r/homeautomation

Since this morning I can't login into mydlink app: it says "no internet connection" or "error, try later".

Clearing cache or even app data does not work too.

Internet portal is stuck as well.

Hi all,

We’re undertaking a substantial home renovation in the UK and want to incorporate smart home automation while the property is being rewired.

We initially went down the Loxone route, but costs are becoming difficult to justify. For example, the specified dimmable spotlights are coming in at approximately £150 each, with around 70 required — that’s £10,500 on spotlights alone!

We’re not necessarily looking for the cheapest solution, but something reliable, flexible and reasonably priced without being locked into expensive proprietary hardware.

What we’re looking to achieve:

Lighting
Approximately 70 dimmable spotlights, preferably DALI-2 or a similarly reliable alternative.
Motion/presence sensors to automatically control lighting in hallways, bathrooms, staircase and other suitable areas.
Low-level lighting at night for bathrooms, staircase, landings and bedroom pathways.
Time-based lighting scenes, with different brightness levels depending on the time of day.
LED strip lighting for kitchen cabinets, media walls, wardrobes, niches and feature lighting.
Conventional wall switches that continue working without an app.
Freedom to use third-party light fittings.

Heating and Air Conditioning
Individual room/zone temperature control.
Automatic heating to maintain desired temperatures.
Underfloor heating and radiator integration where applicable.
Air conditioning integration, including room-by-room temperature settings.
Coordinated heating and cooling to avoid systems working against each other.
Scheduling and temperature adjustments based on time of day and occupancy.

Security and Access
CCTV integration, ideally with local recording and remote viewing.
Electric gate control, including remote opening and closing.
Video intercom/doorbell integration.
Ability to view cameras and manage access through a central interface.
Potential automation based on presence, time or security events.

EV Charging and Energy
Integration with one or more electric car chargers.
Smart charging schedules and potential load balancing.
Monitoring household energy consumption.

General Requirements
Wired-first installation wherever practical.
Reliable local operation without relying on cloud services.
Centralised control through an app or wall-mounted tablet.
Physical switches and manual overrides for essential functions.
Ability to expand or modify the system in the future.
Preferably an open or brand-agnostic architecture rather than complete dependence on one manufacturer.

System Architecture and Design
One of our main requirements is finding someone experienced who can design the complete smart home architecture, rather than simply supply and install equipment.

Ideally, we’d want:
System architecture and recommended platforms.
Wiring diagrams and cable schedules for first fix.
Lighting control design, including DALI compatibility.
Sensor positioning and control logic.
Heating, AC, CCTV, gates and EV charger integration.
Hardware specifications and bill of materials.
A system that can be installed and maintained by competent electricians/integrators without being tied to a single supplier.

For a project of this size, would you recommend Loxone, KNX, Home Assistant or a hybrid approach?

Is there a significant advantage to KNX/DALI over something like Home Assistant with Shelly Pro or other wired controllers?

Can Home Assistant realistically serve as the central platform for all these systems without compromising reliability?

How would you approach lighting to avoid paying £150 per dimmable spotlight?

Would you keep critical functions such as heating, lighting and gate access independent of the central automation platform?

Does anyone have recommendations for independent UK-based or remote smart home system designers who could produce the architecture, wiring specifications and bill of materials?

Ultimatelyq, we’re looking for 90–95% of the functionality of a premium smart home system without necessarily paying premium proprietary prices.

We’re more interested in getting the architecture right now than buying into a particular ecosystem.

Would appreciate any experiences, recommendations or lessons learned from similar projects.

Thanks!

Hello. I have a lighted mirror with touch buttons on the face. Is there a way, or what is the best way, smart capability? I've read a smart relay won't work.

My mom stayed with me for a few days and apparently my new hobby is solving problems she doesn’t think are problems.

My fridge lets me know when the door isn’t closed. Her answer was basically, just close it properly lol. The washer sends me a notification when it’s done, but apparently I could just remember to go get the clothes. And she really doesn’t understand why the robot vacuum needs a schedule or voice control when I could just vacuum the floor myself.

The leak sensor that shuts off the water got a pass though. She likes that one.

I get what she means. None of these things are a huge job on their own. I just like not having to remember all the little stuff around the house. To her, I’ve basically added a bunch of devices to do things I could already do myself.

What automation did your family think was pointless until they saw it in use?

I've been building Fluvy for a few months and it's out on HACS: a theme and a card library for Home Assistant designed as one thing. The theme (light and dark, fifteen palettes or your own accent), thirty-nine cards, Activity and History pages, a settings panel and an automatic dashboard, all drawn from the same design tokens. GPL-3.0, no telemetry, no network calls of its own.

Live demo, the real cards and settings panel on a simulated home (change palette, mode, device and language and watch them apply live): https://acosta290.github.io/fluvy

GitHub: https://github.com/acosta290/fluvy

https://preview.redd.it/u46xy9yyaash1.png?width=1600&format=png&auto=webp&s=a337886e461f9731ea96a68bd7df1c8605aa6c96

https://preview.redd.it/bucoqwv1bash1.png?width=690&format=png&auto=webp&s=75548adce32feb19e282591dbf2e96a05115e5f2

https://preview.redd.it/e125p0h4bash1.png?width=720&format=png&auto=webp&s=5282fe7c92e634ccd771b99f2782f65c2efc54d6

What's in it:

• Every card has an editor form and a live preview in the card picker; unavailable, unknown and missing states are drawn on purpose, never as an error.

• Sliders and dials are precision controls: relative drag, slide away from the ruler to slow down, hold for the 1 % scale.

• While HA wears the theme, its own pages (Settings, Devices, Automations, dialogs) follow the same design.

• Activity and History pages in the same idiom, with a switch to get HA's own pages back.

• An automatic dashboard: one line of YAML and it reads your areas, devices and energy preferences.

• Seven languages: English, Spanish, German, Dutch, French, Italian and Brazilian Portuguese.

Install: HACS → Custom repositories → https://github.com/acosta290/fluvy as Integration → download → restart → Settings → Add integration → Fluvy. It's in the queue for the default HACS store.

Feedback, bug reports and ideas are very welcome. The forum thread with more screenshots is here:

https://community.home-assistant.io/t/fluvy-a-premium-theme-and-card-library-for-home-assistant/1026602

I recently got a Tucson PHEV and I am able to fully charge the battery overnight on a standard 120V wall plug. However because it's not a smart charger, and the Hyundai BlueLink app doesn't log charging stats/history, I can't see my usage. I've thought about using an app like ev.energy or OptiWatt, but I've heard these apps can kill the 12V battery of Hyundai/Kia vehicles.

What are my options for measuring energy usage? I would like to see how much I am using over a month

Edit: I went with this power monitor

I want to control scenes I created in the lifx app with flic buttons. Yes or no?

I've been pulling my hair out trying to find definitive info.

EDIT: Just to add I have a google mini nest 2nd generation if that plays into this somehow.

I can call lifx scenes from Google home as well. So if flic can call Google scenes maybe I could have flic call Google which calls lifx scenes if that's an option?

EDIT 2: can flic trigger smartthigs virtual switches??

because I was able to do this:

1. created a virtual switch in smarthings advanced web app

2. synced smartthings to Google home and added the virtual switch as a starter for a Google home automation that just calls the lifx scene (jfc)

3. when I turn the virtual switch on Google home calls it's automation which trigger the lifx scene

Howdy folks.

Hoping you all can help me out with a tiny problem I’m trying to fix and weather or not it’s either just worth spending the money to get it fixed or just go buy something new and install it myself.

In our house, we have a DSC Power832 Security System that was installed back in I want to say probably around April or May of 2009 by LightHouse Security (located in Topeka KS). We have enjoyed the system over the years up until recently. One of the main things that I can’t stand is the fact that when we go to arm the system, sometimes it won’t even arm in away mode or even in stay mode. I recently had a Connect2go module installed in my system back in May of this year and I can arm and disarm it with that, however it dosent have the many features and functions like the Honeywell system or some alarm.com system would offer. The other issue that we had happen literally yesterday is since the system is landline monitored, it periodically sends a signal to the call center and yada yada yada. Well when it did that periodic test this time around, it was stuck trying to send the signal when in fact there was an active phone line connected to the panel. I finally went down to the panel and disconnected the phone line going to it so that it would at least free up the phone connection so we can use it but I got to thinking, since the system is practically almost 15 years old, is it worth trying to have it fixed, is their something that alarm.com could do for our panel or should I just consider going to buy a entire replacement system like a Honeywell vista or some other DSC panel.