10 Wyze Cams
  • 5 Blink XT2 cameras
  • 18 Wyze Sense contact sensors (I think)
  • 3 Wyze Sense motion sensors (Although I don’t really use these for much, to be honest. They came with the starter kits.)
  • 6 Wyze Bulbs
  • 2 Wyze Plugs
  • 2 Amazon Smart Plugs
  • 2 IKEA Sonos Symfonisk bookshelf speakers
  • 1 TCL Roku TV
  • 1 Chromecast
  • 1 Amazon Fire Tablet (for displaying cam feeds)
  • 1 Nest Thermostat E
  • 1 Ring Video Doorbell 2

…I think that’s all, but I might be forgetting something. Technically I guess my phone would part of that equation too. Maybe my laptop, but less so. Also bridge devices for Wyze Sense, Blink cameras, and things, but those are part of the package.

8

Forgot about

smart Honeywell thermostat,
Warmup thermostat (undercarpet)heating,
neato vacuum
nest smoke/co detectors.

Now I think that’s it. Lol

9

I also got a mix

  • Google Home
    1 nest hub max
    1 nest hub
    1 Google home
    3 minis
  • Wyze
    5 cam V2
    1 bridge
    4 open/close
    2 motion
    4 plugs (1 currently used)
    4 bulbs (not currently in use)
    1 lock (getting delivered today)
  • Leviton
    9 inwall light switches
    5 inwall light switch slaves for 3 way
  • Smart life (different brands in the smart life echosystem)
    5 LED strip lights
    4 plugs
    3 ir universal remotes
  • SmartThings
    1 hub
    1 open close sensor modified to be a power outage detector

Then also obviously have IFTTT, and then Tasker and WebCore for SmartThings.

Then, although not smart home devices, I have a system in case of a power outage that my minimum required devices have backup uninterrupted power and even turn some things on:
- UPS
- 60 watt PoE injector
- 4 10watt PoE splitters
- 3 5port PoE switches (that run off of PoE themselves)
And I have my internet (modem/router and fiber converter), all 5 cameras, all 5 LED strips, 1 Google home mini, SmartThings hub, and PoE injector all through the UPS (either directly or through PoE), and in case of loss of power those LED strips turn on and the cameras too if they were off automatically (enough juice for about 1 - 1.5 hours operating without power.)

10

I have a whole home backup generator that we installed when built house. But it’s portable so i can lend to a neighbor if needed. Not hard to do either

11

Sounds kinky

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12

I went with Lutron for my three way switches. And what I like about them is you put a switch at one end and at the other end you cap the ground tie all the other wires together and cap them. And then you actually just mount a remote there that looks exactly like a switch. It’s much cheaper than buying two complete switches. Where a switch is $50 the remote is only $19.99

13

Yeah the remote switch you are talking about I believe is what I referred to as the slave switch, it’s like 20-25$. Master goes on the load end, and the slave end just bypasses power (just powers the switch) and sends/receives commands to from master on the yellow wire

14

These aren’t wired at all they are truly remotes. You can use them as a remote or you can use them at the other site of a three-way switch.

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15

ah interesting. I got these:

and i believe it was like 45 for the switch, and 20 for the slave which doesn’t come out of the wall but looks identical. I just really loved how these looked and how they were very minimalistic.

16

Very similar to what I have just different brand. And they look like similar to the switches so you don’t really notice a difference. Once I like the circle in the middle that is a favorite button. So if you have a dim setting you like you can just hit that button and it will put the lights to that dim but then you don’t have to push the little dimmer button repeatedly to get to that setting.

If the lights not a dimmer I went with this remote which is similar to yours.

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17

ditto

18

Hodgepodge lodge.

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19

My hardware:
Wyze cameras, Wyze Sense, Wyse Smart Plugs, Wyze Smart Lock
Insteon dimmers, on/off switches, wall switches, motion sensors
Google Home Minis and Nest Hub
A couple zwave devices not currently in use
Universal Devices ISY 994i home automation controller (ties incompatible hardware together, and more)
Homebrew ESP32 devices

Software:
Wyze app
Google Home app
Google Assistant routines
IFTTT (to tie most incompatible devices together using Webhooks, etc.)
Adafruit IO (to control my ESP32 device via Google Assistant)

20

Forgot to mention the Insteon garage door control.
It came in handy last summer when I was in Europe.
A contractor doing some work on my house exterior needed access to the garage.
I was able to open the garage door for him from France.
Although he was very trustworthy, I also had my Wyze Cam to monitor the garage :slight_smile: