"Smart" Home Recommendations?

[Bear22]

Guys,

I opened up a can of worms with respect to researching smart devices with the thought of getting more control over my heater through energy monitoring and scripts/rules. Geeze, what a can of worms all this smart home stuff truly is...

Anyways,

Can somebody recommend what the least painful route with all of this might be?

Looking at the:
Ecosystem
the hardware (hubs, etc.)
Peripherals such as leak detectors, surface mounted temperature measuring.
The smart plugs themselves.

TIA

 

[Kooma]

I just use an apex with solid surface leak detection and a eb8 power bar. Add in a inkbird temp controller and away you go. It’s all smart and accessible from your phone.

 

[Bear22]

I just use an apex with solid surface leak detection and a eb8 power bar. Add in a inkbird temp controller and away you go. It’s all smart and accessible from your phone.

I don't want to add any more wires and plugs to my current morass of wires and plugs, lol.

 

[BryanM]

There's no easy answer for this. I'm in the process of moving from Apex to Hydros.

I wouldn't want individual smart plugs, so their XP8 power strip and wifi power strip are all controllable by the hydros.

Two hydros control units provide redundancy. It isn't cheap.

 

[Kooma]

I don't want to add any more wires and plugs to my current morass of wires and plugs, lol.

I’m not sure what you are trying to accomplish then

 

[Bear22]

I’m not sure what you are trying to accomplish then

Smart home devices (plugs, the ecosystem, hubs, etc.). E.g., TP-Link Tapo P110M Mini Smart Plug.

I am not looking at expensive Apex, Hydros, or Red Sea controllers that have yet to reach the market.

 

[Dread Pirate Dave]

Guys,

I opened up a can of worms with respect to researching smart devices with the thought of getting more control over my heater through energy monitoring and scripts/rules. Geeze, what a can of worms all this smart home stuff truly is...

Anyways,

Can somebody recommend what the least painful route with all of this might be?

Looking at the:
Ecosystem
the hardware (hubs, etc.)
Peripherals such as leak detectors, surface mounted temperature measuring.
The smart plugs themselves.

TIA

You'd be better served with something more dedicated like the hydros start.

Hydros START Aquarium Controller - Perfect for Beginners

Shop The Best Saltwater Aquarium Equipment & Supplies at Saltwater Aquarium. We Carry Everything you will Need for your Fish Tank.

www.saltwateraquarium.com

Add in an inkbird heater controller backed up by a hydros temp sensor, leak detector and ATO.

I wouldn't trust a WiFi plug with heating control.

 

[Kooma]

An apex has much more value that smart plugs, it can protect your tank from a heater failure and tell you if your corals are in acidic water. It can give you swing graphs for alotbof parameters as well if desired.

If you just was a light to be turned on and off, a $20 tp-link smart switch is fine.

You can DIY a system if you want with various brands products, but it’s not worth the effort or headache. If it fails to work, it will cost you more than an apex would.

Why reinvent the wheel? Buy a used apex.

 

[Bear22]

An apex has much more value that smart plugs, it can protect your tank from a heater failure and tell you if your corals are in acidic water. It can give you swing graphs for alotbof parameters as well if desired.

If you just was a light to be turned on and off, a $20 tp-link smart switch is fine.

You can DIY a system if you want with various brands products, but it’s not worth the effort or headache. If it fails to work, it will cost you more than an apex would.

Why reinvent the wheel? Buy a used apex.

I am willing to bet that today's smart plugs are more reliable than the Apex Jr. that I had on my tank 20 years ago that was exceptionally finicky, yet we all "trusted" the technology because it was from Neptune.

~break~

A smart plug monitoring wattage and then executing a shutdown script if necessary; isn't as if I am trying to land the Lunar Module on the Moon.

I am looking for actual user experience here.

 

[Kooma]

I am willing to bet that today's smart plugs are more reliable than the Apex Jr. that I had on my tank 20 years ago that was exceptionally finicky, yet we all "trusted" the technology because it was from Neptune.

~break~

A smart plug monitoring wattage and then executing a shutdown script if necessary; isn't as if I am trying to land the Lunar Module on the Moon.

I am looking for actual user experience here.

I have both. I find the smart switches are inherently unreliable, and will either turn on the wrong time or won’t turn off when they’re told to turn off. A software update on the switches can also cause problems with communication and the switches themselves are not rated for frequent switching beyond a certain point getting stuck on or stuck off as a real possibility with smarts which is of cheap poor quality.

 

[Bear22]

I have both. I find the smart switches are inherently unreliable, and will either turn on the wrong time or won’t turn off when they’re told to turn off. A software update on the switches can also cause problems with communication and the switches themselves are not rated for frequent switching beyond a certain point getting stuck on or stuck off as a real possibility with smarts which is of cheap poor quality.

Yeah, I suppose that people world-wide who are running critical items such as: basement sump pumps, leak detectors for appliances, home security systems, pool pumps, or any other device through a proven system such as Home Assistant is a "bad idea".

(eye roll inserted here)

Congrats you've made the ignore list.

 

[Mebbid]

Yeah, I suppose that people world-wide who are running critical items such as: basement sump pumps, leak detectors for appliances, home security systems, pool pumps, or any other device through a proven system such as Home Assistant is a "bad idea".

(eye roll inserted here)

Congrats you've made the ignore list.

You're looking for actual user experience, and when you get it you're mad about it? Really?

 

[Bear22]

You're looking for actual user experience, and when you get it you're mad about it? Really?

This guy didn't provide any aquarium specific applications from a user perspective that I asked for. All he did was pontificate.

I'll put up with a certain amount of pontifications for a thread response or two. After that if it continues, they go into the "box of misfits toys" pretty much indefinitely. Yeah really.

 

[Mike7744]

I just have to chime in here.,
I use Govee smart plugs for everything on my system. I have 20 of them. They have worked for me for quite some time and are awesome for programming things. Lights, skimmer, reactors, pumps , you can control them from anywhere, turn them on, turn them off set timers. The only thing you can't do is write a script for them.

 

[Bear22]

I just have to chime in here.,
I use Govee smart plugs for everything on my system. I have 20 of them. They have worked for me for quite some time and are awesome for programming things. Lights, skimmer, reactors, pumps , you can control them from anywhere, turn them on, turn them off set timers. The only thing you can't do is write a script for them.

Thanks Mike. I'm getting some actual user experience as requested. ;-)

Having done more research since my original time stamp posting it seems that the Home Assistant route via their Green hub is the way to go. I'd really like to retain the ability to write and use simple scripts in a way that compares to the original Neptune controllers. I think the HA umbrella captures all the Govee hardware IIRC which is nice.

 

[Seregus]

I’m not sure how its related to aquarium, but for Smart home is Aqara - definetelly not TPLink.

 

[Bear22]

I’m not sure how its related to aquarium, but for Smart home is Aqara - definetelly not TPLink.

Can you clarify what you are saying?

 

[Seregus]

If a question is about Smart Home market, I’m not sure how its related to aquarium except to measure room temperature, maybe controllable sockets pr leak sensors (however I must admit I’m not the most creative person), so if you want to go into those things look into Aqara, they produce I’d say one of the fullest line of smart devices for smart home and their app is working well, they support Matter and etc.

But if this question is only about Aquarium controllers and I just did not understand the question, I would say GHL profilux if you want reliability, but you will have to have some software engineering skills or your learning curve will be very long.

 

[Seregus]

Eeeh how you are running a pump using smart home? You can monitor it running, you can have it an extra co troll socket to power it off or to know if its running? Leak sensors are made to be an extra helper for you.

But I see where you going - everything should be guaranteed and bulet proof… which does not exists.

I remember in Datacenter plenty of times in co trolled enviroment i. Terms of dry air, temperature, dust you still get a dead server, first I do remove components and put them back in 90% all start to work….

So yes I do use: window/door open/close sensors, leak sensors, door locks, temperature sensors and smoke sensors. This might help me or might not. If you do not use it - it will not help you, so on what you will rely? On a smoke sensors connected by wire? Really? Same could happen a fire will start in your electrical cable… but in My case because all is with UPS i will know there is no power and could react, if server room is on fire I probably will get last notification on the temperature or I will see all my network is down even if I’m away from home. All those will trigger me to ask a friend to go and check on the house…

So yes I have plenty of logical base facts to be in favour of the additional clever well designed monitoring systems which will significantly improve my chances of minimising damage from leaks or fires.

 

[Bear22]

If a question is about Smart Home market, I’m not sure how its related to aquarium except to measure room temperature, maybe controllable sockets pr leak sensors (however I must admit I’m not the most creative person), so if you want to go into those things look into Aqara, they produce I’d say one of the fullest line of smart devices for smart home and their app is working well, they support Matter and etc.

But if this question is only about Aquarium controllers and I just did not understand the question, I would say GHL profilux if you want reliability, but you will have to have some software engineering skills or your learning curve will be very long.

I've looked into Aqara, but from the best that I can tell the platform isn't programmable via user-defined scripts.

I'm thinking out of the box with respect to monitoring heater performance. I don't need a $600 dollar reef controller (or even a $40 Inkbird) in order to pull that off when a $15 TP tapco wifi smart plug will do the same level of monitoring and even more so in some aspects.