Nest Now Shipping 'Hello' Smart Doorbell With Night-Vision Camera and Two-Way Audio

[Bozley0621]

The old reliable deadbolt lock with mettle key has worked fine for centuries. The new tech does not improve the security of the home.

It didn't improve our security, but it did significantly improve convenience for us. We have a separate code for the cleaners, dog sitters, and a few friends that used to have keys. Whenever anyone comes and goes, we receive notifications on our phone. If we no longer want someone to have access to our house, we will simply delete the code.

I get what you're saying, but if we sell our home, the Nest Protects are coming with us, replaced by cheap alarms.

The other day, my wife was cooking (well, burning) something in the kitchen, and just when I noticed the smell the Nest said, "Smoke detected in the main hallway," then it basically said the alarm would sound if the smoke kept building. I opened the app, and prevented the smoke detector from sounding, then watched as the app told me the smoke was starting to dissipate.

I know it may be too expensive, but that was such a better experience than trying to tear down the old smoke alarm as it blared while also dealing with something burning in the kitchen and the pets going crazy.

The other thing I used to hate with the old smoke detectors was waking up in middle of the night to the sound of the battery warning, then trying to figure out which detector it was (the alert was short and only happened once every 2 minutes).

Your experience with addressing burning food, a loud smoke detector, and freaking pets describes our house to a T when this happens. Also, your usage case of middle of the night battery bleeps single-handedly (sp?) just convinced me to get a couple of smart detectors/alarms.

 

[ksnell]

The worry is the police won't believe you, so your insurance company won't pay to replace whatever was taken. No sign of forced entry? You probably just sold your stuff yourself and are now ineptly trying to defraud your insurance.

But it is a criminal act to fraudulently make a claim. If someone is willing to commit insurance fraud, what is stopping them from just throwing a brick through their own window after selling all their stuff, just to make it more convincing in your eyes?

 

[aristobrat]

How exactly would homekit enhance this product?

For me, I would use HomeKit to turn on the porch (and other exterior) lights if someone rang the doorbell after dark.

The old reliable deadbolt lock with mettle key has worked fine for centuries. The new tech does not improve the security of the home.

IMO, it's 90% about the day-to-day convenience, but I think there is some security in being able to give folks that need temporary access to your house (like a house sitter) a temporary code to work the lock vs. giving them a spare key that they could easily duplicate (or lose). Also, being able to be alerted remotely when the lock is being operated may have some security value to folks.

 

[Coffee50]

The old reliable deadbolt lock with mettle key has worked fine for centuries. The new tech does not improve the security of the home.

As others have mentioned, I don't think "improved security" is the selling point for most. Convenience is key (pun intended .

I have a friend who runs an Airbnb & she uses a smart lock & she's said it's so much easier to manage guest (and the cleaning person).

Technically, it doesn't provide enhanced security (although it does allow users to check if their door is locked & secure), but the convenience of being to allow access to whoever you want, at any given time, is a bigger draw for a lot of people.

There's so many stories of packages being stolen on porches or in front of doors, many people utilize smart locks to have packages left inside their residence.

There are plenty of logical reasons why one would use a smart lock.

 

[jettie1767]

Is this doorbell waterproof? I don't have a porch so it will get wet.

 

[imola.zhp]

For me, I would use HomeKit to turn on the porch (and other exterior) lights if someone rang the doorbell after dark.

Does HomeKit have that capability? Or are you just wishing? I’m not aware of any IFTTT-like rules for HomeKit. You are basically asking If someone rings the doorbell after a preset time, turn on these lights. This would require HomeKit exterior lights or switches for those lights. Which if you already have, then when someone rings the doorbell you could still tell Siri to turn on a group of exterior lights.

 

[AppleScruff1]

If someone rang my doorbell at night, I’d flip the switch near the door to turn on the light.

 

[interstella]

We've found similar. I work from home in a small office upstairs during the day. So there's no need for the heating to be on downstairs during the day. But then it can be warm upstairs, and pretty cold downstairs by late afternoon. Or if the heating is on downstairs, it can get too warm upstairs.

It would be a nightmare going around continually adjusting the TRVs, so we've kind of been in the habit of moving the thermostat around the house. But we've just made the switch to the Tado radiator TRVs to control every room. Too early to say how much different it will make, especially coming out of winter. but in theory it should make a big difference, and get a more even temperature around the whole house.

I've had the Tado thermostat for several years and recently upgraded and fitted the Tado TRV's to all my radiators except the one in the main bathroom. It was an expensive exercise but hopefully a one-off expense that will pay dividends in the end. During the winter months I often run a wood burner which keeps the two main downstairs room warm (a bit too warm!) but this would leave me with really cold upstairs rooms. The TRV's have solved this problem but I'm in the same position as you in needing to wait until next winter to find out if there really are savings to be made in my energy consumption.

I'd be interested to know how you get on with the "early start" setting? I find it fine with the main thermostat but for the TRV's it's fairly useless, starting up the heating 4 hours early on all the valves. If my problem isn't common I might ring Tado and see if they can do something from their end.

 

[aristobrat]

Does HomeKit have that capability? Or are you just wishing? I’m not aware of any IFTTT-like rules for HomeKit. You are basically asking If someone rings the doorbell after a preset time, turn on these lights. This would require HomeKit exterior lights or switches for those lights.

Sure. Here's a HomeKit automation I just did:

Instead of the doorbell triggering (which I obviously can't do), I used my alarm panel triggering as the "when", with a time constraint of "Only from one hour after sunset to sunrise". The accessories to automate are my Porch and Soffit lights (turning on), and the Turn Off option set for 10 minutes.

HomeKit automations have been slow to evolve, but they do evolve with every major iOS release.

Which if you already have, then when someone rings the doorbell you could still tell Siri to turn on a group of exterior lights.

If someone rang my doorbell at night, I’d flip the switch near the door to turn on the light.

If I'm not home, I'd still want the outside lights to come on as if I were at home manually asking Siri to do it (or flipping the switches myself), and then automatically turn back off.

 

[AppleScruff1]

If I'm not home, I'd still want the outside lights to come on as if I were at home manually asking Siri to do it (or flipping the switches myself), and then automatically turn back off.

Me too, and motion sensors do exactly that before anyone gets near my door.

 

[johngordon]

I've had the Tado thermostat for several years and recently upgraded and fitted the Tado TRV's to all my radiators except the one in the main bathroom. It was an expensive exercise but hopefully a one-off expense that will pay dividends in the end. During the winter months I often run a wood burner which keeps the two main downstairs room warm (a bit too warm!) but this would leave me with really cold upstairs rooms. The TRV's have solved this problem but I'm in the same position as you in needing to wait until next winter to find out if there really are savings to be made in my energy consumption.

I'd be interested to know how you get on with the "early start" setting? I find it fine with the main thermostat but for the TRV's it's fairly useless, starting up the heating 4 hours early on all the valves. If my problem isn't common I might ring Tado and see if they can do something from their end.

I'll try and remember to let you know. Are you using the TRVs as the thermostats? I know you can offset the temperature, but I wasn't sure how that worked - ie if the radiator was on, it would be an artificially high reading, but if it was off, it wouldn't be. So even with offsetting, it wasn't going to be ideal. So in the end we bit the bullet and got more of the thermostats to measure and control the temp. We are having to get the valves changed on five out of seven radiators though, as they don't seem to be on very well with the adapters.

We're fortunate to have solar panels too, which bring in around £700 a year, so the difference we need to pay for gas and electric is only around £250 a year. Hoping these can maybe cut that in half.

 

[dilbert99]

You mean how Nest won’t work with HomeKit? I agree. Which is why I’ll never waste money on anything by Nest.

In a way yes, all devices should work with any system be it google, apple, amazon, Z-Wave, Zigbee
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This made me laugh. Its Apple that doesn't have interoperability. If you chose something other than HomeKit, you'd have way more interoperability.

Exactly what I was saying, walled garden = ok if you live in the middle, but as soon as you want to go near the walls it's a whole heap of pain...ever since I moved a few devices away from Apple, I start to see how poor they are at playing nice.

 

[Norwegian_Imposter]

Whats the best equivalent version of this for HomeKit ?

 

[Hustler1337]

Anyone know when the Hello doorbell is coming to the UK and the pricing?

 

[interstella]

I'll try and remember to let you know. Are you using the TRVs as the thermostats? I know you can offset the temperature, but I wasn't sure how that worked - ie if the radiator was on, it would be an artificially high reading, but if it was off, it wouldn't be. So even with offsetting, it wasn't going to be ideal. So in the end we bit the bullet and got more of the thermostats to measure and control the temp. We are having to get the valves changed on five out of seven radiators though, as they don't seem to be on very well with the adapters.

We're fortunate to have solar panels too, which bring in around £700 a year, so the difference we need to pay for gas and electric is only around £250 a year. Hoping these can maybe cut that in half.

Yes, I'm using the TRV's as thermostats except in the the main downstairs rooms where the main thermostat is...these TRV's are controlled by the thermostat itself. The TRV's don't seem to be quite so good at temperature control (though Alexa will read out the temperatures to the nearest 0.01°C) but the system works well enough with the exception of the early start facility. I've had to apply an offset of -2°C to all the TRV's which really isn't surprising given their proximity to the radiators. I was pleased to find that fitting the TRV's was very simple on my system but fitting problems seem to be very common. I'm not convinced that the batteries will last 2 years as Tado reckon they should but perhaps they are taking into account that they'll rarely get any use in the summer months. Time will tell, I guess!

 

[GadgetBen]

Skybell HD.
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Except when the Nest Protect detects smoke or CO, it tells the Nest thermostat to shut down the furnace. That is an exceptional feature.
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Had two Ring doorbells. They replaced the first one as I thought it had wifi issues. Replacement had same issue. Their wifi range is crap. Installed a Skybell HD, and it beats Ring by miles.

But the point is, they replaced it for free right?

How long have you had Skybell End? I wonder if Skybell would do the same in the end................

 

[LordVic]

2022 Apple announces doorbell ringer with Siri LOL

now your doorbell can read out your notifications to any passerby!