Starting over / anew

Sat Apr 3 18:08:50 EDT 2021

Dave,

Starting form scratch is always fun. I have had to upgrade my system at least 4-5 times in 35 years and so many things have changed, some for the better, some for the worse.

I am a fan of Z-wave and have been pretty happy with it for the most part. Like with anything there are glitches which is to be expected but such is life. The controller is a real issue. Don’t get Vera/Ezlo. They did a firmware upgrade and I lost over 12 GE/Jasco ZW3008 in wall sensors that I finally got back on line after having to totally redo my whole system with a factory reset. It was a nightmare. Vera was no help at all and mostly I kept the ticket alive just to irritate them more than anything. So far there are some favorable reviews about the Habitat but I am so far into the Vera that I am pretty stuck with them for now.

Go with wired as much as you can. Constantly replacing batteries gets old especially when you have as many sensors as I have. This is why I went with the Jasco ZW3008 in wall sensors. Changing parameters is easy and you can make it do just about anything you want it to. James made a nice little unit that will transmit temperatures. You can wire up to 16 sensors to one unit. I have 6-7 of them and they survive pretty much anything. I just had a transient neutral at my vacation home and was having phase problems with voltages of 156 on one phase and 88 on the other phase. James’ kit survived all that and once the power company fixed the issue and power was restored they started up and started taking to Xtension without any input from me.

Humidity is an issue. I have not been able to get a wired reliable humidity sensor so I am still stuck with the Oregon Scientific humidity sensors. Those will come in handy for you in Florida so you don’t end up with high humidity in one room like the bathroom. I use humidity to turn on exhaust fans in the bathroom.

My HVAC system includes forced air furnace/central air, hydronic floor heating, ceiling fans, Suncort 120v motorized dampers, whole house exhaust fans, linear actuators on windows in the basement, and temperature sensors (generally 2) in each room. It’s a complex system. The dampers, fans, and actuators are controlled by Z-wave switches. All report to Xtension. The code to make it all work is complicated. But it is very efficient and seamless since I don’t really interact with it. The system runs based on occupancy, current temperature outside, and forecast temperature for the night and the next day. I get that information from Weatherman and my new Weather Tempest which is pretty cool. If you still lived in Minnesota (me, born and raised there) I could give you all my code for that but Florida is a whole different ball game. When we are gone the set back is automatic. We are currently gone and the house is in unoccupied mode and furnace/central air is off. The recirculating pump is off. 

I have lots of cameras and have settled on Lorax. I prefer to keep my cameras separate because of my belief that putting all eggs on one basket is not wise. I had some computer issues a while back and would have lost all my cameras but they were reporting to a separate NVR that is pretty reliable. If that stalls it will automatically restart the system after a few minutes of being unresponsive. I use PoE cameras exclusively with two exceptions and that is the Lorex doorbell camera and my Lorex flood lights which are Wifi but will record on the Lorex NVR. PoE is great for reliability and quality of image. I have 12 cameras and the doorbell and floodlight cameras. The NVR is rather noisy and I keep that in the attic and just run a long HDMI and USB cable to my TV so I can monitor/control/record there. I hardly ever need to go up to deal with the NVR. I do have a Z-wave switch attached to it in case I need to restart it but so far that has never happened. Lorax as a company has some issues as to most of the middle end security camera companies. I have experience with Swann, Night Owl, Lorex and a few others and they all have shortcomings. Lorex is owned by FLIR out of Oregon and I did some work for them from to time over the decades so there is a bit of loyalty there. Full disclosure

My security system is 100% Xtension. When we leave I have cameras that turn on in the house which are Wifi and 1080p. Most are Amcrest and controlled by Z-wave modules. We don’t want cameras on when we are home. But we do have panic buttons that turn on the cameras if there is a problem. If the house is in unoccupied mode lights go on/off, the stereo volume increases, and is designed to confuse and make the intruders nervous. Thieves have an idea of how things are going to go and anything other than that throws them off their game. Lights going off/on will affect their night vision and loud stereo (we have stereo in every room and volume is controlled in each room by Xtension) will make them nervous in the daytime.

I control my water heater and well pump with Xtension at my vacation home. When it is unoccupied the water heater and well pump are turned off. Both of the large amperage devices are run by Z-wave relays. You can use these for your pool and you can make waterproof temperature sensors that attach to James’ Xtension kits. I use outdoor/direct burial Cat6 wire and use marine shrink tubing to seal the sensor (the tip of the sensor is sticking out but the wiring is very well sealed).

Our whole house stereo uses Airport Express A1392 connected to the LAN by Ethernet and connected to a small Fosi class D amplifier in each room connected to some quality speakers. The advantage of this setup is that you can use AppleScript for control the volume in each room via the Remote app from Apple. The A1392 is also Airplay2 compatible and can be accessed by an iPhone in any room to play music from your phone. In our guest bedrooms we have Bluetooth Fosi amps so non Apple users can play music in their room. All the music comes from my HA server and at night we can go to sleep listening to “sleepy time” music that auto shuts off in 60 minutes via a press of a button on an X10 Palm Pad. We have iPads in every room that will control music or playlists via the Remote app. We also use the iPads to get weather via my new Wether Tempest.

My overall recommendation is to keep it simple, as few interfaces as possible, wired sensors when possible (no battery replacement) and stay focused on making home automation work for you instead of you working for home automation. The more complex your system the more likely it will be that it will fail you and your family.

I use Splashtop to remotely connect to my system if needed. It costs me $60 a year which is worth it. It is easy to use and pretty responsive. I also did some work for them so there is some loyalty there. Full disclosure.

Just some thoughts.

Chuck

> On Apr 3, 2021, at 1:28 PM, Dave Leland <dave at digicomp.us> wrote:
> 
> Hey folks!
> 
> I’ve been an XTension user for, about forever. Over the years fully raising kids, starting a new business, and a busy life, my super old system is still running, by a thread, but is only controlling a few lights at this point. X10 barely works anymore in this house we built 20+ years ago and I just haven’t had the time to keep up with alternate technologies.
> 
> In any case, we’ve now bought a nice big place in Florida (Sarasota area) built in 1991 that doesn’t even have any structured wiring that I could see. It supposedly does have fiber internet, something I’ve always wanted, so that’s a plus.
> 
> Here’s what I’m looking for:
> 
> - full time video recording (5-10 cams), doorbell, etc
> - a better-than-average security system that communicates with other systems
> - automated lighting / scenes etc.
> - controllable paddle switches (which lend themselves to automation of course)
> - hvac automation (place has multiple zones / heat pumps / ac units etc)
> - some form of tablet/phone based controller app - but one that looks *nice*
> 
> These next ones are “nice to have” but not immediately required:
> 
> - temp & humidity monitoring (multiple rooms)
> - pool monitoring / automation? (moving from MN so I know next to nothing about pools lol)
> 
> I’m prolly missing more. Suggestions welcome!
> 
> Knowing myself, I’m looking for a system that’s easy to maintain / update / etc., is super reliable and has a future. Of course I’ll also need WiFi and so I’m thinking of the Unifi mesh network system (which I currently have and enjoy) and add to it the Unifi Protect video system since it requires no cloud-based subscriptions (I’m more concerned about privacy than the SaaS fees). I also want a reliant system, where each sub-system continues to operate even when a different system goes down (e.g. if the main automation controller goes down, the security & video systems etc. continue to function just fine). I do NOT want anything Google based or any company that’s ever had even the most remote of security allegations.
> 
> Assuming you had a pretty hefty budget, what would you do? 
> 
> Thanks!!
> 
> Dave
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