Smart Homes

As I don‘t have a water outlet on my balcony I use a water tank and a pump for watering my strawberries. I developed a controller for the pump which runs natively on Apple Homekit but I‘d like to change it to Matter and Threads in the future.

Message from the LinkedIn post:

🌟 Exciting News! TÜV Rheinland Authorized to Test Matter 1.4 🌟 We are happy to announce that TÜV Rheinland has been officially authorized to test Matter 1.4, the latest version of the universal standard for smart home devices. This authorization underscores our commitment to advancing interoperability, security, and innovation in the smart home ecosystem.

What’s new in Matter 1.4? Introducing new applications clusters and adding significant updates to existing functionalities. These new clusters include:

1. Major new features: E2E: Fabric Sync / HRAP: Thread Credential Directory and TRB Management / Energy Management EVSE improvements (Solar Power, Battery, Heat Pump, Water Heater) / Aliro integration / Occupancy Sensing
2. Core features: Intermittently Connected Devices (ICD) support / Access Restriction Lists (ARLs)
3. Enhancements: Quieter reporting (Q quality) / Atomic writes / HVAC Presets / Action Switch / Multiple Network Provisioning

TÜV Rheinland global authorized test locations for Matter 1.4 Bochum, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Yokohama, Seoul and Taipei (v 1.3 now, available for 1.4 soon)

As a trusted leader in testing, inspection, and certification, TÜV Rheinland is dedicated to helping manufacturers meet the highest standards of quality and performance. Our expertise in Matter 1.4 testing will enable us to support the growing smart home market and drive the adoption of interoperable and secure devices.

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/activity:7251780194150072320

Hello everyone,

I’ve found by looking at the source code upcoming new device types and their functionalities in case someone is interested before the official announcement in the next couple of weeks:

1. WebRTC Transport Provider (Cluster 0x0553):

   • Enables high-quality, real-time video and audio streaming for smart cameras
   • Supports various stream types: internal, recording, analysis, and live view
   • Manages WebRTC sessions, including offer/answer protocol and ICE for NAT traversal
   • Allows for efficient remote viewing and two-way communication

2. Chime Cluster (0x0556):

   • Designed for smart doorbells and other notification devices
   • Supports multiple customizable chime sounds
   • Allows users to select active chimes and enable/disable the function
   • Enables remote triggering of chimes

3. Enhanced Occupancy Sensing (Cluster 0x0406):

   • Added Vision-based sensing to existing methods (PIR, Ultrasonic, etc.)
   • Uses image analysis for occupancy detection
   • Potentially offers more accurate sensing in complex environments

As these features are marked as "provisional," they may undergo further refinement before final release which in my opinion is unlikely.

We have a bunch of shutters in our living room that don't have any kind of remote control, nor a rod to operate them - you just move any of the individual slats and the rest follow suit.

Is there anything out there that could make these smart? I'm really struggling to find the right terms to search for.

Update: Turns out they are plantation blinds which has helped me to find the sort of thing I'm after. Cheers, Emperor!

I just received my SmartWings blinds last week and really like them so far, but I'm having a small issue. I have them scheduled to open to 40%, but some of them go up to 60% instead. Even weirder, it's not the same blinds that do it. It's like they take turns on who's going to open to far today.

At night, and will also open all the way even though the routine says to close.

Any idea how I can fix this? If not, I can try changing their drivers which I saw on some Reddit posts.

Not mine, but this looks amazing.

I'm considering Inovelli Blue 2-1 switches for a new (to me) house. I'm pretty sure the electrical wiring in that place predates the American Civil War, so no neutral wires, and no plans to rip out the walls to rectify that. Would I be able to use the light switches for basic on/off/dimmer functions and have them in Home Assistant via the SONOFF Zigbee 3.0 Plus-E dongle?

I have HA up and running in my current place, but have way too many cloud enabled hubs (TP-Link Kasa, IKEA Tradfre, Lutron Caseta, just to name a few) that I want to replace with a fully self-hosted solution. Already bought and configured the Sonoff ZigBee dongle in anticipation. The only other hitch is that the gangboxes may be too small to fit larger switches and I may need to hire an electrician to replace around 20 of them.

Also it seems that Inovelli Aux switches for the multi-way setups are sold out everywhere. From what I understand, those are simply dumb switches with some extra bells and whistles. What alternatives are there for those?

Aqara just added a "Beta Version Update" toggle in their app's firmware settings. When enabled, it allows your device to receive beta firmware updates. Spotted in the "Firmware Upgrade” -> “More Settings" menu.

My home is mostly using smart switch or relays for lights, but we now have a specific need for some RGB light bulbs. Has anyone got any recommendations for good colour smart bulbs readily available in the UK?

I'd prefer Zigbee but am open to Wifi options if necessary. Currently leaning towards the innr bulbs as they seem a quality option but a fair bit cheaper than the likes of Hue.

How do you solve the problem of growing a popular smart home platform committed to open-source, open-standard ideals into something bigger that stays true to those ideals? You create a foundation. At least, that’s the approach Home Assistant founder Paulus Schoutsen has chosen.

This week, Home Assistant announced it is now part of the Open Home Foundation. The newly formed non-profit will own and govern all of Home Assistant and its related entities. Its creators and inaugural board members — Schoutsen, Guy Sie, Pascal Vizeli, and J. Nick Koston — all work on Home Assistant, and the foundation has no other members so far.

In a press release, the foundation stated its aim is “to fight against surveillance capitalism, and offer a counterbalance to Big Tech influence, in the smart home — by focusing on privacy, choice, and sustainability for smart home users.”

Especially in recent years, Google’s efforts in the smart home have received continued criticism, but looking at the current state of the Google Home app and Nest hardware, is that still deserved?

...

That’s basically where I stand at this point. Google Nest is full of shortcomings, absolutely, but it’s also one of the only simple smart home camera offerings out there that isn’t bogged down by awful software, higher fees, or complicated setup/maintenence. I’ve been vocal about my issues with Nest over the past few years, but I’m overall reasonably satisfied, and I don’t hesitate to tell folks who ask about home cameras to give Nest their consideration.

Should Nest still work to improve? Absolutely.

There’s so much room to improve, as the very vocal community of users made clear during this week’s AMA. I, for one, hope Google’s team read each and every one of those comments and took them to heart. But, like many of those users, I’ve also been burned by Google on the smart home. I still hate that feature parity isn’t a thing in the Home app (without some ridiculously complex workarounds). I’m still frustrated at poorly thought through choices on newer Nest Cams. I’m still trying to find a good security system to replace my Nest Secure that’s dying for no good reason.

But every time I look elsewhere, I have the same thought: is it really so bad?

There may be bad news if you purchased one of Amazon’s “Overall Picks” for video doorbells in recent months. New tests from Consumer Reports find that popular doorbell cameras sold under names including Eken and Tuck are rife with security flaws that make it dead simple for anyone to watch your camera footage.

Consumer Reports looked at ten seemingly identical video doorbells sold under various names including Eken and Tuck that are widely available on websites including Amazon, Walmart, Shein, and Temu. All of them are manufactured by Eken Group Ltd., and all use the same companion app called Aiwit. Apparently, hijacking these devices is as easy as downloading Aiwit and putting the doorbell in pairing mode. This allows an attacker to take over the device, view footage, and lock out the owner.

In fact, the tests found you can gain remote access to the doorbells without a password. All you need to see photos from the video feeds is one of the doorbells’ serial numbers.

I've recently purchased my first few Apple Devices (second hand) and have been looking at changing my current un-smart, smart home of using Google Devices over to Homekit, Luckily I have only done smart bulbs at the moment and is probably a good time to restart.

Is the Apple Homekit system good in the UK? or are there not many devices that can connect easily to the smart home?

Aqara has launched its Smart Lock U200 on Kickstarter, where you can currently nab the device for $209, down from the $249.99 it’ll cost you when it goes on sale later this year. According to the Kickstarter page, it will ship to backers in April.

The company debuted its new retrofit lock at the IFA 2023 tech show last summer; showcasing its Matter-over-Thread connectivity and separate Bluetooth keypad with a fingerprint reader and NFC built in. This gives you the option to unlock with digital codes, Aqara NFC cards, the Aqara app on your phone, and voice control with compatible voice assistants. That’s in addition to still being able to use your existing key.

Uniquely for a retrofit lock (where you don't need to replace your existing door lock), the U200 can work with US-style deadbolts and European mortise locks. Most only work with one or the other. The lock also comes with a rechargeable battery that Aqara says can get a minimum of six months of battery life based on eight entries a day. That’s impressive. The wireless keypad uses four AAA batteries or can be wired to doorbell wiring.

I've got an IKEA hub connected to a few Trådfri lights which I've then added to Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi and set up a load of automations. I moved the hub and the RPi around my room and now Home Assistant can't control any of the lights, it's just reporting Failed setup, will retry. The IKEA hub can still control the lights fine.

Any idea if there's a quick fix or do I need to bite the bullet, delete the config and set everything up again from scratch?

Wifey wants to be able to see who's at the door before answering.

It seems difficult to match up the capabilities of the various options to what we actually want, so I'm looking for suggestions or recommendations.

Don't want any cloud privacy nightmare nonsense. Don't really even want local storage. Just a live video stream from doorbell to iPhone and/or Android, triggered by the doorbell button.

I don't have HA or any other smart home stuff set up currently, but might like to add it in future.

Required features:

• answer the door via iPhone, or Android, whoever picks it up first.
• see who's at the door without letting them know we're looking. Like if I have to "answer" the doorbell before the video comes up, that'd be bad.
• no cloud / subscription.
• works without any storage.

Nice to have:

• Option to add recording/storage later if I change my mind.
• option for Home Assistant integration later if I ever get around to it.
• totally wireless / rechargeable.
• motion detection I guess.

Is there anything suitable out there?

Edit: also nice to have i.e. not required * internet connection so I can see who's at the door even when I'm outside of my wifi range.

Google's "Nest Aware" camera subscription is going through another round of price increases. This time it's for international users. There's no big announcement or anything, just a smattering of email screenshots from various countries on the Nest subreddit. 9to5Google was nice enough to hunt down a pile of the [screenshots].

...

The "first-generation" Nest Aware subscription, which is tied to earlier cameras and isn't available for new customers anymore, is doubling in price in Canada. The basic tier of five days of 24/7 video is going from a yearly fee of CA$50 to CA$110 (the first-generation sub has 24/7 video on every tier). Ten days of video is jumping from CA$80 to CA$160, and 30 days is going from CA$110 to CA$220. These are the prices for a single camera; the first-generation subscription will have additional charges for additional cameras. The current Nest Aware subscription for modern cameras is getting jumps that look similar to the US, with Nest Aware Plus, the mid-tier, going from CA$16 to CA $20 per month, and presumably similar raises across the board.

Japan is seeing jumps, too, with annual Nest Aware for modern cameras going from 6,300 yen to 8,000 yen. Again, there's no full list of price increases anywhere for every country; at the moment, we're working from email screenshots, but it sounds like Google is rolling out similar price increases everywhere. The bill increases are happening in about a month, on March 25, 2024. The US already saw a 25–33 percent price increase in September, and it looks like, for the modern Nest Aware plan, the prices internationally are being brought in line with those increases. Users don't seem too happy about the price increases, naturally.

When I started at Ars in the summer of 2022, the next generation of smart home standards was on the way. Matter, an interoperable device setup and management system, and Thread, a radio network that would provide secure, far-reaching connectivity optimized for tiny batteries. Together, they would offer a home that, while well-connected, could also work entirely inside a home network and switch between controlling ecosystems with ease. I knew this tech wouldn't show up immediately, but I thought it was a good time to start looking to the future, to leave behind the old standards and coalesce into something new.

Instead, Matter and Thread are a big mess, and I am now writing to tell you that I was wrong, or at least ignorant, to have ignored the good things that already existed: Zigbee and Z-Wave. I've put in my time with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and various brittle combinations of the two. They're useful for data-rich devices and for things that can stay plugged in. Zigbee and Z-Wave have been around, but they always seemed fidgety, obscure, and vaguely European at a glance. But here, in the year 2024, I am now an admirer of both, and I think they still have a place in our homes.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/7616207

"Starting 11 March 2024, the price of Ring Protect Basic will change from £34.99/year to £49.99/year per device. If you would like to keep your current plan, no further action is required. Your plan will renew at the new price, unless you cancel your subscription before your next renewal on or after 11 March 2024."

Arse clowns.

Not sure where best to post this on Lemmy but here goes...

I've got a single Google calendar enabled on my Alexa. I've set 'announcement count' to 1.

Every single time I have a calendar reminder on my Echo, it says it twice in a row, which is very annoying.

I've seen posts from 5 years ago complaining of the same issue, has anyone found a fix? Seems bonkers it's not been fixed.

Three new Ikea sensors are being added to the company’s smart home product line-up, each set to cost less than $10.

None of them natively support HomeKit, but the company says that all support the $69 Dirigera hub, and has promised that will be upgraded to Matter at some point …

Ikea announced the trio of sensors today.

PARASOLL Door and Window Sensor is designed for discreet mounting on windows and doors. This sensor notifies users when these access points are opened or closed, making them aware of any unexpected entries.

VALLHORN Wireless Motion Sensor can be placed both indoors and outdoors. It activates lights upon detecting movement and offers personalised lighting with adjustable color and intensity settings.

BADRING Water Leakage Sensor is to be placed near areas of water usage and notifies users upon detecting water leaks, through sending mobile notifications or activation of its built-in alarm. It minimizes the impact of water-related incidents through immediate notification so you can act right away.

By connecting the sensors to the DIRIGERA hub, they trigger other smart devices, receive notifications in your mobile, or adjust lights to their preferences – all managed through the IKEA Home smart app, even remotely from outside the home.

...

All three products will offer both alerts and the ability to directly trigger Ikea light bulbs. Other connectivity requires the Dirigera Zigbee hub, which can interface with a wider range of smart home products. They are not compatible with Ikea’s older Trafdi bridge, which is effectively now obsolete.

However, HomeKit compatibility won’t be available until the hub is upgraded to support Matter. This was supposed to have happened almost a year ago, and Ikea still hasn’t provided a date.

On past performance, we can expect it to arrive at some point, but don’t hold your breath.

Ikea launched the Ormanäs, its first smart RGB LED light strip, in the Netherlands. The news comes by way of Dutch tech site Tweakers, which notes that the Ormanäs is a four-meter, or roughly 13-foot, dimmable Zigbee affair for €29.99 (about $32) that works with the company’s Dirigera smart hub. The light strip is only available in the Netherlands for now, but Ikea typically starts its rollouts there before bringing products to the US and beyond.

The strip is simple and, judging from the images on Ikea’s site, won’t have individually addressable LEDs like some of the fancier strips on the market — which means the whole strip will show only a single color at a time. Still, it supports multiple control methods like the Ikea Home app and the Ikea Styrbar remote as well as Apple HomeKit, Google Home, and Amazon Alexa smart home platforms (through the Dirigera hub). It also supports Google Home and Amazon Alexa. And being a fairly standard LED strip, you can cut it to length in designated places.

The Ormanäs has a nice balance of features — it’s affordable, long, dimmable, and with Zigbee control, is likely to be very responsive. It’s rare to see a smart LED strip that ticks all of those boxes and also supports HomeKit and out-of-home control via the maker’s app — something the Dirigera hub improves on over Ikea’s now-defunct Trådfri Gateway.