Starting a Smart Home

Bucketman

Hello all,

I've been looking to get my smart home party started. I really like Amazon Echos, but I've been having a hard time deciding between the Echo Plus, and the Echo 2nd Gen. I know the only real difference, besides size, is that the plus has a built in smart hub, but several of the reviews I've read online have said the hub is pretty barebones and some devices don't work with it at all. I have very little experience in this area, and no one I know really has any of these devices, so I figured I'd ask here if its better to get the Echo Plus, even with the hub not being the best, or the Echo 2 and buying a separate hub.

Right now I live in an apartment, so either will work for my needs in terms of it mostly all being in the living room/kitchen space.

Thanks!

Shadowfire

I don't see much reason for the plus right now. Everything has its own hub that you connect it to (hue bulbs) or just connect via app to your WiFi. The idea of unifying everything under Alexa is great, but you can already do that with Alexa skills and IFTTT.

Phasen

Smartthings is a pretty good hub and has some plugins for some heavy logic based problems that you will be presented with pretty early. Internet of crap is pretty fun and has some cool uses. Telling alexa to start your fan or turn on your lights feels futuristic and getting automation working perfectly feels great. If you have animals don't expect much from presence sensors.

Shadowfire

Phasen wrote: »

Smartthings is a pretty good hub and has some plugins for some heavy logic based problems that you will be presented with pretty early. Internet of crap is pretty fun and has some cool uses. Telling alexa to start your fan or turn on your lights feels futuristic and getting automation working perfectly feels great. If you have animals don't expect much from presence sensors.

If you go into the Alexa settings, she'll answer to "computer."

syndalis

My recommendation is that you set up a secondary wifi network that is completely removed / firewalled from the wifi network your computers are on, and set up your smart home stuff on that, with a hub that can accept requests over the internet.

Non-HomeKit Smart Home devices are some of the most insecure things you can put in your home.

a5ehren

In general, just don't buy random junk from OEMs you've never heard of and it should be OK. I just have a basic Phillips/Nest/Sonos setup and I'm not aware of any active security issues with them.

Phasen

a5ehren wrote: »

In general, just don't buy random junk from OEMs you've never heard of and it should be OK. I just have a basic Phillips/Nest/Sonos setup and I'm not aware of any active security issues with them.

But those chinese knockoffs are so cheap!

Bucketman

Yeah I've been sticking to brands I know, I got a free Phillips Hue, so I grabbed a second, and Cree makes a Daylight Bright bulb that was perfect for one of our rooms so I grabbed two of those as well.

Also got a fire TV because were cutting the cord with Comcast in like two months.