Cheap, flimsy, breakable and replaceable – yup, Ikea, you'll be right at home in the IoT world

We had some small plastic pegs break on a storage box, customer services didn't have any, but, a week later a pack of them arrived at home, posted from Sweden. Not bad service that.

Yup. Most of their hardware and fittings are commonly available anyhow.

If it's IKEA the bulbs will be LED, they've stopped selling any other type. Still a good place for cheap bookcases, though.

Re: you can get out your mobile phone and turn on the light...

"You can also get out your chair and hit the switch. The latter approach is usually faster".

On entering the lounge in the evening I press the button on a Byron remote control - simple local 433MHz technology. That switches on the socket for the table lamp on the other side of the room.

With manual switches I would have to turn on the room's main lights - cross the room - switch on table lamp - cross the room - switch off main lights - cross the room and then sit down to read El Reg.

Leaving the room would entail a similar criss-crossing the room pattern - unless I grope my way across in the dark.

Remote switches are useful - in some situations. Another remote socket is for the Netgear D1500 router by the phone master socket in the hall. Several times a day it locks up due to some external condition that BT can't diagnose. The only way to clear the problem is to switch it of/on. Climbing two flights of stairs each time is not the best solution.

Re: Racing towards the next 3D TV

I have Hue bulbs in my house and i absolutely love them. I live in a 4 story house and cannot hear my doorbell from the kitchen. The lights are in the kitchen. My solution : A motion sensor to change them to red when someone is at my front door.

I have an IFTTT recipe that automatically changes my lighting in the kitchen to a different colour once an hour. It provides a great ambiance. Only slightly annoying it if selects a dim colour when i am cooking, but a 2 second flick of the switch on and off again sets them back to normal 'white'.

Also - the bulbs last for 15 yrs (advertised) and are very efficient. I don't need an internet connection to change the colours, nor even the hub. So i would love them even without the internet connectivity.

So you might be right in asking why do we 'NEED' internet connected lightbulbs. We dont need that functionality, but it can be useful. But you are missing the point that LED smart bulbs are fantastic in their own non-connected way just by being so beautiful.

But i have always been a sucker for lights.

P.S : It doesnt take 10 times longer to use the app - mainly because you can create widgets / shortcuts. And if you have got a decent quick phone that unlocks using finger prints i can actually change my lighting more quickly than i can using the wall switch (unless i am standing next to the wall switch). Also with Hue you can buy physical switches. They have already overcome all your objections. :)

Re: If the lights can dim properly....

bigclivedotcom explained why house hold dimmers don't work with LED bulbs on YouTube. Very interesting video, and reasons for why they don't really work.

I kitted my house out with LED bulbs when I bought it, and I think its the best thing I ever did. However, I would like to say that you should avoid buying Meridian LED bulbs from Toolstation. I did, I bought 5 of them. Over the course of 3 months with light/moderate use they all stopped working.

Re: I'm Listening

Except for the actual commands.

Who needs anything?

1. Because it's something plugged in at floor level and you have arthritis

2. Because you can

3. Because you aren't always 5 feet away from the switch

4. Because getting up would cause the pizza/beer to fall to the floor

5. Because you are trying that smooth seduction thing and want to dim the lights and fade up the Mantovani

6. Because spending ages trying to get JSON config files correctly formatted to turn a light on automatically at sunset is more fun than doing the washing up

7. Because you don't want to be that old git muttering that this new fangled electric light is just not the same as gas light/candles/bundles of flaming reeds.

Runlevels

KNX has what they call 'scenes', which are basically stored settings for whatever is connected through the appropriate controllers. Other home control systems likely have something similar. Adding wall socket adapters (or having all applicable sockets wired up through your control system of choice) would offer what you want.

I've been using LightwaveRF these past few years. Replaced a number of strategic power outlets with Lightwave ones, ditto for strategic light switches. Obviously I didn't do the whole house as there are lots of lights etc that I don't care to be able to control remotely. Part of the ecosystem is a wireless wall switch which can set various "moods" - ie set various things on/off, set light levels and whatever else floats your boat. As a lot of the lights in my loungeroom are either standard lamps, cabinet lights etc, having One Switch To Control Them All works well for me (and pleases Mrs Fink).

You can also do thermostats, radiators, boilers, roller blinds etc, but frankly I CBA. A double controllable power outlet costs ~£30 IIRC.

I've also added the gateway, so I can also use the app to do all manner of fancy things, including setting up timer patterns for things - that might suit your needs fine. I commonly only use one of them, which is of course my "switch lights on/off while I'm not there" pattern. Oh, and the one which switches some of the lights off at 11pm, o remind me to go to bed...

Re: Working for NEST Pensions

Reminds me of the start of a new TV series many years ago. A restaurant is to be called Robin's Nest. The opening scene is a sign painter doing the name in big letters over the front of the building.

When the painter had finished he walks over to the owner and says "All done Mr Snest"....

Re: Working for NEST Pensions

That's not so bad... Remember Gain.gator? Made many, many folks very angry and want retribution.

I was senior sysadmin at Gain Communications, a small ISP in Tucson, Arizona - care to guess how many of those many, many angry folks called to complain/threaten/scream due to similarity of names?

It was a bad time.

Re: I think there are more substantial problems holding back home automaion

"Obviously you have a central control, a temperature sensor in each room, an external sensor, and a servo on the valve of each radiator."

I looked at a system like that at least 20 years ago - IIRC by a Danish company. The important bit was the external sensors. The system learned how the house heat loss correlated with external conditions.

The idea was that you specified at what time you wanted the house warm - and the system calculated when it had to start the heating in the current weather conditions. It also uprated the nominal room temperature in the evening as that was when people would be sitting about - compared to the morning when they would be quite active.

Re: I think there are more substantial problems holding back home automaion

"I wish we have a couple more sockets here instead of over there".

When the top two floors of the house had to be gutted and rebuilt - it was an ideal time to improve the cabling.

Every room now had new power sockets, phone sockets, and aerial sockets to serve many different potential furniture combinations. Unfortunately CAT5 did not exist at that time.

The lounge went from something like two power sockets to a total of 21 ...and I still have extensions plugged into two of them.

The TV/FM was fed from an 8 way distributor in the roof space. Only one of the several sockets in a room can be active - and the rest are blanked - with coax connectors doing a daisy chain. Unfortunately the standard 75ohm cable is a bit inflexible. Trying to mate a pair of coax connectors in a single unit pattress box is tricky. The thinner type that is common nowadays would have been better.

The builders wanted to nail the new floor covering to the joists - but instead the ply boards are screwed. They can be lifted easily - once the necessary furniture and carpet has been removed.

Re: I think there are more substantial problems holding back home automaion

I have Nest and it is superb. I have definitely noticed a not-insignificant reduction in my heating bills (estimated 10-15% per annum). Not to mention the fact I have completely eliminated the irritation of messing about with my timers in Spring and Autumn - as you mentioned in your post. That would have been worth the cost alone without the money savings.

I have dabbled in IoT and without doubt the one product I thoroughly recommend to anyone would be Nest (closely followed by Hue bulbs).

P.S I dont work for Nest. Just a very happy customer.

Re: Cheap, flimsy, breakable

"You never bought anything from MFI, did you ?"

Exactly my thoughts too - and Woolies. IKEA stuff is usually good for the purpose. The things I bought over 20 years ago are not showing any problems. The only casualty was a pine shelf that gradually bowed slightly under the weight of a 21 inch CRT monitor.

The first time I walked round an IKEA store - it was impressive that they loaded their display bookcases with real books. MFI used thin cardboard boxes that looked like a line of books. Not surprising - the MFI shelves couldn't take any real weight.

A Swedish friend exiled in England used to sit down and read the books in IKEA. They were in Swedish and often hard to find in the UK. Unfortunately IKEA wouldn't sell any to her.