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My roommate has an extremely annoying habit of leaving lights on, despite constant reminders of "hey turn off the light." We otherwise get along pretty well, so
by gh02t 10y ago
My roommate has an extremely annoying habit of leaving lights on, despite constant reminders of "hey turn off the light." We otherwise get along pretty well, so it wasn't worth fighting over. So I modified the switch to add remote control using a simple wifi controlled switch and also added a motion detector. Now the light turns itself of. Sure it's overkill, but it really is convenient and made for a fun project, plus it only cost about $10.
Similarly, our HVAC puts out most of its air upstairs and we use a fan to help move air down the stairwell. I set it up to coordinate with the HVAC to turn on and off in time with the cycles and also to turn itself off in the evening when we are all asleep and back on in the morning. Again, not essential but fun and handy.
The HVAC itself is also controlled by a somewhat complex system that I made over the course of about 6 months. It makes a big difference in keeping the house temperature even and also saves something like $10 per month in electricity. My point here is that well targeted smart home devices can be really handy. On the other hand I made this stuff myself specifically tailored to my needs. IMO, it's hard for commercial products to really hit the sweet spot between being easy to use and yet adaptable enough to fit into everybody's life tightly enough to not be annoying.
- WalterBright 10y agoLED lights consume not much power. How does that compare with the power used by a wifi + motion detector system running 24/7? It's pretty clear that an HVAC system that is on a timer can save considerable power. I have a programmable thermostat for that reason, but the user interface for it is so awful I need to reread the manual every time. It would be better if it was wifi and presented a web page as a UI. I also bought a programmable cat feeder. Again, one needs a manual to figure it out. What is wrong with those engineers? You shouldn't need a freakin' manual to set up a cat feeder. And the UI couldn't be satisfied with 5 buttons, no, you've got to do chording and hold buttons for various amounts of time to do various things. It's complete madness. (I don't want the cat feeder hooked to the internet, though. I'm suspicious the cat has been plotting against me, and it might be able to coordinate with other cats via the cat feeder interface, which could spark the cataclysm.)
- gh02t 10y ago> LED lights consume not much power. How does that compare with the power used by a wifi + motion detector system running 24/7? It's barely a rounding error. Sleeping the microcontroller, average current draw is a couple mA. LED lights draw around 500 mA. Regarding the HVAC, what I made is more focused on keeping the temperature balanced by taking a weighted average of temperatures across the house, with the weights adapting to where people are, similar to the Ecobee thermostats but DIY. It also has a web interface where you can view temperatures and power usage, which is far more useful than I thought it would be.