Smart Homes

In September 2023, Home Assistant support for integrated Android device controls rolled out with little fanfare (via GitHub). Nonetheless, this update is crucial to using the smart home management tool, giving Android users seamless access to these frequently used controls. If you have Android 11 or newer, the location of these features depends on your device — the controls may be in your quick settings panel, power menu, or notification drawer.

Matter — the IOT connectivity standard with ambitions to fix the smart home and make all of our gadgets talk to each other — has hit version 1.2, adding support for nine new types of connected devices. Robot vacuums, refrigerators, washing machines, and dishwashers are coming to Matter, as are smoke and CO alarms, air quality sensors, air purifiers, room air conditioners, and fans. It’s a crucial moment for the success of the industry-backed coalition that counts 675 companies among its members. This is where it moves from the relatively small categories of door locks and light bulbs to the real moneymakers: large appliances.

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While it’s possible today to get your lights to flash when your laundry is done, turn a light red when your fridge’s temperature rises, or shut off the HVAC system if the smoke alarm goes off, it can be complicated to set up and often wholly unreliable. You need to download multiple apps, maybe buy a sensor or two, deal with laggy cloud integrations, and worry about whether your washer is even compatible with your smart home app in the first place. With Matter support, this type of simple command and control should be much easier to implement in any ecosystem.

The future potential is also interesting, bringing into play the ambient smart home many companies are pursuing, where devices can talk to each other to take action on our behalf without us really having to get involved.

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The launch of Matter 1.2 isn’t coming with a slew of device announcements. I reached out to several companies that are members of the CSA and make products in these categories to see if they were announcing any new integrations. iRobot (makers of Roomba robot vacuums) and Resideo (owners of First Alert smoke alarms) said they had nothing to share, and Dyson (vacuums and fans), Google Nest (Nest Protect smoke alarm), and Samsung didn’t respond before publication.

Even the ever-eager Eve, which has been at the forefront of Matter adoption, told me it had nothing to announce. All this means we’ll probably not get new devices until 2024. While it’s possible that over-the-air updates to existing gadgets could be implemented sooner, it’s not likely. Many of those updates promised with 1.0 took a long time to arrive, and some never did.

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New device types should bring much-needed momentum to Matter and address the complaints of some existing smart home users that it has yet to add much to the experience other than headaches. But this hinges on manufacturers adding it to their products.

The resistance to adopting Matter seems to be growing. We’re a year in, and companies that initially said they would keep an eye on Matter with a view to adopting it still haven’t (Lutron being a notable one here). Some that seemed fully on board from the outset have slowed down or even completely stopped their development, pulling a Wemo.

One issue is the inherent tension between Matter’s role in creating an even playing field — it’s removed interoperability as a hindrance but also a selling point. Companies now need to create enough differentiation to compel the customer to pick them.

Matter also has competition. Resideo is very active with the Home Connectivity Alliance (HCA), a rival / potentially symbiotic organization to Matter working to have large appliance manufacturers connect and control each other’s devices through their own apps. It has wide adoption among the big appliance manufacturers, including LG, Haier, Samsung, and Electrolux. (Whirlpool is not a member; Bean told me they are watching it closely.)

The HCA’s approach is more appealing to these companies, as it keeps everything in the manufacturer’s proprietary ecosystems and maintains the cloud connection, a valuable funnel for data.

Those who follow smarthomescene.com, already know the dominant communication protocol mentioned here is Zigbee. Almost every device I review tends to be Zigbee or open-source Wi-Fi (ESP Boards).

My networks are based on the Sonoff ZBDongles, especially the EZSP version working with Zigbee2MQTT and ZHA. Even though it’s marked as experimental in Z2M, they have performed well in my testing and development setup.

The ZigStar UZG-01 I am testing in this article is a hybrid Zigbee coordinator, which can work over USB, Wi-Fi or LAN. You can also choose to power it over USB-C or Power-over-Ethernet (PoE). This was sent to me by Radu from the ZigStar open source and DIY project. You can get it on Tindie or Elecrow.

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After deploying the ZigStar UZG-01 as a coordinator in a development Zigbee2MQTT network, I started to pair devices that I had on hand. My previous network centered around the ZBDongle-E was very robust and performed without hiccups.

The UZG-01 performed as I expected too and pairing devices was very responsive. This is largely dependent on the device itself though, usually end devices are more difficult to pair. Aqara devices are also known as difficult to pair, although by now I learned how to handle them properly.

If you are looking to replace your coordinator, consider the ZigStar UZG-01 as a top tier device. The flexibility it offers in terms of installation options is enough to chose it over other coordinators. Further, the CC2652P7 module it ships with is very powerful and officially supported in both Zigbee2MQTT and ZHA.

cross-posted from: https://radiation.party/post/133703

[ sourced from The Verge ]

In the decade or so since the two companies launched overpowered thermostats that held so much promise for the smart home, they have gone down drastically different paths. Where Ecobee’s original product has matured into a fine vintage, Google (which bought Nest in 2014) has let the excellent Nest Learning Thermostat wither on the vine, ostensibly replacing it with a watered-down version with half the smarts and none of the visual appeal.

By contrast, Ecobee’s latest flagship thermostat, the Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium, has a slew of new capabilities. In addition to being a very good smart thermostat that adapts your heating and cooling based on whether you’re home or away and even which room you are in, it is also a smart speaker (Alexa or Siri), an indoor air quality monitor, a smoke and CO alarm listener, a temperature and humidity sensor, and a radar-powered motion sensor. While Nest was the first to add radar-powered motion sensing to its thermostat, the other notable recent hardware upgrade was… a mirrored face.

The Ecobee Smart Doorbell Camera is a wired video doorbell that costs $159.99. Image: Ecobee The new Ecobee Smart Doorbell Camera, launching today for $159.99, has a headline-worthy trick of displaying a live feed from the camera onto your thermostat (not just the top-of-the-line model, but the Ecobee Enhanced and Ecobee with Voice Control models, too). This is something I always thought Nest might do. Instead, they have stand-alone smart displays for viewing your doorbell feed, but those haven’t been refreshed in a while.

Ecobee also announced today that all its thermostats going back to the Ecobee 3 will act as a keypad for Ecobee’s smart home security system, and those with speakers can also be a siren. Nest’s security system has been discontinued, and its doorbells don’t talk to its thermostats.

cross-posted from: https://radiation.party/post/118334

[ comments | sourced from HackerNews ]

Welcome to the Internet of Stings, an occasional series in which we report on connected devices that are abruptly bricked or rendered considerably more costly due to the actions of their vendors.

Today's tale concerns the Miku Baby Monitor, a $400 device aimed at parents who want to check up on their precious poppet from the comfort of their smartphone.

Spend the cash and you'll get a camera that will also monitor breathing, room temperature, humidity, and provide some two-way communication to reassure the baby that its parent or guardian has taken a break from YouTube or Candy Crush to check that all is well.

The upfront cost was steep, but what price can one put on the reassurance of a breathing waveform and being able to bring up some live video while you're out and about? Apparently, $9.99 a month.

eufy is best known for its range of smart home security, including security cameras and video doorbells, as well as smart cleaning products like the best robot vacuum cleaners. Its new Dual Camera series is the world’s first home surveillance mesh powered by local AI, and is featured packed with enhanced surveillance capabilities. Oh, and it’s incredibly affordable, too.

The main advancements to the Dual Camera series is its AI detection. All four devices in the line-up (the SoloCam, the IndoorCam, the Floodlight Cam and the Video Doorbell) have cross-camera tracking, meaning if you have multiple cameras, the devices use AI facial recognition to identify the same person or animal across multiple cameras.

This new feature means the cameras can seamlessly track people and events across all devices, so there’s no interruptions or confusion with what each camera is tracking. For people who hate being bothered by app notifications, the new eufy Dual Camera series will only send you one notification rather than multiple and deliver a single auto-edited video, making your update more condensed, convenient and easier to view.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/2904988

Automated post: UNRAID related video posted on YouTube 'DIY Smart Home: Home Assistant auf Unraid installieren - Tutorial | Easy Tec'

We live in an age where just about everything can be "smart." Your TV, lights, refrigerator and even your pet's food dispenser can all be controlled wirelessly via an app on your phone.

But how exactly can energy be smart? With a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection, new products allow you to monitor and control the circuits of your electrical panel from your phone.

You can switch circuits on or off, monitor each circuit's energy usage and set automations. This might not seem all that valuable at first glance. But add some solar panels or a solar battery to the mix, and things get even more interesting.

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What are the benefits of a smart energy system?

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Avoid peak time of use rates

Most smart energy systems are designed to help you be as energy efficient as possible. This includes accounting for peak time of use rates, when some utilities charge more for electricity during hours of high demand. Smart energy can help you find the cheapest times to charge your EV, run the dishwasher or even make dinner.

Optimize your solar

If you have solar panels with a solar battery, a smart energy system can help you get the most out of your electricity production. A solar battery essentially gives you a reservoir of energy that can be used to store and remove energy as necessary. Smart energy systems work with the battery by pulling energy from storage and pushing it to wherever it's needed the most, whenever it's most cost-effective to do so. Things like charging your EV or running your AC off solar might be be much cheaper than buying energy from the grid. It's all about correctly allocating your energy to get the most bang for your buck.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/6041456

With the release of Tapo version 3.0, TP-Link integrates their two lines of smart home devices into a single application, reducing the number of apps needed to control their devices.

Additionally, the update claims improvements to the user interface, optimized camera features, a sleeker status page, and faster responses and startups.

The blow post also suggest that improvements to lighting effects, smart actions, geofencing, and a dark mode will be coming in the future.

I think the best takeaway is that I can have one less app on my phone!

TP-Link Blog - Brand-New Tapo Version 3.0

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/4026114

According to its current privacy policy, with an account, Hue gets access to the configuration of your system to provide the right software updates to the devices. It can only use your data for marketing or share it with third parties if you provide additional consent.

However, in a change to the current policy, Yianni says Hue will not collect usage information from users without additional optional consent. “So, we do not require users share anything about how they use our products,” he says.

“Previously creating an account was consent for usage data processing that we are in the process of decoupling and will be decoupled before accounts become essential — that makes sure it’s possible to create an account without sharing usage data,” says Yianni. However, if you choose to use the cloud services for things like out-of-home connectivity, you will need an account, and Hue will process your data, he says.

If this change to the privacy policy does happen, Home Assistant’s Schoutsen agrees that it would make the requirement for an account more palatable. “But it all depends on the exact changes,” he says.

The Sonoff SNZB-02D is a good quality temperature and humidity sensor with an LCD screen. The sensor is capable and accurate, although humidity calibration was needed in my case.

Regarding Zigbee communication, the EFR32MG22 module gave me no issues with connectivity in both my testing setups. For reference, the first one is Zigbee2MQTT with a Sonoff ZBDongle-E and the second one is ZHA with a Conbee II stick. The reporting interval is not as frequent as a BLE-based sensor, but this is a Zigbee characteristic to save battery.

The only thing I really didn’t like is the LCD screen of the SNZB-02D. It has bad viewing angles, the contrasts gets distorted fast and you cannot glance it from a distance. This is somewhat expected with an LCD, but for comparison, the SwitchBot Meter Plus has as an incredible LCD screen with thick numbers which can be seen from across the room.

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Regarding Zigbee communication, the EFR32MG22 module gave me no issues with connectivity in both my testing setups. For reference, the first one is Zigbee2MQTT with a Sonoff ZBDongle-E and the second one is ZHA with a Conbee II stick. The reporting interval is not as frequent as a BLE-based sensor, but this is a Zigbee characteristic to save battery.

The only thing I really didn’t like is the LCD screen of the SNZB-02D. It has bad viewing angles, the contrasts gets distorted fast and you cannot glance it from a distance. This is somewhat expected with an LCD, but for comparison, the SwitchBot Meter Plus has as an incredible LCD screen with thick numbers which can be seen from across the room.

After six years of reviewing a variety of Wyze security cameras at Wirecutter, we’ve made the decision to suspend our recommendation of them from all our guides.

On September 8, 2023, The Verge reported an incident in which some Wyze customers were able to access live video from other users’ cameras through the Wyze web portal. We reached out to Wyze for details, and a representative characterized the incident as small in scope, saying they “believe no more than 10 users were affected.” Other than a post to its user-to-user online forum, Wyze Communities, and communication to those it says were affected, the company has not reached out to Wyze customers, nor has it provided meaningful details about the incident.

We believe Wyze is acting irresponsibly to its customers. As such, we've made the difficult but unavoidable decision to revoke our recommendation of all Wyze cameras until the company implements meaningful changes to its security and privacy procedures.

The concern is not that Wyze had a security incident—just about every company or organization in the world will probably have to deal with some sort of security trip-up, as we have seen with big banks, the US military, Las Vegas casinos, schools, and even Chick-fil-a. The greater issue is how this company responds to a crisis. With this incident, and others in the past, it’s clear Wyze has failed to develop the sorts of robust procedures that adequately protect its customers the way they deserve.

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If this were the first such incident, we might be less concerned. However, it comes on the heels of a March 2022 Bitdefender study (PDF), which showed that Wyze took nearly three years to fully address specific security vulnerabilities that affected all three models of Wyze Cams. The company did eventually alert customers of the issue, and it notably guided them to stop using the first-generation Wyze Cam because “continued use of the WyzeCam after February 1, 2022 carries increased risk, is discouraged by Wyze, and is entirely at your own risk”—but that was long after the serious vulnerability was first discovered and reported to Wyze, on multiple occasions, without getting a response.

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We continue to recommend Wyze lighting, since we consider them lower-risk, lower-impact devices—a security breach of a light bulb, for instance, wouldn’t give someone a view of your living room.

cross-posted from: https://derp.foo/post/265688

There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.

Here we are, seven years since the first Google Home speaker hit store shelves in 2016, and the virtual assistant space really isn't much better. Sure, you can spot improvements if you look close enough — Continued Conversation was, in some ways, a game changer — but nowhere near where I hoped we'd be in this amount of time. Sure, the hardware has improved, with better speakers and bigger displays, but it's tough not to feel like Google's efforts are in a standstill.

Even my favorite smart display, the Nest Hub Max, is starting to feel sluggish now that it's over four years old. And with the news that Google is severely limiting one of its best selling points by neutering Google Meet support and eliminating Zoom altogether, the future I once hoped for may be over before it ever arrives.

At one point in time, the list of best Google Assistant smart displays was a lengthy one with options for multiple brands, each offering something different. Companies like JBL, Lenovo, Bose, and more offered features its company was well-known for with the addition of access to Google's robust digital assistant. With Google killing off support for third-party smart displays back in April of this year, that list has dwindled significantly; the newest option on that list is now over two years old.

I'm not saying that a smart speaker or smart display is something that should get updated annually, but surely, we should be seeing more improvements here than we have so far. However, instead of providing long-term support, improved experiences, and new features, Google is removing them, limiting how Meet works on their displays and ditching Zoom entirely. And that's not even factoring in the slow degrading of Google Assistant in its usefulness. From disappearing support for notes and lists for third-party apps to the death of Assistant games, it feels like our displays are becoming more limited with each passing day.

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What seems to be an impending demise of smart displays — even as Amazon works to revitalize Alexa alongside a new Echo Show 8 — is pointing to what many fans of consumer tech and Google know but tend to forget: you can't expect much or grow attached to anything Google provides. There is literally a site dedicated to keeping tabs on everything that Google kills off.

The Nest x Yale lock first made its debut in 2018 and, five years later, it’s effectively been ignored for a while in Google’s updated smart home ecosystem. Without a proper sequel on the horizon, we’ve been looking at Yale’s new Matter-enabled smart lock which should be a good stand-in for Google’s overdue sequel, but instead, shows Matter’s limits yet again.

Yale Assure Lock SL is one of the first Matter-enabled smart locks for a door, and it rests on a pretty simple pitch. Instead of installing a lock on your door and needing a specific app to control it, why not just have one that pairs directly to your smart home app of choice?

It’s a good pitch, and a world I certainly want to live in, but the idealized pitch of Matter holds it back.

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The other big appeal of a smart lock is the ability to set auto-lock timers, something Yale advertises right on the lock’s website. But, through the Google Home app, you can’t access that option at all. In fact, you can’t adjust any settings through the app. You can’t adjust the master code, add codes for guests, or really anything else. You can just lock and unlock. You can set up auto-lock on the lock itself, which works well enough, but I can’t even count the number of times I’ve turned that feature on or off on the fly on the Nest x Yale lock when I’ve had people working on my house, or when moving things in or out of the house.

The biggest deal-breaker for me in this is the inability to set up guest codes, which is a tremendous help when family and friends come by, or someone stays to watch our dogs. Instead of giving them our code, I can set one up that they pick and are more likely to remember, and also turn that code off if needed.

But that’s not Yale’s fault by any means. It’s just a limitation of Matter, and one we’ve seen time and time again. Whether it’s a smart light or anything else, adding a device through Matter instead of a dedicated app typically means sacrificing granular controls for the sake of simple setup and day-to-day functionality. And by no means does anyone have to feel bad for making that choice. The fact that this lock (at least in theory) should work without internet for locking/unlocking, and that I don’t have to have another app installed to control it is incredibly appealing. Thanks to Matter, I can also use it in the SmartThings, or Apple Home apps with ease, which is just great. Notably, it doesn’t work with Alexa right now.

Normally, this is where I’d add that you can just use the manufacturer’s app to unlock these features, but that’s actually not the case if you buy Yale’s Matter lock. It will only work via Matter, which is a bit odd, and perhaps the single biggest hurdle I’d have in recommending it to someone. That said, with much of the core functionality working without even a Matter connection, it’s at least functional if the needed Thread device in your home goes down.

I assumed I hadn't heard of them because they were things that didn't need to be made smart, except so the company making them could charge more and I was mostly right (bed? Tap/faucet?). Mostly:

Kohler Numi 2.0 smart toilet

A smart toilet might seem like a strange idea at first, but for smart home enthusiasts with especially deep pockets, it might just be worth splashing out on. After all, it's already known as the throne, so why not make it feel like one? The Kohler Numi 2.0 offers hands-free lid opening and closing, a heated seat with the exact temperature customizable through the app (yes, there's an app for this toilet), and even ambient lighting to make the whole experience feel a little more dramatic.

Bizarrely, it also comes with a built-in audio system, so you can listen to your favorite playlist straight from your toilet. Other features include smart water-saving tech and cleaning jets with warm water to ensure optimal hygiene when you've finished your business. For all that tech, there's an eye-wateringly steep price to pay: the Numi 2.0 retails for $11,500, although at the time of writing, it's on sale on Amazon for a slightly discounted price of $8,625.

😱

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/stallmanwasright@lemmy.ml/t/487981

Today’s story is about Philips Hue by Signify. They will soon start forcing accounts on all users and upload user data to their cloud. For now, Signify says you’ll still be able to control your Hue lights locally as you’re currently used to, but we don’t know if this may change in the future. The privacy policy allows them to store the data and share it with partners.

(more in the article)

Amazon has announced that it’s shutting down Alexa Guard — a DIY security feature for Echo devices that listens for intruders or household alarms when you’re away from home. The free version of Alexa Guard that listens for household disturbances was included as a standard feature on Amazon Echo devices.

In a recent email to customers, Amazon said that some of Guard’s features like smoke and CO alarm detection will instead be moved to its new Emergency Assist service, which is available for $5.99 per month or $59 per year.

Guard features like Home and Away modes (to arm and disarm your Ring Alarm) and Away Lighting (which switches on your lights to make it look like you’re at home) will still be available for free as part of the standard Alexa experience. Other features like glass break sound detection will require an Emergency Assist subscription “starting soon.”

According to Amazon, Ring Protect Pro customers who linked their Ring and Alexa accounts as of September 20th, 2023, will receive Alexa Emergency Assist for free until October 31st, 2024.

And to really turn the screws on Alexa Guard users, the Emergency Assist signup page also notes the $5.99 subscription for Emergency Assist is an introductory price that will expire on January 8th, 2024. After this, the $5.99 subscription will only be available for people who subscribe to Amazon Prime (which starts at $14.99 per month). In a statement to The Verge, Amazon spokesperson Deanna Kugler said that pricing for non-Prime subscribers will be confirmed “later this year.”

And this hot on the heels of them announcing a subscription to use their Look as a picture frame.

Amazon is finally turning its Echo Show into a proper digital photo frame, but you have to pay extra for the privilege. Announced at its fall hardware event this week, the new Echo Show 8 Photos Edition costs $10 more than the standard edition of the new smart display but lets you make your photos the “primary home screen content.”

The Show 8 Photos Edition is coming this Fall for $159.99 and has all the same features as the new Echo Show 8 (third-gen). But for the extra $10, you get a six-month subscription to Amazon’s new PhotosPlus service, which enables this new “enhanced photo mode.”

Amazon announced the Echo Hub ($179.99) at its fall hardware event on Wednesday. Designed specifically as a smart home controller, the Echo Hub is a slimline version of an Echo Show 8 or a shrunken version of a Show 15. It should sit flush on your wall or could be propped up on a table or shelf with a desktop stand.

An eight-inch touchscreen device, the Echo Hub shares the same DNA as an Echo Show smart display, but it is fundamentally a new device. Its slim look resembles a tablet, and while it runs the same OS as the new Show 5, Dave Limp, Amazon’s SVP of devices and services, says the Echo Hub has a different processor, and there’s no camera.

Specifically billed as a smart home hub because it contains Zigbee, Thread, Bluetooth LE, and Amazon Sidewalk radios and functions as a Thread border router and Matter controller, the Echo Hub connects to Wi-Fi or ethernet with a compatible power over ethernet (PoE) converter. It is a full Alexa device with a speaker and mic array.

Instead of a camera, the Echo Hub has an IR sensor that it uses to wake up as you approach, so there’s no need to tap once and then tap again to activate any of the smart home widgets on the touch screen — such as turning on the lights or viewing a security camera.

Whether you're a smart home expert or just starting out, it’s always a good idea to check out what the essential products are. You may have already heard about some of the best smart plugs or the best smart sensors, but many people also assume that adding smart products to your home can be a pricey task. Yes, they’re not wrong, but there are also a lot of options out there that don’t cost the earth. A lot of well-known companies such as Philips Hue or Amazon have cheaper alternatives, meaning accessing smart home products doesn’t have to be as expensive as you think.

This is going to be the first part of our building a smart home series, and we're starting off low on a budget of £50.

That's £50 each, not total. They have a companion piece: How to build a smart home for under £100 also per item.

In 2022, Hue's parent company Signify committed to adding Matter support, but it was then delayed from its promised March 2023 debut. Then in August 2023, Hue again committed to the standard, and said that its support would go live in September.

Now according to the German tech site Hueblog, that support is live. Reportedly, the update is rolling out worldwide.

Hueblog says that the release comes with an update to the iOS Hue app. Where it previously had a setting for Voice Control, there is now a "Smart Home" option which includes all the Matter-related settings.

The Matter connectivity and interoperability standard was launched with great aplomb in November by Amazon, Apple, Samsung, Google, and hundreds of other companies. It’s designed to solve the issue of connectivity among smart home devices and platforms once and for all, offering a single communication protocol that everything, and I mean everything, was supposed to work with. Supposed to, anyway.

Yet In the year since the smart home standard was released, adoption has ground to a halt, and improvements and iterations on the standard have not materialized. In early September, I met Chris La Pre at the enormous IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin. Chris is head of technology for the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), which steers the Matter standard and herds the cats responsible for its development. He acknowledged that, while there are about a thousand “certified” devices listed on the CSA site, there are perhaps 30 on the market today. And that includes the dozen hubs sold by Google and Amazon.

Apparently, Matter simply doesn’t matter.

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Matter’s invisibility is partly by design: thanks to cross-brand compatibility with the spec, everything is supposed to just work. Your light bulbs and doorbells will talk to your security cameras and stereo seamlessly and smoothly. Hence there’s no need to market or even mention the spec. If it’s Matter, it’ll work. In reality, Matter devices today rarely speak to each other, instead requiring a hub like the Samsung Station or a Google Nest Hub.

And the CSA noted that standard is built to allow founding companies like Google and Apple to endorse their own platforms, rather than a Matter smarthome app. The end of the Google Blog post from last December is telling, handily advising you that “to make sure devices from other brands have been tested to work well with Google devices, also look for the Works With Google Home badge.”

With no visibility to consumers – no app on your phone, no settings in your iPhone or Android device, no options to tick in Windows, no logo anywhere in the Windows, iOS, or Android software – Matter is purely behind the scenes.