Dr.Lakshay
Active Member
I have always been intrigued by the latest technology and gadgets. And now it’s time for me to step into the world of smart home. Have always been amazed by the fact that you can control all your electronics by voice commands or your smartphone or even when not at home.
So I recently acquired the amazon echo. Nifty piece of technology, must say. So the first thing I did was set it up and listen to some songs. The sound quality is quite impressive and not to mention the fact that it can hear you even while playing loud songs or in ambient noise. But sometimes Alexa fails to understand what you say due to the differences in accent and you have to repeat again clearly.
Now the next thing was setting up a smart room.
I already have remote controlled touch buttons for my room. So I could set it up with alexa with an intermediate ir blaster in between. Did a little research and I was able to employ my old Samsung note 3 neo (which has an inbuilt ir blaster) to work as the intermediate. The app used for this is anymote. It was quite easy to setup (well I’m a bit tech savvy so I find these things kinda interesting). And voila, I have a smart room.
But this approach has a lot of caveats-
1. the commands are quite cumbersome. I have to say “alexa tell anymote to execute ceiling lights” whereas I would have liked to just say “alexa turn on ceiling lights” but I can’t do so.
2. Creating scenes isn’t possible as alexa has a limitation of skills and anymote is not included in one of the “smart home” skills so it can’t be added to scenes/routines.
3. The phone runs out of battery if you don’t keep monitoring it/charging it.
These are the major problems.
There is a work around to those cumbersome voice commands using tasker (an android app) but it is a lot of work to set it up. Will be trying it out soon.
The other approach is to get a dedicated ir blaster like broadlink rm3 or one from xiaomi. These are the two cheap options costing about 1-1.5k. If anyone is using the same or any other alternatives, would like to get your opinion.
I have also linked my xiaomi air purifier 2 as it already is wifi enabled and alexa has a skill for xiaomi smart home. So the air purifier can be controlled via voice commands and can be included in routines.
I will also be soon trying out Google home via rpi3 whenever I get the time to set it up.
Meanwhile I am also searching for a hub to add wireless door window sensors, temperature and humidity sensors, motion sensors etc. I like the offering from xiaomi. It’s not super expensive and looks promising. If anyone is using the same or any other alternatives, would like to get your opinion.
Will be soon setting up nest wireless cameras that I have got.
Also I am looking for wireless switches to integrate more parts of my home into the smart home ecosystem. Currently looking out for options and I am inclined towards the WiFi switches on Aliexpress. Again If anyone is using the same or any other alternatives, would like to get your opinion.
Thats all for now. Will update the thread as things progress, which will definitely be very slow due to unavailability of time.
Note to mods: didn't know where to post this thread. Please shift the thread if required.
So I recently acquired the amazon echo. Nifty piece of technology, must say. So the first thing I did was set it up and listen to some songs. The sound quality is quite impressive and not to mention the fact that it can hear you even while playing loud songs or in ambient noise. But sometimes Alexa fails to understand what you say due to the differences in accent and you have to repeat again clearly.
Now the next thing was setting up a smart room.
I already have remote controlled touch buttons for my room. So I could set it up with alexa with an intermediate ir blaster in between. Did a little research and I was able to employ my old Samsung note 3 neo (which has an inbuilt ir blaster) to work as the intermediate. The app used for this is anymote. It was quite easy to setup (well I’m a bit tech savvy so I find these things kinda interesting). And voila, I have a smart room.
But this approach has a lot of caveats-
1. the commands are quite cumbersome. I have to say “alexa tell anymote to execute ceiling lights” whereas I would have liked to just say “alexa turn on ceiling lights” but I can’t do so.
2. Creating scenes isn’t possible as alexa has a limitation of skills and anymote is not included in one of the “smart home” skills so it can’t be added to scenes/routines.
3. The phone runs out of battery if you don’t keep monitoring it/charging it.
These are the major problems.
There is a work around to those cumbersome voice commands using tasker (an android app) but it is a lot of work to set it up. Will be trying it out soon.
The other approach is to get a dedicated ir blaster like broadlink rm3 or one from xiaomi. These are the two cheap options costing about 1-1.5k. If anyone is using the same or any other alternatives, would like to get your opinion.
I have also linked my xiaomi air purifier 2 as it already is wifi enabled and alexa has a skill for xiaomi smart home. So the air purifier can be controlled via voice commands and can be included in routines.
I will also be soon trying out Google home via rpi3 whenever I get the time to set it up.
Meanwhile I am also searching for a hub to add wireless door window sensors, temperature and humidity sensors, motion sensors etc. I like the offering from xiaomi. It’s not super expensive and looks promising. If anyone is using the same or any other alternatives, would like to get your opinion.
Will be soon setting up nest wireless cameras that I have got.
Also I am looking for wireless switches to integrate more parts of my home into the smart home ecosystem. Currently looking out for options and I am inclined towards the WiFi switches on Aliexpress. Again If anyone is using the same or any other alternatives, would like to get your opinion.
Thats all for now. Will update the thread as things progress, which will definitely be very slow due to unavailability of time.
Note to mods: didn't know where to post this thread. Please shift the thread if required.
