I got it connected in a little under 30 minutes and it works as expected in HomeKit. The connection process requires the usual Ikea Control Device (and following directions with patience). DIY, tech style right?

After that, it pushes it straight to HomeKit. Note, you must update your bridge first. It forces you to do that when you open the app. I used the new Clicker/remote that turns the plug on and off as the pairing device. It was easier to pair with the bridge than normal even though the device was new YYMV. Remember, Ikea’s bridge requires a pairing device that usually isn’t HomeKit compatible. But you only need one. In any event, I’m super stoked and I will definitely buy more Ikea stuff in the future.

Promise fulfilled. Thanks, Ikea!

The post Tradfri Control Outlet and HomeKit – First Look appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

My first impressions upon seeing the box were a little odd. This is a company that thrives on design, and they decided to use a high gloss exterior box sleeve with a brown box inside it. What? Having said that, the packaging was pretty intelligently laid out on the inside, and I’m sure it could be shipped about 7 times before anything got damaged.

The colour part of the packaging was decent looking; maybe I’m being a bit rough on them. I originally purchased one ‘smarter” kit’ and one ‘expansion pack’, with the ‘smarter kit’ containing nine panels and the ‘expansion’ being three. I had to rob a bank and sell a kidney, so I hoped it was worth it. For some reason, I did think the panels would be thinner, and at first, I thought they might be a little off-putting on the wall.  

Anyway, it comes with:

• The power cords 
• The power module 
• The rhythm module 
• The panels
• The prep sheets (tissue paper for layout)
• The diode transfer pieces (visually similar to SIM cards)
• Stickies to attach to the wall (3M)
• A Sticker for branding and fun

Installation:
So, after you get the panels out of the box, you need to get creative on your wall. You can make a shape or any design you want using the ‘prep sheets’, or as we later learned, using a function in the app to plan the wall layout as well. The prep sheets are just tissue paper. We had to do it twice because we aren’t great thinkers, and here’s where I stop to say “There is no shame in that”.” If you really want a nice looking ‘artsy final project that looks clean’ I recommend being willing to spend up to a few hours. Once you have the prep sheets how you want them to take the power module, you then test each panel, as it says in the instructions. We’ve had experience with 3m stickies, which you basically use to make sure each side of each triangle panel sticks, by getting a majority of the sticky inside and leaving a little out. You might consider shaping of the stickies externally for neighbouring tiles too (so that external stickies don’t create a stack and make the tiles sit unevenly). Like I said, patience. Once you have your first one up, you have started the process. The electric chip (diode transfer) should be slid in first, so you want to keep panels at an angle and sorta slide in each new panel (to the diode first) and ease it ‘stickies side down’ then press down. You will want to check each and every tile as you go since each panel transfers to the ones connected. This will help to avoid mistakes in the long run. When you are done, depending on your setup, you may not love the cords and/or want to hide them somehow. I will touch on this later.

The app:
The App is segmented into several pieces (read destinations) with some of them available from 3 different menus. The main functions of the app are as follows: 

1. Help you design the wall setup if you don’t want to use the paper.  
2. Help you create and sync scenes both in the app and HomeKit. 
3. Help you add hardware, if not already added, prior to buying the panels (think controllers and other lights)
4. Help you buy more Nanoleaf products. 
5. Help you discover other peoples scenes they created and acquire them.

Of these, the main functions I used were adding and editing scenes, along with syncing them, mostly. The reason being that once the relationship with HomeKit is established it’s sort of in my wheelhouse since that’s the platform I use. I am cutting this somewhat short here because the layout of the app is enough to frustrate some non-technical users. I’m not going to go into every user interface choice I don’t love, as it could be an issue for some users.  

The main dashboard has five main tabs that most users will use.  

• Basic: choose a basic colour/gradient for all panels scene. 
• Color Static: choose a multi-mix static non-gradient colour which can be different for all panels scene.
• Color Dynamic: choose a multi-mix of dynamic animated colours that change based on time intervals.
• Rhythm: choose a multi-mix static non-gradient colour which can be different for all panels with animation scene and changes based on parameters by sound with the invocation of scene or module by hand. 
• Group: Look at scenes from HomeKit to try and group Nanoleaf scenes.

Once chosen, you can use the pencil tool to edit any scene (located in the top right corner). Depending on the capabilities of the type of scene, there is also the palette tool. This is an artsy device guys, and I almost feel like I’m reviewing a piece of Adobe software here, so I’m gonna stop there. You can edit animation colours etc with some limitations, so you could spend quite some time doing your own or even fooling with the several built-in scenes under any scene type.

Day-to-day use:
Using this product on a day-to-day level will be different for all users. With its Homekit support and sync function in the app, you will be able to trigger animated, basic, and colour scenes that are entwined with your other HomeKit scenes. You can do this by fighting with Homekit or fighting with the nano leaf app, to pair the scenes in sort of a manual fashion. IT IS NOT STREAMLINED. With HomeKit you can also control all panels by voice. You can physically control it by touching the buttons on the power module. The buttons are basically on/off and set a scene. Likewise, with the rhythm module, you can press that and anyone can clap or yell etc. and it will ‘dance’, based on the rhythm scene set using either the app or HomeKit. 

Intelligence aside, I think, as my wife put it in our wedding vows, “(s)he/it is nice to look at”. It should be noted that if you have the Nanoleaf Remote you can easily attach scenes to it in HomeKit or the Nanoleaf app. Furthermore, even on non-Rhythm colour scenes, it uses the Rhythm module to reduce the brightness when turning the remote counter-clockwise and brighter while turning right. So we set the remote to control eleven HomeKit scenes and number twelve to turn off the panels for when we leave. We haven’t automated the device aside from attaching it to scenes, mainly being that it can be quite bright. 

I want to add a side note with concerns I have regarding the NanoLeaf Remote in combination with the Aurora; Since it can do both Nanoleaf and HomeKit scenes, you can have some issues if you decide to populate HomeKit then turn off sync. There are reasons to do this, but I don’t think it is in your best interest. Having said that, If sync is on, you can mix and match as you like and its pretty cool. We leave ours sitting by the door so you can come in and flip the die (controller) and get our favourite scenes from both platforms. The people who live here know that the higher numbers are rhythm scenes.  So you just walk in, flip to 10 and tell Siri to play your favourite song.

I wanted to speak to the actual rhythm module and controller though. At its core, this product can be turned off and on, and have scenes changed via the power/main module. There is one button for each of those functions. If you have issues pulling the power, that will reset the network card inside. The rhythm module can be invoked at any time by pressing the triangle section on the switch, which now makes the panels responsive to sound. There have been complaints about a delay from several other users, but if you aren’t a pro DJ or didn’t spend thousands of dollars putting these in a club it won’t matter much as that feature is sort of a novelty for most end users. It’s supposed to be fun.  

HomeKit:
I’ve spoken a little about HomeKit here but connecting it is pretty simple; You scan the code and there it is.  I also spoke a little bit about the remote. The remote sort of auto-syncs rhythm or colour scenes to empty HomeKit scenes on it (or at least it did for me). This is great for people with the remote that want that and don’t have HomeKit. As far as the actual panels go, the controller module is what is connected to HomeKit.  So it looks like one light. It works flawlessly in my opinion under those terms. If you are okay with learning a light design platform that connects to HomeKit, that is what this is. It’s not as hard as ‘Mario Paint’ but it is a platform.

As for how it behaves in HomeKit… It behaves, as previously said, like a single light with no editable properties in the Home app. Voice can turn the panels on a single colour or percentage in the way you would expect of a normal colour light bulb, with the exception that it doesn’t take commands by calling it “light panels”. You must say “turn the”; for example “turn the light panels blue” works, but not “Light panels blue”. It will take light panels and a per cent though. For example “Hey Siri light panels 15 per cent”.  Of course, the tile is adjustable just like any single light as that’s what it thinks it is in HomeKit.  

I do have a HomeKit warning, however, that you must have the ‘sync’ function on when you want to add a Nanoleaf scene from the app to a HomeKit scene or even as a stand-alone scene in HomeKit. This sync function isn’t granular. It will sync every single scene from the Nanoleaf app you have downloaded, or created, to HomeKit – and you have a limit of 100 scenes within HomeKit. This is problematic in several ways especially if you didn’t know it would do that. To alleviate this, I chose to only have 10 scenes or so in the Nanoleaf app at any point in time. There is no other way around this as every time you load the app every scene will populate to Homekit, which even by default, is several.  This is a huge misstep.

When you have a scene you want to publish in conjunction with a HomeKit scene it requires: 

• saving the scene to Nanoleaf (after creating it or editing it, or downloading etc)
• clicking groups in the app from the dashboard
• finding the HomeKit scene you want to publish the Nanoleaf scene to
• swiping that scene left 
• pressing the Pencil tool
• finding the light panels by scrolling
• clicking them and adding the scene by name

This is a dumpster fire for most users. None of this is documented in any real way. At least not to my knowledge. I mitigated this by diagraming how the platforms talked and making sure I didn’t have lots of scenes in the Nanoleaf app as previously said. 

Other Notes:
This is an art driven platform modular device with tech on the back end. I said I would get back to the problems with the setup in terms of power cables etc. Because of the power required, unless you have a good ‘hide’ technique (aesthetically) the plugs/cables will be off-putting seeing as they’ll in most cases be dangling down to the nearest outlet. So consider this before buying. Ultimately I bought a seat that doubled as storage and a 6-inch flat plug extender. Your methods may vary.

Final thoughts:
I love it, but it wasn’t the easiest thing to implement. Also, consider your budget. Obviously, this isn’t aimed at the lightbulb replacement crowd. I was accidentally double-shipped and got quite a discount so I went a little crazy. In closing, I think it’s a cool product aimed at people wanting to paint with light. When you think about the fact that the famous French impressionist Monet had to sit for hours and wait for enough light so he could paint, what’s a little tech bullcrap to literally paint with light?

The post Nanoleaf Aurora ‘Rhythm Edition’ (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

The scene “Christmas Scene” is attached to several lights and smart plugs, as well as a virtual switch that turns on the fireplace. 

The post Using Siri Shortcuts to Create a Christmas Scene And a Playlist appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

I don’t want to be generic here, but Netatmo uses very shippable, very stylish packaging.  It’s no shock that they were just purchased by a pro installer company. As a ‘startup’, they come off as a sleek, really forward thinking, consumer-based company. Since this isn’t my first Netatmo product, I expected set up to be straightforward, and it was. The following steps were pretty simple: 

• Download the app.  
• Press ‘add products’ and follow the instructions (which include turning it upside down so that it knows you are in set up mode).  
• Follow the other instructions.

It is a wi-fi and ethernet device, so it will ask for the appropriate permissions to share that info from your iOS device, if it’s not connected via the ethernet port. It will then walk you slowly and steadily through understanding how it works. Finally it will give you some tips, once everything is successful.

The “Welcome” camera, as it is called, is not as large a device as you’d expect it to be, and it looks great. It looks almost identical in form to one of it’s siblings – the Healthy Home Coach. It weighs 200g/7oz and stands at 165mm/6.5″ tall. As for video quality, it is on a par with other 1080p cams, however, in my opinion, it has more “color honesty” than some of the other cameras I have. Having said that, it does trade “color honesty” for less field-of-view, so it is limited to 130-degrees, which while nothing to sneeze at, does not compete with some of the other cameras that aren’t as expensive.

The Netatmo Welcome, and in fact the entire platform in their range of “Security” products, are very similar in the way they are set up. All cameras have the options of whether to record based on the type of artificial intelligence that particular camera possesses. All cameras only store video locally by default, and come with an SD card pre-installed, unless the end-user decides to use the built-in features to do otherwise, which include uploading your recordings to a cloud service (Dropbox etc) or some FTP-based service. Only tiles, (identifiers that are user-chosen and in this case editable) based on the type of artificial intelligence the camera has, are stored on Netatmo’s servers. How, when and why they are recorded are pretty granular and extremely user controllable. This is not just an app, it is indeed a platform. 

For example, the Welcome camera has options to record when no one is home, based on it seeing a face it doesn’t recognise. It can also record when you are at home if it sees a person it doesn’t recognise. The Dropbox and FTP sections in the settings can also be configured as to how and when to hand off those recordings. It can record based on pets or not, or motion or not, and once again you have a decent amount of choices on how it handles that data, and the company doesn’t try to acquire it ever, or charge a subscription fee. I personally use it with Dropbox to store my recordings. It was easy to link, and it tells you on the “timeline” when it has successfully uploaded the first video from any camera to your Dropbox account. When the internal card is full, it overwrites the local storage with the latest video.  Other timeline settings issues it will warn you about include:  

• Any SD card issue
• Any interruption to connectivity
• Any reconnection of power
• Most reconnections of connectivity
• Welcome Facial Recognition & Profile

As previously mentioned, facial recognition is one of the main features baked into both the iOS app and camera firmware for all the current Netatmo cameras (Netatmo Presence for example). Once these start working together on the platform, you have quite an impressive, low-power usage, security infrastructure. It almost makes obsolete the old style “let’s record 24-7” video cameras. The way the indoor cameras work is that when an unknown person is seen, you are notified and asked to create a profile. Over time it then learns to recognise that person and when it can’t identify the person, asks you to help until it sort of ‘video game-style’ levels up. At that point it doesn’t fail often. It even tells you “Welcome Home!” like the good Jetson’s level machine it was meant to be. Profiles are editable on how often you want to be notified in terms of time of day by person. Pictures are editable after a profile has been created. In other words, I can make the pic in the profile look nice, and I know when and if anyone in my home that is profiled comes home by name.  

For extra fun you can take your wife’s favorite TV show and make it learn those faces (assuming it is able to see the TV, I do not recommend this if you are annoyed by a lot of notifications or don’t set them accordingly), which brings me to my next point; the camera only memorizes 32 faces. So you can’t really do a massive show and or you need to think about who you want it to profile. When it senses a face it can’t identify your options are: 

• Forget
• Identity (create new profile if you have faces left) 
• Not a face

If it senses a face it “knows” and gets it wrong, you can long push on the “tile” in the timeline and correct the artificial intelligence. It’s one of the coolest features of any product I’ve ever paid for. While this should be obvious once you’ve spent some time in the app, I do want to state that the tabs at the top of the app are:  

1. smoke alarm
2. home
3. away

So you can statically check who is home or away. This uses the app (on iOS) to decide, or a one-hour timer if the human who isn’t there is away. You can force an away function if you are nervous and want to make sure you know for sure exactly when a human arrives. I’m not sure that will ever happen to me, but the function is there.  

Finally, if it sees several faces or you wait a long time to help educate the artificial intelligence, the final dot on the bottom of the away tap on in the app holds “the wheel of unknowns”.  The purpose of this functionality is to allow you to forget all of those and keep your “timeline” more clutter free. That is, the app never really nags you much, only once in a while, and even then it is easily ignored.  

There was a time when I was waiting for HomeKit support. I was blowing up forums, and just in general sad about a lack of it for my two indoor “Welcome” security cams. There is an age-old piece of wisdom around the HomeKit community. Don’t buy it if it doesn’t have it. I think that’s fair. I think you should be careful. Having said that, of the 3 devices Netatmo promised me support on, they have delivered with updates or HomeKit support every time. In this case my two cameras were updated automatically and I logged in and found them to be updated on different days, firmware-wise. I then just clicked the Siri HomeKit settings button and added them fairly easily. They warn you to print or save the HomeKit code (which you need to do). Having said that, if the HomeKit add fails it did allow me to generate a new code. Note I did not say if it succeeds – it will; there are strict security guidelines outlined by apple and agreed upon by companies. 

Once you have it in the home app it behaves as 3 devices.  

1. A motion sensor (very fast one)
2. An occupancy sensor
3. A Camera

Those behave how you would expect. Having said that, I didn’t know how an occupancy sensor worked in HomeKit, since I didn’t previously have one. I decided to reach out to Netatmo, who told me (I’m paraphrasing):

“We really appreciate you reaching out. The sensor is activated in the Home app by using the firmware ability to discern whether when motion happens it’s by a human. It becomes reactivated for 5 minutes until it doesn’t see a human anymore. After that it becomes inactive.”  

I tested this, and it indeed worked that way and it served to replace a motion sensor in the living room since what I really wanted was a “person sensor” for the automation there. So ultimately, when all was said and done… I think this is one of my favorite HomeKit products. It also supports Google’s platform and the Alexa platform by Amazon.

I’ve found sometimes when you want quality, you have to wait and have a little faith. Netatmo hit it out of the park on this one. I’m impatient, but this product is top of its class and I’m glad I bought it. Welcome to the new world in technology for home users!

The post Netatmo Welcome Camera (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

I’m gonna do the long version of the story. Unfortunately, the hottest of the hot smoke detectors by both Eve and Netatmo were not available in the USA, so I had to think outside the box if I wanted to get one in my hands. I started with trying to order the Eve ‘Smoke’ from companies in countries that sell it. These companies refused to ship to me. Then in October, Netatmo announced that it would be shipping its product, in the US soon.  

Now, I’m a huge fan of Netatmo because of their outside cameras working so well with HomeKit, so I couldn’t wait to try out the detector. When it didn’t arrive in October to US markets, I tried to get one shipped from Denmark. Once again, no company would ship to me. As it happens though, a school teacher living in Denmark was willing to help get one for me. He even sent some goodies. So here we are.  

“NETATMO!” Sorry for yelling, but they have great packaging. Nice, slick Chanel style (I’m more of a Dolce & Gabana guy) packaging. As for initial installation, the set up was easier than I anticipated. The smoke alarm itself comes as two pieces: a holding panel that fits to the ceiling, and of course the main body, or brains of smoke alarm itself, with the batteries. I want to note, that any idiot can do this installation, but I had three things planned, so my buddy just dry wall screwed it in for me. The usual install process is take the plate, scribble out the holes in the ceiling plate up against the ceiling and then pre-drill, then install the dry wall mounts and fit the screws in to those. You then twist the plate to fit onto the ceiling screws, drill them down tight and attach the smoke detector to the plate. A monkey using drugs could do it.

The instructions are very well laid out, and the HomeKit code is both on the inside of the smoke detector and the last page of the instructions. In terms of the batteries they are pre-installed. Netatmo claim a 10 year battery life, which is effectively the lifespan of the device itself, and as such is not replaceable. This may seem odd, but it is recommended that smoke alarms of any type should be replaced after 10 years anyway.

I do need to warn you that when you connect it to the Netatmo security app, which is standard to their platform, you will need to wait a minute for the firmware update. When I say a minute or so. Once your firmware is up-to-date, the software walks you through learning to use the device in a way anyone could understand. You add it under settings > add product and then smoke detector (in the iOS app). I don’t have an android device, but I’m told the security app works almost exactly the same on that platform too.

Once you have it added to the Netatmo app, and the firmware is updated, you can add it quickly to HomeKit in the usual manner with the provided HomeKit code. This device uses wi-fi as its main method of communication, which also allows for remote access when you’re not at home, but it also has built-in Bluetooth capabilities, which allows for remote control of the hush feature, should you not be able to reach the physical button on the device, or if your wi-fi network happens to go down at the same time that the alarm sounds. The smoke detector constantly does a self check, monitoring its battery, the smoke sensor and the wi-fi connection, and will report back if any of these three become an issue. As for the smoke alarm itself, you can actually set monthly checks to make sure the alarm itself works – after all, there’s no point in sensing smoke if it can’t let you know – the alarm is very capable, producing an 85db alarm sound.

On a day-to-day level there isn’t much to think about, since we don’t set off fires often enough to notice that sort of thing. However, I did try some simple automations. For example, I’ve created ab automation so that when smoke is detected, HomeKit turns the lights on and unlocks the doors. As mentioned before, as the alarm is capable of 85db of sound, when the detector goes off it is extremely loud and pretty high-pitched. Once you press the button on the detector, it “hushes it” for 15 minutes which shows up on the Netatmo security timeline. It can be turned back on via the app or pushing the same button if you are certain you are done burning the lasagna.

In HomeKit, which is how we automate the devices in these parts, it shows up as a single smoke sensor, so automating it couldn’t be easier. As always you can’t automate “secure” automations outside of Apple’s main home app, however all other automations seem to play nice with the device. I honestly wish I had another smoke alarm that was HomeKit compliant that I could sort of ‘pit’ this one against, but that isn’t the case.  Having said that, It has been a fun device and it is a way better looking and efficient device than any of the other smoke alarms I cheated on… 

The post Netatmo Smoke Alarm (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

I wanted a rotating wall, or a shark pit, but when i pulled up to home depot they were sold out. Who sells out of shark pits? Ultimately, what I got was a button. James Bond – villain style. The problem with just the button and no shark pit is that you have to figure out a reason to own the button. Sooooo I decided to program the Fibaro button.

The thing about Fibaro stuff is that they really do an amazing job with their packaging. The packaging is beautiful and well constructed. I was also surprised at how small the button was. I was almost afraid to “hulk smash” it, which I didn’t do because, um yeah, it’s super small – it’s 30mm high by 46mm in width/depth. You’re also provided with a double-sided sticker that allows you to stick it to a wall or the underside of a table etc. although you can have it free-standing of course.

The battery, that comes included thankfully, is one of the more uncommon types – an ER14250, also referred to as a half AA battery, although there is more than one type of 1/2 AA battery, so make sure you get the right one. You may also have to think about ordering these online in advance, due to these not easily being available in stores. To get to the battery compartment, just twist the button anti-clockwise and the battery is visible inside. The battery should, according to Fibaro, last around 2 years, based on 10 pushes per day.

The Button is available in only 3 colours when it comes to the HomeKit version; Black, White or Red. If you wanted the Z-Wave version, then that choice goes up to 8 for some reason, although on Fibaro’s own site it seems to indicate there are also 8 colours for the HomeKit version. We haven’t seen any evidence of these additional colours for the HomeKit version however.

I opened the Home app and scanned it and it basically just worked. Usually the set of actions is scan and pray. Nice.

In terms of buttons it works like any other button that works with HomeKit, like the Eve Button or the Logitech Button, for example. It does three types of actions depending how you push it.  We assigned it to: 

• lights on: single press
• lights off:  double press
• lights red: hold for two seconds

We did go ahead and check it’s ability to speak to the house, Bluetooth-wise. There was almost no delay, despite our Bluetooth signal checking app saying it wasn’t perfect. Even in “bad” conditions it responded very well and quickly.

In terms of use the single and double presses, they must be quick, but the long press doesn’t require you to let up at all, which is perfect for what we need/want it for. Your mileage may vary. 

In terms of platforms, Fibaro makes a Z-wave version of this device, and I’m guessing it works well with other platforms. I don’t have a Z-wave controller and so I can’t speak to it’s ability to connect to that or others.

I like the product overall. Having said that, I do think they should have rotating bookshelf and or chandelier shrapnel option. As a super villain I was mildly disappointed.

The post Fibaro ‘The Button’ (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

I’m too lazy to sum it up better than a 13-year-old did on Wikipedia (I don’t actually know the age) so I’ll paste the actual thing from uh Wikipedia:

• “The IKEA effect is a cognitive bias in which consumers place a disproportionately high value on products they partially created. Yeah, we buy it, we put it together, and then we basically call ourselves king crap of coitus mountain.”

Since there isn’t an Ikea very close to me, and I’m not much of a shopper anyway, it didn’t really change my life much. And then, there was Trådfri! Trådfri is Ikea’s line up of personal lighting that they decided to make smart. How smart? HomeKit smart. So I had to check it out. I dove in with two products.

• The gateway
• The motion sensor (Not HomeKit compatible.)
• Full spectrum bulb (term for color)

Technically I have way more lighting products than I need, but I wanted to give Ikea a shot, and if I’m being honest, which I rarely ever am, I felt like these products deserved a fair review.

My first impressions were pretty good. They seem like nice enough products for the price, and packed differently, I think people would easily pay a lot more.

Sometimes Ikea has more fancy packaging, and other times, well, the packaging is pretty basic. When I got these in the mail I assumed the packaging would be much nicer, but it wasn’t. Having said, that I’ve seen worse, and as far as safety for shipping it may actually be “better than most” other companies. The plastic helps keep the products seated really well. Considering the whole marketing approach is aimed at DIY home automation, I wasn’t let down by the fact that it didn’t look like something from Dolce and Gabbana.

The first step in the setup is the gateway if you want it to work with HomeKit. You connect it to your router or switch using the included cable by untwisting the large hockey puck and connecting the (ethernet), and then plugging in the USB cable to the plug or other USB female input that can deliver power. Once that is done, you download the Ikea app and connect the gateway, and use the “Home App” to install it as a bridge for HomeKit. The codes are on the bottom to connect both the gateway to the “Tradfri” app, and the “Home” app.

once it’s connected you can move onto your other devices. This is where set up gets interesting. The bulb as you saw previously doesn’t come with any instructions, and the motion sensor was bought by itself. In fact, they don’t even offer a kit with the sensor and the bulb. As it turns out it was a good thing I bought the motion sensor because I’m not sure the bulb can connect to the bridge without it or another device. The Ikea platform of smart devices seems to include two types of device (that aren’t bridges or gateways) – regular smart devices and what they call “Control Devices”. Those devices do come with instructions. The way you add the motion sensor (the control device I bought) to the bridge is to hold in the pairing button for 10 seconds (that app instructs you) within 4mm of the bridge (I literally had to sit it on top of it), wait until it blinks X amount of times, then press whatever sequence the app tells you. This took me around 15 minutes to get correct. Once you’ve achieved that, you will have an accessory showing in the Ikea app. Yay. Now for the “color full spectrum bulb”.

The app helped me with this differently. You do still tell the application you want to add a device and device type. Then… It basically instructed me to use the “control device” I just set up (motion sensor) and hold it next to the bulb for quite some time. I tried this 4 times, basically turning the bulb on, holding my arm in the air for 5 minutes, right on the bulb with the sensor on it. It wouldn’t add to the app. I gave up and went to bed. When I woke in the morning somehow magically the bulb was visible in the Trådfri app. Yay! All it required then was to go to the integration page in the Trådfri app, add it to HomeKit, not have it work, then COMPLETELY REMOVE the bridge and re-add it to the Apple home app. Just to be clear no devices needed re-adding to the Trådfri app. No, I’m not kidding about any of this setup.

The bulb and gateway act as you would expect, however, the color range isn’t close to anything like 16 million colors, which is a typical number thrown out for a high quality color bulb. I’m not going to guess an amount but I think for the price a lot of people would want more. It’s half the price of say a Hue bulb but it does have competitors close in price that don’t require a hub and have way more colors. Having said that, it works well in the laundry room where I have it and with the motion detector it provides a good solution. We have stationed the sensor so we can walk in with laundry and the light comes on. The sensor is adjustable on the back in terms of time for no motion to shut the controlled device off. I wish the sensor were Homekit compatible, having said that, by using the bulb it controls in automations we are able to get a lot of use out of the sensor, and even though I generally have a “No non-HomeKit device” rule, it’s actually quite a treat. It’s just too easy to hide and small not to love it. The bulb looks as you would think when asked to be normal or 100 percent tungsten / brightness according to Siri talk. So for a laundry room it really doesn’t matter that the colors aren’t up to the standard of some other bulbs.

As far as the Home app goes that, was the easiest part to connect inside the Tradfri app and I imagine it’s the same with other platforms. It looks and behaves as you would expect, it reacts quickly, and reacts how you would expect (to the best of it’s ability) using Siri for voice control. The pics I took of the colors of the bulbs that were acquired for your reference were done so using voice. I’m pleased with it’s automation reaction times as well. It’s a thumbs up for HomeKit once it’s set. I am concerned that I may have to disconnect it every time I buy a new Tradfri device, but that’s on me if I make that choice. I’d love to hear how it does with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.

Overall Impressions:
“It’s a no from me dog.” I kid, I kid. No, but really you’ve been warned, Trådfri products may need some ironing out. Look, I’ve been through other rough set ups from other companies, and I still love their products, and as I said earlier I love the motion sensor, and the bulb works as expected. I’m sure Ikea will get it sorted, I’m glad to have and have it “mostly” figured out for future purchases. I just wouldn’t suggest it for my mom or grandma.

DIY can be an elusive creature and ultimately Ikea has made its living at least partially off of the “Ikea Effect”. I do feel partially responsible for making this work, but then, that’s not really a new phenomenon.

The post Ikea Trådfri Gateway and Smart Colour Bulb (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

My first impression of the packaging was that it’s pretty standard for a lot of HomeKit capable devices; Sturdy, elegant and probably pretty expensive to print. I don’t want to be generic here, but a lot of companies in this day and age have stepped up their design game on packaging. I think that’s a good thing in this particular case since you can buy a really cheap, remote-controlled LED light strip from China. Most of my friends have done this, and at least a couple have made them smart after the fact using IR (infrared) blasters.  All in all I was impressed with how snuggly protected and well put together the packaging was. Nice.

We live in a digital world and I am a digital girl or boy or whatever. My point is we often don’t think about the analog set up when we get a new product. In terms of light strips that means maybe some measurement or buying the correct size. This product really works best with 50″ TVs (if you are using it on a TV) or smaller, in my opinion. Even then on most you are going from half way down on the vertical sides on both sides. I put one under my couch and didn’t bother affixing it. It’s ‘peel and stick’ as far as that goes. I did want to mention that, just like my ex-wife, it didn’t take my efforts very well, that is when I tried to power it with my old TV it shorted the TV out and turned it off. Hey, we can’t all be winners, am I right? Just to clarify, I did try it on multiple old sets and most of them did not power this device. If that’s a deal breaker, I recommend testing. Set up in the Home app was as to be expected for the most part – add accessory – tell it what room – give it a name and off we go. I had an issue with one of them and had to restore it to factory settings and change my router settings to 2.4ghz. Neither of those things were hard to do, but if that sort of thing bothers you perhaps pay 2 – 3 times as much for a different product. Time to watch Tron and pretend we are inside of a games machine. 

Day-to-day actions are as you would expect. It looks good, has 16 million colors available in its spectrum etc. and so far I’ve had no real issues. I have bought inexpensive led strips that weren’t smart before, and this seems about 30 percent brighter than those. If you like ambient light or just setting the mood in general you won’t be disappointed.

The product comes with a free app download. To some extent the app can be useful in set up for newcomers or if you’re not using HomeKit and you have an Android phone, but I found it to be a little bit off-putting just in terms of the app layout etc. I did want to at least give it a once-over for the sake of anyone not used to adding their devices solely from the home app when possible. It asks you for permissions and is pretty streamlined in that quality. I didn’t care for it, but that’s just me. It does try to educate a new user, so perhaps they think that is their target market.

As for HomeKit and Siri, the strips work great! Ask Siri to do what you want her to do and Boom! it happens – unless it’s the color “red”, every member of our 4-person family tried that by voice on three devices; “Siri TV Strip Red” – This command shut’s off the strip for no reason. The lights can turn red, but Siri can be a little bit of a slow learner. On the other hand, automations work well. For example, if you have a switch attached to a voice command “TV On” for example as the “switch” you can make that turn the strip on automatically even if you have it plugged in to the wall.  Assuming that switch somehow turns on your TV they both come on even if your TV is several years old.  Good programming always beats old TV. That’s what my Grandma used to say. She also used to pee herself all the time, but I think that’s a different subject.

These products are solid and sold at a fair price. If your equipment is old, keep that in mind I always realize when I visit the nursing home I might end up empty-handed. I STILL GO! Anyway I digress. Sometimes you get what you pay for, but I feel like these are a bargain. However, they are a bargain for the right buyer. If you want to buy a hub and pay a networking engineer to only use a more expensive brand then you should. If you want to learn to DIY, then you should. If you don’t mind taking it slow and easy, this might be the perfect product to watch Star Wars in the dark to. As always, enjoy your home and your HomeKit!

The post Koogeek LS1 Light Strip (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

My first impressions of the packaging were good; The box was Satiny, like a Victoria’s Secret catalog “wink wink nudge nudge” – probably just as expensive too! Koogeek is a company that I think tries to externalize it’s intelligence, in that the packaging for their products, even if they have similar “types” of customers, lets them know up front the information they need to know. So not only is the packaging stylish it gives a decent amount of technical information such as electrical requirements, for example what apps or platforms you must be using to warrant the purchase of the product. This isn’t that common, especially at this price point. Since they are aware of the customer who is buying the device, the HomeKit code is both on the item and in the box as well. I was not unhappy with that. The device also looked pretty elegant though my first impressions had me worried about the size. 

Setup was pretty simple on the tech side, but  a little odd on the non tech side. I handed it to my wife to plug in to her surge protector, which is on her side of the couch. She couldn’t get the plug in all the way and put a bunch of force on it. I explained to her you have to jiggle it and not force it if your surge protector has the two different sized holes for the power plugs. After that, the setup is as you would expect in the Home app, if not even quicker than usual. Scan the code – pick a room – name it as you please and bask in the glory of another finely added product (cue violins playing music from some 80s movie where the protagonist just won the day, or the girl, or maybe it’s a religious movie and something good happened or something – I don’t do the music part guys). 

I’ve always said size doesn’t matter, but then my psychiatrist tells me I’ve been lying to myself my whole life. In other news – smart plug news that is – size is a huge deal (Huge get it?!). Because of that, I tried this plug out in a few scenarios. Will it work in a two port standard US wall with another plug. Will it work with another “wallwart” etc?  The answer: Yes and no. It will work in most plugs with a two prong plug above it, however it will be tight and chances are the physical power button will be blocked. If your plug is small but a “wallwart” and two prong, you are good to go. If your plug is three prong or anything not close to a small “wallwart”, you really aren’t going to have much luck.  

In terms of how the plug behaves with HomeKit and Siri it’s pretty much as you would expect, via voice control and touch/computer control in the Home app. Koogeek do also provide their own app of course, but I’ll admit I deleted it almost immediately after seeing it. Your mileage may vary with the Koogeek app, but I wasn’t a fan. This thing works great with automations in the home app. It never lags, and it’s not one for guzzling wi-fi (as it is a wi-fi device) data. as it throttles down to 1mb per second. It’s connection – even far from either the signal or the hub – is solid.

I think it’s a great device for what it does. It’s not too big, it’s not too small, it works fast and reliably. I have two other products from Koogeek and they work pretty well too. My only complaint would be that it would be nice if they could have got it just a touch smaller. Aside from that, it’s a great product.

The post Koogeek P1 Smart Plug (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

I bought this product because I’m a HomeKit junkie. No, in all seriousness, I bought it because of its usefulness and ease of integration. There aren’t a ton of interruptor switches out there that work in old houses like mine. We don’t have wiring for a switch that requires a ‘neutral’ that also work well with HomeKit, so this fits the bill in that respect. We use these in rooms where we want to have a sort of ‘kill switch’ because the whole room is wired to be ‘on or off’, electrically, and for rooms that have fans always on, or rooms where we will never use anything other than bulbs that don’t work on dimmers.

The carton is pretty standard for Lutron Caseta products, with nice and sturdy blister packaging. The switch itself comes with a load-bearing device for use with fans (or any other electrical devices that need it). The first installer I hired got freaked out by it because they were not experienced in reading the diagram/it is a smart product and they just got scared and quit the job. My brother and I were able to see what needed to be done via the diagram and we successfully installed it. Any room with a large fan etc. should have the load bearing device installed between the power cables in the fan for this interruptor. I am not an electrician and I do not recommend you install this yourself without help from someone who knows what they are doing.

Once it’s installed in the wall, you just need to set it up to work with HomeKit and the Caseta app. To do that you start by holding down the bottom/off button until the green LED on the switch starts blinking, then in the Caseta app, in the settings section, you click ‘add device’. The app should find the switch quickly and ask you the usual questions about which room it’s located in, which icon you prefer etc. It should be noted that the Caseta app has no icon for a ‘switch’, so if you want it to be treated like one in the ‘Home’ app you will need to change it there. Once added, the Caseta hub, which is required for Homekit integration, will automatically add it to the room you choose.

As for day-to-day usage, it works really well and so far I haven’t experienced a ‘No Response’ situation. It’s important to note that if you have a smart bulb attached, that bulb will result in a ‘No Response’ message every time you kill the switch. Sometimes kids that don’t understand how Siri works will simply say ‘bobby’s room out’, for example, and accidentally kill the fan in their room when they wanted the light in the fan to go out. In the ‘Home’ app I use the rooms all the way to the right as kind of ‘virtual rooms’. If you have a young child that doesn’t understand how it works and you are using this as a ‘kill switch’ or ‘cycle switch’, move the switch in Home to a ‘Fake Room’ so that when they say “turn my whole room off” it just does the bulbs. It looks and works exactly as you would expect in HomeKit. Siri works very well with it and I never get much lag as far as response is concerned. 

Overall I’m very pleased, and I’m told that Lutron products work with so many systems I couldn’t even list them all. It’s rock solid and it does what I want. Can’t really ask for much more.

The post Lutron Caseta In Wall On/Off Switch (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.