Hi, I recently made the switch to Lemmy from Reddit. But r/homekit is one of the communities I miss the most.
What can I do to help build this community up? I’m happy to make posts, comment, and upvote. Is trying to poach people from r/homekit a bad idea?
I would love to get to know everyone better. Here’s some info about my smart home.
- I’m using Apple Home, and my primary hub is a 4K Apple TV 4K Ethernet, which I chose for the Thread radio.
- I’m almost exclusively using Thread devices, and most of those are Matter over Thread.
- Most of my lights are Nanoleaf Essentials (Matter over Thread), and despite people hating Nanoleaf, they have been much better lately.
- For more advanced lighting, I’m using WLED, which is a DIY project for controlling addressable light strips.
- My WLED lights are bridged into HomeKit via Homebridge, though I’ve considered switching to Home Assistant.
- I’m using a Deco mesh router with two nodes, and it’s been amazing for the relatively low cost.
- Outside of Apple Home, I use Ring, which I’ve bridged into Apple via Homebridge. I hate the Ring subscription, but their hardware is solid.
Excited to get to know everyone!
I’m not really the type to make posts so I won’t tell anyone to post more but I guess that is what would help this community.
My Apple TV 4K is my main hub. I also have a HomePod mini in the bedroom that is less reliable as a hub so I’m glad that Apple finally lets us choose the preferred hub.
Most of my devices (lights, plugs, sensors, switches) are IKEA because they are cheap and so far without problems. It’s what I recommend anyone to buy who wants to dip into smart home stuff but doesn’t want to spend a fortune. It works, it’s cheap and it runs locally (even if you don’t use Homekit).
Other devices are an Aqara camera in Homekit Mode (I generally avoid China stuff but cameras are just so expensive), Eve Thermos (apart from the schedules, don’t use their own automations, they just stop working after a while) and Hue motion sensors (mostly for the integrated temperature and brightness sensors).
One plug handles my Gardena indoor irrigation system. It’s awesome for when I’m away for more than a few days but it’s not smart on its own.
I’ve had Eve door sensors but they didn’t work reliably and I hate that they use these odd batteries, so I recently switched to the new IKEA ones.
That’s cool! I never thought of IKEA as a smart home brand.
I was considering picking up some Eve motion sensors, but I’m not sure I want to be waving at the lights all the time. I could do presence sensors, but idk something just feels weird about tracking the exact location of everyone in my apartment. If I did do presence sensors, I might try Home Assistant.
I would love to do smart heating, but I rent and I’m not sure how to do it without pissing off my landlord. Smart window air conditioner was nice for the summer!
I think presence sensors are very cool but if I don’t trust the brand I’m out. If Apple or Eve ever releases one I’m buying that. I also think that regular motion sensors are pretty much useless for light automation.
Thermostats for radiators can just be screwed off and on, there is nothing to worry about damaging anything and it doesn’t take any extra skills. I’m renting too. It’s just a device that pushes a pin in and out. If you want to try something kinda smart without spending too much, get a digital thermostat. They cost about 10-15 Euros and can do schedules. If you don’t have a radiator then that’s a different topic.
Yeah, I don’t have radiators. I think my thermostat might actually be busted - first winter in this apartment - but I might ask the landlord for a digital one. They have been pretty good with maintenance. A smart one would be cooler, but realistically, idk if I can get them to do that, and I’m not sure they would let me choose my own.