Wife has a shower remodel coming up, so the DTV+ is interesting. I know she won't go for the full system which looks like it's about $9K, but what are the basic pieces you need if she just wanted to have the ability to turn on the water and set temps? And does the system include controls on both the inside and outside of the shower? She hates voice control, and won't allow any Alexa anywhere near the bedroom, so it would have to be managed via touch controls.
Once you start messing with water temperature you need more than valves. You need something to detect the temperature and safety measures to make sure you don’t scald people. Otherwise you’re violating code.
Just out of curiosity, does that mean she does not have Siri or Okay Google enabled on any device within earshot? They're all listening, even if you turn that stuff off.
It was expensive, but I don't think I spent 9K... well we completely redid the bathroom from the ground up, so we probably spent more than that, but not just one the DTV.
You can have up to 3 of the touchscreen devices so we have one in the shower, and one in our bedroom right outside the bathroom door. Not going to lie, their stuff is ridiculously expensive though, but it's good quality.
Valve controller (I have the 6 valve, but they make a 2 valve and 3 valve that are cheaper)
Everything else is an addon, those are the core pieces. You can also add lighting modules, amplifiers for music, and a steam generator. So it can get as expensive as you want really. If you are interested in it, my advice would be setup alerts on camelcamelcamel, I managed to get some items for $400-$500 below the normal price by buying over a 2month period and waiting for deals.
She does not use voice on her phone, OK Google is not enabled, etc., does not use voice typing, etc., etc. But her main bug-a-boo is smart speakers...just can't stand them, mostly I think becuase the sit there in full view stalking her...
Thanks for the advice, soiunds good. I think she'd love this stuff, just whether or not she'll feel OK opening her purse up is another matter. It's her money and her shower (I have an outdoor shower I use year-round) so really up to her if she wants it or not.
LOVE camelcamelcamel...I'll set up some alerts and start watching. Thanks!!
Hah. It is both my most expensive automation and also the one my wife loves the most. If you decide to do it, definitely let me know. Happy to share some tips and advice on how to set it up. I did a lot of research before going down this road.
If I was in that situation, I'd make sure to get cheap speakers like the Google Home Mini, and rip out the microphones completely. At least you could still be notified. So many use-cases that I can't even consider a home without them.
You'd think that would be an option, right? I did. I actually offered to do that but then she said that it would be bad to ruin the speaker. [shrug] Can't live w/her, can't live w/out her.
My wife is the same way about listening devices in the bathroom. So I put in a Sonos Play:1 that does not have any google/alexa or microphone at all. She loves it. I have Sonos Play One SL (no mic, google/alexa) as well.
How is that any different than the mini/etc with the mic switch disabled other than the obvious audio quality comparison in these specific models? I guess if people didn't trust that it actually worked as intended. Then again, if I was that worried about privacy, I sure as hell wouldn't trust ANY of these companies, even Sonos. For me personally, I'm a huge fan of the Google Nest Max with the display, so I can watch videos in there while I'm shaving, etc. One day I realized how often I propped my phone up like an idiot and figured why the heck not. Probably the most sensible purchase I've made in years when it comes to lifestyle improvements.
A small speaker can easily be used as a microphone, or almost any surface with the right sensor.
I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but I'd be personally annoyed if I I arbitrarily had to spend 5x more for a brand like Sonos, haha. I'm the argumentative/lawyer type, so my gut instinct would be to show her how a pair of earphones are also a microphone. Most people probably have no idea about this. At the end of the day I guess you got your smart speaker to some degree, so that's no too bad.
TLDR, if you don't trust these companies, then you probably shouldn't trust these companies at all.
The Sonos Play:1 and One SL are not "smart" there's no google/alexa built in, nothing "smart" about them. Which is what I wanted.
It's not a trust issue on my part. I know not to trust anything connected it would be dumb to. I also don't expect the Amazon/Google devices to actually NOT listen or to even work as intended. Look at the number of people across the internet reporting Alexa spontaneously saying something, doing something based on previous conversations or things heard.
Nope no privacy concerns at all with Google. Can't do anything anymore without some service pushing an ad about something you SAID or browsed minutes/hours ago. Happens to us all the time. Wife and I can be talking about something and next thing she's on the computer and there's some ad for something related to what we were talking about.
They are costly but Sonos is actually on the low end of the price scale for decent speakers with cool features. Yet everyone has their own scale of "expensive".
At the end of the day I got a decent speaker that is controlled by the actions and movements of the occupants of the house and plays SiriusXM when in the bathroom and that makes them happy. Having local control of the speaker and the option to play local content or streaming content is nice.
Yeah Sonos is decent overall, just 2-3x more than they should reasonably cost for being cheap audio components. Oh and I would never trust Google, but I also wouldn't trust Sonos, etc either. I have about as much faith in the mute switch working on the Nest stuff as the Sonos stuff not having a Mic -- IE not at all. I'd have to see a legit tear-down, or do it myself if I really wanted to know.
That being said, I'm not that worried about it in general as the convenience is quite nice to have voice control. Though this conversation did get me wondering -- what would it take to have a fully local-only smart speaker? I've been fascinated with the idea of having my own 'cloud' that the big tech giants have no access to. The problem would be nice integrations like adding items to checklists, selecting music/videos via voice, etc. All of the actually-useful things that google has developed over the years.
I think the biggest issue with this is the voice processing since in the case of Alexa at least, all of that is done on their servers with the full force of their "AI". Mycroft.ai is one of these competitors, but I have no experience with it so can't say if it is good or not. The speaker side is relatively easy, especially with just a RPi connected to basically anything, and there are also 2,4, and 6 mic-array hats for RPi's I believe.
Just curious, what are you comparing them to to say that they are on the low end of the price scale?
Low end on price scale when taking in features of multi-room (grouping) and streaming. They are in-line with Heos, MusicCast.... Sonos is cheaper than a full multi-room AV setup and is cheaper than even a basic Bluesound speaker.
If just talking "speaker" with no smarts there are dumb speakers that cost more than a Sonos Play by a long shot. I'm not a audiophile and I leave that to the other guys.
There are also many, many options out there much cheaper than Sonos but of less usefulness to me. Sure hack together something with a rPi and a DLNA speaker for cheap. When it works it's great!
I can definitely second your motion about usefulness, but in terms of sound quality, my original HK Onyx Studio that was $99 from Sprint about 8 years ago, paired to a Google Home Mini is infinitely superior to my Sonos Play:3 that I use in my kitchen as a 'quickie' Spotify destination/announcement device.
Now I'm wondering if any of the HK or other non-Sonos/non-Google/non-Amazon wifi-based speakers can play audio. Is there a generic DLNA support within Hubitat to play on these generic devices?
Yeah, I wouldn't hold my breath. The Mycroft Mark II is close to 2 years overdue and at this point I'd consider it vapor(hard)ware. Even if it does materialize I fully expect it to follow the same route Snips AI did: "Try it--it's FREE! Um, wait; we cashed out by selling it to some evil company. So, sorry--it's no longer available but thanks for helping us make millions under the guise of open source/freeware"
