ConnectSense Review: The Smart Outlet Offers Two HomeKit-Enabled Sockets and a USB Port

[friedmud]

BTW: The iHome socket just received a firmware upgrade a couple of days ago. In my testing it has not dropped off the network even once since updating it. I'm hopeful that it is finally going to be reliable...

As for HomeKit itself: while there is no central App, you don't need 10 different Apps. The great thing about Homekit is that you can control all of your devices with ANY of the apps. I use the "Home" app. Very full featured and reliable.

 

[Moofo]

It will come, but it will take time. On the plus side, at 240v our devices charge faster.

They don't. 240 V @ 7 amps is about the same as 120 V @ 15 Amps.

 

[erinsarah]

The only piece of smart equiptment in my house is my garage. I paid $30 to have a little device that connects directly into my modem and can control my garage. It doesn't have HomeKit (so no Siri), but it works perfectly, unlike, it seems, all of the HomeKit products.

Tell me more about this "little device". I have two garage problems I want to solve: One is I want a notification if the door is left open after a certain hour. The other is a way of remotely turning lights (room lights, not garage open lights) on and off. I need the latter because the lights built into the opener fail on a regular basis and I don't want to go through the expense and hassle of a new opener only for that purpose.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

One is I want a notification if the door is left open after a certain hour.

If your garage motor is from 2011 or later, it should have a label on it that says "MyQ". Multiple garage motor companies are involved with it including Liftmaster, Chamerlain, and others. The label is rather large and plainly visible on the corner of the side of the motor - shouldn't be hard to find if it's there.

If you have the "MyQ" label and it has a wifi symbol next to it, you don't even need anything. Download the app from the manufacturer from the app store and it'll have directions for how to set up your motor (I was not fortunate enough to have such a model, so I don't have any more info than that.)

If you have the "MyQ" label but no wifi symbol next to it, you need to buy a MyQ Home Bridge. It's $30 at Home Depot right next to the keypads and buttons and everything else you can use to open your garage. Plug that into your router. Download the app. In the app, enter the serial number on the bottom of the bridge. It'll link your phone to the bridge. Create an account so that nobody else can randomly enter the serial number to control it, and also so you can log on from multiple devices. Then there's a learn button in the app. Press that. Press the learn button on your garage motor. Boom, you can control your garage from anywhere in the world that you have an internet connection.

You can configure the app to automatically alert you if the garage is open for too long. I have mine set to both pop a notification on my phone and email me if my garage is open for longer than 15 minutes. Theoretically, the company that made the app could make it so that I get an alert if the garage is opened between midnight and 6 AM or something.

So that might solve your first problem.

If your garage motor is older than 2011, there are also kits available to retrofit your motor to be compatible with MyQ. I think those cost money and involve actually wiring stuff together, so it's as easy or cheap.

For your second problem, the light problem, there's a huge number of potential solutions. I'm interested, but they all cost too much money for such a minor thing.

 

[Vanilla Face]

A couple of examples I've thought of are using something like the Eve indoor sensor to monitor temperature and humidity and then turn a heater and humidifier on and off as necessary to maintain a comfortable environment. Adding in geo-fencing would ensure that i wasn't wasting electricity when I'm not home.

I feel like there are better solutions for that problem. A smart thermostat would be able to control central air, which could do all you listed. If we are talking about space heaters, I see those being used to either conserve power by only heating one room, or to heat one room because of inadequate coverage by the HVAC system. My heater requires its power button to be pressed again to turn it on if the plug loses power. It also already has a thermostat so it covers maintaining a comfortable temperature. I would only use one if I were going to be staying in a room so geofencing wouldn't be precise enough to distinguish between one room and the next.

 

[chiefsilverback]

I feel like there are better solutions for that problem. A smart thermostat would be able to control central air, which could do all you listed. If we are talking about space heaters, I see those being used to either conserve power by only heating one room, or to heat one room because of inadequate coverage by the HVAC system. My heater requires its power button to be pressed again to turn it on if the plug loses power. It also already has a thermostat so it covers maintaining a comfortable temperature. I would only use one if I were going to be staying in a room so geofencing wouldn't be precise enough to distinguish between one room and the next.

i have the latter scenario and although the thermostat is built into the device, I worry that having the thermostat on the device creating the heat leads to inaccurate measurements.