I can confirm that these work very well. When i need the lights on, I press the switch, and when I need to turn them off, i press the switch again. Barely any effort! And You can get fancy ones with an LED inside of them so you can see the switch in the dark!
exactly, same here as there is one less thing to go wrong, buy a battery for, find out there are no spare available anymore etc. etc. etc... reminds me of that old saying 'Keep It Simple Stupid'...
@@nate472 I love tech but really hate smart home stuff haha. I have a few smart plugs for some key appliances to use with Alexa. Switches, blinds, motion sensors, really ‘smart’ security systems, light bulbs are all so frustrating and the roi on any energy savings is decades.
I think the main issue is going overboard with every single switch. I have a pretty limited number where it makes sense--controlling front porch/yard lights to automate at night or a light that is awkward to access otherwise. Beyond that it's mostly sensors for me.
Which is unfortunate, because smart home tech is really cool and can work very reliably if you actually read the tech docs and plan before throwing your money at it. 100% of my lighting is automated, responds instantly to sensors, and doesn't turn off randomly. It's not a difficult problem to solve, just takes a bit of planning.
@@draskuul making every single switch integrated is fine, it's the sensor in the switch that's a problem. Those should be used sparingly and only when the view from the switch actually is what you want the sensor to see - otherwise get a Lutron or Insteon remote sensor.
I could leave all of the lights on in my house for a month and not get close to the cost of a single one of these switches. Thank you LTT for validating my decision to keep everything in my house dumb.
Pretty sure you're not from Scandinavia then. I have yet to calculate the cost of each GU10 but I bet it adds up (I have about 50 around the house). Building smart homes is not about saving money though.. most smartguys I know including myself do it because it's fun, can cause quality of life improvements and it can be kind of cool.
I have worked for 10 years as a smart home installer, and the only tip I can give you is to always go for hard-wired devices if you want to make sure they always work. We tried dozends of wireless systems, and they always have problems... Also, I don't recommend motion sensors in rooms where you stay for a long time.
It seems silly to me that we're still running mains power to 5-10W LED lights rather than PoE or similar. Esp crazy when you then use a wirelessly controlled light.
@@billyouellet717yes, I'm familiar with voltage drop. Some voltage drop is common with PoE but rarely enough to have a negative impact. It should be taken into account during design for installs where PoE devices will be far from their power supply.
FYI: Homey is now part of LG Electronics. According to a report on the German platform heise, LG plans to analyze usage data from Homey to improve their products. I wish companies couldn’t buy out smaller players as easily as they do. On the other hand, Home Assistant remains open-source and independent, without selling anything or compromising user privacy.
Yeah, I don't mind paying for working polished experience, but the fact, that they can close the shop at any time and you will be stuck with dead smart home.
For someone who want to commit using homey, that's actually a good things. When you go vendor locking solution, at least you have assurance they wont go bankrupt in a year or two
yeah big companies using data from inside my home is creepy, especially when they try to manipulate me into more consumerism. I know everyone will say 'there's no escaping bro, just accept it', but if that was the best strategy we wouldn't have basic human rights at this point in history. I don't fault anyone for wanting smart homes, I just wish we had a lot more transparency and control over data rights
I'm just glad that they figured out that you can also just push a button to turn it on or off. It made my life so much easier, I go in to a room and turn it on and when I leave I can just turn it off. I just love it.
Actually I built a smart home in 2006. Nothing has failed - ever! But it uses KNX, which is a pro technology orginally designed for hotels and airports. But for many years, it is affordable for normal family homes. But Linus seems absolutely addicted to garbage.
@@maxking3heyyy, good old KNX. im really surprised he didn't settle for a KNX solution himself. There's so much variety out there, including smartphone access features from certain manufacturers....but, oh well. Garbage it is!
After getting my own home and trying all kinds of smart devices, hours figuring out compatibility, working out bugs, much money spent, I came to the conclusion that they mostly create more problems than they actually solve. 2 things I can think of that are actually useful is a programmable thermostat and lights that dim and change colour temperature.
Agreed. I'd mostly use thermostats and maybe temperature sensors. Maybe outside I'd use presence detection switches if they can be configured for a certain area. That actually sounds useful.
My mom's a Product Owner(for non-work tech types, she's essentially a dev manager) so she's got a lot of the home and yard smart-ified, but my dad is an analog kind of person. Mom's been setting up smart cams in the yard areas for Dad to watch the critters that visit, but we've been having trouble with our mesh system and with Dad navigating software. This could totally be a fix! Thank you!
While I never felt the desire to use any smart home technology, these videos absolutely ensure I never will. Every benefit of these is easy to argue against, especially at the cost of the pain involved.
I use quite advanced smart crap setup for heating. This was a nightmare to set up, i hate it, but it's so worth it both in comfort and savings. Lights... not worth the hassle. I've tried several times and it's a disaster every single time :)
For the record, 80% of your problems could be solved by tying motion sensors into a smart light switch instead of trying to combine the functions. You can then control what happens when the motion is sensed instead of hoping the light switch company does it for you. I have lights that only turn on with motion during certain hours of the day.
Same thing for networks. Combining a modem-firewall-router-switch-AP into a single CPE can be useful but it can also be a nightmare. Separating at least the modem and the router-AP-switch is already good. But separating all three is the best. Upgrade each part separately for cheap and the entire network does not drop when one part dies or restarts.
Use normal wall switches with Shelly smart relays stuffed in your switch boxes and then hang mm-wave presence sensors in every room. Control the whole thing with Home Assistant. This has been my zero compromises solution. Works great!
As a commercial electrician who has installed similar systems it probably would have been a whole lot cheaper and easier to to just have seperate ceiling mounted occ/photo sensors and cat 6a wire them to a modual. they work great!
@l0gic23 near presence of AC wiring, slightly thicker wires, and usually these kinds of sensors don't actually use ethernet signaling but utilize the same kind of wiring, e.g. CAN or Modbus. It's recommended to run cat 6a or better for long CAN runs.
My thought also. Our new office uses tons of smart lightning with adjustable dimmer slopes, hue and presence detection, but nothing is Z-wave. Like most other things, wired is king. Since he built the house with smart lights in mind a real installation like this should have been standard..
I think he didn't want anything(except speakers) hanging from the ceiling and he was very particular about seeing wires. Most of his home solutions are also what drove up the price and complexity.
I have Home Assistant running on a Raspberry Pi 5. I can see why a consumer type out of the box solution would be ideal for a lot of people, but I love how configurable Home Assistant is, where I can just SSH into it and do whatever I want.
This - going from Home Assistant to Homey I would consider a huge downgrade. I have over 100 Zigbee devices in my network and that doesn't even include the Hue lights, which are running via 2 Hue hubs. Good luck trying to do something like that with Homey...
I'm nearly certain nearly all of the compromises he's making here could be avoided with a properly set up HA instance. Shitty Z-Wave motion sensors aside :))
@@mtasapl Agreed... Generally I am not a big fan of Z-Wave. There is a reason why most manufacturers backed out of the alliance and moved to Zigbee. On top of that the positioning of the motion sensors in the switches is bad. I have mine located on the ceilings to have a wider sensor angle.
Thank you for keeping the smart home alpha testing alive Linus. For me personally, I will keep using my finger to turn a switch in -1s until the smart home pairs with neuralink and reacts to my thoughts.
@@DeinonychusCowboy i think the real issue is regular “consumer” smart products that Linus is trying to implement. There is too many options and variants and way too much clutter on a home network. Enterprise solutions are significantly better. (Lutron, Control 4, Savant) but the fact you need to be a dealer to get these products makes it even more of a headache.
@@avimakkar exactly if you don't go ham and want motion sensing IN THE LIGHT SWITCH then nearly every smart switch is pretty robust I'm slowly migrating my whole house to smart switches and won't touch an AC and likely. Blinds/shutters that don't have smart integration
Hi! I know what you mean, however if you are interested in some basic automation and you are handy, I highly recommend Shelly switches, they are modules that go in the back of the electrical boxes and allow you to keep your current switches and manual control.
I worked at a big facility that had motion sensor lights in all the washrooms, but the washrooms were large public style. Working on a weekend when no one is around I went into a stall. 2 min later all lights off, pitch black. The sensor was around a corner by the door. That was a fun experience. Thank god for phone flashlights
Had the same thing happen. They either work and go unnoticed or are the most annoying thing ever. "Lets put them in study rooms to keep people from leaving the lights on when the leave." Use the study room and need to stop and stand up every 5 minutes to get light again really keeps one focused.
Had one with a very bad motion detector in an empty bathroom, it was tuned for enough motion that it's someone walking. So you're sitting there waving your hand around for a few seconds since it's like a 3s window for the light to trigger after switching off.
So, I'm guessing that the motion won't turn the lights back on after manually turning them off is most likely a feature and not a bug. If you think about it, they say the sensor is able to detect people breathing. If you would put one of those switches in a bedroom, you wouldn't want the lights to turn back on while you're trying to sleep. Which is probably why you have to leave the room for a minute to reset.
Also a safety concern , almost every dumb motion switch I've installed has this so that if you turn the switch off to say change a light bulb it doesn't flick back on while your working on it and shock you. Normally they won't go back into motion sense unless you turn it back on and leave (some have a timer like 30 minutes to an hour).
Smart gear almost always has a current running through it, even when it's "off". I wouldn't trust an "off" smart light unless I've definitely isolated the circuit
I'm using a Aqara Presence Sensor FP2 in my room right now for testing and it has been spot on. 450sqft of cover with 300 cells in that space and the ability to make 30 zones in that space for triggers and tracks 5 targets at one time when wall mounted. If mounted to ceiling it can be a fall sensor too but you lose the 5 target tracking and based on how high your ceilings are you lose sqft cover. As for why the Presence Sensor y'all were using was picking y'all up outside the bathroom is because it can see through walls. This is working on the same principles as the WiFi tech that lets people map and track things in a home with just the WiFi singles (crazy stuff)
As someone with thousands of hours sunk into a smart home... presence detection and especially automatic light control was one of the things that I dumped immediately. An intuitive mobile app, local HMIs in rooms for light control etc. to power people to adjust lights without having to find the right switch (my house is a disaster for this) is perfect.
electrician here. for the motion sensor switches you didn’t actually need smart switches. you can just buy sensor switches or in the industry we call them occupancy switches. and using them for a 3 way can work if you wire 2 of the sensor switches in a parallel configuration. way cheaper and it’ll free up your smart home bandwidth. good for washrooms, garage, hallways. rooms like the kitchen and living room, smart switches are better suited for that.
Exactly. I only use a motion switch (dumb) in the laundry room. Bathrooms would probably work ok with occupancy sensor switches but unnecessary. I have smart switches in the kitchen, living room, patio so I can remotely turn them on/off with voice assistants as needed.
I still don't understand why it's apparently so hard to design optionally-smart devices. Sure, maybe I do want to remotely control my lights. But why is there a delay when I use the switch normally? What if my network crashes? We figured this out decades ago for every other product people (by which I mean my own field, not electricians), holy hell.
@@Blaze6108 It depends on the switch itself. I can't speak to dimmers as I don't have any of those installed, but I've got some TP-Link Kasa on/off switches and those turn on and off instantly when you press the button. For what it's worth on the Inovelli side, I'm checking their docs for their Zigbee dimmer and the "don't turn things on instantly" thing is a configuration parameter that they've intentionally set to have a 500ms default delay. Having the delay allows you to use the switch as a scene controller, so if you want to double/triple tap the switch to activate a scene in your home automation software, you can do so. Disabling the delay removes that functionality.
@@hoboman1206 I use these and I only wish there was time based brightness control (which smart switches would solve). I want less brightness in the middle of the night, it's always jarring to walk into the bathroom and have the light come on full blast because I didn't lower it before bed.
@@sscadcam i agree. it is annoying i always have to remember to lower my onsuite washroom brightness before bed. but it’s just part of my routine now so personally it works for me.
I've found that the *_only_* reliable way to do automatic room lighting is good millimeter wave presence detection sensors. Sensors in a wall mounted light switch won't be great, as they need to be mounted high on a wall, preferably in the corner where the wall meets the ceiling.
Yes and in a bathroom shower doors can stop the detection. Another reason you want it up high. Nothing like having a made significant other mad because their night shower turn into a shower in the dark.
Having played with some mmWave sensors I can provide input that might help: * These things can (and will) penetrate wall, esp wooden ones. Having Zone management is an absolute must. * They have a limited range (usually about 6 meters) * They can rather sensitive (which can be an issue if you pets). Fans for example *will* trigger them * There is a limited number of targets you can track per zone * Don't position them so that their zone overlap or you will have crosstalk * Non-rectangular rooms (like you office) * Ghosting (tracking doesn't clear) can be an issue That being said they are miles ahead of the passive sensors, but you to plan their use carefully. I personally wouldn't put them in light switches for example as the zone management will be tricky. Place a separate mmWave sensor in the middle of a wall where it can see the whole room.
All this. mmWave HPD isn't "motion detection" in the way Linus's folks seemed to be treating it. And yep, it'll permeate surfaces so aiming it the right way is important. I just got some Sonoff HPD sensors the other day and I'm still tweaking the positioning to be ideal.
Hey Linus, I also scrapbook with my wife. Digital photos are awesome, but they don't beat having a physical printout of your kids growing up over the years and be an organized during Christmas time and what not.. Glad to know I'm not alone. Scrapbooking is a dying fad.
if that house was smart, it would tell linus to stop installing random garbage. garbage that only has to work for one video, and it has to break down for more content. then linus would fire the house and make a video out of it
I work in tech, I love tech... but still I don't have a lot, actually very minimal smart stuff in my house... same with my car, I disable almost all functions that "make me lazy". There's nothing wrong with standing up to turn of a light, nothing wrong with actually paying attention while you drive.
If it wasnt for the safety during a accident i would never own a new car, what a nightmare to maintain and fix.... sadly the gov even made a lot of the stuff mandatory....
That reminds me of a meme I saw a while back. Tech enthusiasts: Everything is high tech, all the time People who work in tech: Disable and avoid all "smart" stuff, even on printers
Its ridiculous actually. Like every time one of my friends demonstrates an amazing smart toy it like really only serves to reeinforce my idea that theyre completely useless. Just yesterday, "i can turn on my dishwasher with my phone", yeah? Can you also load and empty the dishwasher with your phone? lmao. And then everyone gets smartwatches and gets on a treadmill to get there steps in. Why did you spend thousands to save 10 steps here and there in the first place?
When I learned that the more knowledgeable people are in tech, the less smart stuff they use (especially cyber security specialists, programmers and the like) I completely gave in to confirmation bias and avoid that stuff like the plague now. If it has any wireless connectivity it's not specifically meant to be accessing like a phone or laptop it's a no-go. I'm fine with infrared remotes but that's about the extend of my tolerance.
As someone who uses zwave I've always found it better to use normal zwave switches and add a separate motion sensor wherever I want. Having a dual integrated device makes it more complicated since you'll never know exactly what the cause is when it starts to fail. Regarding millimeter wave technology there are some zwave detectors that you can buy What I would love to see you integrate one day is using a zwave Arduino to control something unique that there isn't a "made for that" device
THIS indeed. I have separate sensors for years now and they always work like a charm. Never issues. So i really don't understand why Linus is making his life so difficult, because if he installs separate sensors, everything works perfectly.
The first mistake you made was trying to make it high tech by buying smart switches with motion detection. All you needed were regular smart switches and standalone mmwave motion detectors in the first place, that way the delay, timing, conditional switching can all be programmed in nodeRED or HA automation based on the location it is installed and you can place the detector where you want and upgrade it quickly as new tech comes in. Now you have to rip out the switches everytime to upgrade and the manufacturer of the switches decide when to turn it on and off. Also, try zigbee, you have a lot more options and if you run in band 11, you will have no issues.
The mistake he did was taking a house he rewired for all his IT needs and forgot to put in a professional wired smart home system like KNX. Would be boring though because it would just do the job for the next few decades, without any need for emergency videos.
@@maxking3 i don't know much about smart home stuff, but i believe the main thing was that everything he installed was able to run on an open platform so you aren't relying on a company staying in operation for your devices to still work. is the one mentioned here like that? or run on a proprietary system?
Thank you for mentioning nodeRED. I'm confused why Jake is going "Oh yeah, this other company is better and easier" when HA CAN RUN NODERED which is basically the same thing!
@@sudhelm I honestly kinda got curious why SO MUCH rotoscoping. I mean, of course, you'd want to protect sensitive information, but why block the view to the kitchen and whatnot. It's not like we don't know Linus's house in and out, twice, by watching channel super fun.
As a low voltage tech for a security company we integrate with Lutron by incorporating our hardwired motions on a DSC Neo to provide the motion needed for turning on the lights. Super reliable and takes advantage of existing intrusion devices. While not really applicable in this situation but I did notice that DSC keypad lol.
Plus one, we have Lutron Casetta switches throughout our home and they are amazing. I never have any issues with them. They support HomeKit and all the other platforms too.
@@emweissman every single switch in my home is a Casetta. Including closets, bathroom fans, etc. have been using them 5 years with ZERO issues. Love the newer diva dimmers. People don’t realize how fantastic smart lighting is when done properly.
Completely agree. Really would have liked to have seen RA3 here. More $ and not as fun probably, but a better whole-home solution by far, especially one for this size. Do it right or do it again later. Waiting for the next installment in this series!
While it was clarified a few times, it is not Home Assistant's fault that the zwave mesh was having so many issues. I only installed 6 or 7 of those Jasco motion switches (out of >90 zwave devices) and I've had similar issues to those described. I knew it was some device causing trouble as a power cycle of the house usually eliminated the issue by resetting all the in-wall zwave devices but it was hard to pinpoint what device was causing the issues. I narrowed it down to Jasco outlets and the Jasco motion switches as they are the only devices I have not replaced yet (waiting for alternatives... that fit my selection criteria). I am eagerly waiting for Inovelli's presence switches but I am unsure those will work well everywhere as mmWave is RF and it can pass through certain materials such as a light weight door. I don't want my pantry light turning on all the time when I am in the kitchen for example. Maybe the higher frequency sensor in the final production will fix this but I will have to test it... for now I am planning to use it in all the rooms where the switches point outwards (towards the outside of the house) so that walking by in the hallway won't trigger them... ever.
Oh my gosh!! I've been waiting years for this video. I've been struggling with mix of JASCO switches and some newer EATON switches I had to buy this year to replace failed JASCO switches that just outright died on me. I just wish this video had come out a few months earlier and I could have waited! So so excited for this update! Thanks for sharing this. Also homey is making me consider ditching my Samsung SmartThings hubs for this, it looks so much cleaner!
I have tried quite a few smart home devices and at best I have been mildly disappointed. So many different phone apps with hit or miss quality, pairing issues, log in issues, connection losses. The problems never seem to end. The worst is if you have a guest stay over you either have to somehow get them logged into an app and share your devices or find some other method of dealing with it, some devices have better physical interfaces than others. Watching this video further reinforces my decision to keep these "Smart" devices out of it.
All of what you said sounds like you're following bad practises. You're using apps, rather than a local instance of Home Assistant. Everything you're doing sounds like it relies on the cloud, either by device or by the hub those devices might use. I have zigbee devices and it just works
There's no money in smart home tech. They are competing with things like lightswitches, that cost like 20 cents in bulk and have a proven 200 year track record of not pissing users off and requiring 0 expensive software developers, cloud hosting, continual updates ect ect ect. Any sane user will know it's cheaper to just turn on and off your own damn lights : P Even for his "stairs" usecase, you can just spend 10 extra cents and maybe about half an hour of an electricians time to wire up 2-way switch. Kids not turning off the lights? Well teach your childeren. This is why you know how to turn them off because your parents taught you. Stop being lazy and participate in the world bro.
@@adsadam1 I just have a switch at the entrance of every room and the ability to navigate every room completely blindly as it's a one story apartment.
I still like home assistant, it was as easy for me to setup as this it seems and I haven't had any issues with it. That being said you have a lot more control over it so it's always possible for the wife approval factor to drop to the ground after messing up a single automation
Yeah the last point about the antenna being all the way in the basement wasn't an entirely fair thing to say in my opinion. If he had put his Home Assistant installation in the same spot as he put the Homey device, there wouldn't have been any issues with USB extension cables either. I get it, Homey is convenient and it's a more attractive looking device, but still.
@ yeah in my mind it’s still like getting a google home or echo or any other home automation hub. Biggest issue being that you have to wait for them to support devices. With home assistant most of the time people make custom integrations for most devices, or you can write a custom integration. I feel like the homey isn’t as flexible
@@lemster101 You can also add POE coordinators for zigbee and zwave and place them in central locations if you want to keep it the server in the basement.
I love how Jake just looks like he has had enough of the old system. And we learned new things about Linus as well. Educational, informative, and demonstrative, everything you want a video to have and more! I like the new Homey implementation, it seems to just make everything easier than the older system did, with a lot less hassle. 4 minutes to set up, after it took... how long to get the other system talking to devices? Wonderful update to smart home technology. I do like the info stations you had by the light switches you were showing. Thank you again for such an informational post everyone.
The steps this man will take to avoid the simple solutions will never cease to amaze me. Use normal light switches and just stick a couple motion activated night lights in areas where you might need to walk through at night. I just keep one in the main area and one in the bathroom, I can basically get around my house in pitch black darkness which is good if someone were ever actually in here. I wouldn’t want lights automatically turning on lol
Some people are simply never satisfied with the easy way. I know for him, a lot of the reason to do it are because it makes for good and recurring content, but if i had the kind of resources he does, I’d be messing around with this stuff too. If something goes wrong, i now have a problem i can enjoy the process of fixing! I love wasting time on convoluted tech solutions.
Pretty sure he's doing this because his kids leave lights on around the house and he can also use these to turn off the AC and things like that. It's great tech if you get everything to work well, but yeah it's not for everyone.
After 2 years of wireless problems, it's time you test a bus based system like KNX. It is fully compatible with Home Assistant and won't face any of the interference problems you've been having
There are so many devices in that high-speed network. What a wonderful botnet you are building. I cannot wait to see what kind of innovative malware they’re going to test on your benchmark home.
Honestly, you can't do much with the smart home setup Linus has got. He's using Z-Wave, which is effectively a fully isolated and local network that can only talk to the outside world through a hub device (a server running Home Assistant). Not only that, but Z-Wave isn't built for high speed throughput, maxing out at maybe 100kbps in absolutely ideal conditions. Same goes for Zigbee. That's actually a pretty good thing when talking about smart homes, as that also insulates you from internet outages or the company that made the product going out of service and taking their cloud servers offline. WiFi or Ethernet stuff? That's fair game.
i live in austria and also have a nearly fully automated home. I planned my system with 2 layers. first layer is KNX. it´s a simple 2 wire bus, wich is very robust, but functions are limited to what the device offers you. on top of that i set up home assistant, so i can programm all the functions wich are missing. For faster functions, wich i need for example for heating the water for my underfloor heating with surplus energy from my PV, i use Backhoff PLC´s and added them with MQTT to my HA. For me this works the best, couse my home is full of modular systems wich work mostly for theyr own. So when for example my Networking is dead, i still can turn on the lights, the automatic dimming when i start a film on the TV in the livingroom does not work anymore, but the main functions are still available.
toilets at my work have motion detection for lights with very short timer and when you're doing to poo poo, you find your self doing the forbidden salute to turned them back on
Please turn off the breaker when swapping out switches in the future! There is no need to work hot and risk your life. Just saying this out of care and concern! Love your stuff!
That's OK. Soon he is going to break off the wall wires where they come into the box from changing devices over and over. Then we will get to see his dry walling skills!
I migrated from Homebridge to Homey Pro quite a while ago - it was really worth it, and the coder in me loves the more advanced scripting (even if I've not had to do anything beyond a somewhat complex Flow that sets variables and changes heating based on whether someone has an early shift or not...) 😅
This is why I have avoided any smart home crap, period. This is, I think, the 3rd video that you've posted that is along the lines of "My smart home system was a nightmare, but THIS is the solution!" It always works fine at the start, with concessions. Then it either gets worse or you can't stand living with the drawbacks anymore. I know some people love it. But i couldn't fathom babysitting a system just to make sure a damn light switch works in my house. Not knocking you, and I get that this is a perfect cycle for content lol. And I do enjoy watching it. But I will stay clear away from these products
Smart home stuff is still a very niche thing. It will continue to get better over time and perhaps our kids will be able to actually have a smart home that is basically plug and play...
@@emu071981 Those do exist but they are not as flashy or cool as the ones here. Scandinavia is basically dominated by one company.. Even dumb dimmers are not safe here, basically only smart dimmer are installed here around. Few customers know it as for them, they asked their electrician for a dimmer, they got a dimmer, the installer had a easier time installing it + gets some smart features during installation. But again not as flashy, just pure on device distrubuted smart functionality (like motion sensor) + some 15year batterylife pir sensor and buttons to acompany it. But as long as companies tries to make smart switches first and not a pure good switch regardless of smarness we are a long way from this being more common than 1-2 companies. Why you need a hub for this basic functionality too is also wierd for me but that seem to be the standard.
Smart bulbs for mood and background lights is the only "smart"-home things in my home. Bulbs in like a bookshelf or in my windows that only turn on when its dark outside AND not during nighttime when we're sleeping. Regular dumb timers will either be on too early while the sun is still out, or too late when it's already dark. They can also dim down as it gets darker to "transition" the lightning. Truly a set and forget thing that really improves atmosphere.
smart home stuff is just annoying because it should have matured enough by now for there to be affordable/reliable options on the market. Instead the ecosystem has stagnated with all of it's more interesting options either never making it to market or being discontinued with some NOS floating around (though good luck trouble shooting a piece of smart tech... let alone a niche piece of smart tech that didn't sell all that well). I feel like after all these years the only decent thing we have is expensive RGB light bulbs and a fridge with an ipad glued to it.
@@mickleman52 My experience with smart home tech is the opposite. when something hasn't' worked, it was my own fault. In Linus' situation, the problem is he went with integrated PIR sensors (granted, that was the only option at the time) PIR sensors only tell you if something moved across the sensor, like walking down a hallway. They are terrible for any other application. If they were going in a room where you're always moving, they are likely to keep the lights on. But an office/bedroom/bathroom you don't move enough long enough to keep the PIR switch active. mmWave sensors fix this issue. they are so sensitive they can detect you breathing. Linus could have gotten a mmW senor and plugged it in anywhere in the room and had his HA tell the switch to turn on and off. But he didn't want a million devices. That's fine. But that's where the problem came from.
My grandparents just used those dial timers as switches in their house. As they age, they forget more and more. This helps them, and prevented us as kids leaving the lights on.
Tip - I usually add a kill switch toggle for each automation to be able to kill each one quickly if it misbehaves. Example, an automation kill switch to kill light power saving mode or light automations. I make these toggle switches easily available to all family members in Google Home under an automation toggle group.
I am an electrician and set up my smarthouse, and I bought the most stabile and expensive one I could in Norway, called Elko. It is SO many issues despite everything should be working without issues. A sensor in basement for waterleak, lost connection while I was at holiday and I couldnt get connection up again without physically pressing a button on the device. The dimmers wont dim down a light automaticly, it have to first turn it off THEN dim it up again. It looks so stupid and cheap. The app of course is difficult to understand, and many things is not as easy to program as you would think. It makes me happy to see I'm not the only one that struggles with smarthome. My tip to people that think they should upgrade to smart home: Don't. Wait until it's better. It's just not worth it atm. All though I really enjoy my ceiling light with motion detector being dimmed to minimum at night when I have to use toilet :)
As someone who has been doing some things here and there? Will it ever get better? I feel like that people have been saying that for many fucking years and it still isnt working well.
The approach I would take is to use the motion/presence detectors only as sensors, send that to Home Assistant, and have Home Assistant control the lights. In my home, the only presence detection I do is to determine whether I am in or out of the house, and I just use my phone for that. The light switches are buttons that send a signal to Home Assistant, and Home Assistant puts the relevant lights to the opposite of what they are at the moment. Presence detection will turn the lights on if I arrive home in the dark, and turn lights near front-facing windows on at specified times if I am away.
I recently started getting into home automation, started with zigbee, couple triggers, couple sensors, couple switchable outlets all working perfectly as expected with Home Assistant with all the complicated automation scripting I could ever desire. Then I remembered watching this video and had to come back and rewatch... Linus, you may be getting old lol, you're supposed to be a tech guy and this stuff is just electric legos lol. You should have just let Jake set it up for you and left it alone, there is no reason Home Assistant, zigbee and well thought out device acquisition couldn't have gotten you all the results you wanted. Home assistant has grouping, templates, delays, combined sensors, etc... this didn't have to be a nightmare and you've now scared off tons of people who might otherwise have fell into the very cool, very fun, rewarding hobby that can make mundane things in your house fun
5 years ago, despite my advice against it, my brother decided to spend a fortune turning his new condo into a smart home. He has since had nothing but trouble with everything from the lights, to the AC, to the front door lock. Maybe one day smart home technology will be awesome, but today is not that day. I'm the family tech-head (working profesionally in IT since '95 and as a system's engineer since 2000). The closest thing in my home to a smart device is a timer on the water heater. Even my Smart TV's just act as computer monitors for their attached mini-pc's.
Smart home/building automation tech is awesome for over 3 decades, but unfortunately the best system for this - KNX - is mainly used in Europe, mostly used for commercial buildings and needs someone who is willing to learn the fundamentals, before it gets deployed. We built our home in 2006 and have not had a single hickup or outage, even though we have nearly 60 switches, 16 dimmers, 24 rolling shutters and 20 heat circuits. Even a solar inverter, heat pump and wall charger are integrated and the downtime is ZERO. No issues. Unfortunately most freaks use Chinese jung like Zigbee and Z-Wave and give normal people the impression that nothing ever woeks reliably. It is a real shame.
@@maxking3 The issue isn't the outages, not really. A lot of the "reliability" problem is just fundamental to how such things work. Light switches, for instance - there might be people in a room or not, which you have to make sure your sensor(s) can reliably determine. But they might or might not actually want the lights to go on if they're in the room, based on any number of factors. Time of day might approximate that, but not fully enough to be sufficient. For instance, a bright and sunny day might mean I don't need to turn the lights on as I'm walking around. But a cloudy day might require them. Or if I'm working on a project in a room I might need to turn them on and have them stay on completely. Or if I need to walk somewhere in the middle of the night, I probably don't want to have all might lights turn on as I do so. Unless I haven't gone to sleep yet, in which case I probably do. There winds up being so many "corner cases" the problem space better resembles a fractal...
@ I hear you. But the thing is, that there is a 34 year old standard used in airports, hotels and skyscrapers, that is 100% reliable, boasts 8000 devices from 500 manufacturers and has become affordable for many family home projects. And it is perfectly integrated with HomeAssistant.
@@maxking3 And my point is that "100% reliable" is a bit disingenuous when you're still going to be dealing with all sorts of jank simply by nature of the problem you're trying to solve. People are complicated.
@ If you have a redundant power supply, you can put KNX into critical infrastructure like hospitals & emergency rooms. KNX is professional stuff you won‘t find at Best Buy.
I appreciate that Linus is a smart technology enthusiast who is excited to try out all these new things. I however am an old school tech guy, and while I deal with a lot of tech for work, I like my home to be as dumb as possible.
@@Masterrunescapeer A housefly flies through your house and triggers all of your light switches... As soon as they started talking about the actual release version having tuning option I knew this was never going to work. You'll just end up picking between randomly coming on when you don't want it to and not coming on when you want it to. And somehow both of course. And then the seasons change and you have to mess with it all over again. You're probably better of with a camera, probably several, and AI image recognition maybe pet owners would even be able to use it then.
I've been away from home for 2 weeks. In that time the mmWave has been triggered ONCE. Thing is, we live rural and know that there's a snake living in the house. Chances are he went for a late night snack. Combo sensors though were a terrible idea. Linus's system seems way less responsive than mine which pairs a few different sensors with some smart bulbs. PIR turns lights on, mmWave keeps them on. You can place the sensors accurately in the places where people sit etc for accurate tracking.
Linus! As I can see, you're running home assistant. I'm on the Zigbee train with 70+ devices, and my lamp vs IR sensor problems was solved with nodeRed. This is a visual programming addon, where you can create more understandable and complex automation (looks like the Homey stuff, but with much more options!) than the build in one (I know, it became more user friendly, but if you got a hang on nodeRed....) So the main solution to my problem was two timers, since I have multiple motion sensor, and some of them behave differently. (The aliexpress stuff switch off occupancy after 2-3 minutes, but the Philips Hue hold it to 5-10 seconds...) So the solution is basically two timer in nodeRed. One starts counting, if the area sensors are all on "Clear" state... If the counter (5 minutes) finishes, it's dimm the light in the room, and start an another timer (2 min). If this finishes, the lights are switched off. The logic has a failsafe, so if motion became detected on the sensor during the countdowns, the counters will be stopped/reseted (and also the light will dimm back if it was during the 2nd counter) BTW: When you question yourself about Home Assistant, don't forget that corporates tend to be money hungry (like MyQ garage stuff) so beeing on the open/non vendor lock side will be better in the long run! And one last topic: You really should look after ESPHome. The water sensing stuff can be integrated to your HA with a minimal electronic and coding knowledge. I have a few project with this (water level sensing in a rainwater collector, radiator valve controllers with PoE (the stuff actually talking via ethernet), traffic light for my kids with RGB addressable LEDs, two amplifiers, which can be volume controlled and switched off from HA)
Yep homeassistant is awesome and almost certainly not the problem. Almost guaranteed if it can't be run 100% offline it will be eol or "updated" to reduce features and increase profits. I'm running everything with esphome or zigbee and no internet access for devices. No one but me can break my setup. I've had no errors or issues that weren't my own fault. Also top tip, chat gpt use for yaml help is pretty tops. It will provide red herrings on request but it's awesome for getting 95% the way there even with quite complex or obscure stuff if you follow basic steps like test as you go with each section not just generate a wall of code with 50 points of failure then troubleshoot that for hours.
I am a sparkie so I upgraded everything to be smart in my house…….12 months later I swapped it all back to basic on off control, so much more reliable and easy.
This is great video. Coz there are probably many people in a dilemma to change to smart things or stay with regular ones. And it helps them forget even the idea to make the switch to smart home stuff. Great stuff. Saves so much money and headache for many people. 👍
As a techie, I've always been eyeing those switches, but they always had shortcoming and the biggie is "cloud" required. In the 90, I used some radio shack light switches and plugs and it worked great with no fancy features. i hope these new ones overcome the shortcomings and not required a "cloud" subscription to use.
I work from home and lead a sedentary life style. I think and fumble at a keyboard for a living. Reaching for light switches, along with gettiing out of bed are part of my excercise regime. I have some real nice wooden Venetian blinds, completely manually operated with a pull cord at waist height. I swap around which arm I use to raise and lower them, so as my body building doesn't create a lopsided monster.
I think it’s going to take a small pool of incredibly patient tech savvy IT guys that are extremely knowledgeable to get this stuff working seem-less for it to be adopted.
I feel like Linus’ house is really missing out on other Smart Home Technologies. Panelized or “Fake Panelized” Lutron in combination with Savant or Control 4 could just about abolish all of his issues and also allow him to integrate just about anything. Really surprised not a lot of creators know about or use this technology
I still for the life of me can't figure out why you would possibly want to "automate" such a simple and low effort activity like hitting a light switch. This is peak tech bro stupidity.
I use normal switches and bulbs and have Shelly connecting them. It works just flawlessly, my wife is happy because she can use the home as normal, and I can have automations and be sure everything turn off when we leave. For me, motion sensors and complicated stuff make your life more complicated at the end.
you should have had reed from smart home solver or lewis from everything smart home fix your house. They're home assistant gurus. the Everything presence sensor is amazing !
Based on wan show, title really should be my wife and I hate my smart house I guess its one of those things where its way more fun designing and tinkering with than actually using
@@daniwalmsley611 This project was never designed for anything else but entertainment value. He lives off „emergency videos“… otherwise he could have just integrated a professional system like KNX.
@ I don't think that's fair. If nothing else it served as a review of the Jasco switches, ecobee thermostats and the hvac duct baffles I do think he genuinely wanted a smart house. He talked on wan show that if nothing else he wanted his house to have the infrastructure for it to be a smart house (wiring in place for smart blinds) to protect the resale value of the house in 20-30 years What linus is, is far less risk adverse thanks to the content opportunity. But st the end of rhe day he still has to live with his light switches not working or his kids PCs not working. So it doesn't make sense to do something risky just for the sake of content. But he can do things he wouldn't normally be okay doing because content helps mitigate the risk The device ID and excessive traffic issue is not inherent to Z-Wave/home assistant. The issues Linus was having with the network side is due to Jasco's implementation Would a well implemented KNX system have worked better? Yes. But, could the LTT have done it themselves or would they have needed to outsource it and would that have cost more than buying both the inovelli switches? I don't know
Yeah, this is why most smart home users have separate sensors for motion/presence. Then you just use Home Assist to setup any delay or specific times you want it to work/not work. I use it to only turn on lights in certain parts of my house when it detects motion near dusk.
Thank you Linus for beta testing smart home devices so we don’t have to. For us who don’t have it we know we’re not missing out in anything and avoiding headaches, and for those of us who do, it’s a source of “things to look out for”
Sonoff mini range. Best decision ive made. Keep your origonal light switches. add the mini to cieling rose. You can use the traditional switch (the mini just waits for it to change state) and also wifi (there are zigbee and matter variants too). If you wanna stay local they hook up to homeassistant too.
I have normal light switches. They work well when turning on, and also off my lights. Highly recommend.
I can confirm that these work very well. When i need the lights on, I press the switch, and when I need to turn them off, i press the switch again.
Barely any effort! And You can get fancy ones with an LED inside of them so you can see the switch in the dark!
exactly, same here as there is one less thing to go wrong, buy a battery for, find out there are no spare available anymore etc. etc. etc... reminds me of that old saying 'Keep It Simple Stupid'...
I have mercury light switches. They are silent, and still work perfectly for 60 years.
I have Fire. Fire makes warm. And Fire makes Light. Electric unga unga.
@@nate472 I love tech but really hate smart home stuff haha. I have a few smart plugs for some key appliances to use with Alexa. Switches, blinds, motion sensors, really ‘smart’ security systems, light bulbs are all so frustrating and the roi on any energy savings is decades.
All of the trouble Linus has had with "smart home" stuff is the best advertisement to tell people not to use it.
This should be pinned
I think the main issue is going overboard with every single switch. I have a pretty limited number where it makes sense--controlling front porch/yard lights to automate at night or a light that is awkward to access otherwise. Beyond that it's mostly sensors for me.
Which is unfortunate, because smart home tech is really cool and can work very reliably if you actually read the tech docs and plan before throwing your money at it. 100% of my lighting is automated, responds instantly to sensors, and doesn't turn off randomly. It's not a difficult problem to solve, just takes a bit of planning.
Totally agree. Sometimes simple really is best, like turning lights on and off manually.
@@draskuul making every single switch integrated is fine, it's the sensor in the switch that's a problem. Those should be used sparingly and only when the view from the switch actually is what you want the sensor to see - otherwise get a Lutron or Insteon remote sensor.
I could leave all of the lights on in my house for a month and not get close to the cost of a single one of these switches. Thank you LTT for validating my decision to keep everything in my house dumb.
Pretty sure you're not from Scandinavia then. I have yet to calculate the cost of each GU10 but I bet it adds up (I have about 50 around the house). Building smart homes is not about saving money though.. most smartguys I know including myself do it because it's fun, can cause quality of life improvements and it can be kind of cool.
Got it so you will keep your lights on in your bedroom at all times because lol
I have worked for 10 years as a smart home installer, and the only tip I can give you is to always go for hard-wired devices if you want to make sure they always work. We tried dozends of wireless systems, and they always have problems... Also, I don't recommend motion sensors in rooms where you stay for a long time.
It seems silly to me that we're still running mains power to 5-10W LED lights rather than PoE or similar. Esp crazy when you then use a wirelessly controlled light.
Yeah and run cat6 to every switch box? Everybody knows the love of signals line for power lines. They live together so well.
@@iamdave84 Ever heard of voltage drop?
@@billyouellet717yes, I'm familiar with voltage drop. Some voltage drop is common with PoE but rarely enough to have a negative impact. It should be taken into account during design for installs where PoE devices will be far from their power supply.
@@billyouellet717 pretty sure you can run signals with mains these days, though not sure it's more reliable than wireless
FYI: Homey is now part of LG Electronics. According to a report on the German platform heise, LG plans to analyze usage data from Homey to improve their products. I wish companies couldn’t buy out smaller players as easily as they do. On the other hand, Home Assistant remains open-source and independent, without selling anything or compromising user privacy.
That’s a really good point. I’ll have to take a look at both.
Yeah, I don't mind paying for working polished experience, but the fact, that they can close the shop at any time and you will be stuck with dead smart home.
For someone who want to commit using homey, that's actually a good things. When you go vendor locking solution, at least you have assurance they wont go bankrupt in a year or two
@@rimara14 Won’t go bankrupt but doesn’t mean that the large brand won’t stop seeing value in it super fast and close the division.
yeah big companies using data from inside my home is creepy, especially when they try to manipulate me into more consumerism. I know everyone will say 'there's no escaping bro, just accept it', but if that was the best strategy we wouldn't have basic human rights at this point in history. I don't fault anyone for wanting smart homes, I just wish we had a lot more transparency and control over data rights
I'm just glad that they figured out that you can also just push a button to turn it on or off. It made my life so much easier, I go in to a room and turn it on and when I leave I can just turn it off. I just love it.
Actually I built a smart home in 2006. Nothing has failed - ever!
But it uses KNX, which is a pro technology orginally designed for hotels and airports.
But for many years, it is affordable for normal family homes.
But Linus seems absolutely addicted to garbage.
@@maxking3heyyy, good old KNX. im really surprised he didn't settle for a KNX solution himself. There's so much variety out there, including smartphone access features from certain manufacturers....but, oh well. Garbage it is!
@@Macintoshibait’s a hidden ad
Didn’t expect it from linus
@@abdulallahalharbi7825 Hidden? Did you miss the part where he clearly states the company sponsoring the video??? Buddy????
@@abdulallahalharbi7825 Tf do you mean hidden? Did you miss the very explicit disclosure right at the beginning?
After getting my own home and trying all kinds of smart devices, hours figuring out compatibility, working out bugs, much money spent, I came to the conclusion that they mostly create more problems than they actually solve. 2 things I can think of that are actually useful is a programmable thermostat and lights that dim and change colour temperature.
Wifi bulbs and google. All one needs.
Agreed. I'd mostly use thermostats and maybe temperature sensors.
Maybe outside I'd use presence detection switches if they can be configured for a certain area. That actually sounds useful.
I have a smart thermostat and litter box, that’s in. I want dumb lights and fridge and toilet and doors and everything else.
If you have money like Linus, get a good certified KNX integrator.
I put a non-connected motion sensing light switch in my garage and have been very happy with it.
My mom's a Product Owner(for non-work tech types, she's essentially a dev manager) so she's got a lot of the home and yard smart-ified, but my dad is an analog kind of person.
Mom's been setting up smart cams in the yard areas for Dad to watch the critters that visit, but we've been having trouble with our mesh system and with Dad navigating software.
This could totally be a fix! Thank you!
0:54 all I see is that Linus is too short for the motion sensors to detect him
dbrand has been trying to reach you for your job interview. 😂
And his children are presumably even shorter?
A lot of motion sensors ignore the space that close to the floor so that they won't be triggered by pets.
@@qwertyferix Well, that's a downsite. I would like to know where my black cat is in the black room.
@@katrinabryce Nah, his kids will probably be like 14 and twice his height
While I never felt the desire to use any smart home technology, these videos absolutely ensure I never will. Every benefit of these is easy to argue against, especially at the cost of the pain involved.
All I hear is about skill issue so far.
@@kissu_io lol really? What about the cost? And arguably physical switches work better anyway.
@@DekarNL what about physical smart switches ?
Except for one simple lightbulb that you can control in an app and it’s no pain at all and you can individually set timers
I use quite advanced smart crap setup for heating. This was a nightmare to set up, i hate it, but it's so worth it both in comfort and savings. Lights... not worth the hassle. I've tried several times and it's a disaster every single time :)
For the record, 80% of your problems could be solved by tying motion sensors into a smart light switch instead of trying to combine the functions. You can then control what happens when the motion is sensed instead of hoping the light switch company does it for you. I have lights that only turn on with motion during certain hours of the day.
I know they work great
Same thing for networks. Combining a modem-firewall-router-switch-AP into a single CPE can be useful but it can also be a nightmare. Separating at least the modem and the router-AP-switch is already good. But separating all three is the best. Upgrade each part separately for cheap and the entire network does not drop when one part dies or restarts.
7:41
@@ayuchanayuko"for cheap" lololololololololololololollll nice joke! Very funny!
This is exactly what Jake was telling him since well before he installed the switches lol.
Use normal wall switches with Shelly smart relays stuffed in your switch boxes and then hang mm-wave presence sensors in every room. Control the whole thing with Home Assistant. This has been my zero compromises solution. Works great!
As a commercial electrician who has installed similar systems it probably would have been a whole lot cheaper and easier to to just have seperate ceiling mounted occ/photo sensors and cat 6a wire them to a modual. they work great!
Why cat6a?
@l0gic23 near presence of AC wiring, slightly thicker wires, and usually these kinds of sensors don't actually use ethernet signaling but utilize the same kind of wiring, e.g. CAN or Modbus. It's recommended to run cat 6a or better for long CAN runs.
My thought also. Our new office uses tons of smart lightning with adjustable dimmer slopes, hue and presence detection, but nothing is Z-wave. Like most other things, wired is king. Since he built the house with smart lights in mind a real installation like this should have been standard..
I think he didn't want anything(except speakers) hanging from the ceiling and he was very particular about seeing wires. Most of his home solutions are also what drove up the price and complexity.
Occupancy sensors are still PIR and garbage. mmWave is the future
I have Home Assistant running on a Raspberry Pi 5. I can see why a consumer type out of the box solution would be ideal for a lot of people, but I love how configurable Home Assistant is, where I can just SSH into it and do whatever I want.
This - going from Home Assistant to Homey I would consider a huge downgrade. I have over 100 Zigbee devices in my network and that doesn't even include the Hue lights, which are running via 2 Hue hubs. Good luck trying to do something like that with Homey...
A huge downgrade is a huge understatement.
I'm nearly certain nearly all of the compromises he's making here could be avoided with a properly set up HA instance.
Shitty Z-Wave motion sensors aside :))
@@mtasapl Agreed... Generally I am not a big fan of Z-Wave. There is a reason why most manufacturers backed out of the alliance and moved to Zigbee. On top of that the positioning of the motion sensors in the switches is bad. I have mine located on the ceilings to have a wider sensor angle.
@@SirWaddlesworth and if you want simplicity of automations, just use nodeRed...
Thank you for keeping the smart home alpha testing alive Linus.
For me personally, I will keep using my finger to turn a switch in -1s until the smart home pairs with neuralink and reacts to my thoughts.
Linus and his family are also the perfect test subjects to see how extremely dense electromagnetic spectrum affects the human physiology.
4:21 "I need a stubby" has a different meaning in Australia but probably still suitable for home improvement work
The Smart Home Saga Continues! Always nice to see father - son bonding again. Haven't seen enough Jake recently.
rebel fase and maybe puberty...
Who is the father and who is the son?
@@Micky075 yes
It's almost all been Elijah and David recently. We need more of the senior writers to be in videos again.
I started off liking Elijah, but he's been in soooo many videos I kinda can't stand him now 😂@@bahamutbbob
Nothing has convinced me more that I don't want any "smart" products in my house at all than watching this series
@@DeinonychusCowboy i think the real issue is regular “consumer” smart products that Linus is trying to implement. There is too many options and variants and way too much clutter on a home network.
Enterprise solutions are significantly better. (Lutron, Control 4, Savant) but the fact you need to be a dealer to get these products makes it even more of a headache.
He overdid everything. Smart bulbs and outlets are 100% worth it.
Motion sensor are among the most unreliable stuff when it comes to smart home.
Smart blinds seem useful tho
@@avimakkar exactly if you don't go ham and want motion sensing IN THE LIGHT SWITCH then nearly every smart switch is pretty robust I'm slowly migrating my whole house to smart switches and won't touch an AC and likely. Blinds/shutters that don't have smart integration
Hi! I know what you mean, however if you are interested in some basic automation and you are handy, I highly recommend Shelly switches, they are modules that go in the back of the electrical boxes and allow you to keep your current switches and manual control.
I worked at a big facility that had motion sensor lights in all the washrooms, but the washrooms were large public style. Working on a weekend when no one is around I went into a stall. 2 min later all lights off, pitch black. The sensor was around a corner by the door. That was a fun experience. Thank god for phone flashlights
Had the same thing happen. They either work and go unnoticed or are the most annoying thing ever. "Lets put them in study rooms to keep people from leaving the lights on when the leave." Use the study room and need to stop and stand up every 5 minutes to get light again really keeps one focused.
Had one with a very bad motion detector in an empty bathroom, it was tuned for enough motion that it's someone walking. So you're sitting there waving your hand around for a few seconds since it's like a 3s window for the light to trigger after switching off.
LMAO yep, experienced that before.
Presence sensors entered the chat.
I have had this in public bathrooms and its pretty annoying when it goes dark hahaha didn't help the sensors were mounted with minimal thought
Great job on the weight loss Jake. Amazing😀. Also these Homey swithes look amazing too, I want them!
So, I'm guessing that the motion won't turn the lights back on after manually turning them off is most likely a feature and not a bug. If you think about it, they say the sensor is able to detect people breathing. If you would put one of those switches in a bedroom, you wouldn't want the lights to turn back on while you're trying to sleep. Which is probably why you have to leave the room for a minute to reset.
Well yeah, obviously, you don't want to turn off your lights just for them to turn back on immediately
Also a safety concern , almost every dumb motion switch I've installed has this so that if you turn the switch off to say change a light bulb it doesn't flick back on while your working on it and shock you. Normally they won't go back into motion sense unless you turn it back on and leave (some have a timer like 30 minutes to an hour).
Smart gear almost always has a current running through it, even when it's "off".
I wouldn't trust an "off" smart light unless I've definitely isolated the circuit
Really there should be three states: off, auto, and on.
@@Yay295My GE Z-wave switches have an air gap switch. A little pull tab switch that cuts power for real
8:45 50W for that little light? Is that bulb from the last war?
I almost spat out my coffee, I thought I misheard him the first time
sounds like an entire room of lights..
Given an LED downlight uses about 5w, I’d imagine it’s a bank of them
It's everything that switch controls, so probably 5x10W downlights
Bathroom Heat Lamp Bulbs burn 275W and the fittings usually have 2 or 4, maybe it's a LED replacement for those Heat Lamp Bulbs?
I'm using a Aqara Presence Sensor FP2 in my room right now for testing and it has been spot on. 450sqft of cover with 300 cells in that space and the ability to make 30 zones in that space for triggers and tracks 5 targets at one time when wall mounted. If mounted to ceiling it can be a fall sensor too but you lose the 5 target tracking and based on how high your ceilings are you lose sqft cover.
As for why the Presence Sensor y'all were using was picking y'all up outside the bathroom is because it can see through walls. This is working on the same principles as the WiFi tech that lets people map and track things in a home with just the WiFi singles (crazy stuff)
@@TdrSld Came to comment this. I also got a sensor recently and it's the best sensor I have ever used. Highly accurate and very quick
Iv had mine for 5 months and its been working great. I use mine for "follow me" lights.
As someone with thousands of hours sunk into a smart home... presence detection and especially automatic light control was one of the things that I dumped immediately. An intuitive mobile app, local HMIs in rooms for light control etc. to power people to adjust lights without having to find the right switch (my house is a disaster for this) is perfect.
electrician here. for the motion sensor switches you didn’t actually need smart switches. you can just buy sensor switches or in the industry we call them occupancy switches. and using them for a 3 way can work if you wire 2 of the sensor switches in a parallel configuration. way cheaper and it’ll free up your smart home bandwidth. good for washrooms, garage, hallways. rooms like the kitchen and living room, smart switches are better suited for that.
Exactly. I only use a motion switch (dumb) in the laundry room. Bathrooms would probably work ok with occupancy sensor switches but unnecessary. I have smart switches in the kitchen, living room, patio so I can remotely turn them on/off with voice assistants as needed.
I still don't understand why it's apparently so hard to design optionally-smart devices. Sure, maybe I do want to remotely control my lights. But why is there a delay when I use the switch normally? What if my network crashes? We figured this out decades ago for every other product people (by which I mean my own field, not electricians), holy hell.
@@Blaze6108 It depends on the switch itself. I can't speak to dimmers as I don't have any of those installed, but I've got some TP-Link Kasa on/off switches and those turn on and off instantly when you press the button.
For what it's worth on the Inovelli side, I'm checking their docs for their Zigbee dimmer and the "don't turn things on instantly" thing is a configuration parameter that they've intentionally set to have a 500ms default delay. Having the delay allows you to use the switch as a scene controller, so if you want to double/triple tap the switch to activate a scene in your home automation software, you can do so. Disabling the delay removes that functionality.
@@hoboman1206 I use these and I only wish there was time based brightness control (which smart switches would solve). I want less brightness in the middle of the night, it's always jarring to walk into the bathroom and have the light come on full blast because I didn't lower it before bed.
@@sscadcam i agree. it is annoying i always have to remember to lower my onsuite washroom brightness before bed. but it’s just part of my routine now so personally it works for me.
I've found that the *_only_* reliable way to do automatic room lighting is good millimeter wave presence detection sensors. Sensors in a wall mounted light switch won't be great, as they need to be mounted high on a wall, preferably in the corner where the wall meets the ceiling.
Yes and in a bathroom shower doors can stop the detection. Another reason you want it up high. Nothing like having a made significant other mad because their night shower turn into a shower in the dark.
Having played with some mmWave sensors I can provide input that might help:
* These things can (and will) penetrate wall, esp wooden ones. Having Zone management is an absolute must.
* They have a limited range (usually about 6 meters)
* They can rather sensitive (which can be an issue if you pets). Fans for example *will* trigger them
* There is a limited number of targets you can track per zone
* Don't position them so that their zone overlap or you will have crosstalk
* Non-rectangular rooms (like you office)
* Ghosting (tracking doesn't clear) can be an issue
That being said they are miles ahead of the passive sensors, but you to plan their use carefully. I personally wouldn't put them in light switches for example as the zone management will be tricky. Place a separate mmWave sensor in the middle of a wall where it can see the whole room.
All this. mmWave HPD isn't "motion detection" in the way Linus's folks seemed to be treating it. And yep, it'll permeate surfaces so aiming it the right way is important. I just got some Sonoff HPD sensors the other day and I'm still tweaking the positioning to be ideal.
Hey Linus, I also scrapbook with my wife. Digital photos are awesome, but they don't beat having a physical printout of your kids growing up over the years and be an organized during Christmas time and what not.. Glad to know I'm not alone. Scrapbooking is a dying fad.
If your house was that smart, it would've told you about the server rack Waterpark.
if that house was smart, it would tell linus to stop installing random garbage.
garbage that only has to work for one video, and it has to break down for more content.
then linus would fire the house and make a video out of it
Ah but it can now!
Smart homes are only as smart as the people building them 🤣
I work in tech, I love tech... but still I don't have a lot, actually very minimal smart stuff in my house... same with my car, I disable almost all functions that "make me lazy". There's nothing wrong with standing up to turn of a light, nothing wrong with actually paying attention while you drive.
You think drivers are idiots now? Wait until they don't have to think at all anymore...
If it wasnt for the safety during a accident i would never own a new car, what a nightmare to maintain and fix....
sadly the gov even made a lot of the stuff mandatory....
That reminds me of a meme I saw a while back.
Tech enthusiasts: Everything is high tech, all the time
People who work in tech: Disable and avoid all "smart" stuff, even on printers
Its ridiculous actually. Like every time one of my friends demonstrates an amazing smart toy it like really only serves to reeinforce my idea that theyre completely useless. Just yesterday, "i can turn on my dishwasher with my phone", yeah? Can you also load and empty the dishwasher with your phone? lmao.
And then everyone gets smartwatches and gets on a treadmill to get there steps in. Why did you spend thousands to save 10 steps here and there in the first place?
When I learned that the more knowledgeable people are in tech, the less smart stuff they use (especially cyber security specialists, programmers and the like) I completely gave in to confirmation bias and avoid that stuff like the plague now. If it has any wireless connectivity it's not specifically meant to be accessing like a phone or laptop it's a no-go. I'm fine with infrared remotes but that's about the extend of my tolerance.
The quality of the privacy blur in this video was amazing.
And the blinds are going to make the Editor's lives easier.
Are you being sarcastic? Because I found it incredibly distracting around the edges.
@@slickstretch6391 yep he is
Linus how I love that honesty on your Problems! Not many People would do that. Much respect for this!
As someone who uses zwave I've always found it better to use normal zwave switches and add a separate motion sensor wherever I want.
Having a dual integrated device makes it more complicated since you'll never know exactly what the cause is when it starts to fail.
Regarding millimeter wave technology there are some zwave detectors that you can buy
What I would love to see you integrate one day is using a zwave Arduino to control something unique that there isn't a "made for that" device
THIS indeed. I have separate sensors for years now and they always work like a charm. Never issues. So i really don't understand why Linus is making his life so difficult, because if he installs separate sensors, everything works perfectly.
Yes it also about placement of the motion sensor. Switch location are not always the optimal place to sense motion in an area.
The first mistake you made was trying to make it high tech by buying smart switches with motion detection. All you needed were regular smart switches and standalone mmwave motion detectors in the first place, that way the delay, timing, conditional switching can all be programmed in nodeRED or HA automation based on the location it is installed and you can place the detector where you want and upgrade it quickly as new tech comes in. Now you have to rip out the switches everytime to upgrade and the manufacturer of the switches decide when to turn it on and off. Also, try zigbee, you have a lot more options and if you run in band 11, you will have no issues.
The mistake he did was taking a house he rewired for all his IT needs and forgot to put in a professional wired smart home system like KNX.
Would be boring though because it would just do the job for the next few decades, without any need for emergency videos.
Yea Aqara FP1 is a good and already kinda old example
Yup, like, You have HA - just use it.
@@maxking3 i don't know much about smart home stuff, but i believe the main thing was that everything he installed was able to run on an open platform so you aren't relying on a company staying in operation for your devices to still work. is the one mentioned here like that? or run on a proprietary system?
Thank you for mentioning nodeRED. I'm confused why Jake is going "Oh yeah, this other company is better and easier" when HA CAN RUN NODERED which is basically the same thing!
Big props to the editor for all those masking/blurring/rotoscoping madness! It blends in so perfectly, you might not even notice!
😂
Fr
Isn't it 'AI' now?
@@sudhelm I honestly kinda got curious why SO MUCH rotoscoping. I mean, of course, you'd want to protect sensitive information, but why block the view to the kitchen and whatnot. It's not like we don't know Linus's house in and out, twice, by watching channel super fun.
As a low voltage tech for a security company we integrate with Lutron by incorporating our hardwired motions on a DSC Neo to provide the motion needed for turning on the lights. Super reliable and takes advantage of existing intrusion devices. While not really applicable in this situation but I did notice that DSC keypad lol.
Lutron smart switches have been the best smart home products I’ve ever bought. They are rock solid, and work with everything, I love them.
Plus one, we have Lutron Casetta switches throughout our home and they are amazing. I never have any issues with them. They support HomeKit and all the other platforms too.
@@emweissman every single switch in my home is a Casetta. Including closets, bathroom fans, etc. have been using them 5 years with ZERO issues. Love the newer diva dimmers. People don’t realize how fantastic smart lighting is when done properly.
Same 100% Lutron Casetta, their presence sensor is amazing as well. Zero issues.
Completely agree. Really would have liked to have seen RA3 here. More $ and not as fun probably, but a better whole-home solution by far, especially one for this size. Do it right or do it again later. Waiting for the next installment in this series!
I have Casetta & Inovelli...both are amazing!
While it was clarified a few times, it is not Home Assistant's fault that the zwave mesh was having so many issues. I only installed 6 or 7 of those Jasco motion switches (out of >90 zwave devices) and I've had similar issues to those described. I knew it was some device causing trouble as a power cycle of the house usually eliminated the issue by resetting all the in-wall zwave devices but it was hard to pinpoint what device was causing the issues. I narrowed it down to Jasco outlets and the Jasco motion switches as they are the only devices I have not replaced yet (waiting for alternatives... that fit my selection criteria). I am eagerly waiting for Inovelli's presence switches but I am unsure those will work well everywhere as mmWave is RF and it can pass through certain materials such as a light weight door. I don't want my pantry light turning on all the time when I am in the kitchen for example. Maybe the higher frequency sensor in the final production will fix this but I will have to test it... for now I am planning to use it in all the rooms where the switches point outwards (towards the outside of the house) so that walking by in the hallway won't trigger them... ever.
Love how inavelli called it Project Linus. He really is the special child of the Tech space :)
Oh my gosh!! I've been waiting years for this video. I've been struggling with mix of JASCO switches and some newer EATON switches I had to buy this year to replace failed JASCO switches that just outright died on me. I just wish this video had come out a few months earlier and I could have waited! So so excited for this update! Thanks for sharing this. Also homey is making me consider ditching my Samsung SmartThings hubs for this, it looks so much cleaner!
0:53 The most Canadian "Hello!" I've ever heard 😂
I have tried quite a few smart home devices and at best I have been mildly disappointed. So many different phone apps with hit or miss quality, pairing issues, log in issues, connection losses. The problems never seem to end. The worst is if you have a guest stay over you either have to somehow get them logged into an app and share your devices or find some other method of dealing with it, some devices have better physical interfaces than others. Watching this video further reinforces my decision to keep these "Smart" devices out of it.
Same. It's really fun if you wake up at night and your smart lamps don't want to turn on.
All of what you said sounds like you're following bad practises.
You're using apps, rather than a local instance of Home Assistant. Everything you're doing sounds like it relies on the cloud, either by device or by the hub those devices might use.
I have zigbee devices and it just works
And it just works @adsadam1 Says my senior father with 1970's light switches
There's no money in smart home tech. They are competing with things like lightswitches, that cost like 20 cents in bulk and have a proven 200 year track record of not pissing users off and requiring 0 expensive software developers, cloud hosting, continual updates ect ect ect. Any sane user will know it's cheaper to just turn on and off your own damn lights : P Even for his "stairs" usecase, you can just spend 10 extra cents and maybe about half an hour of an electricians time to wire up 2-way switch. Kids not turning off the lights? Well teach your childeren. This is why you know how to turn them off because your parents taught you. Stop being lazy and participate in the world bro.
@@adsadam1
I just have a switch at the entrance of every room and the ability to navigate every room completely blindly as it's a one story apartment.
I still like home assistant, it was as easy for me to setup as this it seems and I haven't had any issues with it. That being said you have a lot more control over it so it's always possible for the wife approval factor to drop to the ground after messing up a single automation
Yeah the last point about the antenna being all the way in the basement wasn't an entirely fair thing to say in my opinion. If he had put his Home Assistant installation in the same spot as he put the Homey device, there wouldn't have been any issues with USB extension cables either. I get it, Homey is convenient and it's a more attractive looking device, but still.
@ yeah in my mind it’s still like getting a google home or echo or any other home automation hub. Biggest issue being that you have to wait for them to support devices. With home assistant most of the time people make custom integrations for most devices, or you can write a custom integration. I feel like the homey isn’t as flexible
@@lemster101 You can also add POE coordinators for zigbee and zwave and place them in central locations if you want to keep it the server in the basement.
I love how Jake just looks like he has had enough of the old system. And we learned new things about Linus as well. Educational, informative, and demonstrative, everything you want a video to have and more! I like the new Homey implementation, it seems to just make everything easier than the older system did, with a lot less hassle. 4 minutes to set up, after it took... how long to get the other system talking to devices? Wonderful update to smart home technology. I do like the info stations you had by the light switches you were showing. Thank you again for such an informational post everyone.
The steps this man will take to avoid the simple solutions will never cease to amaze me. Use normal light switches and just stick a couple motion activated night lights in areas where you might need to walk through at night. I just keep one in the main area and one in the bathroom, I can basically get around my house in pitch black darkness which is good if someone were ever actually in here. I wouldn’t want lights automatically turning on lol
Some people are simply never satisfied with the easy way. I know for him, a lot of the reason to do it are because it makes for good and recurring content, but if i had the kind of resources he does, I’d be messing around with this stuff too. If something goes wrong, i now have a problem i can enjoy the process of fixing! I love wasting time on convoluted tech solutions.
Pretty sure he's doing this because his kids leave lights on around the house and he can also use these to turn off the AC and things like that. It's great tech if you get everything to work well, but yeah it's not for everyone.
@@lemster101 Just teach your kids to not do that.
After 2 years of wireless problems, it's time you test a bus based system like KNX. It is fully compatible with Home Assistant and won't face any of the interference problems you've been having
That's what I used for the last 8 years. Touch wood but I haven't had a single outage in all those years and everything just works.
OMG YES, i have been commenting this for years now. Just use KNX, its sooo much better and compatible with so many devices.
or even BMS protocol instead of these "Smart home" "Zigbee" stuff.
KNX is used for industrial purposes and each device costs a fortune
@@CarstenSvendsen that is not true there are really cheap Chinese knock offs out there that really work!
There are so many devices in that high-speed network. What a wonderful botnet you are building. I cannot wait to see what kind of innovative malware they’re going to test on your benchmark home.
@@DaxSudo This video is a living version of the "tech enthusiast vs tech professional" meme
Honestly, you can't do much with the smart home setup Linus has got. He's using Z-Wave, which is effectively a fully isolated and local network that can only talk to the outside world through a hub device (a server running Home Assistant). Not only that, but Z-Wave isn't built for high speed throughput, maxing out at maybe 100kbps in absolutely ideal conditions. Same goes for Zigbee. That's actually a pretty good thing when talking about smart homes, as that also insulates you from internet outages or the company that made the product going out of service and taking their cloud servers offline.
WiFi or Ethernet stuff? That's fair game.
i live in austria and also have a nearly fully automated home. I planned my system with 2 layers. first layer is KNX. it´s a simple 2 wire bus, wich is very robust, but functions are limited to what the device offers you. on top of that i set up home assistant, so i can programm all the functions wich are missing. For faster functions, wich i need for example for heating the water for my underfloor heating with surplus energy from my PV, i use Backhoff PLC´s and added them with MQTT to my HA. For me this works the best, couse my home is full of modular systems wich work mostly for theyr own. So when for example my Networking is dead, i still can turn on the lights, the automatic dimming when i start a film on the TV in the livingroom does not work anymore, but the main functions are still available.
I'm so early my wife was left unsatisfied
Look everyone, this dude has a wife
That is a good one, and first which is quite a record ;)
💀
@@ABoringTool *had
I'm so early I disappointed my future wife.
toilets at my work have motion detection for lights with very short timer and when you're doing to poo poo, you find your self doing the forbidden salute to turned them back on
Yep, happened to me once in college too, and it was a night class so the bathroom was really really dark.
Happened to me in a Popeye's washroom
@@jorggamingcr409 suddenly being plunged into an abyss while shitting is probably my #1 or 2 fear
😭
No pooping on company time. Those extra sheets will cost you also.
Please turn off the breaker when swapping out switches in the future! There is no need to work hot and risk your life. Just saying this out of care and concern! Love your stuff!
That's OK. Soon he is going to break off the wall wires where they come into the box from changing devices over and over. Then we will get to see his dry walling skills!
I migrated from Homebridge to Homey Pro quite a while ago - it was really worth it, and the coder in me loves the more advanced scripting (even if I've not had to do anything beyond a somewhat complex Flow that sets variables and changes heating based on whether someone has an early shift or not...) 😅
This is why I have avoided any smart home crap, period. This is, I think, the 3rd video that you've posted that is along the lines of "My smart home system was a nightmare, but THIS is the solution!" It always works fine at the start, with concessions. Then it either gets worse or you can't stand living with the drawbacks anymore. I know some people love it. But i couldn't fathom babysitting a system just to make sure a damn light switch works in my house. Not knocking you, and I get that this is a perfect cycle for content lol. And I do enjoy watching it. But I will stay clear away from these products
Smart home stuff is still a very niche thing. It will continue to get better over time and perhaps our kids will be able to actually have a smart home that is basically plug and play...
@@emu071981 Those do exist but they are not as flashy or cool as the ones here. Scandinavia is basically dominated by one company.. Even dumb dimmers are not safe here, basically only smart dimmer are installed here around. Few customers know it as for them, they asked their electrician for a dimmer, they got a dimmer, the installer had a easier time installing it + gets some smart features during installation.
But again not as flashy, just pure on device distrubuted smart functionality (like motion sensor) + some 15year batterylife pir sensor and buttons to acompany it.
But as long as companies tries to make smart switches first and not a pure good switch regardless of smarness we are a long way from this being more common than 1-2 companies. Why you need a hub for this basic functionality too is also wierd for me but that seem to be the standard.
Smart bulbs for mood and background lights is the only "smart"-home things in my home. Bulbs in like a bookshelf or in my windows that only turn on when its dark outside AND not during nighttime when we're sleeping. Regular dumb timers will either be on too early while the sun is still out, or too late when it's already dark.
They can also dim down as it gets darker to "transition" the lightning. Truly a set and forget thing that really improves atmosphere.
smart home stuff is just annoying because it should have matured enough by now for there to be affordable/reliable options on the market. Instead the ecosystem has stagnated with all of it's more interesting options either never making it to market or being discontinued with some NOS floating around (though good luck trouble shooting a piece of smart tech... let alone a niche piece of smart tech that didn't sell all that well).
I feel like after all these years the only decent thing we have is expensive RGB light bulbs and a fridge with an ipad glued to it.
@@mickleman52 My experience with smart home tech is the opposite. when something hasn't' worked, it was my own fault. In Linus' situation, the problem is he went with integrated PIR sensors (granted, that was the only option at the time) PIR sensors only tell you if something moved across the sensor, like walking down a hallway. They are terrible for any other application. If they were going in a room where you're always moving, they are likely to keep the lights on. But an office/bedroom/bathroom you don't move enough long enough to keep the PIR switch active. mmWave sensors fix this issue. they are so sensitive they can detect you breathing. Linus could have gotten a mmW senor and plugged it in anywhere in the room and had his HA tell the switch to turn on and off. But he didn't want a million devices. That's fine. But that's where the problem came from.
My grandparents just used those dial timers as switches in their house. As they age, they forget more and more. This helps them, and prevented us as kids leaving the lights on.
2024: Here's me playing hide and seek with my mm wave light switches! 18:43
2034: My house is watching me and won't let me leave *blink blink*
Tip - I usually add a kill switch toggle for each automation to be able to kill each one quickly if it misbehaves. Example, an automation kill switch to kill light power saving mode or light automations. I make these toggle switches easily available to all family members in Google Home under an automation toggle group.
My regular light switches make me feel like I'm driving a car with manual roll up windows lol
They work like charm and never fail
You mean they work correctly and don’t randomly fail while being in their down position, so that you cannot close your windows?
I am an electrician and set up my smarthouse, and I bought the most stabile and expensive one I could in Norway, called Elko. It is SO many issues despite everything should be working without issues. A sensor in basement for waterleak, lost connection while I was at holiday and I couldnt get connection up again without physically pressing a button on the device. The dimmers wont dim down a light automaticly, it have to first turn it off THEN dim it up again. It looks so stupid and cheap. The app of course is difficult to understand, and many things is not as easy to program as you would think.
It makes me happy to see I'm not the only one that struggles with smarthome. My tip to people that think they should upgrade to smart home: Don't. Wait until it's better. It's just not worth it atm.
All though I really enjoy my ceiling light with motion detector being dimmed to minimum at night when I have to use toilet :)
As someone who has been doing some things here and there? Will it ever get better? I feel like that people have been saying that for many fucking years and it still isnt working well.
I work in the irrigation trade and just about every smart product that has came out is garbage. Stay away from smart timers, looking at rachio...
I really like when devices are dumb at times.
I hate it when apparantly "some device" thinks he know better what I want to do than myself.
why wouldnt u use KNX?
Instead, should have gone BMS, KNX, or bare minimum DALI.
The approach I would take is to use the motion/presence detectors only as sensors, send that to Home Assistant, and have Home Assistant control the lights.
In my home, the only presence detection I do is to determine whether I am in or out of the house, and I just use my phone for that. The light switches are buttons that send a signal to Home Assistant, and Home Assistant puts the relevant lights to the opposite of what they are at the moment. Presence detection will turn the lights on if I arrive home in the dark, and turn lights near front-facing windows on at specified times if I am away.
I recently started getting into home automation, started with zigbee, couple triggers, couple sensors, couple switchable outlets all working perfectly as expected with Home Assistant with all the complicated automation scripting I could ever desire. Then I remembered watching this video and had to come back and rewatch... Linus, you may be getting old lol, you're supposed to be a tech guy and this stuff is just electric legos lol. You should have just let Jake set it up for you and left it alone, there is no reason Home Assistant, zigbee and well thought out device acquisition couldn't have gotten you all the results you wanted. Home assistant has grouping, templates, delays, combined sensors, etc... this didn't have to be a nightmare and you've now scared off tons of people who might otherwise have fell into the very cool, very fun, rewarding hobby that can make mundane things in your house fun
20:40 ad to not use a smart home.
ad to not buy crap just because its an all in one box
19:25 I could have sworn you were about to say "...and fortunately, Homie does play that".
5 years ago, despite my advice against it, my brother decided to spend a fortune turning his new condo into a smart home. He has since had nothing but trouble with everything from the lights, to the AC, to the front door lock. Maybe one day smart home technology will be awesome, but today is not that day.
I'm the family tech-head (working profesionally in IT since '95 and as a system's engineer since 2000). The closest thing in my home to a smart device is a timer on the water heater. Even my Smart TV's just act as computer monitors for their attached mini-pc's.
Smart home/building automation tech is awesome for over 3 decades, but unfortunately the best system for this - KNX - is mainly used in Europe, mostly used for commercial buildings and needs someone who is willing to learn the fundamentals, before it gets deployed.
We built our home in 2006 and have not had a single hickup or outage, even though we have nearly 60 switches, 16 dimmers, 24 rolling shutters and 20 heat circuits. Even a solar inverter, heat pump and wall charger are integrated and the downtime is ZERO. No issues.
Unfortunately most freaks use Chinese jung like Zigbee and Z-Wave and give normal people the impression that nothing ever woeks reliably. It is a real shame.
@@maxking3 The issue isn't the outages, not really. A lot of the "reliability" problem is just fundamental to how such things work. Light switches, for instance - there might be people in a room or not, which you have to make sure your sensor(s) can reliably determine. But they might or might not actually want the lights to go on if they're in the room, based on any number of factors. Time of day might approximate that, but not fully enough to be sufficient.
For instance, a bright and sunny day might mean I don't need to turn the lights on as I'm walking around. But a cloudy day might require them. Or if I'm working on a project in a room I might need to turn them on and have them stay on completely.
Or if I need to walk somewhere in the middle of the night, I probably don't want to have all might lights turn on as I do so. Unless I haven't gone to sleep yet, in which case I probably do.
There winds up being so many "corner cases" the problem space better resembles a fractal...
@ I hear you. But the thing is, that there is a 34 year old standard used in airports, hotels and skyscrapers, that is 100% reliable, boasts 8000 devices from 500 manufacturers and has become affordable for many family home projects.
And it is perfectly integrated with HomeAssistant.
@@maxking3 And my point is that "100% reliable" is a bit disingenuous when you're still going to be dealing with all sorts of jank simply by nature of the problem you're trying to solve. People are complicated.
@ If you have a redundant power supply, you can put KNX into critical infrastructure like hospitals & emergency rooms.
KNX is professional stuff you won‘t find at Best Buy.
I appreciate that Linus is a smart technology enthusiast who is excited to try out all these new things. I however am an old school tech guy, and while I deal with a lot of tech for work, I like my home to be as dumb as possible.
A gnat flies through your house and triggers all of your light switches
So smart 👍
That should not be big enough to trigger it.
@@Masterrunescapeer A housefly flies through your house and triggers all of your light switches...
As soon as they started talking about the actual release version having tuning option I knew this was never going to work. You'll just end up picking between randomly coming on when you don't want it to and not coming on when you want it to. And somehow both of course. And then the seasons change and you have to mess with it all over again. You're probably better of with a camera, probably several, and AI image recognition maybe pet owners would even be able to use it then.
@@Masterrunescapeer Your cat gets the zoomies and turns on every light in your house at 3 am.
I've been away from home for 2 weeks. In that time the mmWave has been triggered ONCE. Thing is, we live rural and know that there's a snake living in the house. Chances are he went for a late night snack.
Combo sensors though were a terrible idea. Linus's system seems way less responsive than mine which pairs a few different sensors with some smart bulbs. PIR turns lights on, mmWave keeps them on. You can place the sensors accurately in the places where people sit etc for accurate tracking.
Remember,as long as it's not connected to the internet it's good enough... Everything that connects is out of the question.
Linus! As I can see, you're running home assistant. I'm on the Zigbee train with 70+ devices, and my lamp vs IR sensor problems was solved with nodeRed. This is a visual programming addon, where you can create more understandable and complex automation (looks like the Homey stuff, but with much more options!) than the build in one (I know, it became more user friendly, but if you got a hang on nodeRed....) So the main solution to my problem was two timers, since I have multiple motion sensor, and some of them behave differently. (The aliexpress stuff switch off occupancy after 2-3 minutes, but the Philips Hue hold it to 5-10 seconds...) So the solution is basically two timer in nodeRed. One starts counting, if the area sensors are all on "Clear" state... If the counter (5 minutes) finishes, it's dimm the light in the room, and start an another timer (2 min). If this finishes, the lights are switched off. The logic has a failsafe, so if motion became detected on the sensor during the countdowns, the counters will be stopped/reseted (and also the light will dimm back if it was during the 2nd counter)
BTW: When you question yourself about Home Assistant, don't forget that corporates tend to be money hungry (like MyQ garage stuff) so beeing on the open/non vendor lock side will be better in the long run!
And one last topic: You really should look after ESPHome. The water sensing stuff can be integrated to your HA with a minimal electronic and coding knowledge. I have a few project with this (water level sensing in a rainwater collector, radiator valve controllers with PoE (the stuff actually talking via ethernet), traffic light for my kids with RGB addressable LEDs, two amplifiers, which can be volume controlled and switched off from HA)
Or water sensing in a server rack, maybe?
Yep homeassistant is awesome and almost certainly not the problem. Almost guaranteed if it can't be run 100% offline it will be eol or "updated" to reduce features and increase profits. I'm running everything with esphome or zigbee and no internet access for devices. No one but me can break my setup. I've had no errors or issues that weren't my own fault. Also top tip, chat gpt use for yaml help is pretty tops. It will provide red herrings on request but it's awesome for getting 95% the way there even with quite complex or obscure stuff if you follow basic steps like test as you go with each section not just generate a wall of code with 50 points of failure then troubleshoot that for hours.
@@EFazy Holy crap, you really got overboard with this. I hope Linus reads this, or it will mostly be wasted effort lol
This is great. Super stoked for them to fully get this tech out. Will be fantastic for my customers.
Honestly, I kinda appreciate videos like these because it's something he lived through,
Very true and inspiring!
I am a sparkie so I upgraded everything to be smart in my house…….12 months later I swapped it all back to basic on off control, so much more reliable and easy.
This is great video. Coz there are probably many people in a dilemma to change to smart things or stay with regular ones. And it helps them forget even the idea to make the switch to smart home stuff. Great stuff. Saves so much money and headache for many people. 👍
As a techie, I've always been eyeing those switches, but they always had shortcoming and the biggie is "cloud" required. In the 90, I used some radio shack light switches and plugs and it worked great with no fancy features. i hope these new ones overcome the shortcomings and not required a "cloud" subscription to use.
That "it won't" at 1:37 hit so hard.
Yeah
That was not Yvonne's voice though 😅
It might be sarah
@@chirrayusharma2677 I'm pretty sure it's is second wife who is saying it. Jake.. 🤣
18:37 The camera is noticeably jiggling at this point. Did Linus / Jake forget that the cameraman would also be counting as "motion"?
I read 'sponsored by honey' was like wow oh lol it's hoMey
his neighbors are out there going "why do no wireless devices work in my house!?"
Yo linus is getting JACKED!
nah, it was just cold.
@peelthismonkey what in tarnation....
Frfr
Prob bc he playes badminton 🏸
He spent the summer swimming crazy numbers of laps around his pool almost daily as well as playing badminton three times a week.
linus has so much em radiation in his house that if chuck mcgill from better call saul walked into his house he would just explode.
em soup
I work from home and lead a sedentary life style. I think and fumble at a keyboard for a living. Reaching for light switches, along with gettiing out of bed are part of my excercise regime. I have some real nice wooden Venetian blinds, completely manually operated with a pull cord at waist height. I swap around which arm I use to raise and lower them, so as my body building doesn't create a lopsided monster.
Them fan boards are sickkkkkkk, i love your server room
And here I thought LTT was done with Honey as a sponsor
homey not honey
@ ik just cracking wise
Anybody else do a double take at the lower third at the start of the video thinking it said Honey?
real
I would like to see an in depth homey vs home assistant battle
I think it’s going to take a small pool of incredibly patient tech savvy IT guys that are extremely knowledgeable to get this stuff working seem-less for it to be adopted.
16:14 I didn't even say anything...
I feel like Linus’ house is really missing out on other Smart Home Technologies.
Panelized or “Fake Panelized” Lutron in combination with Savant or Control 4 could just about abolish all of his issues and also allow him to integrate just about anything. Really surprised not a lot of creators know about or use this technology
As a Control4 installer, you hit the nail on the head. The Control4 system in my house has run without issue for 3 years.
@@griffin8062 Mostly a savant installer myself, but I’m too poor to own it.
Especially distributed video 🫠
I still for the life of me can't figure out why you would possibly want to "automate" such a simple and low effort activity like hitting a light switch. This is peak tech bro stupidity.
I use normal switches and bulbs and have Shelly connecting them. It works just flawlessly, my wife is happy because she can use the home as normal, and I can have automations and be sure everything turn off when we leave. For me, motion sensors and complicated stuff make your life more complicated at the end.
you should have had reed from smart home solver or lewis from everything smart home fix your house. They're home assistant gurus. the Everything presence sensor is amazing !
Based on wan show, title really should be my wife and I hate my smart house
I guess its one of those things where its way more fun designing and tinkering with than actually using
I mean once you finally have everything just right it is amazing, until then it is .... A experience
When Dan makes his little comments about it driving Linus mad...
only when you buy junk
@@daniwalmsley611 This project was never designed for anything else but entertainment value.
He lives off „emergency videos“… otherwise he could have just integrated a professional system like KNX.
@ I don't think that's fair. If nothing else it served as a review of the Jasco switches, ecobee thermostats and the hvac duct baffles
I do think he genuinely wanted a smart house. He talked on wan show that if nothing else he wanted his house to have the infrastructure for it to be a smart house (wiring in place for smart blinds) to protect the resale value of the house in 20-30 years
What linus is, is far less risk adverse thanks to the content opportunity. But st the end of rhe day he still has to live with his light switches not working or his kids PCs not working. So it doesn't make sense to do something risky just for the sake of content. But he can do things he wouldn't normally be okay doing because content helps mitigate the risk
The device ID and excessive traffic issue is not inherent to Z-Wave/home assistant. The issues Linus was having with the network side is due to Jasco's implementation
Would a well implemented KNX system have worked better? Yes. But, could the LTT have done it themselves or would they have needed to outsource it and would that have cost more than buying both the inovelli switches? I don't know
i love the theater room
The theater room loves you.
@@DEATH-flarethe love theaters you
@@jacobgames3412 you the love theaters
There is still a projector screen on the wall. This video must have been made a while ago.
Yeah, this is why most smart home users have separate sensors for motion/presence. Then you just use Home Assist to setup any delay or specific times you want it to work/not work. I use it to only turn on lights in certain parts of my house when it detects motion near dusk.
Thank you Linus for beta testing smart home devices so we don’t have to. For us who don’t have it we know we’re not missing out in anything and avoiding headaches, and for those of us who do, it’s a source of “things to look out for”
14:18 Wait so if we unsubscribe more than we subscribe now will Linus's house lights not work for the day based on jakes description
Smart bulbs coupled with motion sensors with home assistant would be so much better for him, and much more customizable.
Hello from Wisconsin, USA! I finally ordered the screw driver(s), black on black, both normal and stubby! I'm excited and have high hopes!
1:38 *universal collective oof*
7:45 self furfilling prophesy
Bro why is your house so blurred. Is it still loading or something😦
because stalkers try to find out where he lives
@@Ryan-093 Now i want to KNOW!
@@Eratas1 You are the problem
Sonoff mini range. Best decision ive made. Keep your origonal light switches. add the mini to cieling rose. You can use the traditional switch (the mini just waits for it to change state) and also wifi (there are zigbee and matter variants too). If you wanna stay local they hook up to homeassistant too.