Holy sht. I know what im doing this weekend.

My WIP dashboard

Oh interesting. I didn’t realize I can just use Tile. Thanks!

I open/close my blinds based on what I’m doing and not the time of day. Usually I leave the blinds open for the cats unless I am doing something specific in an area where the glare is too much and annoying.

Nice! mushroom-cover-card is exactly what I was looking for.

Hmmm I guess I could try placing them side by side. Will try it after work. Thanks!

I actually have a lot of TAPO cameras. Although you need an account initially to set them up. After you set them up you can block them from accessing the internet and even delete the app if you’d like.

I’m using them with BlueIris but I’m sure you can use them with other other NVR software.

One learning I had was to prefer devices that used AAA. A lot of the smart wireless devices use button batteries. The pro is that they are smaller but it is annoying finding, ordering and replacing those batteries. AAA on the other hand is way easier to source and you can get rechargeable ones.

Most of the ThirdReality zigbee stuff uses AAA batteries so huge props to them.

I am pretty much doing the exact same thing except I went all in on Zigbee instead of Zwave and I can share that it’s pretty great as well. One of the reasons I went the Zigbee route is because I owned some IKEA smart devices and Phlips hue devices and both of those use Zigbee. Using Zigbee also allowed me to continue to purchase smart devices from IKEA with easy integration.

You can also just do both Zigbee and Zwave. The only thing you need to make sure is to try to build a good mesh for both so that you don’t run into connectivity issues. IIRC ZIgbee and Zwave do not share a frequency so you shouldn’t have any interference issues.

I just realized that you are not using Home Assistant as your “hub”, I assumed you were due to the community. In that case I guess you would need the IKEA hub. I’ve never used an IKEA hub so I have no idea how well they work. If you plan to continue to use Google Home as your “hub” then my advice is less useful since I’ve no experience here. I would defer to someone else who is more experienced with the Philips Hue/Ikea hubs.

HA will be your “hub”. What you need is more like something that lets you communicate to Zigbee devices i.e. a Zigbee dongle. There are a lot of choices and you can search online for the current best option.

HA will act as the main server that connects everything. HA can then expose all of your devices to Google Home and then you can control things via Google Home as well. As an example, if you turned off a light bulb in Google Home the chain of command will look something like this: You issue an off command -> Google Home -> Home Assistant -> Light Bulb.

Most smart plugs also act as repeaters so in theory it should improve your Zigbee mesh as well.

I have some. They work. They are just more expensive than other options. I have a few smart bulbs from IKEA that work just as well and are cheaper so these days I would just go the IKEA route if I needed more smart bulbs.

Edit: To clarify I do not use either the IKEA or Phlips Hue apps. I connect to all my bulbs via Zigbee.

Similar model here and can vouch that they are pretty good. I picked up some spare ink for it from costco when it was on sale and I still have half of it after like 3 years.

Just to offer another solution, I’m currently using BlueIris with Reolink for PoE cameras and Tapo for wifi cameras. The Tapo cameras have been fantastic in terms of uptime for a wifi camera and they also support ONVIF. BI is a bit annoying to learn but it seems to support everything I want so far. I’ve been using this setup for 3 years now and I don’t really have any complaints which is probably a good thing.

It’s been a set it up once and forget it experience for me. Adding new cameras is as easy as copying a configuration for an old camera and reusing it for new cameras.

With how reliable Tapo wifi cameras have been I’ve just been grabbing one whenever I wanted to monitor anything and then just set it up and forget it and it just works. In contrast I’ve had issues with wifi cameras disconnecting in the past. I’ve only tried reolink and wyze though.

You mean like the great awakening? /s

(I think thats the name for the qanon movement)

Oh so that’s why he acts like he has one brain cell.

Don’t worry I gotchu

Wait a minute…

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