I've definitely caught the smart home bug! It all started with a few wi-fi smart plugs & Google Assistants. A Nest doorbell soon followed. With impaired mobility (rheumatoid arthritis & spondylosis) life suddenly got a whole lot easier. No more swearing & gritting of teeth having to bend down to switch off wall sockets. No more dashing to the door every time the dogs go nuts, just to discover they're barking at nothing!
Then it was some TP-link Kasa smart bulbs but they were pants, failing after several months. That's when I started doing some more serious research. I settled on Shelly switch & dimmer modules with retractive wall switches for the lighting - great as they work without a Neutral feed.
The most recent additions have been a Logitech Harmony Elite remote and Tado smart heating controller with their TRVs & room temp sensors.
Hubitat is on the shopping list (postponed 'til next month due to fairly chunky car repair bill!) but in the mean-time I'm hawking around the forum & various YouTube channels (inc’ Paul Hibbert – ooh the zigbee!!) trying to learn as much as possible. I'm fairly techy - learned machine code back in the day on a ZX81 & able to build/repair PCs.
In preparation for my Hubitat purchase I've got hold of a handful of Tradfri zigbee repeaters & some Xiaomi Mijia door/window sensors dirt cheap on Fleabay - after checking they'll work with HE of course!
Internet connection is fairly, but not 100% reliable & we do get short power outages from time-to-time. I’m thinking of getting a mini UPS just for the HE & router. The iLEPO on Amazon UK for £40 looks to be a fairly good solution as space is tight where my router lives. Roller blind motors are also going to be a likely addition as they'll make life a lot easier with no more painful leaning over furniture. After that, who knows? Movement & lux sensors? A hearing aid for Google?
