I invested in Z-wave light switches that are marked as GE but in reality manufactured by Jasco. The problem is that for an earlier generation of these devices a power surge / dip could fry the electronics, causing me to replace several of these switches over the years. This more speaks to the idea of long term reliability of electronics for devices that you want to replace very infrequently.
On the software end I used Smartthings. Samsung went through a big redo a year ago that caused me to redo all of the automation. That sucked. I've considered going open source but at this point smartthings is stable and the mobile app is not horrible.
Recently someone at either Amazon or smarthings thought it would be good to update the terms of service and break the integrations between the two services. I had to re-enable the integration by logging into and clicking an idiot button saying "I approve" of all the blah-blah-blah legalese. This was the worst part of my home automation story as clearly this didn't need to break.
I live in the US burbs and have a fairly large house at 3K+ square feet. There are a bunch of light switches that logically are one room. Using automation makes this much easier to control. Also kids - they don't turn shit off. I have an automation that turns off everything at 11AM on weeknights. Great reminder to go to bed but also causes my wife to be unhappy with me when the movie turns off unexpectedly, lol.
We have a smart lock on the front door. The kids have a door code and you can give contractors / cleaners their own code. That's nice. And one of the little f**kers doesn't lock the door on the way out I can create a rule that automatically locks the door after its been unlocked for 15 minutes.
I had a zwave light switch that randomly became a disco strobe generator three days after a brown out, no extra charge! It started flickering the main kitchen light several times per second ... while turned off. I had to shut down the power to stop it.
About 1 in 4 of the $40+ switches have failed, but that was the most spectacular.
On the software end I used Smartthings. Samsung went through a big redo a year ago that caused me to redo all of the automation. That sucked. I've considered going open source but at this point smartthings is stable and the mobile app is not horrible.
Recently someone at either Amazon or smarthings thought it would be good to update the terms of service and break the integrations between the two services. I had to re-enable the integration by logging into and clicking an idiot button saying "I approve" of all the blah-blah-blah legalese. This was the worst part of my home automation story as clearly this didn't need to break.
I live in the US burbs and have a fairly large house at 3K+ square feet. There are a bunch of light switches that logically are one room. Using automation makes this much easier to control. Also kids - they don't turn shit off. I have an automation that turns off everything at 11AM on weeknights. Great reminder to go to bed but also causes my wife to be unhappy with me when the movie turns off unexpectedly, lol.
We have a smart lock on the front door. The kids have a door code and you can give contractors / cleaners their own code. That's nice. And one of the little f**kers doesn't lock the door on the way out I can create a rule that automatically locks the door after its been unlocked for 15 minutes.