0Expanding smarthome on the cheap

Published by & filed under SmartHome & IoT. Last updated .

As I’ve writ­ten about before, I have begun to exper­i­ment with the world of smarthome devices, and cur­rently use a smartth­ings hub and a google home mini. So far these have just turned on lamps and oth­er “plugged in” devices via smart­plugs, but with more com­pat­ible devices at reas­on­able prices finally start­ing to appear I wanted to start doc­u­ment­ing more of what I’ve tried


I’ve already writ­ten about smart­plugs before, and recently updated that guide with addi­tion­al inform­a­tion about how to modi­fy the cheap ones ot make them run sonoff-tas­mota (thereby mak­ing them work with just about any sys­tem you like)

I have recently had suc­cess adding a Hik­Vi­sion 4MP IP cam­era (mod­el DS-2CD1341‑I) using the Genet­ic Video Cam­era device-type and smart-app. Install the smartapp and device type fol­low­ing the instruc­tions on that thread, and for the stream­ing port of your cam­era use the fol­low­ing address rtsp://user­name:pass­word@ip-address/Streaming/Channels/1 (or a dif­fer­ent rtsp address for dif­fer­ent cam­er­as. You can find an extens­ive list of cam­era stream addresses from iSpy.

I will soon be adding inform­a­tion on the Sonoff TH16 tem­per­at­ure and humidy sensor, and door and water leak sensors from Xiaomi Aqara, which all cost between £7 and £13

I have also con­nec­ted my google home mini as a ‘chromecast’ device thanks to more hard work done by the community

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