

Ask HN: What would you have in your "smart home"? - pspeter3

I have a Raspberry Pi, Ninja Blocks, and some Wemo Lights. I&#x27;m trying to think of cool ideas I could do for my apartment. I would love to hear what ideas or stories HN has about &quot;smart homes&quot;
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angdis
At the risk of being a buzzkill: a "smart home" is a home that is easy to
manage.

Most people have too much stuff, too much clutter, too many
gadgets/clothes/vehicles/appliances/tools, etc. All these things take effort
and mental energy to deal with on a day-to-day basis.

The ironic thing about home automation is that it manages stuff by adding yet
more stuff to manage. By trying to make stuff smart, you end up adding more
points of failure-- more ways for things to get screwed up.

~~~
jsilence
Agreed. Watching a video of someone who had the lights turned on and of by a
Kinect connected to a Pi a while ago I pondered what I would like to have
automated in my home. I came up with... nothing. Most of the basic household
chores are about actually doing stuff. Groceries, fixing food, washing dishes
and clothes etc. Automation boils down to switching on and off electrical
devices and maybe some video or information display. Not enough optimization
potential for me. Even my roomba (clone) sits idle, because it is tangling up
in the stuff the cats play with.

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stevoo
As someone who is about to start building his own house soon i have been
pondering to what extend it comes down to home automation.

What I would want at this point would be.

* Automatic light control from a central device and a phone/tablet. To better extend dimable. Also it would be nice if it recognized that there was no one in the room and shut the lights or turn them on when someone walks in. Special care needs to be done when watching tv in order to dim the lights accordingly.

* Automatic shutters that can be handled as the lights controls. Could be nice if they learned when to actually shut ( when there is too much sun and the AC is running, or when the heat is working and it is day ).

* Media centrer functionality. This is nice and can easily be done by a central pc and instances of XBMC using a shared library. With raspberry this is the cheapest automation that can be done.

* Smart door, recognize who is at my door and grant access to me or anyone i have added to the list. When someone hits the door, send me something to my phone so i can know who is there. Add me the capability to open the door remotely.

* Smart heating like Nest seems to be doing. Never went into much detail about that.

* Security system. A good security system is essential. Monitor with camera and report any activity that is in the house when the system is on. Let me know when there is no power, no internet, or someone interacted with the alarm system.

* A smart fridge as someone else wrote here. If it can know in what stuff i am running low on and send me an email that i am running low on this that would be super (doesnt yet exist)

* Info graphics, in what is going on my house. Where is the majority of the power been used ? How many people visited my house ? and many more.

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hcho
Most smart homes are actually "manage remotely" homes. I would really love to
have a home that's actually smart. Few things that comes to my mind:

* Recognise the pattern the inhabitants are at home. Turn the heating/ AC on/off accordingly.

 _Smart lighting. Turn off lights automatically when I watch the movie
channel. Don 't go all bright when I wake up for a pee in the middle of the
night. Learn the pattern of me waking up and turn the lights on accordingly.

_Watch my fridge. Nag me when I stocks run low. Better yet, prepare me a
shopping list.

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batobey
My work on smart homes led to what we're doing w/Carvoyant. How about
connecting your car? I'm a little biased towards "lock the door, arm the
alarm" but it doesn't have to be all functional. We've got lights at office
that flash when someone speeds (recently unplugged by an unknown offender) but
that could also be flashing patterns based on who's coming home next.

In response to interest we got after Nest's API opening, Carvoyant's running a
pretty low key contest, best Carvoyant+Nest mashup(s?) gets a
Carvoyant+Nest+Hue package. [https://www.carvoyant.com/2014/06/24/my-car-told-
my-house/](https://www.carvoyant.com/2014/06/24/my-car-told-my-house/)

Personally, I'd love to see Raspberry Pi & Ninja Blocks in that mix and would
be happy to foster a few more connected car/smart home mashups.

One nice thing about a connected car and a good rules engine in the home, is
that our "things" can take independent action like dim the lights, adjust temp
and lock up on their own, all the time. More timely adjustments can maximize
the savings and reduce user intervention.

Even without the car, I'd really consider any design options/devices that can
reduce or eliminate your intervention. The homes not so "smart" if you're
always issuing commands.

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CapitalistCartr
Security. All else is trivial to set up; doesn't require outsmarting humans,
other than my own mistakes. I want a security system that doesn't require
monitoring by a security company whose competence I doubt, and whose prices I
find laughable.

~~~
pspeter3
What security features would you prioritize?

~~~
CapitalistCartr
I want the system to be flexible, allowing me to configure three parts to my
needs:

First, a variety of device types and brands together.

Second, how it notifies me, SMS, email, phone call, etc. It has to be able to
stream across the Internet, both to notify me, and so I can view video on
demand, but be secure against hacking; using BSD as the OS would be nice, but
Linux can be secured pretty tight.

Third, I want to configure the effects of a breach with layered effects:
stepping inside the fence might trigger only a warning audio, continuing to
the house might trigger a different audio, etc.

Mainly, I want to put some thought into the setup, and then not have to
consider it again; it just works.

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chadkruse
Gonna leave you with a simple thought: smart homes shouldn't be about the
things...they should be about the people.

I think the reason we haven't seen a blockbuster IoT app is because everyone
is still focused on the things, not the people. Or in your case, as a DIYer,
you're not thinking about yourself.

So consider what keeps you up at night, and think about the lowest-common-
denominator way to solve that via wiring up your home.

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mtufekyapan
I thing music is one of best thing for smart home.

If there is a tool which looks at track whether, day(weekend or not), time of
day and etc after this things it select best music for me?

I can like or unlike music for my mood and it also learn my listening habit?

It'll be wonderful.

~~~
pspeter3
So like a pandora for the environmental conditions? That sounds really cool!

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blooberr
I look at home security first. Access control, cameras..

~~~
pspeter3
I've thought about that, specifically the Lockitron. Do you view this
primarily as a defense against theft?

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mlwarren
Voice controlled window shades and interior lights.

~~~
pspeter3
That's pretty awesome! Do you have a suggestion for voice recognition stuff?

~~~
jsilence
Jasper is supposed to deliver that on a Raspi:
[http://jasperproject.github.io/](http://jasperproject.github.io/)

No personal experience though.

~~~
pspeter3
This is awesome! Thanks for the recommendation!

~~~
jsilence
I'd love to tinker and play with it, but I don't have the time. Have to get my
I2C sensors done with the Pi before that.

