Home Automation - Installation

An Amazon Echo Dot has arrived in the house. We're still in the find-out-if-it-is-useful period, but to help us through that there's plenty of party tricks to keep us entertained.

After we'd played with asking Alexa trivia questions, and to play specific music or radio stations, it was time to hook it up to our Philips Hue lighting and Honeywell Evohome heating systems.

First step is to download the Alexa app, and go to the Smart Home menu option. Amazon calls the integrations into Alexa 'skills', presumably for trademark reasons. The Hue skill is called Hue, but the Evohome skill is called Honeywell Total Connect Comfort, and both require linking to your cloud accounts for those systems. Once the skills are enabled I hit the 'Discover devices' button, and the Evohome devices were found straight away. For the Hue devices I need to press the button on the Hue hub first, but then Alexa was able to find them.

Alexa enables you to control your Evohome system through both activating modes ("Alexa, turn on Economy mode") and through setting individual zones ("Alexa, set Kitchen to 21 degrees"). You can also nudge a zone up or down ("Alexa, raise Lounge by 2 degrees"), and turn the hot water on and off ("Alexa, turn off hot water"). The zones and modes you've set up in Evohome are automatically brought into Alexa as groups.

What you can't do with Alexa and Evohome is monitor the current status of the system. For example you can't ask what temperature a zone is currently, and you can't ask if a mode is activated or not.

Alexa enables you to control your Hue system through both activating scenes ("Alexa turn on scene Movies") and through setting individual lights or rooms ("Alexa, turn Dining light on"). Any collections of lights that you've put into a Room in your Hue system are automatically brought into Alexa as groups.

What you can't do with Alexa and Hue is set lights to specific colours. For example you can't tell Alexa to turn a light to Red, you can to pre-set a scene with that light as Red and activate that scene.

Smart Lighting - Wall plate

I'm really happy with the Philips Hue smart lighting system in general, and I think that the dimmer switches are an essential component. For all our desire for automation, we're still programmed to reach for a wall switch to turn lights on and off. The downside to the Hue dimmer switches is that the existing wall switch is still there, which creates the opportunity for someone to turn the light off accidentally. It also looks ugly, in my opinion.

So I decided to make a new wall plate which would do away with the existing wall switch. So the first thing I did was remove the switch and replace it with a 13A connector. The bulb is now powered up all the time.

Then I designed a new wall plate that picked up the mounting points in the wall box, and mimic-ed the shape of the Philips wall plate. For initial testing I had this 3D printed in ABS.

The final touch was to add some disc magnets to the new wall plate, so that the dimmer switch remains in place.

The end result is certainly more aesthetically pleasing than before, although printing ABS at 200 microns doesn't give a smooth enough finish. I'll have to look at acetone smoothing, or experiment with other materials, to see if I can improve the looks.

Smart Lighting - Motion Sensor

Philips recently released a motion detector for their Hue smart lighting system. Now that there's a few Hue bulbs in various rooms of the house, I thought I'd try a motion sensor out to see if there's an actual use case that makes sense in reality.

The motion sensor itself is pretty small (5x5cm) and some thought has been put into the mount to make it pretty flexible. You can freestand it, or screw the supplied 'mount' to something like a wall. The mount is magnetic, so you can re-position or remove the sensor at will.

Finding and configuring the sensor is pretty much the same process as for a new bulb. There are 3 main configurable parameters for the sensor; how sensitive it is to motion; how dark it needs to get before the sensor becomes active; and what times separate 'night' from 'day'. This final parameter lets you split the day into two, and assign different lighting schemes to each. For example, a basic Hue White bulb supports schemes for fully on, dimmed, and nightlight, so you could go for fully on during the day, and dimmed during the night.

As a home worker the first use case we tried was in our home office. We stood the sensor on the desktop, and linked it to the desktop lamp and ceiling light. We configured both night and day to turn these lights fully on, and turn both off after 5 minutes of no motion detected. So whenever someone comes into the room the lights come on, and then they go off again when the room is unoccupied.

This use case almost works. I go into the office in the morning while it is still dark outside, and the lights come on. I work there all day, and a few minutes after I leave in the evening the lights go off again. The problem is, when I leave the room to go and have lunch, the lights stay on. This is because the ambient lighting has increased, and that deactivates the motion sensor. You can configure the sensor so that even on the brightest of days it will never deactivate, but that misses out on an opportunity.

What would be fantastic, certainly at this time of year, is to be able to trigger a scheme as the ambient lighting conditions pass the on/off threshold. We could then turn the ceiling light off as the dark morning transitioned into full daylight, and back on again in the afternoon as the night draws in. On a positive note, this is only a software update, so maybe in time it will come.

The second use case we've tried is in the hallway. I mounted the sensor above the front door, and tied the sensor into the hallway lights. We've set a far shorter period for no motion, and the hallway is a more transitory space in the house than the office, so the chances of the lights being on just as the sensor is deactivated by ambient light is very slim. This use case works very well. No need to fumble for the light switch when coming downstairs half asleep in the morning, and when returning from an evening out it is nice to be welcomed home automatically.

Currently the motion sensors are £35 from Amazon, so certainly not cheap enough to blitz the house with them. But we'll probably get a second sensor for use in the kitchen, as the use case there is the same as the hallway. Hopefully there'll be a software update from Philips at some point, and it'll be worth putting one back in the office.

Smart Lighting - Dimmer Switches

The Philips Hue dimmer switches have arrived. We ordered two of the Wireless Dimming Kits, rather than just the switches themselves, as it was the equivalent of knocking off £5 the price of each bulb.

The first thing we noticed was that the bulbs included in the Dimming Kits are different to the bulbs included in the White Starter Kits. In both cases they are dimmable white LED bulbs, and Philips claim both are the A19/A60 shape, but to my mind the Starter Kit bulbs are closer to a K shape.

White Starter Kit bulb

Wireless Dimming Kit bulb

As it happens both bulbs fit fine, but I'm intrigued why Philips are producing two different shaped bulbs.

The bulbs in the Wireless Dimming Kits come pre-paired with the dimmer switches themselves. So you could install them without even needing a Bridge. That would make a nice and relatively cheap way into smart lighting, although you wouldn't have the network connectivity until you introduced them to a Bridge.

Pairing the bulbs and switches with the Bridge was also straightforward. The key is to add the switches first. In the mobile app this is via Settings -> My devices, and you'll need to poke the actual switch itself with a pin to get it into pairing mode (orange flashing light). I found that the Bridge couldn't automatically find the two new bulbs, so noted down their serial numbers and used the manual search facility of the mobile app, which worked fine.

To change the link between the switches and the lights or scenes that we wanted to control is configured through the My Devices settings, rather than the lights or scene settings. Our bedside lamp, which has an automatic timer to come on in the morning, now also has a dimmer switch linked to it, so we can turn the lamp off, go back to sleep and be late for work, all without having to find the tablet.

A nice touch with the dimmer switches are the holders. These come with double-sided tape, so can easily be attached to the wall or other surface (you can drill and screw if you to as well). The actual dimmer switches themselves are magnetically attached to the holders. So you can detach the switch and carry it around to wherever you are. In the lounge for example we take the switch from the wall, and when it is movie time we can be extremely lazy and dim the lights without having to get up off of the sofa. There is the risk of the switch disappearing forever down the back of the sofa, but then there's always the mobile app for backup!

Honeywell Evohome - Multi-Room Zones - Step-by-Step

I found the evohome Installation Guide uninformative for setting up a multi-room zone. Here's what the Guide says:

Verbose it is not, so here's a step-by-step guide.

The starting point is that there is already a zone set up with one HR92 bound to that zone. First get into the System Settings by pressing and holding the Settings icon for a few seconds. Then select the Zone Settings icon in the top row:

Select the Edit Zone option:

Then select the zone you want to add a radiator or room to. Use the arrow in the bottom right of the Controller to get to the Application Settings option, and select it:

You can then use the Single/Multi Room Zone option to change the type of zone:

Select the Multi Room Zone option, then press the green tick icon in the bottom right hand corner of the Controller: 

Use the arrow in the bottom left of the Controller to get back to the Zone Configuration screen, and the select the Radiator Valve option:

The next step is non-obvious, use the arrow in the bottom right of the Controller to bind an additional HR92 to the current zone:

You'll then be presented with the standard Binding screen, so press and hold the button on the HR92 to get to the Bind function, then a short press of the button on the HR92 to initiate binding to the Controller in the current zone. On the Controller press the green icon in the middle:

When bound successfully you'll get a message on the Controller of the form:

In this case there are 2 HR92s (2 actuators bound) bound to the zone, with bi-directional comms (2-way). You can continue to add more HR92s to the same zone by using the arrow in the bottom left of the Controller, or complete the zone by using the green tick in the bottom right of the Controller.

Note that on the main screen of the Controller it will display the actual temperature from the first HR92 that was bound to the zone. In our lounge and dining room space we bound the lounge radiator to the zone first then the dining room radiator, and so the Controller shows the temperature from the lounge radiator. We've set up the local display on all of the HR92s to show the actual temperature, rather than the setpoint temperature, so I can always take a look at the dining room radiator if I'm interested.

[Whilst the HR92 can tell you on demand what position the valve is actually in, I'm geeky enough to have liked to see the valve position displayed on the HR92 all the time. But that's probably just me!]

Honeywell Evohome - Multi-Room Zones

When we installed the Honeywell Evohome central heating control system we fitted four radiators with HR92 temperature regulating valves (TRV). In the other rooms we left the manual TRVs fitted, and lived with the fact that whenever the Evohome system decided that any of the controlled rooms were getting a bit too cold, then the manual TRV rooms would be getting some heating. So recently we ordered another pack of four HR92s from JTM Plumbing, and have fitted them to the remaining radiators. We didn't do this originally purely because of cost, as the HR92s are not cheap, but the ability to add new HR92s to the system means you can fit out the whole house as and when we can afford it.

As our radiators already have the M30x1.5 valves, installation of the HR92s was as easy as before. Binding them to the Controller was also really straight forward. A long press on the Settings icon is required to get into the system settings menu. Then simply add a zone and give it a name, at which point the Controller will sit and wait for the HR92 to start the binding process. (The only thing to remember is to tell the Controller not to use the temperature sensor in the Controller itself for this new zone.) On the HR92 a couple of presses of the button are required to get it into binding mode, and within seconds the Controller was reporting that the two were bound.

We have an open plan L-shaped lounge and dining room, with a radiator in each 'room'. Previously only the lounge radiator had a HR92, but now both of them have HR92s fitted. We started by copying the temperature schedule from the lounge to the dining room, so that both radiators would be trying to keep this space at the same temperature. This is easily accomplished, by going into the schedule for the lounge zone, and using the icon in the bottom right of the Controller display to copy the entire week schedule to the dining room zone.

However this does mean that if we change a schedule or manually change the temperature setpoint in one of the zones, the other zone is unaffected and the two radiators will be trying to keep the one space at two different temperatures. So we set up a multi-room zone, using both the lounge and dining room radiators. The Controller now allows only one temperature setpoint and schedule for the space as a whole, but the two radiators work independently to achieve the desired temperature. This works really well at dealing with the different thermal characteristics of the space. Our lounge is on the south side of the house with big windows and a wood burning stove in it, while the dining room is on the north side of the house with very little natural warming getting in. Certainly when we fire up the stove, the lounge radiator pretty much shuts down as the stove warms up the lounge. We'll have to wait and see how the system deals with sunny days (I hope!).

Smart Lighting - Installation

We've started to experiment with smart lighting in the house, in the form of some Philips Hue bulbs and lamps. It is early days, but here's our experiences so far.

The starting point for the wider system was a White Starter Kit, consisting of two white LED bulbs and a bridge. Unfortunately we couldn't get the UK standard B22 bayonet fitting bulbs in a starter kit form, so instead we now have two US/EU standard E27 screw fitting bulbs. This isn't a huge problem as we have a couple of compatible lamp sockets, including the pendant luminaire over the table in the dining room and a bedside table lamp in the bedroom, so the bulbs were installed nice and simply.

The bulbs form a ZigBee wireless mesh network between themselves and the bridge, with the bridge bridging the ZigBee network to our home wired Ethernet LAN. So we plugged the bridge into our broadband router (actually, we've now connected a 4-port Ethernet hub to the router, and have the Honeywell Evohome gateway, the Philips Hue bridge, and an eQ3 HomeMatic gateway connected to the hub) and installed the Hue app on our Android tablet. One of the good things about the starter kit is that the bulbs and bridge are pre-paired, so when everything is powered up and the app is started the lamps are already registered and ready to go.

The standard Philips Hue app is pretty straight forward. We can control the brightness of each lamp manually, or we can set up and activate a 'scene', which is a stored configuration of brightnesses for each lamp. We've created scenes with the dining room light at full brightness for when I'm working from the dining table, and at a lesser brightness for when we're dining. The app also has the possibility to create 'alarms', which are time-based triggers to activate scenes. We've experimented with one that fades up the bedroom lamp in the morning over a 15 minute period, as assistance for the alarm clock.

The major issue that we've identified so far is that it is actually really inconvenient to fire up the tablet to turn a light on or off, and more often than not we've just turned the wall switch off and back on. This activates the Hue bulb's default behaviour, which is to turn on at full brightness. We're obviously not alone in this respect so we have a couple of dimmer switches on order, which should work in parallel with the app, and give us that physical switch on the wall to press.

There's another issue with the Hue app, in that it just seemed to crash randomly while I was trying various options. This turned out to be an issue with Android app permissions, but instead of displaying an alert to the user the app was just crashing. It is easy to resolve though, just go to Settings - Apps - Hue - Permissions and ensure all of the permissions are enabled.

So far we've been looking at white lamps. This is mainly due to cost. The white bulbs are about £15 each, whilst a multi-colour bulb is £50. With 25 ceiling lamps in the house (we've got ten GU10 downlighters in the kitchen alone!), we're not going to be installing multi-colour bulbs this side of a lottery win.

But we have taken a foray into multi-colour with a Hue go lamp. This connects into the ZigBee network, but is battery powered and portable, so we can move it around the house whilst we experiment. At the moment we've got it on the floor in the lounge and are using it to flood a wall with light. Movie nights now have a bit more ambience than before. I've also played with the geo-fencing feature of the Hue app, which can be used to trigger scenes on arrival or departure, so that the go lamp turns off when I leave the house, and back on when I come back. There's an option in the app to only enable this functionality after sunset, so I'm not turning lamps on and off during the day.

The next thing I want to play with is IFTTT integration, and see if I can use the go lamp for weather updates, email notifications, and more!