Philips Hue's New Bridge and the Cat Automation Problem with Josh Burg

[SPEAKER_02]: Hello and welcome to the home assistant podcast, my name's Phil, joining me as usual. [SPEAKER_02]: I've got Reron, how are you doing mate? [SPEAKER_02]: Hey, good, how are you? [SPEAKER_02]: Very good, thank you, and today we are joined by Josh, Josh, thanks so much for joining us. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, thanks for having me. [SPEAKER_02]: This podcast is sponsored by Homison Cloud by Nabukasa.

[SPEAKER_02]: For a small monthly fee, you'll unlock powerful features, like secure, endless access to your system from anywhere, your choice of voice assistance, off-site backups, and more. [SPEAKER_02]: All configurable in the UI with no YAML needed. [SPEAKER_02]: It also supports the development of home assistant, SP home, and other open home foundation projects. [SPEAKER_02]: Click the link in the description to learn more.

[SPEAKER_02]: We'd also like to give a shout out to our Patreon members and our executive producers, Benny and Rob. [SPEAKER_02]: For some more monthly fee, you can support the podcast and get early access to episodes or in an ad free feed. [SPEAKER_02]: To support the show, check out home, Assistant.fm, I click Patreon in the menu. [SPEAKER_02]: Josh, thank you so much for joining us today.

[SPEAKER_02]: Where in the world are you joining us from? [SPEAKER_00]: Right outside a Denver color auto, United States.

[SPEAKER_02]: Very nice. [SPEAKER_02]: Now I only know like states roughly. [SPEAKER_02]: So where is like color art like is that South North? [SPEAKER_00]: It is kind of like it basically like middle west. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know of gesturing in the wrong direction on the screen. [SPEAKER_00]: But middle west, you know Rocky Mountains come right down through basically the middle-ish and it's where right on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains bow. [SPEAKER_00]: same.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I don't know latitude and longitude, whichever one is the up and down or the sort of horizontal one, we're kind of same latitude or longitude as like Pennsylvania essentially. [SPEAKER_00]: So we're kind of like okay, super north not super south. [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm guessing winter's there can still get a bit cold, but you get a nice summer as well. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think that's people talk about the weather here all the time. [SPEAKER_00]: It's great, it's dry.

[SPEAKER_00]: Someers are actually now where like super hot. [SPEAKER_00]: It's just sunny and hot all summer long. [SPEAKER_00]: And then we get we'd get in a short fall, but then winter is pretty good, right? [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't get super frigid like it does up north, but you know, we get some snow. [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of it goes into the mountains so the city itself is usually pretty okay. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a good place to live. [SPEAKER_02]: So how did you get here today?

[SPEAKER_02]: I guess obviously on the homes at podcast like what got you into home assistant?

[SPEAKER_00]: Um really it was I guess part of I like wrote down. [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I've always, I mean, I'm always like a, I like to tinker. [SPEAKER_00]: I like gadgets and stuff like that. [SPEAKER_00]: So I've always been a, you know, whether it's video game consoles and things or smart home stuff. [SPEAKER_00]: I've always dabbled in that. [SPEAKER_00]: And I went back, I was like, oh, yeah, probably like my smart home official journey is like 2019.

[SPEAKER_00]: I get a couple of like Google homes and my hue lights. [SPEAKER_00]: And that kind of, [SPEAKER_00]: is what I do for a while and not really knowing about anything like home assistant. [SPEAKER_00]: And then this year really was this whole journey or deal, slight mental breakdown a couple of times. [SPEAKER_00]: We had just gotten fiber in the neighborhood. [SPEAKER_00]: Actually, that's like a year ago and we switched to fiber, but

[SPEAKER_00]: quantum is our provider and they do this sort of like, you know, here use our gear, right? [SPEAKER_00]: You don't have your own stuff. [SPEAKER_00]: And so it was the first time I really jumped on to the service providers. [SPEAKER_00]: optical, like, modem basically, and they're, like, router.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it, like, it, I mean, worked, but then every two or three months, a lot of our, like, older Internet of things, IOT stuff would get, like, booted off of, of something, and they wouldn't reconnect, and it would be this whole, like,

[SPEAKER_00]: call the service guys no one knows everybody is like I don't know and they send a tag out and they they actually just like replace the the combined router that they had and and it would like things would reconnect and then two or three months later like same thing and after like three times of doing that they were like [SPEAKER_00]: Listen, man, we can't keep coming out and replacing your device. [SPEAKER_00]: Your stuff is old, and it just doesn't work.

[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody literally told me, you should just get new stuff. [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, I have half a dozen or more sonos speakers in this house and Google home to another fit in a security camera, my thermostat, you're telling me, replace all of that. [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, that doesn't make any sense. [SPEAKER_00]: I think you hear a suggestion, quantum, I really, really appreciate that. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, it was like, or you could just use your own gear.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, I'm going to do that, like, yes. [SPEAKER_00]: So like I talked to some of my friends and my one friend at my office. [SPEAKER_00]: He was like, you should get into the ubiquity, unify stuff because you can control all your things. [SPEAKER_00]: Because that was the issue. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like their gear is just a black box. [SPEAKER_00]: Like there's no settings. [SPEAKER_00]: I can tweak. [SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing.

[SPEAKER_00]: They made this change where there used to be a way where you could like suppress the five and six gigahertz and allow just 2.4 to let your old stuff connect and then and then it would resume the other bands and they like got rid of that feature and so like as far as I

[SPEAKER_00]: deeply technical person as much as I love this stuff, but as far as I could figure out, I was like, there's just some kind of like handshake thing going on where it's like, it can't, it's not letting these devices connect to, it's like trying to steer them to the five gigahertz, which they can't see, because that doesn't exist for them.

[SPEAKER_00]: So long story long, we switched over to unify gear. [SPEAKER_00]: And that was a whole journey I was not ready for because I definitely more of a, I've always been a plug and play sort of person. [SPEAKER_00]: And my friend said, yeah, he could just plug it in and it'll be fine. [SPEAKER_00]: And like I got it, plugged it in. [SPEAKER_00]: Cause it was like right when the dream route or seven was coming out and so I got that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, oh, all in one, it's, [SPEAKER_00]: You know, Wi-Fi 7, less than 300 bucks, like this is actually pretty great. [SPEAKER_00]: And then, like, my internet wasn't working. [SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't get it to, like, connect. [SPEAKER_00]: I learned about, like, now I have, like, a double-nat situation because the, um, [SPEAKER_00]: the like modem device is actually doing router functions for the internet service provider.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I've read it, chat, GPT, and YouTube have been like my best friends. [SPEAKER_00]: And eventually it was like, all right, I figured out have to put the modem in bridge mode. [SPEAKER_00]: That gets rid of that issue, that worked fine. [SPEAKER_00]: And then I realized as much as like, [SPEAKER_00]: The unify gear is amazing in terms of customizability. [SPEAKER_00]: In my home setup, it doesn't have the like.

[SPEAKER_00]: the range in terms of like strength of the radios that like some of my like out of the box from best-by devices had had and so I was like oh okay we actually I need to get like an access point for the basement and an access point for the top floor and so and then I was like oh now I need a bigger switch you know in the mechanical closet and oh they have POE so I need one [SPEAKER_00]: uh, my wife was like, are you going to tell him about your breakdown?

[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, I'll, I'll mention that, like, there was one day where, where, uh, I didn't know what set it off, something like just totally, wasn't working. [SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't get the internet up.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think it was when I tried to add in, like, uh, [SPEAKER_00]: a guest Wi-Fi or like do some of the the V-Land stuff and things just broke and I like I was like I need to fix this and I can't do anything but fix this and she was like alright I guess I'm watching the kids for five hours while you have a mini breakdown in the house she was not pleased with me but I got a fixed and um

[SPEAKER_00]: after learning how to use it more and like that steep learning curve um everything works great like it's just reliable uh I know issues none of my stuff's getting kicked off I learned how to do firewalls and VLAN separation and that was that was all like April may that that's happening of this year and the same friend who uh recommended that was like you should do home assistant

[SPEAKER_00]: Man, it's so much better than Google home. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, what do you mean? [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, yeah, like, if you like, unify where you can like, tinker and customize settings, like, you can do anything you want in home assistant. [SPEAKER_01]: And I like that you kept going back to this person, even after their advice that caused a breakdown.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they do give some solid advice, even if my, you know, knowledge base couldn't really handle it in first.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's what got me here and I relied on him because I was like, well, how do I do this on like a Raspberry Pi or like do I just get the home assisted green I figured like look into that and and he was just like just get a mini PC man like because at that point he knew I wanted to also try to like do a pie hole and he was like yeah, just do that and [SPEAKER_00]: go the proxmox route and run it in a virtual machine and like, what does that mean?

[SPEAKER_00]: And he's like, here, just like, look at this and gave me some info. [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, okay, and then I was like, looking at some of the be-link mini PCs that were pretty affordable. [SPEAKER_00]: And I like sent him a couple of links. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, what should I do? [SPEAKER_00]: And he's like, get this one. [SPEAKER_00]: It's got dual LAN, they got 2.5 gig.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, ports so you're you're covered for for that and it's like, I was like just under 200 bucks And so I like oh, yeah, like so got that. [SPEAKER_00]: I I'm not I don't know the guy at all, but I found was it Derek Seaman's tech blog and he has just like

[SPEAKER_00]: a blog and a step by step for like how do you install proxmox and then how do you install home assistant using helper scripts and you know I did the thing that probably everybody says like if you're going to use a helper script you should know what is in it or know what you're doing and it's like I have no idea I'm just following this guy's instructions and so you know just [SPEAKER_00]: turned my home into some secret Bitcoin mining machine for someone in another country.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know who there is. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's that got me set up. [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, I just followed the steps, did what he said. [SPEAKER_00]: And then next thing I know, I got proxmox on the mini PC. [SPEAKER_00]: I opened up the home assistant in a virtual [SPEAKER_00]: And it's bit like home assistant has been incredibly smooth.

[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like I'm lucky to have come to it where it is and it's current existence because in my hit it, probably like three, four, five years ago, I would have bounced off of it. [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, I can't do YAML. [SPEAKER_00]: I can't do, this is too complicated, not user friendly enough. [SPEAKER_00]: And now I feel like it hits that sweet spot for me. [SPEAKER_00]: We're like most of it is like, [SPEAKER_00]: really pretty good.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like user interface wise, it definitely takes figuring out and like, what does this mean? [SPEAKER_00]: What does that mean? [SPEAKER_00]: What's a helper? [SPEAKER_00]: What's a trigger ID and like all this stuff? [SPEAKER_00]: But once I've learned some of it, it's like, oh yeah, this makes sense. [SPEAKER_00]: This is pretty easy to use.

[SPEAKER_00]: And like any YAML or like stuff that I have to actually put in, I have the [SPEAKER_00]: moderately frustrating assistance of chat GPT or any of the other AI's where I just I just feed a question to them. [SPEAKER_00]: They give me yamble that's wrong. [SPEAKER_00]: I feed it back to them and say, hey, this is wrong. [SPEAKER_00]: They're like, oh, yeah, I totally got that wrong. [SPEAKER_00]: Let me fix it. [SPEAKER_00]: And we do that a couple of times back and forth.

[SPEAKER_00]: And eventually we get to the right thing. [SPEAKER_00]: And at this point, that's easier than me learning [SPEAKER_02]: Just proxmox give you, so when you sort of like you've got your homes and never running through proxmox, does that mean you're never running home is isn't yes, yeah, it's it's homeless isn't OS yeah in the VM yeah, that's great.

[SPEAKER_02]: So then you get access to all the addons as well. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so you get and yeah, you're using addons as well. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I've got, uh, let's see, um, like opening up, like companion half, what do I have? [SPEAKER_02]: Series add-ons, and then there's the hacks components. [SPEAKER_00]: Um, I got them, like I, that's a lot of like learning through YouTube and listening to your podcast for you guys and other, and like, oh, what's hacks?

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, let's spook and like getting those things and like adding it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I've got all my integrations where it's like, I have my August [SPEAKER_00]: ESP home stuff, Google Drive, hacks, my LG TVs, I have the MQTT, like mosquito, some weather steps, Philips Hue, Piehole, Pirate Weather, PlayStation, my thermostat, through Reem, figuring out how to get simply safe in here for a security was a leap of like figuring that out and following some instructions to capture something through like,

[SPEAKER_00]: the developer tools on the Google Chrome or something. [SPEAKER_00]: So no spook and unify. [SPEAKER_00]: That's kind of closer my integrations and stuff that I've got in there. [SPEAKER_02]: You must be that one guy that I assume was the PlayStation integration was made for. [SPEAKER_02]: Can you tell me what you're doing with that PlayStation integration? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely nothing. [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely. [SPEAKER_01]: I was wondering that there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely. [SPEAKER_00]: I think that it's the only thing it is, is it's cool to like see like. [SPEAKER_00]: you know, oh, when I turn my PlayStation on, I get a, I have a little button, mushroom card that's like, your PlayStation's on. [SPEAKER_00]: And if I click on it, I can see like what game is playing. [SPEAKER_00]: So right now, I'm the only one in my house that uses PlayStation at all. [SPEAKER_00]: So it means nothing.

[SPEAKER_00]: It does absolutely nothing, except it's cool to have. [SPEAKER_00]: And I love that there. [SPEAKER_00]: But I could like [SPEAKER_00]: You know, probably like five or six years from now when one of my sons is using playstation to like

[SPEAKER_00]: be a little bit of a monitor, like I can have some automations running like if PlayStation turns on, if someone's like trying to remote play to the to the PlayStation from their room at like midnight, maybe cutting them off or setting some kind of automation where, you know, maybe they'll get a little text to speech like Julian, you shouldn't be playing PlayStation right now. [SPEAKER_00]: Turn it off. [SPEAKER_00]: It's midnight.

[SPEAKER_02]: I've done a comment, there's so many different integration times, but there is a help or an entity can use, and I basically set up some rules to start, because I'm conscious of screen time for our kids, so when the TV is on, [SPEAKER_02]: and someone is in the living room and it's during a certain, like, when the kids are awake, and also from 7am to 7pm, will track how long, like, someone is watching the TV in the living room.

[SPEAKER_02]: So then at the end of the day, I can say, okay, someone's watching the TV for two hours today. [SPEAKER_02]: Generally, like, something that's on for the kids, all right. [SPEAKER_02]: So now I can sort of at the moment we're not automating it, but eventually like in the future, I can say, okay, this week you had X amount of hours of TV, let's cut it back or whatever. [SPEAKER_02]: You could probably do the same thing with PlayStation, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: If Indian's condition is PlayStation is on, and the TV is on, someone's playing the PlayStation, just count the number of hours it was active for. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and that's really cool. [SPEAKER_01]: Turn it off. [SPEAKER_01]: Just straight up, nope, you're done. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's funny.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you talked about all the different integrations you have in there and so on, like what anything cool and anything different I know you mentioned simply safe and before we're reported you were talking about the Philips Hue. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'd love to know what you're doing with with some of those things too. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think like my one of the things I saw probably on Reddit or like you know home assistant.

[SPEAKER_00]: you know, just starting out what do you do? [SPEAKER_00]: And some of the advice I read was like, pick like your one project like pick a project and like try to take that before you try to like spread yourself tooth in or on doing too many things. [SPEAKER_00]: And so I feel like the lighting stuff was my first big like, okay, that's like, [SPEAKER_00]: It'll feel really cool.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's really visible and I kind of have to get it right in a way that my wife will like appreciate and and like value it rather than like this. [SPEAKER_00]: And just so annoying. [SPEAKER_00]: Please stop. [SPEAKER_00]: You can't keep doing this to me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Which we have a little bit of that, but, so yeah, so like the hue lighting was like the first big project of like, you know, my like fantasy end goal is I want to be able to exist in my home and never touch a light switch, but have the lights do exactly what I want them to do all the time, and I don't know we're like, [SPEAKER_00]: 75% of the way there maybe at this point it's just pretty good.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it kind of opened up a like oh I need some like I need sensors to pair with this and so figuring out and doing some research around that and so I have like [SPEAKER_00]: I got some of the hue motion sensors, which anything hue is in my experience. [SPEAKER_00]: Like, usually for me, it's always been pretty reliable and solid performance-wise, but pricey. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like a motion sensor, like 50 bucks.

[SPEAKER_00]: A light is like, [SPEAKER_00]: 50 60 bucks and it's just like a PIR motion sensor like it's not anything fancy So they are pricey, but I like I try to remind myself.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like yeah, but I have few lights light bulbs that have gone through several moves and are like six plus years old and they still work great and so it's like from spending 50 or 60 bucks on a bulb that's going to last me a decade [SPEAKER_00]: And I do all the color, I love the like ambience and the color stuff so that I can we make cool scenes for the holidays and things. [SPEAKER_00]: But yes, it was like I got some sensors.

[SPEAKER_00]: I found Apollo, which I know is on your podcast. [SPEAKER_00]: I think I saw them on Reddit and you know the podcast was like really cool to listen to them. [SPEAKER_00]: And so I have like a couple of their sensors. [SPEAKER_00]: for like mill me to wave radar and those have been really, really useful.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so it's like setting up automations for the different rooms in the house, you know, when, you know, so it's kind of like not nothing super fancy like when someone walks into the room. [SPEAKER_00]: If it's during this time of day, activate this scene and when it's, you know, you know, at nighttime activate this scene and if it's between, you know, midnight and six a.m. [SPEAKER_00]: don't do anything because the cats don't need to turn the lights on for us.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, interesting. [SPEAKER_02]: So how do you manage the cats then? [SPEAKER_02]: Like, because I think like some, I think the Apollo devices come with little covers that you can put on the, or maybe it's not a polar bit. [SPEAKER_02]: One brand comes with little covers that you can put on the sensor to sort of shield at a certain height. [SPEAKER_02]: So that, you know, pets and, you know, cats don't trigger things if you had to try and position sensors in a certain way.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the cats are the being of our of our lighting smart home existence. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: That's fine. [SPEAKER_00]: So it we've just tried to get creative and it's been a little difficult. [SPEAKER_00]: Some of it is like sensor placement.

[SPEAKER_00]: So like, [SPEAKER_00]: one of the hue sensors I have like I got on a ladder and it's basically like up on the almost like on our ceiling so then it basically doesn't the field of view doesn't hit the ground level but you know it hits if like a human is walking it'll catch us but it won't catch a cat.

[SPEAKER_00]: There was a fun exercise of me on my hands and knees crawling up and down our staircases to see if it would register me and getting it high enough so that it didn't pick me up pretending to get your cat. [SPEAKER_00]: So I did that. [SPEAKER_00]: Um, but um, like our basement, I'm in my basement now and this has been the hardest part because they come down here a lot and this is where I have the Apollo. [SPEAKER_00]: I have their MSR to millimeter wave radars.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've got two of them that basically covers the whole main basement. [SPEAKER_00]: This is kind of like an office and then there's just like a big room that's got our TV and and like all the fun stuff and books and things and [SPEAKER_00]: the cats play down there. [SPEAKER_00]: They've got a huge cat tree in any time they come in the basement, you know, it detects presence.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there's really like there was no way of filtering them out without filtering people out and then leading to this thing where it's just so unreliable. [SPEAKER_00]: And so just just when I got a couple of new few sensors, what I've switched to is [SPEAKER_00]: The Apollo sensors are there just to basically detect presence and turn the lights off but not to turn them on. [SPEAKER_00]: And then I've got in the staircase, there's just a PIR hue sensor that is high enough.

[SPEAKER_00]: The cats don't trigger it, but anyone any human walking down the stairs turns it on. [SPEAKER_00]: And then this office door, I just have a contact sensor on that when you open the door, it also turns the lights on. [SPEAKER_00]: And so those are the, like, that's the work around. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like I had to get more sensors to basically have it. [SPEAKER_00]: So that if I walk down the basement stairs, the lights, and I love.

[SPEAKER_00]: Home assistant for this like I do like a three second fade up.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it just feels like they're just kind of like waking up for you rather than like just turning on, which is cool, but not as cool and so they'll, you know, you're walking down the steps and it's like by the time you reach the bottom of the stairs, the lights have like turned on for you and then when you're down here, the millimeter wave radars keep the lights from going off because they detect that you're down here.

[SPEAKER_00]: But if I go into this office and I'm like working and then, uh, you know, there's no one in there. [SPEAKER_00]: The lights will go off. [SPEAKER_00]: And so then if I open the door again, the lights come back on. [SPEAKER_00]: And uh, I have a, I have like, I had to do like a sensor group because we also have a bathroom that, uh, it is attached and the, the one area I'm still probably working on a little bit.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, if you go into the bathroom, [SPEAKER_00]: the motion sensor in there, which is another just hue motion sensor. [SPEAKER_00]: We'll just turn the bathroom lights on and I have that just on a more dumb kind of like, if you don't detect motion for five minutes turn yourself turn the bathroom lights off. [SPEAKER_00]: So unless you're sitting very still for a while in the bathroom, it serves good enough.

[SPEAKER_00]: But then I was like, oh yeah, but then [SPEAKER_00]: The millimeter wave radars don't detect you, and so it'll turn the basement lights off. [SPEAKER_00]: And then when you walk out, there's no trigger to turn them back on. [SPEAKER_00]: What do I do here? [SPEAKER_00]: And so the work around was like, okay, if I do a sensor group where it's like, basement occupancy is basically the millimeter wave radar is plus the bathroom sensor.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if that, if those are all clear for like five minutes, then you can turn the lights off. [SPEAKER_00]: But if any one of them has any motion or detection, then keep the basement lights on. [SPEAKER_00]: And so I think that kind of will solve that issue enough for now. [SPEAKER_00]: So that, that was kind of the, the, the regular role in figuring that out and trying to filter out the cats.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's interesting because the only other thing I could think of is like the positioning sense. [SPEAKER_02]: I think your solution is fantastic. [SPEAKER_02]: I was, my would next try to thought what to be and I'm going to have to get cameras in the house and use like not the plug realin key. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just buying a device where I link myself. [SPEAKER_02]: So I know it has a feature. [SPEAKER_02]: You bigger to spot the same thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: But in the cameras they have the AI detection built into the camera so you can say, okay, what is a person? [SPEAKER_02]: What is an animal? [SPEAKER_02]: And then you would have a, you know, a camera in the corner when a person's detected okay now turn the lights on as opposed to an animal right, but then you got to have cameras in your house and that sort of yeah gets a bit creepy.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we have a couple of security cameras through simply safe, but nothing that does anything unless you're like actually viewing it. [SPEAKER_00]: And so the whole camera security system and there's a couple of other areas like I want to get like a a noss for like a some kind of media server and things like those are all future plans. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah, I'm just staying.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and the I just got the I think I was mentioning I just finally upgraded to the the huge bridge pro just came out and I'm excited to see so the I mean the big selling point or the reason why I had to do it is just the the limit for the old bridge you could only have

[SPEAKER_00]: It was like 50 light's lesser minus 10 or 12 sensors or something like that and bridges combined and so we had kind of hit the limit at the house because I've got the recessed lighting in the basement is all hue and then bulbs throughout the house and we've got a couple sensors a couple switches and we really had to limit that I've got the [SPEAKER_00]: the play, gradient, TV, light strip, which is up to sync up with the TV, which is just the coolest thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's so fun. [SPEAKER_00]: So we were at our limit as I heard, I had been waiting for the new one to come out. [SPEAKER_00]: And so I napped it as soon as it came out, it just got here Thursday.

[SPEAKER_00]: And luckily,

[SPEAKER_00]: Upgrade or update for migrating to the new bridge so that it didn't break all of my homeless system stuff and it didn't which is fantastic and so made the switch but the coolest thing [SPEAKER_00]: is they're implementing what they call they're like motion aware tech. [SPEAKER_00]: And so I guess they're using the the ZIGB like mesh and then detecting like you can select like three or four bulbs that make a shape basically between them and then it detects

[SPEAKER_00]: to turn lights on and off. [SPEAKER_00]: So you don't even need a sensor. [SPEAKER_00]: You just can walk into a room and if you're in between lights, you know, it'll detect presence and turn the lights on for you. [SPEAKER_00]: which is really cool. [SPEAKER_00]: The only problem right now, which fingers crossed, I think it's gonna get fixed is right now, it's not like a feature in, it doesn't show up as a binary motion sensor entity in home assistant.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so you have to like go to the hue app to use the motion areas and to set it up. [SPEAKER_00]: And then you have to try to set up a schedule through the hue app. [SPEAKER_00]: which is not as flexible as setting up automations through home assistant and you can't do the same kinds of, you know, you can't link it to anything really else.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I've tested it out in a couple areas of the house just through the hue app and it seems pretty reliable for turning the lights on. [SPEAKER_00]: But then it, you know, it's just a, you know, it gets triggered turns the lights on [SPEAKER_00]: So it needs the assistance of other sensors and like really home assistant automations. [SPEAKER_00]: And I'd just this morning, someone was posting on the GitHub that they're working on it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe by the end of this weekend, they'll have it because the founder, or one of you,

[SPEAKER_00]: was on Reddit and he acknowledged that like the motion aware areas are part of their public API, they're just the only thing that's off limits is like using them for security notifications because that's like their subscription service that they want to handle. [SPEAKER_00]: and so I'm like, cool, I don't need security notifications. [SPEAKER_00]: I just need a motion sensor entity that I can use to trigger automations.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if that gets implemented, I'm kind of really excited to see what I can do with it at the house with all our lights.

[SPEAKER_02]: Have you been able to test with your cats or anything like is it like just no, is it sensitive enough to know that a cat has [SPEAKER_00]: Now, you can dial through the hue app that you have like a sensitivity bar that you can dial up or down and I haven't done extensive testing with the cats, but it depends on where where the lights are and so far I have the sensitivity kind of medium or a little low and it seems like it's catching us, but maybe not the cats, but okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't done extensive testing. [SPEAKER_00]: I think it won't be super great for that. [SPEAKER_00]: I think I'll still need kind of other workarounds to kind of filter out cats. [SPEAKER_00]: But I'm a that's that's that's life.

[SPEAKER_02]: Do you know if, like, how quick is it to respond to you walking into a very black, what of my pain points of, you know, what am I to lighting is if I walk into a room and the motion sensor hasn't turned light on straight away, it frustrates me, right? [SPEAKER_02]: Like it should be instant that a light is turning on. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, how it's really good.

[SPEAKER_00]: that was that was that was that was the thing I noticed most like so I mean listening to you guys I've been in this war with myself of like man I got all these highlights and I'm on the Zig being at work, but like I really want to go try Z-Wave and like I could get the new Z-WA is that the Z-WA that they antenna from home like that sounds so cool and do some zoos stuff

[SPEAKER_00]: mostly for like, I know Zigbee is on the like 2.4 gigahertz band and I don't want to clutter that.

[SPEAKER_00]: It would be great to switch to Z-Wave, but I'm so deep into the Hue ecosystem. [SPEAKER_00]: So I was like trying to feel like, what's faster? [SPEAKER_00]: Zigbee or Z-Wave? [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know, mixed results. [SPEAKER_00]: ChatGBT tells me Zigbee is going to be faster, but I've seen other people post it like, IZ-Wave is a lot faster than the Zigbee.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the biggest upgrade with the Hugh Pro Bridge has been like how snappy it is that like I didn't realize how kind of delayed the old bridge was for me right because I think it was just

[SPEAKER_00]: I kind of like I set the the fade up in the homelessness and automations for like three seconds so that it's pretty quick but still enjoyable like and I didn't realize that part of the short fade up is because there was like a bit of a like registered delay so it actually takes a little longer and so like I had gotten used to this rhythm.

[SPEAKER_00]: of like how slowly or it would come on in like the way that felt good and then I put the new bridge in and I walk into a room and like oh those lights came on a little too fast like that that's that's much faster and if you set it so like no delay or no fade up I mean they just they're instant and the motion aware within the the hue ecosystem has been like really snappy and so that I've been like very pleasantly surprised by [SPEAKER_01]: That's very cool.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was going to say like, how accurate is it? [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I know we were talking about accuracy with regard to your cats versus humans, but how accurate is it in in general in terms of capturing everything like it seems like it's. [SPEAKER_01]: that's pretty good from what you're just doing. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it is. [SPEAKER_00]: It really, I think, so it really, I've only done like a little testing because I've had it for like 48 hours at this point.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it really depends on the light set up. [SPEAKER_00]: So like, a miss, it tells you not to do this, but I was like, let me try it anyway. [SPEAKER_00]: I tried in my bathroom just to see if that could be the motion aware area could be the bathroom, but I just have a vanity that just has four lights, like, within two feet directly next to each other.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so if you set those lights as it, [SPEAKER_00]: like the three-dimensional shape that it makes is just a straight line by the lights, and so it doesn't capture anything. [SPEAKER_00]: And so it didn't work at all. [SPEAKER_00]: Like I walked into the bathroom, there's no interruption in the RF field or whatever they're measuring, the ZIGB field, and so it did nothing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then when you follow their instructions, where it's like you basically want to create as big of a three-dimensional shape as you can, [SPEAKER_00]: And so, and you're not limited to the room within which you're actually wanting to turn the lights on. [SPEAKER_00]: It could be like any light in your house, basically.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so, we have sort of like a [SPEAKER_00]: I don't like a donut shaped house where there's a center column where all the there's walls but then it's kind of like rooms are like a donut around there and so I was able to like take we have a couple lamps in the living room that are like staggering at different heights and then the entry way where the garage door is has like a ceiling light so it's like I'll use that entry way light and like.

[SPEAKER_00]: three of the lamp lights and it creates a more three-dimensional shape, but I'll only control the living room lights with that. [SPEAKER_00]: And it's it's it's been working pretty darn reliable. [SPEAKER_00]: The only thing that hasn't been fun is it's still just housed into Hugh App.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's like, yeah, you walk [SPEAKER_00]: According to the huge schedule, not home assistant, and then, you know, right now, I think the setting is like, after 15 minutes, it turns a lights off and it's like, so my wife was watching TV yesterday and she goes into the room, the lights turn on, she's great, and then it turned the lights off on her after 15 minutes, she's like, the lights went off, like, sorry, I'll just turn this off right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: She was like, because once she was there, she was like, I'm just like waving my arms and they didn't go back on and I was like, yeah, I think you need to actually like there needs to be like a pretty bold or brisk amount of movement to trigger it. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not it doesn't seem to capture things as subtly as something like a millimeter wave radar would. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I know you just mentioned Zuz so I need to do a little plug here.

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[SPEAKER_02]: For the best prices on all suits products, head over to the smartesthouse.com. [SPEAKER_02]: That's the smartesthouse.com. [SPEAKER_01]: All right, so, you know, when it comes to you and light switches and so on and so forth, however you, how are you using those? [SPEAKER_01]: What are you, and actually how do you find those at the integrations between them? [SPEAKER_00]: The, the light switches? [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like the ones you have in your, your, your hub today.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I use their dimmer switch to control them so we kind of just put them on the they have their little like dimmer switch their little remote and so I just kind of put those next to the actual wall switch. [SPEAKER_00]: If I could like build my house from scratch, I would like actually get some in the in the wall stuff so that it people can't turn the lights on and off with the switch and cut power to them and Because that's the only problem with you, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: As soon as you cut power to them. [SPEAKER_02]: Then we emotion like go away as well. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, then it's gone.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, when we're in the house, like the family knows like don't touch the lights, which is if you want to turn the lights off, you know, you do the [SPEAKER_00]: But like whenever we have guests or whatever they'll flip things on and off, you know, as they should, you know, make themselves comfortable. [SPEAKER_00]: But so I haven't, haven't solved for that exactly.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think is to, you know, open the, the switch, the actual switch and put some kind of relays in there that can take. [SPEAKER_00]: I know Hugh at one point made those, I'm sure they're expensive and I think you could get [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe Shelley or other kind of brands do those kinds of things where we're just like [SPEAKER_00]: Keep power running, no matter where you toggle, or switch. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think Digipler, OK, Travis, made fun of me for suggesting just putting tape over the lights, which is right. [SPEAKER_02]: So people when they go to touch the lights, which is basically, oh, actually, it's, yeah, I'm supposed to touch that, right? [SPEAKER_02]: But yes, I think Shelley is probably the answer to that now, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: I think with Shelley switch, she can sort of say, OK, if the switches toggled, don't cut power, but send a command to homes to turn the heat light off or on the toggle, yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Right now, it's working pretty good, most of the time. [SPEAKER_00]: So.

[SPEAKER_00]: uh... and really the the automation thing like with home assistant like it the point is like no one even thinks to touch the switch and we've sort of it's been going on for long enough now that when we exist at home uh... and like something goes wrong which is rare we're like wait why is it dark what's going on and we don't it that's like i don't even think to go and flip the light switch anymore because uh... it's just supposed to happen which is what i want i do want to get off

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, second, but I do have a question for you. [SPEAKER_02]: So you've got as many light bulbs, just like it's over 50 because you needed the new hardware. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, we've got over 50 or just above 50 light bulbs. [SPEAKER_00]: And then we've got another 10 or so like switches plus sensors in there. [SPEAKER_00]: So I think I'm at like 65 or 70 actual objects or devices. [SPEAKER_02]: Are you using color?

[SPEAKER_02]: Because I know like Hugh is very good at color. [SPEAKER_02]: What are you using color around the house when? [SPEAKER_00]: Um, it's great for like, so during the day, it's just like a warm or not orange, but like a war like this, this color kind of lighting. [SPEAKER_00]: We don't like the like cold, fluorescenty light. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's just like just regular lights.

[SPEAKER_00]: But then during night time hours, they have like, he does have their scenes that like preloaded on their app, which is what I still use the app for like the easiest thing is. [SPEAKER_00]: set up a scene in hue, then it shows up in home assistant, just give it a nice alias or rename it for my use and then use that scene in my automations rather than just an on-off command or something it's like activate this scene or that scene.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so during night time, we use what they call, it's called star light and it's just kind of like these purple and light pink like it just kind of like a nice twilight sort of night light thing that's that's not as jarring on the eyes that's great and then we do all of our like we've created our own like holiday stuff that's fun so like you know changing the lights for Halloween.

[SPEAKER_00]: Christmas and fall to like a bunch of like orange and purple and you know yellow for Halloween and red and green and blue for Christmas and Hanukkah and things like that and so we do all of that where those are more those aren't automated in the house those are just like we can hit the dimmer switch to activate a fun scene if we want. [SPEAKER_00]: but I have our front porch lights. [SPEAKER_00]: There's just some recess bulbs on our front porch, and so I just put hubobs in there.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, I don't know if these should go outside, but it's pretty sheltered from the Elements. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's see, and they haven't broken in two or three years, so they're working.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I have the it's based on month and that's that's our front port light porch lights are automated through home assistant they go on at sunset and they turn off at like right before midnight so they're not on all night but just kind of like during the evening a little bit and if it's like basically if it's like I think [SPEAKER_00]: March through September. [SPEAKER_00]: It's just like normal lights go on. [SPEAKER_00]: But then for the month of October, the scene is Halloween.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it'll turn on like the fun Halloween lights. [SPEAKER_00]: And then for November, it's like a fall scene. [SPEAKER_00]: For December, it's like Christmas lighting. [SPEAKER_00]: And then for the winter, there's like a cool winter that are like blues and stuff. [SPEAKER_00]: And so that's really, that's cool. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's nice.

[SPEAKER_02]: All right, so you've got your lights, a very messy setup there, what I'll see you automating in, oh, I'm just now I know you've got sonals in there if you've done any automations around music. [SPEAKER_00]: I haven't done, I haven't, I want to delve into music assistance and kind of get into that world, I haven't yet.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't do any automation using the sonos [SPEAKER_00]: play around with like the text to speech and just kind of like message ourselves throughout the house or do something funny. [SPEAKER_00]: But I use the whether the sonos is playing or not to like activate certain things. [SPEAKER_00]: So probably one of like it's like tons of people do it. [SPEAKER_00]: It's probably it's super basic.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it's still one of the coolest my favorite automations is [SPEAKER_00]: in the basement out there is like our good TV and it's the one with the hue light strips and a nice sono system. [SPEAKER_00]: And so I have a like movie lighting set up so that whenever home assistant detects that like the blue ray player or my place station or the TV is on or playing through the sono speaker for a certain amount of time.

[SPEAKER_00]: it transitions into movie lighting where all the lights like back like that one behind me dim down and then go off and it's just the two lights right in front of the TV better like a very low orange for a little bit of lighting but no no glare or reflection and it kind of just transitions it into a movie or watching mode and then you just have the TV [SPEAKER_00]: And that is like, that's one of my, like, that just is happy for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just like, oh, yeah, this is so cool. [SPEAKER_02]: You're making me like really jealous. [SPEAKER_02]: I used to have get every downlight being a dresser, but I was renting and I had no choice. [SPEAKER_02]: Now that I, you know, got my own house, I had the first thing I did was replaced all the switches that made them smart. [SPEAKER_02]: But now I can't individually address each downlight. [SPEAKER_02]: It's all or nothing.

[SPEAKER_02]: And now I'm making me wish I could, you know, [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's, it's, I feel very blessed for that. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, it is really cool. [SPEAKER_00]: I want one light off, one light on. [SPEAKER_00]: I can mess around to whatever I want. [SPEAKER_00]: And then like the notification through home assistant for reminders have been really useful. [SPEAKER_00]: So like I set up like a because we have trash every week, but recycling is every other week.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so just setting up a notification that pops to my phone and my computer through the companion app that just is like, hey, it's just garbage or hey, it's garbage and recycling and like figuring that out. [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, I think the one my wife probably likes the best that I don't do anything with anymore, but I was like the proudest of like maybe figuring out is I was like, you know what?

[SPEAKER_00]: Since I can notify her, it would be cool to just send her just like a like positive notification of like, hey, just reminder you're awesome. [SPEAKER_00]: I love you, but to do it at random. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's just like once a day at random, she gets this message. [SPEAKER_00]: And through some probably clunky chat GPT work, we figured out where I was like, okay, I can create a, what is it? [SPEAKER_00]: The date time, Boolean or whatever.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then I created an automation with a script that at 1 a.m. [SPEAKER_00]: every day sets that date time to a random time throughout the day. [SPEAKER_00]: And then there's another automation that's like,

[SPEAKER_00]: happens or whatever, send this notification to Christina's phone or whatever. [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's like at a random point every day, she gets this message and she's like, I really like that. [SPEAKER_00]: And so that one would be some brownie points. [SPEAKER_00]: That's really cool.

[SPEAKER_02]: But what's a prompt to use means like he's saying, like to touch me, like I want you to say, I love you or like some ways of information, like you've got like anything in particular that you're like trying to convey across or is it just a [SPEAKER_00]: It was, I mean, I typed up the message, like I was just like, you know, I was just, you know, thinking of my wife and like, you know, words of affirmation and being appreciated are certainly her love language.

[SPEAKER_00]: Whereas like for me, it's like by me, a tech toy, that's my love language. [SPEAKER_00]: And so, it was just more, it's exactly, yeah, that's what I'm seeing. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, get me another son, no speaker.

[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, so I was just kind of like, yeah, what would be a nice message to send her, and I kind of just thought of one that would be meaningful to her and type it in, and then had to make sure it was like, short enough that it shows up and she can read the whole thing, because they're not, I don't, I haven't, like, they're not very interactable. [SPEAKER_00]: And so at first it was too long and she would like touch it. [SPEAKER_00]: And then it would kind of disappear.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then she's like, I don't know what it's at. [SPEAKER_00]: And so I was like, okay, let me get a little shorter. [SPEAKER_00]: So it all shows up. [SPEAKER_00]: The only thing I wish I could do is change that message all the time because right now it's just the same message. [SPEAKER_00]: But it would be, I don't know how to do that without a chaotic amount of automations or different messages.

[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like, [SPEAKER_02]: You could use a template, so you could set a variable in the automation with a whole bunch of random messages that you've like you've pre-typeed out and then you're just using a template you would then set that to a variable which is an array and then your message would be choose a random message from that array and every time the automation runs it would randomly pick one of those messages and would be sent.

[SPEAKER_01]: you are amazing this is I like that you're writing this down. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you're actually taking me out. [SPEAKER_01]: Fantastic. [SPEAKER_00]: No, it's like I'm so new to this.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like there's still so like I love home assistant in that like I feel like I'm just scratched the surface like figuring out [SPEAKER_00]: The choose function or trigger IDs, I do just dabble with helpers a little bit and like just that has been like exponentially making things more possible and like I didn't even I'm like a template a variable right what's this okay I have I have homework now and like if I can make that happen.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, and I use it for myself, so for my kids, so that I've mentioned it before, I have an automation where the Amazon Echo in the morning will announce to the kids you need to bring in the bottles out of the bedroom. [SPEAKER_02]: But I don't want the same message every morning, right? [SPEAKER_02]: So it ran like I've, [SPEAKER_02]: Credits like I've got chapter page generates some random funny messages, and it will just randomly choose one every morning.

[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, as soon as they walk into the living room, she will announce, hey, the milk bottles need rescuing or whatever the funny sentence she's got for the day is. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's all powered by a template. [SPEAKER_02]: Um, the kids don't listen to her anymore. [SPEAKER_02]: Like if that started like for the first few weeks it was great now my two-year-old this morning He said silly lexer right like and just refused to acknowledge that he didn't need to do it.

[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah [SPEAKER_02]: So we're going to miss, but it does work. [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, you can do that. [SPEAKER_02]: Otherwise, you could, yeah, if you've got checked your details, I mean, integrated into home Mrs. isn't really good, give it a prompt. [SPEAKER_02]: And you can actually ask in the prompt, you can say limit it to, you know, 200 characters or make sure you don't exceed 200 characters and then whatever it spits out should be within that limit.

[SPEAKER_00]: that's awesome. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I haven't, I haven't, you know, I've listed you guys as like one day. [SPEAKER_00]: I haven't integrated any AI stuff into home assistant yet. [SPEAKER_00]: My extent has just been a web browser conversation with chat GPT or Claude to help me like figure out something.

[SPEAKER_00]: But like, [SPEAKER_00]: I think, especially with like the voice edition or preview edition, like that, I was like, okay, I'm like, the dream is to have my own local, you know, home assistant sort of AI basically, and I'm like, all right, like, I can see that, like in the next five to ten years, I feel like it will be possible to have that operating, I hope, and that would be really cool.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think I think it's going to happen. [SPEAKER_01]: It's just a matter of how long, right? [SPEAKER_01]: It's, uh, uh, I'm, I'm mostly here for it, I think. [SPEAKER_00]: I just love the idea of like, you know, having your own little, you know, literally like your own little Jarvis, you know, that you can just use to, hey, can you do this? [SPEAKER_00]: Can you run that? [SPEAKER_00]: Can you check on this or whatever, you know, and having it be local. [SPEAKER_00]: That's.

[SPEAKER_00]: like this the home assistant piece like I feel like it it touched on something that I didn't know I was still holding on to and I was like oh yeah like I'm just so tired of relying on the cloud of relying on like streaming services and all this stuff like an even reignited my like I need to get back into just like my movie or tv show blue rays and stuff where it's like

[SPEAKER_00]: I just want to have it all here so no one can take it away from me or if someone shuts down something, it stops working and you know like I mean my I was I'm thinking of at some point we're going to ditch the we just have a couple Google home minis to use as we don't do anything other than ask them random questions sometimes and just use it to like hey Google

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and I'm just like, you know, but it, that adds like if we go through Google, the response time is so much slower, um, and it feels like Google in particular has just been. [SPEAKER_00]: kind of on the downward slide. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I mean, it is what, like, September, October, 2025. [SPEAKER_02]: And I think the past few months, yeah, it's been in the news right that Google Home has had a lot of issues going on at it.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think Google have acknowledged it. [SPEAKER_02]: I suspect it's related to their new Gemini in the Home, or Google Home.

[SPEAKER_02]: So AI that they're bringing in. [SPEAKER_02]: I think they're doing a lot of background changes, which is sort of, [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, affecting it, it will get better, but, you know, this is Google right, like known for killing things randomly. [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, and outside of like, we are, I don't know if I'll ever get out of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I am, I am, we are roped into the Apple ecosystem, unfortunately, you know, and I love my Apple devices, but like, [SPEAKER_00]: as we're getting more stuff in the home. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, if it doesn't let me integrate it into home assistance, I don't want it. [SPEAKER_00]: Like we have, we had the the nest combined smoke and carbon dioxide.

[SPEAKER_00]: And now they just continued them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they don't really integrate into home assistance. [SPEAKER_00]: They won't let you. [SPEAKER_00]: And it's just like, why? [SPEAKER_00]: Come on, man. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a smoke detectors. [SPEAKER_00]: be a part of my system. [SPEAKER_00]: And it sucks because it's a really, it's a sleek product. [SPEAKER_00]: It looks good. [SPEAKER_00]: I haven't found another smoke detector that looks as cool as that or like, you know, aesthetically pleasing.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the thing we love the most is just the little nightlight feature that it has, where if you walk underneath it, it just gives you a little illumination. [SPEAKER_00]: And it's just like, [SPEAKER_00]: now these it's just a ticking clock for I think they're all going to expire for us in the next five or six years our models and so it's like all right well then we'll have to find something else but we're going to ride that until it's done.

[SPEAKER_01]: Dries we have to wall where it does that right and and again I'm at the cost but I think I literally think I have like four days left [SPEAKER_01]: uh, fire alarms right for the house and sorry, smoke alarms right and and same thing right and it's like I I do like the nest products and I like I want to get another one, but no, no integration and honestly there is just going backwards with stuff right and so yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: that and like, like figuring out what stuff is more local and what stuff is like dialing somewhere very far away. [SPEAKER_00]: Like that was something that I was like, oh, wow. [SPEAKER_00]: Like once I got the piehole running and I could see how many times our LG TVs were trying to like call to Netflix or phone somewhere else and I was like, yeah, I don't need any of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why are you doing that? [SPEAKER_02]: You pick what is really really showing, you know, all the network traffic as well, like, like, why is that echo using so much data today, like, yep.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can do the map where it tells you like where things are calling and I was like I figured it out because when I was setting up firewalls and stuff, you know, that you can block specific regions and I was, you know, I was like, all right, well, I mean, who's good no one really is anyone going to mess with our house and like cyber attack us like probably not, but like who are the offenders that we have to most worry about it's like, well, okay, I can block North Korea like they don't need I don't need anything to go to North Korea.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then, like, you know, I was like, oh, like, nothing against China and its people.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, okay, that's one, I could block China. [SPEAKER_00]: And when I blocked the network traffic from China, all of a sudden, the camera function on our automatic pet feeders didn't work anymore. [SPEAKER_00]: And so I was like, oh, interesting. [SPEAKER_00]: And so I unlocked them because I still want to use the what we have. [SPEAKER_00]: Pet Libro, automatic pet feeders, and they have little cameras so you can see when the cats are eating their food and stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it was just like, oh, wow, to use to watch that video, it is dialing over to some server in China where it's cloud services are based to give us that. [SPEAKER_00]: And it just was like, oh, yeah, like, I mean, we'll keep these until they get busted.

[SPEAKER_00]: But next time [SPEAKER_00]: Anyone, it's just sort of like, why does my pet feeder need to go through a cloud somewhere, you know, like I don't the other side of the world kind of thing yeah the other side of the world, you know

[SPEAKER_02]: So is that local as well? [SPEAKER_02]: So even if you're in the same network, like I could understand if you know you're out of the house and it needs to go through a third party, but even if you're sitting right in that location, there is no there's it doesn't do anything local it's like the only way to look at the video is to go through their clouds, so it's like

[SPEAKER_00]: the feeder and my phone connected to the same exact network and yet when I open the app for the feeder on my phone to watch the camera because you can only do it in their app. [SPEAKER_00]: It's dialing through the cloud services that they've got which are okay to somewhere in China and it's like, oh, I don't honey that. [SPEAKER_00]: I want things to be more local.

[SPEAKER_00]: which is the dream of getting like a noss that I can just get all of my music all of like like upload all of my like video content have maybe like a jellyfish or a plex where it's like yeah I don't need to worry about oh yeah Netflix or Amazon Prime got rid of this movie I wanted to watch that I watched you know a couple months ago and now I don't have it anymore you know [SPEAKER_02]: So it sounds like your ubiquity, gateway to home is now turning into a gateway into self-hosting.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you're going to be. [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yeah, yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: I think I'm like, I hope my wife doesn't listen to this podcast because I'm like, I think the future is going to be like, probably like a little mini rack in the like mechanical closet. [SPEAKER_00]: Where I, you know, I can have a bunch of stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: I do want to get [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I want to ditch simply safe at some point because it's another one of those like cloud and subscription and all the cameras are Wi-Fi on the 2.4 band and so they're not even it's like anytime there's an alert or a notification it has to like

[SPEAKER_00]: reconnect these cameras that are battery powered to the wi-fi and it's like there's always like you miss you know sections of the video and lad and it's fine for me just wanting to like snoop on the house when we're on vacation or something like that but for an actual like security purpose it's not very great and so I'd like to go [SPEAKER_00]: either like the real link or if I win the lottery, the unify camera sort of system.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I can get them like POE throughout the house because we are fairly decently hardwired in the home. [SPEAKER_00]: And maybe I could eventually run some cables or have someone run some cables if we ever did some remodeling. [SPEAKER_00]: And that would be, those are like some of the dream add-ons as we move into [SPEAKER_00]: That's cool. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, yeah, even in terms of that, like first of all, the self-hosting community has become so large, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's cool because you should just be a bunch of people that did everything themselves and like maybe you're on Reddit, maybe you're not whatever. [SPEAKER_01]: And like, but now there's actually communities dedicated to this. [SPEAKER_01]: And first of all, I'm all here for it as someone that hosts a lot of stuff for myself, whatever. [SPEAKER_01]: But, [SPEAKER_01]: it's actually not super hard to get started, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: You were talking about those little like beelink little, little mini PCs and stuff like that cheap and cheerful get a couple of those and can play around with those, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And it doesn't, it doesn't have to be beelink obviously, but there's a few brands that are that are doing that. [SPEAKER_01]: I've got [SPEAKER_01]: I think I was talking about a while ago for my NAS. [SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to upgrade to, you know, kind of an SSD based NAS.

[SPEAKER_01]: I got a little mini-link NAS box, I think the box itself was like a couple hundred bucks. [SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, yeah, it's awesome.

[SPEAKER_01]: And obviously the drive's cost way more than that. [SPEAKER_01]: But it's still pretty sweet, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And then the barrier to entry is getting much lower and I think it's awesome. [SPEAKER_00]: And the community like that that is the thing that like for home assistant really like I was like this is where I want to exist because yeah I mean every community has people that suck I mean that that's just anywhere on the planet earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: But like I was just surprised by how many people like on Reddit, on GitHub, if I have an issue or something, or anybody I talk to are like exactly like YouTube, where it's like filled like a second ago, it's like, oh, you could try this and this and this and I'm like, oh great. [SPEAKER_00]: I post a question on Reddit or a problem and like usually 85 to 90% of the comments are like actually helpful supportive.

[SPEAKER_00]: Someone takes their time to like have you tried this or like did you check these settings or tried this?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's just such a like supportive and positive community and like [SPEAKER_00]: The toxicity level is pretty low compared to some other communities that I've been a part of and and I'm just like this is great like this is exactly For me anyway, it's like this is kind of the the idyllic like this is kind of what the internet was supposed to do supposed to like bring people together

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we're like, you know, like even here, it's like three guys like Australia, Canada, United States and we're just like chatting about stuff and having a good time and helping each other and it's like, this is the best. [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I love home assistant for that. [SPEAKER_01]: No, and that's amazing. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it is, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And that community is really what drives a lot of the projects to you.

[SPEAKER_01]: And, and home assistant itself's vision is around what the community wants or where they want to go and that kind of thing. [SPEAKER_01]: Obviously they do some of their own stuff too, but yeah, it is pretty, yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: It is pretty cool. [SPEAKER_01]: You're right, it is very unique in that sense. [SPEAKER_01]: You still have a few black sheep there.

[SPEAKER_01]: Less than less than how full let's call it, but for the most part, on average, it's more of a hit than I miss, right? [SPEAKER_00]: I'm a psychologist by trade and so the communities that I operate in in my professional sphere are all other psychologists, mental health practitioners.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are literally supposed to be the people who have the most empathy and appreciation for other people and like some of the listsers and communities that I've been a part of through psychology are just like, oh my god, this is like horrible. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to be here and some like, yeah, home assisted blows them mostly out of the water and I was like, there's something wrong with this. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know about that. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, to be fair.

[SPEAKER_00]: To be fair, to be fair, to be fair. [SPEAKER_00]: To be fair. [SPEAKER_00]: To be fair. [SPEAKER_02]: To be fair. [SPEAKER_02]: To be fair. [SPEAKER_02]: To be fair. [SPEAKER_02]: To be fair. [SPEAKER_02]: To be fair. [SPEAKER_02]: To be fair. [SPEAKER_02]: To be fair. [SPEAKER_02]: To be fair. [SPEAKER_02]: To be fair. [SPEAKER_02]: To be fair. [SPEAKER_00]: To be fair. [SPEAKER_00]: To be fair. [SPEAKER_00]: To be fair. [SPEAKER_00]: To be fair. [SPEAKER_00]: To be fair.

[SPEAKER_00]: To be fair. [SPEAKER_00]: To be fair. [SPEAKER_00]: To be fair. [SPEAKER_00]: To be fair. [SPEAKER_00]: To be fair. [SPEAKER_00]: And like I didn't I didn't have to know because if I if I had to know how to use How to do any of that like how do you flash a USB drive with an ISO file and then get that onto your PC and then what is a virtual machine and then in an almost system? [SPEAKER_00]: It's like how do you do ammo? [SPEAKER_00]: What is this and like?

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, if I had to do that all in my own, I wouldn't, even like, I mean, like I was mentioning with the heused stuff, like I felt a little nervous asking for a feature request on GitHub because I'm like, am I even allowed to do this? [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I don't know how to code. [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I don't know any, like, I look at GitHub and I'm like, [SPEAKER_00]: I don't, I feel like if I touch this and I get a break someone's computer somewhere, I don't know what I'm doing.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it was like, I posted, I was like, hey, this feature would be really cool. [SPEAKER_00]: It just came out, I know, but can someone like work on this as a user?

[SPEAKER_00]: It would be awesome. [SPEAKER_00]: And within less than a week, there are people who are like, yeah, that would be great. [SPEAKER_00]: Here's the link to the API through like the Hugh developer website. [SPEAKER_00]: It should be doable. [SPEAKER_00]: And just this morning, someone's like, yeah, I'm working on it. [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, hopefully you'll be done by this weekend or something. [SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, yeah, that that's amazing.

[SPEAKER_00]: If I've been sourced, yeah, it's, it's amazing. [SPEAKER_01]: It's, yeah, the community, especially on the website is phenomenal. [SPEAKER_01]: So it's, uh, [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm like, I mean, I like I subscribe to the Nabokasa cloud just because again, ease of use, like I don't have to figure out how to get access to my home assistant, you know, outside of of my house is just, it does it for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And like I was like, I'm going to do this because even having, I mean, I did it within the first, you know, a couple weeks of having homeless

[SPEAKER_00]: I need to support this community like if this money in any way supports the home assistant project I would just give them this money even without getting to you know use the features of their cloud and stuff, but I'm like that that is worth it to me because it's just great and I know like I feel. [SPEAKER_00]: safe.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think maybe is the word I'm going to look for like I feel like oh I can exist here and like let my home be my home and not have to have any level of anxiety of like uh who when is Google or Apple or whoever going to discontinue this thing and then I'm going to have to figure out this whole shuffle around.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like now it's [SPEAKER_00]: He was my one, like Achilles heel, like I know I'm still like, you know, it's mostly local, but there is still like that cloud component that they're running at. [SPEAKER_02]: That's right, that you're relying.

[SPEAKER_00]: I still got the app that I'm using, and it's like, I don't have to, like, I could go through home assistant and like adjust individual bulb colors and create a scene through there, but it's just like that is a way where the team is just in here. [SPEAKER_00]: UI is just like, it's not set up for that.

[SPEAKER_00]: yet or maybe ever where is like the queue app is like it's just it they've got a great user interface for setting that stuff up and so fingers crossed if I can keep just like I'll buy your stuff I'll set up my scenes and then just leave me alone and let me do everything I want through home assistant I would be over the minute yeah yeah that's awesome [SPEAKER_01]: Well, Josh, thank you so much for joining us today.

[SPEAKER_01]: This has been an amazing chat, uh, really fun to talk to you today. [SPEAKER_01]: So, again, thank you and, uh, yeah, Sierra, cheers. [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you guys so much. [SPEAKER_00]: It's been really awesome. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it was great. [SPEAKER_02]: If you want to share your home system journey or come on as a guest, reach out to us at feedback at haspodcast.io, that's HAS podcast.io.

[SPEAKER_01]: Guys is hosted by Phil Hawthorne and myself, Rohan Kermandi.