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I don't own a Ring, nor have I used one, so perhaps I don't really understand what makes it so special. Using Home Assistant[0], you can use the motion detecti

I don't own a Ring, nor have I used one, so perhaps I don't really understand what makes it so special. Using Home Assistant[0], you can use the motion detection found in many IP cameras to trigger various events[1]. This includes recording video or sending you notifications[2] about it so you can watch it live. If you don't have motion detection in your camera, you can buy a motion detection module for about $10. The cost of setup is the price of the camera and a machine (such as an R.Pi) to run Home Assistant on, or perhaps a Zigbee base station as well (about ~$30) depending on what you want to do. I had a fairly decent-sized setup, including sensors on every door and window, temperature/pressure/humidity sensors in every room + outside, every single lightbulb (exc. bathrooms) was RGB and network connected, as well as light and motion sensors across different parts of my house. I had wireless buttons connected that would do various things depending on how they're interacted with and an IR-emitter that I eventually used to start programming my fan and to interact with my TV. I think I spent about $200 in total on all of it. [0] https://www.home-assistant.io/ https://www.home-assistant.io/ [1] https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/camera/ https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/camera/ [2] https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/notify/ https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/notify/

asutekku 7y ago
I know this is hacker news but the fact that you don’t need to build the system yourself is the reason why it is so special. Most people want the product to work out of the box without any additional configuration.
- stevenjohns 7y ago
  I appreciate that. When I wrote "perhaps I don't really understand what makes it so special" I meant that insofar that I might not completely understand, and therefore might miss, the key features of Ring within the alternative solution I proposed.
snthd 7y ago
>I don't really understand what makes it so special You don't have to use YAML? :-)

asutekku 7y ago

I know this is hacker news but the fact that you don’t need to build the system yourself is the reason why it is so special. Most people want the product to work out of the box without any additional configuration.

stevenjohns 7y ago
I appreciate that. When I wrote "perhaps I don't really understand what makes it so special" I meant that insofar that I might not completely understand, and therefore might miss, the key features of Ring within the alternative solution I proposed.

snthd 7y ago

>I don't really understand what makes it so special You don't have to use YAML? :-)