Alexa how did you get here?

Tweats By Timothy Monahan - Smart Home 2.0:

Alexa Followed me to work and brought part of my smart home with her.


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What Type Of Control should I Get?

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What Type Of Control should I Get? It really depends on a few factors. Cost, Convenience, Control-ability.  There are more factors then just the three, we will stick with three for now. Cost Take my dining room as a example, just did the lighting last week. I have a chandelier that uses 8 bulbs. There is 1 switch that controls the lights in the chandelier. To purchase 8 Hue Smart Bulbs currently the cheapest smart bulb at my local home depot. $13.99 each so for smart bulbs it would cost $111.92. I can get LED non-dim 3, 3 packs for $9.00 or I can get dim-able ones for $12.00 and a smart switch $44.99 or a dim-able smart switch for $49.99. For  Cost  the switch option wins hands down Convenience If you do the Smart bulbs, you will have to pair 8 devices and control them separately. But you can create a zone and scenes to control them as a group. Which is great but all that takes more time to setup and manage. if you have to re-pair them s...
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What Is Home Automation? Home automation  is the use of one or more computers to control basic  home  functions and features automatically and sometimes remotely. An  automated home  is sometimes called a smart  home. That definition above is the popular version on hundreds of web today.  My definition is a bit different, I will write a entire post about it  later.   Now is the short Version BELOW: What is Home Automation?   Home Automation, is the use of networked devices to create a infinite array of virtual assistants designed to improve our quality of life. By Monitoring, Harvesting, Logging, Analyzing, Reporting and Reacting to our surroundings and us individually. Note: Home Automation is an aspect of a Smart Home in its self it would never be considered a SMART HOME. Below is where all the FUN Starts: Automated functions in Home Automation range from basic on & off functions to complex chains of fun...
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Home Functions Typically Automated, With A Home Automation System

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Types of home functions typically automated: Lighting is almost always the first things someone automates when they start to build out there Home Automation System. Quickly followed by adding appliance controllers to there system. Then users typically have a good idea about how all the basics work and start looking for a brain for there system so they can try building more advanced functions. Lighting Functions Turning lights on and off Flashing Lights a certain number of times Brightening your lights from off to 100% on or any percentage Slowly or quickly brightening your lights from off to on over a specific amount of time Dimming your Lights from 100% to off or any percentage Slowly or quickly dimming your lights from on to off over a specific amount of time Dimming your Lights from 100% to 50% or any percentage Scheduling Lights to turn on and off at a certain times Triggering Lights off or on when a specific event or events happen All of these functions can...
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