A smart home without programming skills: a selection of gadgets with an open API
Continuation of the material, the beginning here .
In the previous article, I wrote why I needed a smart home and how it should work. Since then, almost two months have passed. The main catch in the transition from theoretical to practical was that there is no single standard in the world or a “reference” manufacturer of smart devices, but I want to combine a dozen gadgets from different companies into one ecosystem. The problem is that manufacturers offer their own software for managing gadgets and there is simply no simple way to manage them centrally.
I found a solution that will allow me to combine the best-in-class gadgets into a single system and “communicate” with them through a smartphone. This is the Corezoid cloud OS paired with the Sender messenger, about the capabilities of which I already wrote for Geektimes. Now I need to find suitable devices with an open API.
Smart home - why is all this necessary?
I live in a two-room Kiev apartment, and I am not very interested in saving. The total amount of bills for electricity, heating, hot and cold water does not exceed $ 20-30 and I do not see much reason to somehow reduce these costs. What I need is a video surveillance system, lamps that can be controlled without getting up from the couch, air conditioning that maintains a comfortable temperature in the room, scheduled household appliances, controlled curtains and other similar gadgets. Before starting the purchase of devices, I decided to choose one or two gadgets in each class with an open API, which can be combined into a single ecosystem.
Light bulbs
I need controlled bulbs for two simple purposes - the ability to turn on or off the light in the entire apartment with the click of a button and to adjust the brightness of the lighting. I chose between Philips Hue , LIFX , ilumi , Zipato RGBW bulb and Aeotec LED Bulb .
My choice fell on LIFX - a Wi-Fi-connected color energy-efficient lamp controlled from a smartphone. The project team claims to reinvent the light bulb. Unlike analogues, LIFX really boasts thousands of shades of one color. Rotating the “rainbow ring” you can create an amazing atmosphere in the apartment, and using the vertical scroll wheel to set the optimal brightness. Adjusting the white light LIFX allows you to set the glow temperature: from cold light at 8,000 K to warm and soft at 2,700 degrees Kelvin.
LIFX features do not end with standard installations. The light bulb can be adjusted so that it will light up when you enter the apartment. And for those who wake up hard on cloudy, winter days, LIFX provides an alarm function with simulated dawn. The declared lamp life is 40 thousand hours, and its power consumption is 17 W with a luminous flux of 1017 lm.
One LIFX instance costs between $ 40 and $ 60, depending on version. You can order a bulb directly on the device’s official website.
Electronic lock
There is also plenty to choose from. On sale you can find dozens of locks with an open software interface - Lockitron , Kwikset Kevo , August smart lock ,Goji , Okidokeys and many others. Honestly, choosing a specific option is quite difficult, they are all good in their own way. By an exception method: Goji costs an exorbitant $ 324, Lockitron has not yet gone on sale, Kevo is only compatible with a limited set of devices, and the August smart lock API has not yet been published - I have only one option left - Okidokeys, worth about $ 189.
The device does not require special skills for installation and connects to an existing lock with a screwdriver and several bolts. To open the door, just press the corresponding button on the smartphone, which contacts the lock via Bluetooth 4.0 and using 256 bit AES encryption.
The device is powered by AA batteries and is independent of an external power source. In case you have a smartphone or battery failure, you can use the usual key. In addition, the lock can be unlocked using RFID tags on a card, in a bracelet, key fob, or somewhere else. Another cool feature of the gadget is the ability to “lock” access to the door to another device - for example, for a girl or parents.
Door peephole with integrated intercom
After installing a new door, I stopped hearing the voices of people who are on the stairwell. Moreover, I don’t really want to get up from the computer to say a few welcome words to the next Jehovah's Witnesses or advertising agents. Therefore, I need a peephole with the ability to broadcast video and sound to the screen of a smartphone. The three most interesting specimens that caught my attention were Doorbot , SkyBell and August Doorbell Cam .
The cutest of them is the doorbell for Doorbot smartphones, costing $ 199. When someone rings the doorbell, the application on the smartphone or tablet shows who is standing in front of the door and allows you to talk with the visitor. Doorbot can be integrated with Lockitron electronic lock. In this case, the owner can not only talk with the visitor, but also open the door for him from the same application. Communication is via a home Wi-Fi router.
Unfortunately, all three devices are completely devoid of an open API, and their manufacturers feed customers vague promises. Therefore, we postpone the issue until compatibility with third-party platforms appears.
CCTV
I spend a lot of time traveling and want to know what happens in the apartment in my absence. Ideal is the Canary multifunction device . Inside the case there is a video camera with a wide-angle lens and night vision function, as well as a siren and sensors that can track movement, temperature, humidity, atmospheric air quality, vibration and sounds. These parameters are recorded, statistics are kept, and if something unusual is detected, the device gives an alarm. At the same time, the device is comparable in size to a half-liter plastic bottle. The cost of the gadget is quite lifting $ 199 or $ 349 for two copies.
As an alternative to Canary, you can buy DropCam from Nest for the same money.
Climate control
The choice is more than obvious - the Nest thermostat , priced at $ 249. The device can control a whole set of household appliances: heating, air conditioning, heat pump, humidifier and dehumidifier, as well as a fan. From all this list in my apartment there is only air conditioning, I also plan to purchase an air freshener.
For the first week, the owner of the thermostat controls it manually - it raises and lowers the temperature, turns it off at the exit from the house, sets a comfortable temperature for the night, and so on. After about a week of training, the thermostat remembers the habits of its owner and begins to regulate the state of air in the house: turn on energy saving, regulate air temperature and humidity, and so on. The only problem I have to solve is to connect the thermostat to an already installed air conditioner without violating the integrity of the walls. As an option - “attach” the thermostat, next to the device, so that the outgoing wires are not visible.
Vacuum cleaner
I love coming back to a clean apartment, but I hate cleaning. To save myself from this headache, I decided to purchase an iRobot Roomba vacuum cleaner. Up to 600 line vacuum cleaners came with an open API and the ability to integrate with third-party platforms.
iRobot Roomba can independently find and go around obstacles, does not fall from the stairs and is equipped with a dust sensor that detects more polluted places. In these places, the device spends more time. This model is great for cleaning 1-2 room apartments and costs between $ 200-300.
Blinds
In the daytime, my apartment is lit by the sun and sometimes it makes it difficult to work. Hanging ordinary blinds and opening and closing them twice a day is frankly lazy. I didn’t particularly hope to find an automatic solution, but on Indiegogo I recently completed a fundraising project called MOVE-motorize blinds and shades. The Swedish guys made blinds that are controlled via Bluetooth with an open API and the ability to connect to other applications. Blinds can automatically lower and rise not only at a given time, but also depending on weather conditions. Already now you can pre-order for 39 euros and the delivery date in April 2016.
Kitchen Appliances
Remember this quote from bash.im?
xxx: And finally, the first prize: coffe-blyat.sh - waits 17 seconds (!!!) logs in via ssh to the coffee machine (eprst, we had no idea that it was in the grid and even that sshd was raised on it) and sends some kind of gibberish there. It was found experimentally that THIS starts the process of brewing a medium-sized half-caf chai latte, which begins to pour into the cup just in time for a leisurely walking person to get from his office to the machine.
Unfortunately, I did not find a coffee maker with an open API, but in the process of searching I came across a REDMOND SkyCoffee M1505S, costing about $ 150. The coffee maker with integrated coffee grinder is almost identical in functionality to the kettle. It has two modes (grind grains and then brew, or immediately brew ground coffee) and the possibility of heating for six hours. I can’t imagine how to connect to it with my own application, but I’m sure that it will be possible to come up with something.
An assortment of smart appliances can complement the SkyKettle M170S smart internet kettle, costing about $ 100. Using a smartphone, the owner of the gadget can boil water without getting out of bed or warm already prepared tea. In addition to boiling, five temperature modes are available: 40 ° C, 55 ° C, 70 ° C, 85 ° C, 95 ° C. At the same time, you can make sure that the water is warm enough (or vice versa, it has cooled down properly), using a smartphone - the Ready for Sky application in real time displays the temperature of the contents of a “smart” Internet kettle.
Continues the line of gadgets for the lazy - Internet iron Redmond SkyIron C250S. Its cost is slightly higher than $ 50, and the main feature of the device is the ability to turn off the iron remotely. Moreover, it can be configured so that the iron is activated only when pairing via Bluetooth with a smartphone.
The budget of the venture
In preparing the material, the following publications were used:
http://geektimes.ru/company/redmond/blog/264310/
http://habrahabr.ru/company/commandspot/blog/226179/
In the previous article, I wrote why I needed a smart home and how it should work. Since then, almost two months have passed. The main catch in the transition from theoretical to practical was that there is no single standard in the world or a “reference” manufacturer of smart devices, but I want to combine a dozen gadgets from different companies into one ecosystem. The problem is that manufacturers offer their own software for managing gadgets and there is simply no simple way to manage them centrally.
I found a solution that will allow me to combine the best-in-class gadgets into a single system and “communicate” with them through a smartphone. This is the Corezoid cloud OS paired with the Sender messenger, about the capabilities of which I already wrote for Geektimes. Now I need to find suitable devices with an open API.
Smart home - why is all this necessary?
I live in a two-room Kiev apartment, and I am not very interested in saving. The total amount of bills for electricity, heating, hot and cold water does not exceed $ 20-30 and I do not see much reason to somehow reduce these costs. What I need is a video surveillance system, lamps that can be controlled without getting up from the couch, air conditioning that maintains a comfortable temperature in the room, scheduled household appliances, controlled curtains and other similar gadgets. Before starting the purchase of devices, I decided to choose one or two gadgets in each class with an open API, which can be combined into a single ecosystem.
Light bulbs
I need controlled bulbs for two simple purposes - the ability to turn on or off the light in the entire apartment with the click of a button and to adjust the brightness of the lighting. I chose between Philips Hue , LIFX , ilumi , Zipato RGBW bulb and Aeotec LED Bulb .
My choice fell on LIFX - a Wi-Fi-connected color energy-efficient lamp controlled from a smartphone. The project team claims to reinvent the light bulb. Unlike analogues, LIFX really boasts thousands of shades of one color. Rotating the “rainbow ring” you can create an amazing atmosphere in the apartment, and using the vertical scroll wheel to set the optimal brightness. Adjusting the white light LIFX allows you to set the glow temperature: from cold light at 8,000 K to warm and soft at 2,700 degrees Kelvin.
LIFX features do not end with standard installations. The light bulb can be adjusted so that it will light up when you enter the apartment. And for those who wake up hard on cloudy, winter days, LIFX provides an alarm function with simulated dawn. The declared lamp life is 40 thousand hours, and its power consumption is 17 W with a luminous flux of 1017 lm.
One LIFX instance costs between $ 40 and $ 60, depending on version. You can order a bulb directly on the device’s official website.
Electronic lock
There is also plenty to choose from. On sale you can find dozens of locks with an open software interface - Lockitron , Kwikset Kevo , August smart lock ,Goji , Okidokeys and many others. Honestly, choosing a specific option is quite difficult, they are all good in their own way. By an exception method: Goji costs an exorbitant $ 324, Lockitron has not yet gone on sale, Kevo is only compatible with a limited set of devices, and the August smart lock API has not yet been published - I have only one option left - Okidokeys, worth about $ 189.
The device does not require special skills for installation and connects to an existing lock with a screwdriver and several bolts. To open the door, just press the corresponding button on the smartphone, which contacts the lock via Bluetooth 4.0 and using 256 bit AES encryption.
The device is powered by AA batteries and is independent of an external power source. In case you have a smartphone or battery failure, you can use the usual key. In addition, the lock can be unlocked using RFID tags on a card, in a bracelet, key fob, or somewhere else. Another cool feature of the gadget is the ability to “lock” access to the door to another device - for example, for a girl or parents.
Door peephole with integrated intercom
After installing a new door, I stopped hearing the voices of people who are on the stairwell. Moreover, I don’t really want to get up from the computer to say a few welcome words to the next Jehovah's Witnesses or advertising agents. Therefore, I need a peephole with the ability to broadcast video and sound to the screen of a smartphone. The three most interesting specimens that caught my attention were Doorbot , SkyBell and August Doorbell Cam .
The cutest of them is the doorbell for Doorbot smartphones, costing $ 199. When someone rings the doorbell, the application on the smartphone or tablet shows who is standing in front of the door and allows you to talk with the visitor. Doorbot can be integrated with Lockitron electronic lock. In this case, the owner can not only talk with the visitor, but also open the door for him from the same application. Communication is via a home Wi-Fi router.
Unfortunately, all three devices are completely devoid of an open API, and their manufacturers feed customers vague promises. Therefore, we postpone the issue until compatibility with third-party platforms appears.
CCTV
I spend a lot of time traveling and want to know what happens in the apartment in my absence. Ideal is the Canary multifunction device . Inside the case there is a video camera with a wide-angle lens and night vision function, as well as a siren and sensors that can track movement, temperature, humidity, atmospheric air quality, vibration and sounds. These parameters are recorded, statistics are kept, and if something unusual is detected, the device gives an alarm. At the same time, the device is comparable in size to a half-liter plastic bottle. The cost of the gadget is quite lifting $ 199 or $ 349 for two copies.
As an alternative to Canary, you can buy DropCam from Nest for the same money.
Climate control
The choice is more than obvious - the Nest thermostat , priced at $ 249. The device can control a whole set of household appliances: heating, air conditioning, heat pump, humidifier and dehumidifier, as well as a fan. From all this list in my apartment there is only air conditioning, I also plan to purchase an air freshener.
For the first week, the owner of the thermostat controls it manually - it raises and lowers the temperature, turns it off at the exit from the house, sets a comfortable temperature for the night, and so on. After about a week of training, the thermostat remembers the habits of its owner and begins to regulate the state of air in the house: turn on energy saving, regulate air temperature and humidity, and so on. The only problem I have to solve is to connect the thermostat to an already installed air conditioner without violating the integrity of the walls. As an option - “attach” the thermostat, next to the device, so that the outgoing wires are not visible.
Vacuum cleaner
I love coming back to a clean apartment, but I hate cleaning. To save myself from this headache, I decided to purchase an iRobot Roomba vacuum cleaner. Up to 600 line vacuum cleaners came with an open API and the ability to integrate with third-party platforms.
iRobot Roomba can independently find and go around obstacles, does not fall from the stairs and is equipped with a dust sensor that detects more polluted places. In these places, the device spends more time. This model is great for cleaning 1-2 room apartments and costs between $ 200-300.
Blinds
In the daytime, my apartment is lit by the sun and sometimes it makes it difficult to work. Hanging ordinary blinds and opening and closing them twice a day is frankly lazy. I didn’t particularly hope to find an automatic solution, but on Indiegogo I recently completed a fundraising project called MOVE-motorize blinds and shades. The Swedish guys made blinds that are controlled via Bluetooth with an open API and the ability to connect to other applications. Blinds can automatically lower and rise not only at a given time, but also depending on weather conditions. Already now you can pre-order for 39 euros and the delivery date in April 2016.
Kitchen Appliances
Remember this quote from bash.im?
xxx: And finally, the first prize: coffe-blyat.sh - waits 17 seconds (!!!) logs in via ssh to the coffee machine (eprst, we had no idea that it was in the grid and even that sshd was raised on it) and sends some kind of gibberish there. It was found experimentally that THIS starts the process of brewing a medium-sized half-caf chai latte, which begins to pour into the cup just in time for a leisurely walking person to get from his office to the machine.
Unfortunately, I did not find a coffee maker with an open API, but in the process of searching I came across a REDMOND SkyCoffee M1505S, costing about $ 150. The coffee maker with integrated coffee grinder is almost identical in functionality to the kettle. It has two modes (grind grains and then brew, or immediately brew ground coffee) and the possibility of heating for six hours. I can’t imagine how to connect to it with my own application, but I’m sure that it will be possible to come up with something.
An assortment of smart appliances can complement the SkyKettle M170S smart internet kettle, costing about $ 100. Using a smartphone, the owner of the gadget can boil water without getting out of bed or warm already prepared tea. In addition to boiling, five temperature modes are available: 40 ° C, 55 ° C, 70 ° C, 85 ° C, 95 ° C. At the same time, you can make sure that the water is warm enough (or vice versa, it has cooled down properly), using a smartphone - the Ready for Sky application in real time displays the temperature of the contents of a “smart” Internet kettle.
Continues the line of gadgets for the lazy - Internet iron Redmond SkyIron C250S. Its cost is slightly higher than $ 50, and the main feature of the device is the ability to turn off the iron remotely. Moreover, it can be configured so that the iron is activated only when pairing via Bluetooth with a smartphone.
The budget of the venture
In preparing the material, the following publications were used:
http://geektimes.ru/company/redmond/blog/264310/
http://habrahabr.ru/company/commandspot/blog/226179/