Home Automation
Home Automation has always been a goal… automating, making more convenient, better information and better control. Over the years we have tried many items. The very old X10 power system worked well enough at the time, but intermittent faults (lights coming on in the middle of the night come to mind), and failing modules led us to removing the entire system decades ago. Wifi webcams were a good idea, but not the way they were implemented, requiring a connection to a 3rd party external server and usually with $subscription$ required as well. So that came down.
This is the latest product that we have tried out and to date (about one year), it has worked as intended.
SENSKY 8.2ft/2.5M Motion Activated LED Strip Light Kit (3000-3500K).
At about $25Can these are much less than most lighting fixtures but more than an LED bulb…
If they last more than a few years, it will be a bonus.
As well, standard 12VDC power supplies can easily be replaced as well as component parts of the motion sensor or switch.
We installed the first test in the laundry room, with the motion sensor pointed at the door and a lengthy 5 minute timeon after triggering. The LED light strip is self adhesive and was placed so as to not shine in anyones eyes.
We loved it. The cats loved it (that’s where their food and litter were.. so a little more lighting at night was good for them too).
So, locations that would nice to be handsfree included places where your hands may have been full, dark sunglasses on and you can’t find the switch, etc. We tried this next on the front door closet. Awesome… before it had no lighting at all and you could rarely see inside of it. Then followed the kitchen pantry cupboard. Again, no lighting at first, then a rope light that was not too bright and the switch was often hard to manipulate. Now, an 8′ lighting strip provides excellent lighting coverage and motion sensor switch detection. Love it!
All of these were installed with a manual on/off switch as well, if for instance the motion sensor ran amuck and constantly turned on the lights. That has not happened yet.
The bedroom closet (again no previous lighting) was installed next.. no motion sensor on this one as it would be triggered constantly.. just a manual switch.
Lastly another storage space, under the stairs, that had no lighting, is no wonderfully lit with a motion sensor.
There appears to be no more low hanging fruit of locations to install into. We previously had another manufacturers 15′ strips installed in unheated spaces outside. Coming up on 3 years now and a lot of the LED segments have blown out. Unsure if it is because of the uncontrolled environment (hot and cold) or because it is 15′ long instead of 8? Once they get to the point of needing replacement we will compare them to the current set and choose then.
All of the new indoor sets were lower colour temperature (a warm yellow of 3000 to 3500 deg K) rather than the other bright blue white 6000K ones. The blue white is quite harsh at times.
If you are considering any home automation, ensure that you do *NOT* require the use of an outside provided. Wink, a home automation provider, just went down, stayed down and is suspected of bankruptcy. Oh, guess what? none of the equipment in your home works anymore! Revolve was bought out by Nest (owned by Google) in 2014. Nest then shut down its 3rd party servers. In 2019 Nest itself shut down in August. Keep the control inside your home borders!
In general, the above mentioned automation project involves seldom used dedicated spaces/functions.