Advice The Home Improvement/Automation Thread

Have I shared this yet?



The wife wanted to move out of the guest room so we set her up in teh back of the theater room which meant I needed a drop down screen solution to allow light in when not in use. I'm a sucker for having the speakers behind the screen too which meant it needed to be a creative little solution so here we are after a few thousand in spend. BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE. She wanted to move into the guest room again, get rid of the guest bed and make it her gym/office... Whatever, marriage is fun AMRITE

What remote is that btw?
 
ah, one of those fancypants professional home automation systems that just works, but costs 8000 dollars per device.
 
How much to say... Add a window sensor in parts. Or to step it up, how much per automated blind

Interesting questions. I use an ELK security system and to add a sensor I can run a new wire or add one wirelessly, so its really just the cost of the sensor since I have wire. To add a shade, I use Zwave integration which I found online for $150 and I order blinds with Zwave functionality then it's really just the cost of the blinds. I pre-wired for power to each window but I haven't installed a power distro yet, but I imagine when I do it'll cost me about 500 for the parts, and drywall repair to fish out the wires to each window and hook up the blinds. Blinds run anywhere from 250 to around 500 depending on what I want.
 
Interesting questions. I use an ELK security system and to add a sensor I can run a new wire or add one wirelessly, so its really just the cost of the sensor since I have wire. To add a shade, I use Zwave integration which I found online for $150 and I order blinds with Zwave functionality then it's really just the cost of the blinds. I pre-wired for power to each window but I haven't installed a power distro yet, but I imagine when I do it'll cost me about 500 for the parts, and drywall repair to fish out the wires to each window and hook up the blinds. Blinds run anywhere from 250 to around 500 depending on what I want.
Zwave. Now we're talking. Where did you get the shades?

I really, really want to automate my blinds, but a shade might be nice.
 
Define reasonable.

Well you can regularly find RTI XP6 or even XP3 depending on your needs (these are the brains) on ebay or Facebook marketplace for .. $100. Sometimes you can even find them bundled with remotes for that price and the T2C can look kind of old its very functional. The T2i I use is cool but it freezes a lot and the T2X is just out of my price range to not deal with resetting the T2i when it happens.

They all have IPHONE and Android integration but a license is required for each device to the tune of $99, which I still find VERY reasonable. The Zwave integration module can be snagged for 150, although the RTI system can integrate with most any and all home automation systems. I befriended aan RTI programmer so I got the software but you can also find it on some pirate website, I don't remember ;) ). Then it's just a matter of learning the system, which conveniently there are 1 or 2 How-Tos on youtube you can go through but it's a fairly intuitive application if you just poke around a little.
 
Zwave. Now we're talking. Where did you get the shades?

I really, really want to automate my blinds, but a shade might be nice.
Blinds.com and I have to say I am SUPER impressed with their customer service and product. I got the base model ZWave with single battery compartment because I was going to power through a USB wall wart I have on the ceiling (for the screen). They sent out the 3 blinds but.. I screwed up in that I was measuring during ordering and I ordered 1 .5 inches to wide. My screw up so I'll deal with it.. BUT.. they sent all three blinds with the power and Zwave on the right side when I requested the left side (this isn't really a big deal in the least but I mentioned it). They gladly sent out 3 brand new blinds all the exact length I needed with the zwave on the correct side at no charge to me. This is something they limit to lifetime use but.. its their exact fit guarantee. I was blown away.. so although the blinds were pricey at around 1100 for 3, I really ended up with 6 at 1100 and they work great. I didn't op for blinds with a channel (for light leakage) and instead I bought some quarter round desk protector things for $100 and made my own for each window. Works a treat.
 
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coo coo.

Fly and I are both deep into open source home automation built out around home assistant as a centralized orchestration system.
 
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@Penis Envy whats your full audio setup look like?

Now we're cooking with gas!!! I run an RTI AD-8X which is an 8 channel 8 source distro system run through automation. You can play any input to any output and so on and so forth. I also have an UHD HDMI Matrix but it's only 4 channels, granted we only have 3 T.V.s in the house so.. whatever. For my theater system I'm running and older Yamaha 9.2 that I can't remember the model of. Everything is in my tech closet in the middle of the house and I have all speaker wires and everything running to the needed rooms so there is zero equipment in any room except the projector or T.V. Its kinda fun.
Speaker placement
Outside - Front of house and back of house
Dining room
Kitchen
Master
Master Bathroom
Guest Bathroom
Subwoofer (located between living room and kitchen for bass dispersion).

I have upgrade goals though. I'll be moving my 9.2 system to a 7.2.2 by re-routing my wide speakers into the ceiling and then upgrading the o'l Yamaha to probably another Yamaha depending on whats out there. I'll likely add a second sub but will probably buy some new ones from SVS and change out my Klipsch which has done a fine job but.. its time.

The room needs a full audio treatment.. when we built it we did use some killer sound deadening insulation so thats fine but I need to build out a sofit to hide the side and rear channels as well as the projector and TPCast for VIVE wireless. I'll fill the sofit with acoustic insulation and probably add in a bass trap in the rear of the room behind the couches.

My whole house in ceiling speakers are nothing to write home about. Just some monoprice 6.5" in ceilings.
 
coo coo.

Fly and I are both deep into open source home automation built out around home assistant as a centralized orchestration system.
Yes, we're both Home Assistant whores. @Jehannum still uses OpenHab I think. And @Valve1138 is just a basic Apple bitch.

For example, I've been testing a new, totally local control for our pet doors. There's some crazy dude on the HA forums that has pretty much reverse engineered the entire SurePet stack. He now has an addon that allows the hub to think its talking to the cloud, but its talking to HA. Bananas.

https://pethublocal.github.io/about It's a neat read, just to see what he's done.
 
Yes, we're both Home Assistant whores. @Jehannum still uses OpenHab I think. And @Valve1138 is just a basic Apple bitch.

For example, I've been testing a new, totally local control for our pet doors. There's some crazy dude on the HA forums that has pretty much reverse engineered the entire SurePet stack. He now has an addon that allows the hub to think its talking to the cloud, but its talking to HA. Bananas.

https://pethublocal.github.io/about It's a neat read, just to see what he's done.
that dude is awesome. Someone did the same for the Emporia Energy device which an awesome and pretty cheap per circuit energy monitoring. A ton of these "closed devices" talk MQTT, and they may lock it to a hardcoded remote server, or do SMQTT for auth, but usually people can reverse it, and point the device to a local MQTT and get complete local visibility.
 
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