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
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Posts Categorised: SmartHome & IoT
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Cheap WiFi SmartPlugs with SmartThings
SmartThings compatible smart plugs are annoyingly expensive — typically around £40. This is far too expensive to consider buying many of. There are however WiFi plugs available online for around £10 that don’t officially work with SmartThings. Most of them are based on the ESP8266 chip which can be reflashed with new firmware that will work with SmartThings. Below I document my trials and tribulations with hacking these plugs
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Energenie Mi|Home
I decided to try expanding my smartHome setup with some cheaper smartplugs from Energenie. Below I summarise my findings so far.
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Connect SmartThings to Windows PC’s and Kodi
I have several windows PCs in my house that run Kodi. I wanted to connect them to SmartThings for a range of purposes. There are various things that can be done depending on the functionality you want.
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Set up “home assistant” on a windows PC
As I’ve written about before I have a range of “smart home” devices that I’v ebeen gradually experimenting with. One of the greatest frustrations of linking some of them is that many force you to go via “the cloud” which even with high speed internet can lead to delays of multiple seconds for some tasks (“ok google, mute kodi”) for example. I’ve decided to give the free “home assistant” a try. As usual with anything linux based, getting it up and running just isn’t straight forward. Here’s how…
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0Samsung SmartThings — A smart home hub
I’ve recently invested in a SmartThings Hub for my home to use for security and safety as well as for general smart home functions. Over the coming months I will be writing a series of articles with some of the technical hurdles I cross along the way.
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