Category Archives: Home Automation

LinknLink eMotion Max and Pro mmWave Presence Sensors Review

Home Automation, review,

Every smart home owner is likely to be familiar with “passive infra red” (PIR) motion sensors as they’re an easy way to start off making a home a little smarter They’re quite distinctive too, with the slightly opaque domed window on the front. While they’re popular and inexpensive, their downfall is in their name, i.e. motion sensor. If someone’s in a room but sitting still, there’s no motion to pick up and the lights go off which is pretty dumb. I’m sure we’ve all been there, waving arms in the dark to get the lights back on.

To address this annoyance, LinknLink are offering presence sensors which use mmWave frequencies to detect people and animals rather than infrared. It’s all part of the electromagnetic spectrum but by using higher frequencies, the sensors can not only detect presence with the tiniest of movement, they can do clever things like measure distance or track multiple people in the same room. Not to worry, it’s all perfectly safe as this is non-ionising radiation beyond infrared but before microwave.

On review here are two LinknLink models, the eMotion Pro and the eMotion Max, plus a THS cable that adds in temperature and humidity measurements to whichever device it’s plugged into. Both the Pro and the Max look identical but the differences are on the inside. The Pro uses 24 GHz and the Max uses 60 GHz for their sensing. Both the Pro and the Max come with an IR blaster too, resulting very useful devices for the monitoring of rooms and the control of devices in the room.

The sensors are large white pebbles about 6 cm across and 2 cm deep. Unlike most PIR sensors which use built-in batteries, these are powered via a (supplied) USB C from a 5V/2A PSU (not supplied). It’s a pro and a con. On the one hand, no need to keep buying batteries, but on the other there’s a cable running from the sensor to a wall socket. To help position the presence sensor in the best spot, there’s a cunning little adjustable mount which sticks to the back. The mount uses sticky pads to adhere to surfaces and it would be even better if there screw holds for a permanent attachment.

Apart from the sensor, cable, mount and instructions, there’s nothing else in the box. Getting the sensors set up is straightforward enough once the relevant app has been downloaded from the App Store or Google Play. After creating an account with LinknLink the app goes through the fairly standard process of the connecting from your phone to the sensors in order to then connect the device to the local WiFi (these aren’t Zigbee devices). In both instances, new firmware needed to uploaded to the sensor before proceeding further.

The app looks great and has some nice touches, though it could be improved in a few areas. First, it sometimes uses a slightly quirky “I know it” instead of the more usual “Ok”, which is kind of cute the first time you see it. However, more annoyingly is the way that each sensor capability has to be on-boarded one by one. For example, the app connects to the eMotion Max device itself and you give it a location, such as the kitchen. Each Max capability is then setup one-by-one, and there’s a few: presence, brightness, IR blaster, temperature & humidity, and each time it asks for a location, which of course, is the kitchen. It would be better if all the capabilities loaded with defaults inherited from the main sensor unit, which could then be edited if needed. Obviously this setup only has to be done once so it’s not a big deal but at the time it’s somewhat wearing.

The other minor issue encountered was with the IR blaster which seems to be slow to respond during the setup but once complete, it’s snappy and it’s quick to control the TV from the app.

Now that all the devices are setup, let’s talk about the party tricks of mmWave and the eMotion Pro & Max. First of all, both devices are able to detect through materials that would defeat a PIR senor. I put the eMotion Pro in cupboards with both a glass front and a wooden door, and it was able to pickup my presence through both materials without any obvious loss of sensitivity. For neat freaks, this could be a big benefit. Obviously, the IR blaster’s not going to work if it’s hidden behind a door: you win some, you lose some.

Talking about only the eMotion Pro for a moment, in addition to detecting presence, it is able to measure the distance from the sensor to the person and whether the person is approaching or receding. I’d say it was accurate to about 10 cm either way and clearly its only going to work accurately if there’s one person in the room. The app has the ability to set up to four detection zones based on distance from the sensor which could be useful when there’s only interest in presence or motion when it’s closer. I found that presence could be successfully detected up to about 5.5 m away – see the attached screen shot.

The eMotion Max is even more impressive. It can pickup multiple people in a room and show them in the space.I t’s very impressive in comparison to old-school PIRs which are either “motion” or “no motion”. As with the Pro, you can configure up to four zones on 2d floor plan and this is really useful. I have an open plan kitchen-diner and it’s really quite difficult using traditional PIR motion sensors to track motion cleanly in either the kitchen area or the dining area. With the eMotion Max, it’s really easy in that I can simply set up two zones, one for each area In the screenshot alongside, the blue area is the kitchen and the yellow the dining area. It’s not perfect, particularly when there are multiple people moving in the space, but’s surprising what it does manage to achieve.

In addition, the app has a number of settings for options such as “Not Detected For” time and “Sensitivity” should you need or want to change these. The app also offers routines based on “If this, do that, but only if” but I wasn’t able to test these as I only had these two sensors available.

The LinknLink eMotion Pro and Max can be integrated into other smart home ecosystems, such as Amazon Alexa, Google Home and Home Assistant (HA). Regrettably there’s not yet integration with Samsung SmartThings, but I’m told it’s on the road map. Connecting to the other ecosystems is done via the LinknLink app and it all connected up first time with both Amazon and Google. All the attached sensors along with the detection zones appeared as devices and I was able to set up an Automation in Google Home that used the LinknLink devices to turn on the TV in one room when presence was detected in another.

Overall, little to complain about here other than a few minor quirks in the app and the technology itself works well. In terms of price, the LinknLink eMotion Pro is US$36.99 and the Max is US$54.99. Yes, it’s more than a traditional PIR but you are also getting more: the presence detection features are more detailed and there’s the ability to see through lightweight materials. Personally, I’m keen for the arrival of integration with Samsung SmartThings.

You can order the eMotion Max and Pro directly from LinknLink or else via Amazon in your country.

Thanks to LinknLink for providing the eMotion Max and Pro for review.

 

Twinkly Gets The Winter Fun Started Early

Home Automation, , ,

Anyone who’s serious about Christmas knows about Twinkly. Their lights can transform your ho-hum set of twigs into a truly showstopping Christmas tree that tops off the festive season. How? Twinkly have this great set of Xmas lights which you drape round your tree as you would normally, but then the Twinkly app works it’s magic using your smartphone to map the positions of the lights to show off special effects that are perfectly synced no matter how incompetently you put on the lights. It’s awesome and really is a wonder the first time you do it.

Christmas is still a few months away but given the time of year Twinkly are reminding us that they can put on quite the show for Halloween too. Less red and gold and more green, orange and purple.

Twinkly do a wide range of lights from strings to curtains to squares and tubes. I really didn’t know how many different types they had to offer until quite recently.

Finally, in a piece of sheer marketing genius, Twinkly have signed up Chevy Chase as their 2024 Christmas Ambassador. You will have to have watched National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation to understand the brilliance of this. If you haven’t see the film, put it on your watchlist for the holiday season. Suffice to say that Christmas lights feature heavily in the film. Here’s Chevy aka Clark Griswold upping his game.

I can’t believe that they even do reindeers…

If you are in UK, the entire range is available from the Twinkly website, B&Q, Very and Currys. There are some discounts on now if you want to be prepared before the Xmas rush.

Airthings Wave Mini Air Quality Monitor Hands-On Review

health, Home Automation, ,

It was back in 2012 when the two big stalwarts of the smart home market, Philips Hue and SmartThings, first arrived on the market to automate our homes. Ten years later, almost every home has something “smart”, whether a few lights, Amazon Alexa or a video doorbell.

Perhaps instead of smart homes, the focus should have been on safe and healthy homes first. People will be familiar with smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors for safety but when it comes to healthy homes, it’s more unfamiliar territory. We’ve probably all seen news reports about mold in poor quality housing or air pollution from traffic near busy roads. Everyone knows about smart bulbs but what about smart air quality detectors? These could really benefit asthma and allergy sufferers.

For the healthy home, Norwegian specialists Airthings have a range of products which can monitor for radioactive gases like argon, the presence of VOCs – volatile organic compounds – or predict the likelihood of mold growing. What are VOCs? Airthings says that they’re a combination of gases and odours emitted from many different toxins and chemicals found in everyday products. They come from an array of everyday items including paints and varnishes, wax and cosmetics, cleaning and hobby products, and even cooking and human breath. When you have an enclosed space like a home or office, these emitted gases accumulate and pollute our fresh air. That sounds bad but how bad is it really?

To find out, Airthings kindly send me one of their Wave Mini Smart Indoor Air Quality Monitor (hereafter known as Wave Mini) to try out and I’ve been impressed on a number of fronts – it’s easy to use, can be located almost anywhere inside and seems to give hard data in line with expectations. Let’s take a closer look…

The Wave Mini comes in a small cardboard box that befits the Mini’s size – there’s no wastage here with an excessively large box. Inside is the Wave MIni, a small stand, batteries and some short instructions. Batteries? Yes, this is the first win. There’s no need to locate the Wave Mini near a power socket or to have an unsightly cable as the device uses three standard AA batteries for about two years worth of operation depending on battery brand. Score one.

As you’ll see from the pictures, the Wave Mini is the usual anonymous white with an impressed Airthings logo, and can either be wall mounted or sit on a horizontal surface courtesy of the small stand. The back of the Mini is held in place magnetically so it’s still very easy to change the batteries if the unit is on a wall. Score two.

Airthings Wave Mini rearThe Wave Mini communicates with a smartphone via Bluetooth, (though a new Hub is available as well for those looking to connect up multiple devices). Both Android and Apple devices are supported so the next step is to download the app and create an account with Airthings. Once you’re in the app, it’s pretty much a case of pulling the battery tab on the Mini, adding a device and letting the phone getting on with the job. You can assign the Mini to a specific room too, such as office or bedroom.

The app requires a few permissions and config changes to make sure that it will sync regularly with the Mini. I was on Android and didn’t feel there was anything too suspicious. Once the configuration is done, Airthings recommend putting the Wave Mini in its new home and leaving it there for a week to allow the sensors to calibrate and settle in. Time passes…

The week’s up and now the Airthings app provides information and graphs on the condition of the air in the room. It offers three main measurements – VOCs, humidity and temperature – and combines them to create a mold risk from 0 to 10, with 0 being very low risk and 10 being almost certain. Ok, so it doesn’t sound very exciting but if you have concerns about the air quality in your home, you’re now gathering hard data. The app will also alert on the phone if certain thresholds are exceeded, e.g. it gets too hot or too humid, but these are preset thresholds and you can’t change them.

Here are some example screenshots from the app.

The graphs show that I’ve nothing to worry about in my home – everything was all very normal. There are a few nifty features – you can choose different time periods from 48 hours to a year, and there’s a little cursor that can be moved along the graph line to get the specific data point. The app links to helpful information on the web via questions like “What is humidity?”

A common complaint of smart home technology is that it’s often the male geek controlling the house and that other inhabitants don’t have access to the data. That’s still partly the case here, but the Wave Mini has a single LED on the front that will glow green, amber or red when a hand is swiped in front of it, giving an overall assessment of the air quality. This is great as it negates the need to always review the data on a smartphone and includes more of the household. Looking at some of Airthings other products, they often come with little displays too. Score three for inclusivity.

And if that’s not enough, Airthings offer even more ways to interact with your data. There’s a web-based dashboard, an API, skills with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant and integration with IFTTT. The latter gives some options around “If the temperature is above 30 C, turn on fan”. I had difficulty getting the Alexa skill to work – it wouldn’t recognise “Airthings” and according to some of the reviews, it’s a bit limited anyway.
It would have been good to see direct integration with, say, SmartThings, but if the new Matter standard comes to pass, it may not be an issue.

In terms of the competition, the only one I have direct experience of is Foobot and as far as I know, they’ve left the consumer market. In comparison, both devices collect the same information but the Wave Mini is far neater and more convenient. Score four.

Drawing this to a close, having spent a couple of weeks with the Airthings Wave Mini, I think it’s an easy to use and reliable bit of smart home tech that could really benefit families where either there is an allergy or asthma sufferer, or there are concerns about pollution or mold in the home. Priced at UK£69, the Wave Mini is affordable for most people and could be a real boon in providing solid data when there are questions. Available now.

Thanks to Airthings for providing the Wave Mini for review.

Dial It Up with the Flic Twist

Bluetooth, Home Automation,

Flic has featured in GNC a couple of times in the past and for those unfamiliar, Flic is an automation system that focusses on small push buttons to trigger actions. They’re really rather handy. Want to turn on the lights? Push a Flic button. Want to play music from Spotify on your Sonos? Push a Flic button. Personally, I use a Flic button in the bedroom for those times when you get into bed and realise that you’ve forgotten to turn off the overhead light.

Flic 2 hub and four buttonsUnusually, the Flic system uses Bluetooth rather than Wi-Fi or Zigbee but it does mean a lower cost of entry as Flic can be used with a smartphone or tablet without the need for a hub (although a hub is available too to avoid the reliance on the phone being in the home). The buttons typically cost around UK£20-£25 depending on how many you buy at a time.

I did a review of their first generation back in 2017, but since then they’ve grown both the hardware and their ecosystem with interfaces to IFTTT, Slack, Microsoft Flow, Philips Hue and Samsung SmartThings, to name a few. The second generation hub can work an IR blaster to control TVs and AV equipment, and the newer buttons are a bit more robust.

The Flic buttons can be programmed with actions triggered from three different behaviours: single press, double press and press & hold. For example, if you had a room with two lights, a single press could turn on one light; a double press could turn on the other; and press & hold could turn on both. It’s also possible to chain actions together – you’re not restricted to only one thing. Unsurprisingly, there’s a Flic app that helps with all the programming.

But that’s all old news as Flic has announced a new controller called the Flic Twist. Simplistically, it’s a central button with an outer dial – press it, rotate it, or press and rotate.

I really like the design of the Twist: while it’s bigger than the Flic buttons, it looks smart and modern. The tactile rotation makes controlling volume or brightness so much easier. It’s a feature that has been missing from the (smart home) market and “how-to-use-it” is somewhat self-evident as we’re familiar with turning dimmer switches.

It’ll be available in two colourways; matte black and frost white, with twelve little LEDs round the button visually showing the rotation. It’s powered by two AAA batteries that should last for two years and the Twist is magnetic which is great for fridges. Finally, while the Twist will be compatible with existing Flic Hubs, there’s a tiny new Flic Hub Mini too – it’s really small!

The Flic Twist and Hub Mini are launching on 2nd November at 1700 GMT / 1800 CET with pre-orders through Kickstarter. The RRP for the Twist is €99, but there will be plenty of early bird deals available which will significantly reduce the price, especially when buying more than one Twist.

Philips Boosts Hue with new Bulbs, Lamps and Spotify Integration

Home Automation,

Philips Hue saw a major boost with Spotify integration and whole raft of new lamps and lights for the smart home, including some super bright 1600 lm models. There’s news for gamers too, with an upgrade to Hue Sync. Let’s step through the changes.

While there are several smartphone apps that will synchronise the Hue lights with sound, this is the first time that there’s been a digital integration between Hue and a music service. After linking Hue and Spotify accounts together, Hue colour lights will pulse in time with the music. A new Sync tab in the Hue app allows listeners to adjust brightness, intensity and colour to suit their mood. Sounds fun. There’s an FAQ on the new integration and you can sign up for early access now (as of now, I can’t get this to work). General availability is coming in October and that’s a great freebie for Hue and Spotify owners.

On the lighting side, the Hue Filament bulbs (those are the vintage style ones) are now available in white ambiance which means the colour temperature can be adjusted from warm orange through to cool blue white light. There’s a new candle version, too, which will look great in the candelabra-style lamps.

The standard Hue smart bulbs have been given a brightness boost, with options for 1100 and 1600 lumen versions. The existing models were around 800 lm, so this is a significant jump in output power and is very welcome. I’d previously had to resort to buying a competing bulb in order to get the brightness up in some poorly lit rooms.

The Philips Hue Play HDMI sync box works with TVs to backlight the screen and surrounding walls with colours from nearby lamps that match the onscreen action. It’s impressive when you see it working. Hue has new gradient tubes for installation with TVs that are mounted close to the wall (where lightstrips aren’t effective). The tubes come in two sizes for different sized TVs (40″-55″ and 60″+), and two finishes, black and white.

The HDMI sync box gets a software upgrade next month as well, with the unit now supporting 120 Hz refresh rates at 1080p and 1440p. 4K resolution is supported to 60 Hz.

There are some new lamps including the Signe floor lamp and the Sirumu ceiling panels.

Overall, this is all very welcome news for Hue and addresses gaps in the portfolio that competitors have been keen to fill. It doesn’t get away from the fact that Hue is relatively expensive though there’s definitely an element of “you get what you pay for” as I’m still using bulbs that came with my first gen starter kit back in 2013.

Airthings View Plus Smart Air Monitor

health, Home Automation, , , , ,

Scandinavian air quality specialists, Airthings, have announced the View Plus smart air monitor which senses over half-a-dozen air quality metrics: particulate matter (PM), carbon dioxide (CO2), radon gas (Rn), temperature, humidity and air pressure. Designed to help create a healthy home, air quality has become all the more important during the pandemic lockdowns with people remaining in their houses to keep themselves and their loved ones safe.

The World Health Organisation estimates that over 4 million people die every year from air pollution, so it’s a very real problem. While generally air quality is poorer indoors compared with outdoors, it varies greatly from place to place and it can sometimes be hard to tell if there’s a problem. For example, radon gas is naturally found in many areas but it’s odourless and invisible. If you are interested in radon exposure and you’re in the UK, Public Health England has a handy interactive map.

“Since the beginning of the pandemic, we’ve seen the levels of awareness about air quality increase dramatically,” said Oyvind Birkenes, CEO of Airthings. “We decided to develop View Plus to help people everywhere understand that they have more control over their air quality than they might think. Our mission at Airthings has always been to educate people and foster constructive conversation about how air quality can impact their health and daily lives. With View Plus, we can empower people to learn about the air quality in their homes in a way that is constructive and easy to understand.”

It’s back to the old business aphorism: you can’t manage what you don’t measure but unlike many smart home gadgets, Airthings have gone to considerable lengths to ensure that the View Plus works for the family and not just for the “geek in charge”. To start with, the View Plus looks good with a sleek minimalistic design, and recognising that smartphones apps aren’t always convenient, the View Plus offers a customisable display showing the current air quality status. Of course, the View Plus does have wireless connectivity (WiFi and Bluetooth) and there is full integration with Airthings smartphone app and web dashboard, plus IFTTT, Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa support.

The View Plus has a battery life of more than two years allowing it to be placed wherever convenient, but if it can be plugged in via USB C, the View Plus has built-in hub functionality, so owners can expand their system and bring together other Airthings devices.

Airthings View Plus is now available for pre-order beginning on Airthings.com with a special10% off pre-launch discount before the end of March 2021. The product will start shipping to customers this June for £259 / $299 USD inc VAT.

Meross WiFi Smart Plug with HomeKit Support Review

Home Automation, ,

The fabled smart home as a building that responds your needs as they arise is still somewhat legendary and will likely remain so until the technology can be built into the fabric of the structure. Regardless there are many practical ways where the new technology can be used on a practical basis. For example, my living room uses a combination of overhead, wall and table lighting and in the past, I would have need to turn on lights at four different places in the room every evening. With smart technology, one of the lights comes on as dusk falls and the others will come on as someone enters the room.

For simple automation like this, one solution might involve smart bulbs such as those from Philips Hue or LIFX, but for floor standing or table lights, a good alternative is to add a smart plug which will do the on-off switching for you. It’s a pass through type device, so no re-wiring is need. Plug the smart plug into the wall socket and then the lamp plug into the smart plug.

And for the purposes of demonstration, here we have the Meross WiFi smart plug with Apple HomeKit support. This is a new iteration of Meross’ smart plug which now supports Apple HomeKit in addition working to working on Android phones via an app – look for HK on the end of the model name (MSS210HK) to be assured of HomeKit support. There’s integration with voice assistants including Amazon Alex and Google Home and the smart plug will work with Samsung SmartThings, which is great if you want to get into more complex automation later on.

As indicated by the name, this is a WiFi smart plug and connects up to any g/n 2.4 GHz WiFi network, which is what the vast majority of people have at home. No Z-Wave, ZigBee or hubs required here. The Meross plug comes in a fairly plain cardboard box and there’s just the smart plug itself plus two small leaflets…and I mean small. A magnifying glass might be required for those with less than ideal eyesight.

As the photographs show, this is the UK variant but it’s available to suit the wiring standards of many countries, including USA. The smart plug is white and plainly styled with just three notable features. One, it’s quite a big plug, so you may struggle to get another plug in to a neighbouring socket: best to check your socket positions. Two, there’s an on-off button with indicator light on the top, which is very handy if you need to switch the plug manually. Three, there’s a HomeKit QR logo and code stuck to the side of the socket, which brings us neatly onto Apple’s Home app.

Apple have made it extremely easy to add devices into the smart home solution. Using the Apple Home app, it’s simply a case of hitting “+” to add a device and then using the iPhone or iPad’s camera to scan the QR code. After a bit of chuntering between the iPad and the Meross, say, 30 seconds, the smart plug is setup within the Home app. Tapping the plug icon in the app turns the smart plug on and off in the real world. Job done and you can easily incorporate the plug into any of routines, scenes etc of the Home app.

Update 29th October 2020 – Thanks to a discussion on my YouTube channel, I’ve been alerted to the problem that if you don’t want to use Apple Home and would rather use the Meross app on Apple devices, it doesn’t actually seem to be possible to do it. The Meross app automatically redirects the setup to Apple Home. This works fine, except that if you want to use the smart plug with Alexa, the Meross skill doesn’t see any devices.

Android users aren’t left out from using the Meross smart plug, though the process is a little less straightforward. The first steps are to download the app from the Google Play store and then sign-up with a username and password.  Adding a device through the Meross app starts with picking the type of device and there’s an initial negotiation between the smartphone and the smart plug which broadly concludes with you having to pick the WiFi network and supply the passcode. It’s not as slick as the Home setup but gets the job done. The Meross app offers direct control of the smart plug; scenes, which allow for setting multiple devices at once; and routines for turning devices on and off according to a schedule.

I was also able to easily setup the smart plug with both Alexa and Samsung’s Smart Things. For Alexa, open Amazon’s app and search for the Meross skill. Enable the skill and enter the username and password for the Meross system. Alexa will then search for new devices, which I find is a bit hit or miss, but eventually you’ll see the Meross smart plug in the list of devices. For me Alexa couldn’t find the smart plug initially, but it was magically there after restarting the app. I was then able to say, “Alexa, turn on living room lamp” and sure enough, the smart plug switched.

Integration with SmartThings was very similar but worked flawlessly in terms of adding and seeing the device straightaway.

Pricewise, the Meross smart plug with HomeKit comes in at GB£16.99 on Amazon.co.uk, which is competitively priced on its own, but note that if you don’t need HomeKit, you can get two Meross smart plugs for the same price. For a bit of extra discount, use the code O3ML85W5 at Amazon.co.uk which should be valid up to the end of August on both single and double packs.

The main takeaway for the Meross WiFi smart plug with HomeKit support is how easy it is to get setup on Apple, Android, Alexa and SmartThings. I was able to do all of these in less than ten minutes – if you don’t believe me check out the video below. The only downside I can find is the plug itself is fairly chunky.

Thanks to Meross for supplying the WiFi Smart Plug for review. The discount code provided above is not a referral code.