The smart, connected, IoT thread

[Tiger15]

Anybody into "smart" stuff, "connected devices", "internet of things"? (I think that's all the buzzwords.) I'm not really talking about phones, although that's welcome here too. But stuff like smart home stuff, voice assistants, wearables, internet connected appliances, smart clothes (yep, that exists). I like gadgets and would love to talk about it with you smart people.

 

[Tiger15]

I'll start.

I finally decided to pull the trigger on the Ring alarm system. I have had an old-school hardwired wired alarm for 10 years. It originally came from Brinks (which changed to Broadview when they separated from the Brinks Armored truck company, and then became ADT when ADT bought Broadview). They charged me like $30 - $40 per month for monitoring through a landline phone which seems crazytown now. Ring charges $10 per month for wifi monitoring with cellular backup. 

My ADT system finally stopped working when Cox upgraded the phone line from analog to digital VoIP. So I bought the Ring alarm system and set it up. Everything is wireless, battery powered, and mostly just sticks to the wall with adhesive foam. I mounted the base station and control panel with wall anchors, and hardwired the control panel so I don't have to pull it down to recharge.

Had it for about 3 weeks; so far so good.  Now I've gone the next step and bought a Ring doorbell camera. Waiting for it to arrive this week.

 

[Supe]

So far so good with Ring here, too.  

Pros: 

• Inexpensive
  
• 24/7 monitoring/cellular backup option
  
• Easy to upgrade/add devices
  

Cons:

• Unless you pay for the Ring Protect plan, you're dead in the water if your wifi goes down, although the app will tell you that's happened.
  
• Motion alarms are too sensitive for large pets, which renders them basically worthless unless we're on vacation and take the dogs with us.  We end up setting the "home and armed" option more than the actual "away" accordingly, even if we're not home. 
  
• Occasional contact sensor glitches - you get a notification as to which one is acting up, but they still act up.  Usually pulling the cover and resetting does the trick.
  
• The keypads cannot be run off USB power 24/7.  At some point, they will glitch/freeze and become unresponsive, which means unplugging it and hoping it works or sprinting to the other end of the house to beat the entry delay and stop the alarm from going off.  They do stay charged for a very long time when not plugged in, but I'd prefer to just leave it plugged in.
  
• The app can be flaky at times.  Sometimes there's a pretty big delay in notifications when interfacing with the cameras, and other times the app inexplicably fails to record playback for doorbell videos.  
  

For what we spent, I'm very happy with it, the wife loves the peace of mind, and I plan on adding two spotlight cameras to the front and back of the house to cover the garage/driveway and back door.  I had everything set up in an afternoon, including four doors, upstairs and downstairs motion detectors, an assload of window sensors, base station, and two keypads.

 

[Master slacker]

I still don't know / understand what IoT is.

 

[Tiger15]

I still don't know / understand what IoT is.

Internet of Things. It means nothing. LOL. It's a generic terms for things connected to the internet that haven't been traditionally connected to the internet like thermostats and appliances. But people use it in lots of different ways. By the way "Internet of Shit" is a pretty funny twitter follow. https://twitter.com/internetofshit

 

[Tiger15]

So far so good with Ring here, too.  

Pros: 

• Inexpensive
  
• 24/7 monitoring/cellular backup option
  
• Easy to upgrade/add devices
  

Cons:

• Unless you pay for the Ring Protect plan, you're dead in the water if your wifi goes down, although the app will tell you that's happened.
  
• Motion alarms are too sensitive for large pets, which renders them basically worthless unless we're on vacation and take the dogs with us.  We end up setting the "home and armed" option more than the actual "away" accordingly, even if we're not home. 
  
• Occasional contact sensor glitches - you get a notification as to which one is acting up, but they still act up.  Usually pulling the cover and resetting does the trick.
  
• The keypads cannot be run off USB power 24/7.  At some point, they will glitch/freeze and become unresponsive, which means unplugging it and hoping it works or sprinting to the other end of the house to beat the entry delay and stop the alarm from going off.  They do stay charged for a very long time when not plugged in, but I'd prefer to just leave it plugged in.
  
• The app can be flaky at times.  Sometimes there's a pretty big delay in notifications when interfacing with the cameras, and other times the app inexplicably fails to record playback for doorbell videos.  
  

For what we spent, I'm very happy with it, the wife loves the peace of mind, and I plan on adding two spotlight cameras to the front and back of the house to cover the garage/driveway and back door.  I had everything set up in an afternoon, including four doors, upstairs and downstairs motion detectors, an assload of window sensors, base station, and two keypads.

Good feedback.

• I will say that I never even considered using the system without the professional monitoring, so the ring protect plan was a given for me.
  
• We don't have any pets. I cranked the motion detector sensitivity all the way up to the max. That's most similar to what I have before with the ADT systems.
  
• So far no sensor glitches.
  
• I did hardwire the control panel for 24/7 usb. From what I read online, it seems to be something lots of people do.
  
• I've read that the Ring Doorbell Pro is MUCH more responsive than the doorbell 1 and 2. Since it's hardwired power, not battery, it's always on and always caching 3 seconds of video, so when it senses something it has a few seconds before the detection already saved. The doorbell 1 and 2 have to wake up from "sleep" mode.
  

How long have you had your system? Most of the complaints and issues that I've read about were from 2017 and earlier. I think they must have done a hardware refresh in 2018.

Yeah, I set everything up in one evening. It took me longer to take down the old system than to setup the Ring system. 3 door sensors, 2 motion detectors, base station and keypad. The keypad took a few additional iterations because the first 12v to 5vUSB transformer I bought didn't work. I may add more window sensors later. And the Doorbell Pro is on it's way.

 

[Supe]

I did hardwire the control panel for 24/7 usb. From what I read online, it seems to be something lots of people do.

It was DEFINITELY an issue.  Seemed that the 3 week mark is where it would lock up.  I wonder if they've fixed this via a firmware update?  I installed mine in the Spring.

I've read that the Ring Doorbell Pro is MUCH more responsive than the doorbell 1 and 2. Since it's hardwired power, not battery, it's always on and always caching 3 seconds of video, so when it senses something it has a few seconds before the detection already saved. The doorbell 1 and 2 have to wake up from "sleep" mode.

I use a hardwired Pro.  I wonder if it has to do with app issues when not using a Protect plan, since it does not do the 30-60 day backup.  The only doorbell "issue" is that there can be a few second delay between it being pressed and the indoor hardwired chime going off.  I usually hear the doorbell outdoor chime first (that comes directly from the doorbell itself), and then the indoor chime immediately after.  

I do think they fixed the overheating doorbell issue, though.  The front of my house BAKES in the NC sun ever since we had to cut the trees down.  I was really worried about mine blanking out due to thermal protection issues like the earlier units, but have had no issues in that regard.

 

[LyceeFruit PE]

Boyfriend has a Nest and a Roomba. He loves them, all app controlled. The Nest is now defunct since got a heat pump. But I feel like that has an app too he also has an Alexa and I feel like Im being watched.

I was fine with a regular vacuum tbh.

 

[Tiger15]

My wife doesn't trust Alexa. You can get a free Echo dot with Ring purchases, but she declined.

 

[LyceeFruit PE]

The Nest and Alexa were here first. I do use it to play music but it does make me uncomfortable.

 

[Tiger15]

I enjoy my Sonos speaker. I'm into tech and gadgets. My wife is not. So when she takes to something I know it's good. And she love the Sonos too.

 

[leggo PE]

We have two Google Home minis, a Roomba, and a Nest we've never once used since we haven't had to turn on the heat in our apartment since we moved in back in April.

We like the Google home minis and use them mainly to play music. They function well, and are hooked up to each other so they'll play the same thing at the same time throughout the apartment.

I love the Roomba! We set it to go every 2-3 days when we leave for work, and when we get home, it's always picked up a bunch of stuff. It doesn't always manage to dock itself, but that's not a big deal to us.

 

[Master slacker]

We have an Echo Dot.  It's used only to play music.  Our boys each have a Kindle Fire to make Lego stop-motion videos or (for our oldest playing bass) to play music he can play along with.  They're all ok, I guess, but I'm still not comfortable with Google and Amazon able to listen in whenever they want.  Hell, I wish cars nowadays still had knobs on the radio.