Smart Home

[Kung Wu]

That's it. I'm going smart home. No idea which path I will go down, but if you have a smart home setup (even just a couple devices), tell me about them.

I jacked around with X-10 WAAAAY back when it was bleeding edge and quickly determined it was crap.

Anybody have a z-wave, zigbee, insteon, whatever setup? What do you like/dislike?

My gut right now is that I will go with a primarily wired infrastructure. I don't want to add layer after layer of high frequency emf all over my house. I am thinking good old Cat-6. But I haven't researched the new stuff out there yet so I am uneducated on current tech.

Let me hear what you have played with!

[wufan]

I have an iPhone. It allows me to text my wife so she can get me a beer or turn off the lights. It only works about 30% of the time. The other 70% of the time I just threaten my children until they take care of it.

[WuDrWu]

#WINNING

[Kung Wu]

I have an iPhone. It allows me to text my wife so she can get me a beer or turn off the lights. It only works about 30% of the time. The other 70% of the time I just threaten my children until they take care of it.

Well that's more reliable and less complicated than X-10!

[ShockBand]

I have an iPhone. It allows me to text my wife so she can get me a beer or turn off the lights.

Isn't that basically Jeff Foxworthy's definition of "sensuous"? Sensuous up, get me a beer!

[Kel Varnsen]

The first thing I thought of when I heard this was...



The younger crowd will certainly understand this one.

[shocka khan]

IoT is a risk I'm not sure I would want to tackle right now. Much of the technology behind it is poorly protected and prone to hacking or man in the middle attacks. It is only a matter of time until crooks get smart enough to us the technology to break into your house (like they are doing with the new keyless cars).

However, saying that, if it.can be encrypted or better secured, I'm all for it. Makes our lives easier.

[Kung Wu]

IoT is a risk I'm not sure I would want to tackle right now. Much of the technology behind it is poorly protected and prone to hacking or man in the middle attacks. It is only a matter of time until crooks get smart enough to us the technology to break into your house (like they are doing with the new keyless cars).

However, saying that, if it.can be encrypted or better secured, I'm all for it. Makes our lives easier.

That's one reason I am leaning on wired. But once implemented, I believe my house will be more secure, not less secure. There's really nothing stopping someone from sitting outside my home, watching us leave, then smashing in a window and taking anything they want within seconds. So I can start adding traditional security system features to help with that, but if I am going to do that I might as well make it "smart". I'm comfortable I can keep it reasonably secure from hackers -- at least more secure than I can keep a smash-and-grab robber from doing the same thing.