Jekyll2021-07-11T18:47:38+00:00https://homekitbuilds.mrrooni.com/feed.xmlHomeKit Builds & ReviewsA site dedicated to building a smart, sensible home using Apple's HomeKit.Michael FeyHomeKit Build & Review: Light the Night with Meross Switches2021-07-11T00:00:00+00:002021-07-11T00:00:00+00:00https://homekitbuilds.mrrooni.com/2021/07/11/light-the-night-with-meross-switches<p><img src="/assets/images/meross-switch-hero-image.jpg" alt="Meross Smart Wi-Fi Single Pole Switch" /></p>
<h2 id="night-time-is-the-right-time">Night Time is the Right Time</h2>
<p>With the addition of a smart garage door opener and some smart bulbs to light up my previously dark basement, I thought I had found the end of practical HomeKit additions to my home. It turns out that conviction wasn’t terribly strong; when I texted my good friend Andrew and relayed that exact sentiment he said, “You know, my outdoor lights come on before sunset and that seems like a practical automation.” Ten minutes later I had a new Amazon box coming to my house and a hobby that was nowhere near done.

<img src="/assets/images/meross-switch-imessage.png" alt="iMessage with Andrew convincing me to buy more HomeKit gear" /></p>
<h2 id="convenience-automated">Convenience, Automated</h2>
<p>The idea of automating my outdoor lights certainly appealed to me, but the problem I was looking to solve was one of convenience. Every night my wife or I would go to two separate switches in two different parts of the house and turn on the outdoor lights. A few hours later around bed time we’d go and turn those same lights off. Sometimes we’d forget to turn them off and I’d find the lights still on in the morning, or sometimes we’d arrive home in the evening after being away all day and pull up to a dark house.</p>
<p>This is all well within “first world problem” territory, of course, but with some relatively inexpensive switches I could automate all of these issues away. And so I did.</p>
<h2 id="the-accessories">The Accessories</h2>
<p>My experience with the Meross (rhymes with Harris) garage door opener made these <a href="https://www.meross.com/Detail/23/Smart%20Wi-Fi%20Single%20Pole%20Switch">Meross Smart Wi-Fi Single Pole Switches</a> an appealing option. They are highly rated and well within my budget for HomeKit experimentation. I bought two, one for the front hallway and one for the garage to control the two pairs of outdoor lanterns on the front of our house.</p>
<p>I didn’t need a dimmer switch — on/off is just fine for outside lights — nor did I need to change the color or temperature of the bulbs. Simple, smart switches were exactly right.</p>
<p>Here’s my updated HomeKit map:</p>
<p><img src="/assets/images/home-layout-first-floor.png" alt="House layout, first floor" /></p>
<h2 id="the-good">The Good</h2>
<p>Assuming you’re comfortable with minor electrical work, installing these new switches is a pretty straightforward operation. The packaging was clean, the quality of the switches themselves seemed high, and the HomeKit setup was fast and straightforward.</p>
<p>The button itself, while fashioned to look like a rocker switch, is a simple push button with a satisfying click. Truth be told though, I don’t think I’ve manually turned these lights on more than once or twice since installing them as they are fully automated.</p>
<p>I did add them to the Meross app after adding them to my home in HomeKit so I could check for firmware updates. The Meross app takes quite a while before new accessories appear, and it’s not the nicest looking app in the world, but it’s worth going through it to keep your hardware up to date.</p>
<p>A solid benefit of these switches is that they handle power failures with ease, reconnecting to the network with no trouble. It’s worth noting that these switches fail to the off position, meaning that after a power outage these switches will not turn all your lights on when power is restored.</p>
<h2 id="the-not-so-good">The Not So Good</h2>
<p>I like almost everything about these switches, but there were just a couple dings against them. For one, there was no HomeKit QR code, just the eight digit code printed on the face of the switch. I would have expected to see a HomeKit QR code in the packaging or on the instructions, but it wasn’t there either. The other thing I’ve noticed is that every so once in a while these switches will show as unresponsive. It’s not enough to be a bother and it doesn’t seem to interfere with the automations, but it is something I’ve seen.</p>
<p>Lastly, as with all Meross products, they offer both HomeKit and non-HomeKit versions of the same model. Make sure you are buying <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B088NQMN5Z">the right one</a>.</p>
<h2 id="automations">Automations</h2>
<p>The automation that I set up with these switches are pretty straightforward:</p>
<ul>
<li>Turn on at sunset.</li>
<li>Turn off at 11:00 PM.</li>
<li>Turn off again at 2:00 AM in case we came home late.</li>
<li>Turn on when anyone arrives home at night.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2>
<p>These switches were an absolute win and are another great entry point for someone new to HomeKit. If you’re just getting started building out your smart home I’d highly recommend giving these a try. They’re well-made, inexpensive, and reliable.</p>
<p>Beyond that, they follow my rules for new accessories:</p>
<ol>
<li>They can still be controlled via physical controls.</li>
<li>They are practical, an enhancement that actually make sense.</li>
</ol>
<h2 id="further-reading">Further Reading</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://homekitnews.com/2020/04/24/meross-smart-light-switch/">Meross Smart Light Switch at HomeKit News</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imore.com/best-homekit-light-switches">Best HomeKit Light Switches at iMore</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-in-wall-wireless-light-switch-and-dimmer/">The Best In-Wall Smart Light Switch and Dimmer at Wirecutter</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.meross.com/">meross.com</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B088NQMN5Z">meross Smart Light Switch, Compatible with Apple HomeKit at Amazon</a></li>
<li><a href="mailto:support@meross.com">Meross E-mail Support</a></li>
</ul>Michael FeyAfter automating my garage door and adding lights to my basement I thought my HomeKit hobby was winding down. How wrong I was.Accessory Update: LIFX Mini Day & Dusk Bulbs2021-05-29T00:00:00+00:002021-05-29T00:00:00+00:00https://homekitbuilds.mrrooni.com/2021/05/29/accessory-update-lifx-mini-day-dusk-bulbs<p><img src="/assets/images/lifx-and-the-storm.jpg" alt="LIFX Mini Day & Dusk Bulb with storm emoji" /></p>
<p>In <a href="/2021/05/22/lighting-my-basement-with-lifx-and-onvis.html">my last article</a> I talked about how much I love the LIFX Mini Day & Dusk bulbs that are installed in my basement ceiling. I’m still happy with them, but they did give me a little homework this week in the wake of a whole-house power outage as a result of a storm passing through the area.</p>
<p>Once power was restored to our house and everything had booted back up, the LIFX bulbs would not reconnect to my home network. I power-cycled both the bulbs and the router, but it had no effect. These bulbs, and any home automations I had set up to drive them, were dead in the water¹.</p>
<p>Because the bulbs were stuck in the on position — these bulbs restore to “on” after a power outage — I decided to unscrew them from their fixtures for a couple days. I had actually been planning to rename my Wi-Fi network name and decided to take the opportunity presented by four of my accessories being offline to do so.</p>
<p>Last night I did just that. First I took screenshots of each device’s automations for reference, manually removed each one from the Home app, and then spent about an hour going around the house reconnecting them. Luckily this change only pertained to my Wi-Fi accessories. My Bluetooth door sensors and my Lutron Caséta switches were unaffected. When I screwed the LIFX bulbs back into their fixtures I was surprised to find that I didn’t have to perform a factory reset on them. I scanned their HomeKit code from the setup card and they were quickly added back to my Home.</p>
<p><img src="/assets/images/lifx-homekit-card.jpg" alt="LIFX HomeKit code card" /></p>
<p>The Meross accessories (<a href="/2021/05/14/meross-smart-wi-fi-garage-opener.html">one garage door opener</a> and two switches) didn’t have any trouble with the power outage, nor did they have any trouble being removed and re-added to the new Wi-Fi network. I’ve found these devices to be really rock solid.</p>
<p>The one Wemo outlet I own was a giant pain. Because I have a model with no HomeKit code on the outlet itself it needs to be set up through the terrible Wemo app. As I texted my friend <a href="https://twitter.com/4german" target="_blank">Andrew</a>, “Never buy a Wemo device. […] It’s not worth it. Just buy an <a href="https://www.evehome.com/en/eve-energy" target="_blank">Eve Energy</a> instead.”</p>
<p>All in all, I was able to get things up and running again smoothly — but it was work. While power outages aren’t too common in our area, if the LIFX bulbs fail like this every time it’s going to get old very quickly.</p>
<p><em>¹ Small side note: If you do have a home automation failure like this, be sure to communicate it to your family so they don’t think they are doing something wrong and get frustrated.</em></p>Michael FeyA whole-house power outage knocked my LIFX bulbs for a loop this week.HomeKit Build & Review: Basement Lighting with LIFX and ONVIS2021-05-22T00:00:00+00:002021-05-22T00:00:00+00:00https://homekitbuilds.mrrooni.com/2021/05/22/lighting-my-basement-with-lifx-and-onvis<p><img src="/assets/images/lifx-and-onvis.jpg" alt="LIFX Mini Day & Dusk and ONVIS Contact Sensor CT2" /></p>
<h2 id="light-em-up">Light ‘em Up</h2>
<p>With our <a href="https://homekitbuilds.mrrooni.com/2021/05/14/meross-smart-wi-fi-garage-opener.html">garage door properly automated</a> my mind quickly turned to other places in my house that could do with a bit of automation. Lighting is the typical smart home entry point and that’s where I headed next. The previous homeowner had finished the basement and installed pull-chain-operated ceiling lights throughout. If you wanted to turn on the lights you had to walk around to four separate locations to do so.</p>
<p>Those lights lasted about a year before the pull chains were snapped by overzealous children and I started on a project I would never finish to wire these lights to a proper wall switch. The old bulbs were removed, the chains were never replaced, and we made due with a mostly dark basement whenever we went down there.</p>
<p>With my newfound HomeKit hobby, however, I realized there was a better way than cutting holes in the wallboard and fishing wire. By setting the fixtures to always on, they were perfect candidates for smart bulbs.</p>
<h2 id="lifx-to-the-rescue">LIFX to the Rescue</h2>
<p>I picked up a four pack of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B072Y6X7QS/">LIFX Mini Day & Dusk bulbs at amazon.com</a> based on a few criteria:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>The fact that they didn’t need a hub.</strong> While Philips Hue is the most popular smart bulb system, it requires an extra hub to work, and I wasn’t prepared to buy into an entire ecosystem for an endeavor that was still an experiment.</li>
<li><strong>Their review rating</strong> — 4.4 stars out of 5 with nearly 7,000 reviews.</li>
<li><strong>The price.</strong> $74 over all and $18.50 is a lot of money per bulb, but it was certainly cheaper than my construction project alternatives.</li>
</ol>
<p>Installation was trivial (I mean, it’s a light bulb…) and adding it to HomeKit was quite easy. Within the package was a card with each of the HomeKit codes on it in numbered order. The order on the cards matched the order of the bulbs in the box, so I wrote the bulb’s number on its stem before screwing it in. One thing that surprised me — and this is totally my fault for not reading carefully — is that these are not RGB bulbs. They are a range of color temperature variations on white.</p>
<p><img src="/assets/images/lifx-homekit-card.jpg" alt="LIFX HomeKit code card" /></p>
<p>After a quick firmware update via the LIFX app I was ready to go. I grouped three of the bulbs into one group called <strong>Ceiling Lights</strong> and named the fourth bulb <strong>Freezer Light</strong> as it resides directly over our chest freezer. Let me tell you, not having to use our phone’s flashlight when getting something out of the freezer is great!</p>
<p><img src="/assets/images/basement-lights.png" alt="Home app showing the basement lights" /></p>
<p>When I first installed these lights I was using Siri on my Apple Watch to control them. Every time I went down the basement stairs: <strong>Hey Siri, turn on the basement lights.</strong> Every time I came up the basement stairs: <strong>Hey Siri, turn off the basement lights.</strong></p>
<p>This was fun the first couple times, but it turns out I go up and down the basement stairs a lot — especially when I’m in the middle of a home improvement project. (Which I currently am). This also didn’t help my wife or kids who weren’t keen to yell out to the HomePods in the living room each time they went downstairs. For them it was like nothing had changed. I needed something better.</p>
<h2 id="onvis-to-the-rescue-of-lifx">ONVIS to the Rescue of LIFX</h2>
<p>I had an <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08JQ96N8J/">ONVIS door and window sensor</a> from another project that didn’t work out (more on that in a future article) and decided to put it to use automating my basement lights. I installed it on the hinge side of the basement door, added it to the Basement in the Home app, and hooked up a very simple automation. Whenever the basement door is opened, set the basement lights to 100% and turn them off again five minutes later.</p>
<p><img src="/assets/images/basement-light-automation.jpeg" alt="Basement lights automation in the Home app" /></p>
<p>This automation has been exactly what we needed. The timing on the lights is perfect and it has even received what I consider the highest praise it can: completely unprompted my wife told me, <strong>Those basement lights you installed work perfectly. They’re great.</strong></p>
<p><img src="/assets/images/home-layout-basement.png" alt="House layout, Basement" /></p>
<p><img src="/assets/images/home-layout-first-floor.png" alt="House layout, first floor" /></p>
<h2 id="the-good">The Good</h2>
<p>The LIFX bulbs, which connect directly to HomeKit over Wi-Fi, have worked out really well. They’re plenty bright enough, quite responsive to commands, and I haven’t had any problems to speak of.</p>
<p>The ONVIS sensor, which also connects directly to HomeKit but over Bluetooth, is a decent sensor. It does require a nearby Bluetooth connection to be responsive, though, which leads me to…</p>
<h2 id="the-not-so-good">The Not So Good</h2>
<p>This automation works 100% of the time, but it doesn’t always fire immediately. I’d say that about 90% of the time the lights come on as soon as the door opens. The other 10% of the time it’s a mixed bag with the lights coming on as I’m heading down the stairs or am in the basement headed to my destination. One time I actually made it all the way to the freezer (which is just about as far from the door as I can go) before the lights finally kicked on.</p>
<p>The other less-than-great aspect of these accessories are their apps. They are clearly write-once, run-anywhere apps designed to get something out to both iOS and Android with as little engineering effort as possible. They aren’t great iOS apps by any means. Given that I don’t really use them beyond periodic checks for firmware updates they aren’t a deal breaker. There is one thing that tells me someone at LIFX cares about making a great iOS app, though: the LIFX app exposes <a href="https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209055">Siri Shortcuts</a>. More on that in the <strong>Automations</strong> section below.</p>
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>The LIFX App</th>
<th>The ONVIS App</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><img src="/assets/images/lifx-app.jpeg" alt="The LIFX app" /></td>
<td><img src="/assets/images/onvis-app.jpeg" alt="The ONVIS app" /></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h2 id="automations-with-this-device">Automations With This Device</h2>
<p>Beyond the door sensor automation, I have these lights participating in a few other automations:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>10:20 PM, Daily</strong> our <strong>Good night</strong> scene sets, which turns the basement lights off.</li>
<li><strong>Midnight, Daily</strong> This catch-all automation turns off all the lights in the house, in case they were turned on after 10:20.</li>
</ul>
<p>There was another automation I really wanted that took me a few days to figure out. I wanted the color temperature of these bulbs to change based on time of day. Cooler during the day, and warmer in the evenings. I struggled to find a way to do this in the Home app or even the wonderful <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/app/elgato-eve/id917695792">Eve app</a>. Ultimately it was LIFX’s Siri Shortcuts that solved this for me. Using the Shortcuts app I was able to create two different <strong>Personal</strong> automations. One that runs at sunset and one that runs at sunrise:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>At Sunrise, Daily</strong> set the light to white, 3500 K.</li>
<li><strong>At Sunset, Daily</strong> set the light to white, 2700 K.</li>
</ul>
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th> </th>
<th> </th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><img src="/assets/images/lifx-sunrise-automation-1.jpeg" alt="LIFX sunrise automation in the Shortcuts app" /></td>
<td><img src="/assets/images/lifx-sunrise-automation-2.jpeg" alt="LIFX sunrise automation actions in the Shortcuts app" /></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>I’m hoping to see a firmware update from LIFX that enables <a href="https://homekitnews.com/2020/11/02/adaptive-lighting-in-homekit-how-it-really-works/">HomeKit Adaptive Lighting</a> for these bulbs. With that in place I could get rid of both of these Shortcuts. In the meantime they work great and the bulbs properly reflect the time of day every time I go to the basement.</p>
<h2 id="fading-to-black">Fading to Black</h2>
<p>What’s interesting about this setup is that <em>technically</em> it breaks one of my rules: Make sure all smart accessories can still be controlled via physical controls.</p>
<p>I can’t go around to each bulb and physically operate it very easily. I <em>could</em> find the pull chain stub on each one and toggle it off and on to get the bulbs to light up, but I won’t realistically ever do that. Regardless, these bulbs are incredibly practical and definitely make sense.</p>
<p>In general I don’t think smart bulbs have nearly the amount of value you can get out of a smart switch. Smart switches work in a more traditional manner and open up endless possibilities for fixtures and bulbs since the smarts reside in the switch. For this particular applicationwith an always-on power supply, however, they were perfect. If you’re looking for some starter bulbs to introduce smart lighting to your home then you would do well to consider LIFX bulbs. Couple them with a door sensor and you too can automate one more thing away.</p>
<h2 id="further-reading">Further Reading</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://homekitnews.com/?s=LIFX">LIFX at HomeKit News</a></li>
<li><a href="https://homekitnews.com/2020/10/15/onvis-ct2-smart-contact-sensor-review/">ONVIS CT2 Smart Contact Sensor Review at HomeKit News</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imore.com/best-homekit-light-bulbs">Best HomeKit Light Bulbs at iMore</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imore.com/best-homekit-door-window-sensors">Best HomeKit Door and Window Sensors at iMore</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-homekit-devices/#best-smart-light-bulbs-for-homekit">Best smart light bulbs for HomeKit at Wirecutter</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.lifx.com">lifx.com</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?k=ONVIS">ONVIS at amazon.com</a></li>
</ul>Michael FeyWith my garage door properly automated my mind turned to other places in my house that could do with a bit of HomeKit love.HomeKit Build & Review: Meross Smart Wi-Fi Garage Door Opener2021-05-14T00:00:00+00:002021-05-14T00:00:00+00:00https://homekitbuilds.mrrooni.com/2021/05/14/meross-smart-wi-fi-garage-opener<p><img src="/assets/images/meross-opener.png" alt="Meross Smart Wi-Fi Garage Door Opener" /></p>
<h2 id="looking-for-an-opening">Looking for an Opening</h2>
<p>Ever since the introduction of HomeKit there’s been one accessory that I’ve been pining after over all others: a garage door opener. In the early days of Apple’s foray into home automation, garage door options were both incredibly limited and extremely pricey. At one point back in 2016 I even started researching <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03J497Pmve4">DIY solutions</a>. Ultimately I decided to table my search and try again in the future.</p>
<p>And then something happened earlier this year that restarted my search: our garage door remotes started dying. Our garage door is the primary ingress and egress for our home, and the possibility of getting locked out of the house sent me looking for a HomeKit-powered backup. First I replaced the batteries in our clickers, and then I opened a new browser tab to dive into some research.</p>
<h2 id="did-you-shut-the-door-before-we-left">“Did you shut the door before we left?”</h2>
<p>While the dying batteries in our remotes were the impetus for my renewed interest in a HomeKit garage door opener, it wasn’t the main problem I wanted to solve. The real problem occurred on a semi-regular basis when my family and I would head out on some excursion. We’d be anywhere from the end of the block to a mile away when my wife or I would say to the other, “did we close the garage door?” Almost without fail we’d pull a U-turn and go check. There are lots of ways to fix this problem, including being more mindful about our actions, but I was looking for a safety net that would give us peace of mind even when we weren’t being mindful.</p>
<h2 id="what-i-didnt-buy">What I Didn’t Buy</h2>
<p><img src="/assets/images/chamberlain-myq-system.png" alt="Chamberlain MyQ System" /></p>
<p>When we first moved into this house there was an old garage door opener that sounded like a rock tumbler every time you opened or closed the door. To call it loud was an understatement — it shook the house. My primary focus for a new opener was sound, which led me to the <a href="https://www.lowes.com/pd/Chamberlain-0-75-HP-Whisper-Drive-Belt-Drive-Garage-Door-Opener-with-Battery-Back-Up/3653300">Chamberlain Whisper Drive Garage Door Opener</a>. The fact that it was compatible with Chamberlain’s MyQ smart home system wasn’t even a blip on my radar at the time, but it definitely came up with the launch of HomeKit. Chamberlain was actually one of the first manufacturers to jump on the Apple bandwagon and add support for HomeKit to their existing MyQ system. They did this by way of an extra hub that you install near your garage door opener. For our MyQ-ready opener that meant buying the MyQ hub and then an <em>extra</em> hub to enable HomeKit support. The price was for this setup was well over $100 and was far more than I was willing to spend at the time. It felt especially egregious because the MyQ hub itself was around $40, while the HomeKit add-on clocked in at two or three times that.</p>
<p>The situation with Chamberlain hasn’t really changed five years later — their proprietary system for HomeKit is still offensively priced. What <em>is</em> different in 2021 is that now there are other options.</p>
<h2 id="when-life-closes-a-door-meross-opens-it-again">When Life Closes a Door, Meross Opens It Again</h2>
<p><img src="/assets/images/garage-door-was-opened-notification.png" align="right" alt="Garage Door Was Opened notification" /> I came across the <a href="https://www.meross.com/Detail/29/Smart%20Wi-Fi%20Garage%20Door%20Opener">Meross MSG100 Smart Wi-Fi Garage Door Opener</a> early on in my search and it immediately hit the right mix of price and positive reviews. There are a lot of factors when it comes to buying a third party accessory for your garage door, not the least of which is compatibility. The Meross unit actually had an extra complication that almost tripped me up: They sell the same unit in two different varieties, one with HomeKit and one without. If you’re shopping on Amazon, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B084Z5QZR2">this is the one you want</a>.</p>
<p>Once I had confirmed that Meross supported my particular opener using their <a href="https://www.meross.com/support/Compatibility_Check">compatibility tool</a> and I made sure I had added the right one to my cart, I hit the buy button.</p>
<p>One thing that was mentioned in the Amazon store listing was that I needed to email them for an additional accessory to work with my opener. Their email support was very responsive and after confirming some details about my unit they sent the accessory in the mail. I assumed I would be receiving some sort of interface box to bridge the two wires coming out of the Meross with the inputs on my opener motor. When I received the package I had to chuckle. What arrived was a brand-less opener remote with two wires coming out of it. I paired it with the Chamberlain, hard-wired it to the Meross, and I was off to the races.</p>
<p>Here’s what it looks like in my unfinished garage. Yes, it’s probably one of my least attractive HomeKit installations, but it’s on-brand for this area of the house.</p>
<p><img src="/assets/images/meross-opener-installation.jpg" alt="Meross Garage Door Opener installation in my garage" /></p>
<p>The sensor is a simple magnetic contact sensor that I mounted alongside the rails of my garage door using a spare piece of trim and some lag bolts from some prior projects. The other half of the sensor is attached to the door itself, and when closed they line up perfectly. Again, she may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts.</p>
<p><img src="/assets/images/garage-door-installation.jpg" alt="Meross Garage Door sensor installation in my garage" /></p>
<h2 id="where-it-resides-in-my-home">Where It Resides In My Home</h2>
<p>The opener sits about 19 feet from my router which gives it a really strong signal. I’ve had no trouble communicating with the opener nor have I seen it become non-responsive within the Home app.</p>
<p><img src="/assets/images/home-layout-first-floor.png" alt="House layout, first floor" /></p>
<h2 id="the-good">The Good</h2>
<p>Let’s cut right to the chase: This garage door opener controller is <em>great</em>. Connecting it to HomeKit was flawless and pretty much every interaction with it has been exactly what I’d hope for.</p>
<p>The door sensor works really well and has some speedy response times. That shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, though, as it’s a wired sensor that communicates over Wi-Fi.</p>
<p>Most importantly it solved the problem I was hoping to solve plus a few more:</p>
<ul>
<li>No longer are we pulling U-turns to double check on the state of the garage door after we leave the house.</li>
<li>Automations now close the door automatically in the evening.</li>
<li>If I feel the need to check the door before bed I don’t need to go any farther than the phone on my nightstand.</li>
</ul>
<p>Beyond the automations that I’ll get to below, I’ve found myself saying, <strong>Hey Siri, close the garage door</strong> to my Apple Watch while buckling the kids into their seats. It’s a small thing, but it works much better than our often-unreliable clickers.</p>
<h2 id="the-not-so-good">The Not So Good</h2>
<p>As wonderful as this new accessory is there are a few things that surprised me.</p>
<p>For one, I assumed I would be able to have a fully automated setup with our garage door. I had visions of it closing automatically as we rolled down the street away from the house and magically opening again when we return. This is not the case though, and that’s a HomeKit limitation, not a Meross one. As it turns out, any scene that contains a HomeKit accessory that allows entry into your home must be confirmed before being run.</p>
<p><img src="/assets/images/garage-door-automation-1.png" alt="Garage door automation when anyone arrives home" /></p>
<p>The other thing that I’ve come to realize is that our home’s geofence is <em>large</em>. It stretches clear to the adjacent neighborhood and I frequently will get pings to run automations while I’m out for walks that take me back within the geofence border. I would love to see Apple give us a way to adjust the size of the geofence in iOS 15.</p>
<p>Lastly, the only thing that would have made me reconsider this purchase was the fact that in the end I added another battery-operated dependency to my garage door system. I could <em>probably</em> retrofit the opener with an AC adapter, but the chances of me ever getting to that are pretty small.</p>
<h2 id="automations-with-this-device">Automations With This Device</h2>
<p>Our garage door is probably one of the most automated devices in my home:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>When Anyone Arrives Home</strong> they are prompted to open the garage door.</li>
<li><strong>When Anyone Leaves Home</strong> they are prompted to close the garage door.</li>
<li><strong>At 8:30 PM, Daily</strong> the garage door will close. This time also coincides with “lights out” for our kids, so it’s great audible reminder to tell them to go to sleep.</li>
<li><strong>10:20 PM, Daily</strong> our <strong>Good night</strong> scene sets, which includes closing the garage door. If the door was opened some time after 8:30, this automation closes it again.</li>
<li><strong>Midnight, Daily</strong> I have a catch-all automation that turns off all the lights in the house and, yet again, closes the garage door. It’s rare that anyone is out and about after midnight so this is a nice final safety net for the day.</li>
</ul>
<p>What’s cool about the prompts to open and close the garage door are that they punch through <strong>Do Not Disturb While Driving</strong>, so I actually do get prompted on my watch as I pull up to the house.</p>
<p>One explicit choice I made with my automations was that I separated out the arrival and departure automations for the garage door from the rest of my arrival and departure automations. I want the thermostat to set itself to <strong>Away</strong> without me having to confirm it, and if I made it part of the same automation that controls the garage door I would have to manually run it every time.</p>
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>When Anyone Leaves</th>
<th>When the Last Person Leaves</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><img src="/assets/images/garage-door-automation-2.png" alt="Garage door automation when anyone leaves home" /></td>
<td><img src="/assets/images/garage-door-automation-3.png" alt="Automation when the last person leaves home" /></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h2 id="closing-it-down">Closing It Down</h2>
<p>As I mentioned in my <a href="/2021/05/04/homekit-builds-and-reviews-a-series.html">introductory post for this series</a>, the Meross garage door opener was the HomeKit accessory that kicked this hobby into gear.</p>
<p>It also follows the rules I’m following while building out my smart home:</p>
<ol>
<li>Make sure all smart accessories can still be controlled via physical controls.</li>
<li>Keep it practical; stick to enhancements that actually make sense.</li>
</ol>
<p>If you’re in the market for a HomeKit upgrade for your current garage door opener I highly recommend giving Meross a try.</p>
<h2 id="further-reading">Further Reading</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://homekitnews.com/tag/garage-door-opener/">Garage Door Openers at HomeKit News</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imore.com/best-homekit-garage-door-openers">Best HomeKit Garage Door Openers at iMore</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-smart-garage-door-controller/">The Best Smart Garage Door Opener Controller at Wirecutter</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.meross.com/">meross.com</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B084Z5QZR2">Meross Smart Garage Door Opener Remote, Compatible with Apple HomeKit at Amazon</a></li>
<li><a href="mailto:support@meross.com">Meross E-mail Support</a></li>
</ul>Michael FeyThe accessory that kicked off my HomeKit hobby in earnest, the Meross garage door opener was truly the Home addition I’d been waiting for.Automation Update: ecobee SmartThermostat + Shortcuts2021-05-12T00:00:00+00:002021-05-12T00:00:00+00:00https://homekitbuilds.mrrooni.com/2021/05/12/automation-update-ecobee<p><img src="/assets/images/ecobee-loves-shortcuts.png" alt="ecobee loves Shortcuts" /></p>
<h2 id="smart-meets-smarter">Smart Meets Smarter</h2>
<p>When I wrote my post last week about the <a href="/2021/05/08/ecobee4-smartthermostat-with-voice-control.html">ecobee4 SmartThermostat</a> there was an automation I didn’t talk about because up until today it didn’t work. What I wrote was:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For the most part my interaction with the thermostat is completely hands off. It does what I need it to do when I need it to do it. Occasionally, especially around the change in seasons, I find myself turning the heat on and off based on the high and low temperatures for the day and sometimes I even do that by saying, <strong>Hey Siri, turn off the thermostat.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Turning off the thermostat based on the weather conditions of the day was something I had tried to automate using the Shortcuts app, and it worked fine when running within Shortcuts, but it never seemed to trigger automatically. And then this morning, this happened:</p>
<p><img src="/assets/images/ecobee-auto-shutoff-shortcut-notification.jpeg" alt="ecobee auto shutoff notification" /></p>
<p>🎉</p>
<p>I’m not 100% sure what changed, but my shortcut for automatically turning off the thermostat finally kicked into gear. It could be the recent iOS update to iOS 14.5.1, or something else. It’s also possible that it was a fluke and it won’t work again. Regardless, I wanted to share it with you now.</p>
<p>The psuedocode version is this:</p>
<ol>
<li>If the thermostat is off, do nothing.</li>
<li>Get the forecast for the day at my location.</li>
<li>For each hourly temperature over the next 8 hours, check these things:</li>
<li>If the house is being cooled, and the temperature will drop below 78º, turn off the thermostat and post a notification.</li>
<li>If the house is being heated, and the temperature will rise above 65º, turn off the thermostat and post a notification.</li>
</ol>
<p>I run this at 8:30 every morning. This time was set by my daughter because she enjoys the heat coming out of the vents when she first wakes up in the morning. 🙂</p>
<p><img src="/assets/images/daily-ecobee-automation.png" alt="Daily ecobee shortcut automation" /></p>
<p><img src="/assets/images/ecobee-auto-shutoff-shortcut.png" alt="ecobee auto shutoff automation" /></p>Michael FeyA shortcut to turn off my ecobee thermostat kicked into gear this morning.HomeKit Build & Review: ecobee4 SmartThermostat2021-05-08T00:00:00+00:002021-05-08T00:00:00+00:00https://homekitbuilds.mrrooni.com/2021/05/08/ecobee4-smartthermostat-with-voice-control<p><img src="/assets/images/ecobee-hero-image.png" alt="ecobee SmartThermostat with remote sensor" /></p>
<h2 id="a-warmup">A Warmup</h2>
<p>Welcome to the first post of substance! In today’s post we’ll cover my initial piece of HomeKit tech: The ecobee smart thermostat.</p>
<p>Even though the ecobee predates the HomeKit rules I’ve set for our house, it follows them nonetheless:</p>
<ol>
<li>Make sure all smart accessories can still be controlled via physical controls.</li>
<li>Keep it practical; stick to enhancements that actually make sense.</li>
</ol>
<h2 id="stay-smart-stay-economical">Stay Smart, Stay Economical</h2>
<p>It was Nest that originally popularized the concept of a learning thermostat, and Nest was actually the first smart ecosystem I bought into. I loved the idea of a thermostat that could automatically update my home’s heating and cooling settings based on my habits and routines. It seemed like a great solution to a problem I really wanted to solve: heat and cool my home as efficiently, economically, and with as little waste as possible.</p>
<p>The Nest solved this problem for me for a few years until an electrical short in its backing plate left me with a decision: Buy a replacement Nest or buy an accessory that supported Apple’s new home automation standard.</p>
<h2 id="enter-the-bee">Enter The Bee</h2>
<p><img src="/assets/images/ecobee-lifestyle-shot.png" alt="ecobee lifestyle image" /></p>
<p>I ended up purchasing the <strong>ecobee4 SmartThermostat with voice control</strong> in 2017. The reviews were solid, the company presented a consumer friendly face, and of course it supported HomeKit.</p>
<p>Swapping it in for the Nest was really straightforward. All the power and control wires I needed were already run for both heating and cooling. I then placed the included remote sensor in the upstairs hallway to help even out the temperature readings in the warmer summer months.</p>
<p><img src="/assets/images/home-layout-first-floor.png" alt="House layout, first floor" /></p>
<h2 id="the-good">The Good</h2>
<p>Over the last few years the ecobee has been a really nice thermostat for our forced air heating and cooling system. Even though it’s a learning thermostat, we ended up just setting a set schedule for the week with a slightly modified one for the weekends. One aspect that has worked incredibly well, though, is the ability to have the thermostat reduce our energy usage when we’re out of the house and then resume our schedule when we return. This was the problem I really wanted to solve with a smart thermostat and the ecobee does it perfectly.</p>
<p>Another aspect that I appreciate are the service and filter reminders. Once per year I will get a notification that it’s time to have my HVAC (heating, ventilation, and cooling) equipment serviced. More frequently I receive notifications to replace my furnace’s air filter. Knowing that the filter reminders happen based on usage and not just a set schedule means that I’m not always replacing filters that haven’t seen much use.</p>
<p>ecobee (the company) has been pushing out consistent updates to both its app and the thermostat itself which have delivered some new features like eco+ which is actually five features in one:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Feels like</strong>, where your indoor humidity is factored into the temperature you’ve set to help keep you comfortable while reducing energy usage.</li>
<li><strong>Schedule Assistant</strong> monitors your routine against your set schedule and will suggest new schedules to better match your day-to-day.</li>
<li><strong>Smart Home & Away</strong>, which I mentioned above, ensures that energy usage is reduced when the house is empty.</li>
<li><strong>Time of Use</strong> & <strong>Community Energy Savings</strong> connect to your local energy supplier to try and call for energy at off-peak times. These features both save you money on your energy bills, and help reduce load on the energy grid.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="room-for-improvement">Room For Improvement</h2>
<p>Overall I’m really happy with our ecobee. There are some things that could be better, though. For one, the mobile app is a bit hard to navigate. I routinely have to tap around quite a bit to get to the settings I’m looking for. It also doesn’t look or feel like an iOS app, but rather one that was the result of one of those development tools that spits out an iOS and Android app from the same code base. The iPad app, while it suffers from the same lack of a native interface, is much nicer.</p>
<p><img src="/assets/images/ecobee-ipad-app.png" alt="ecobee iPad app" /></p>
<p>The other aspect that’s a bit off putting is the cost if you want to add extra sensors to your home. A two pack of sensors is $79 USD on Amazon, and rarely moves from that price point. That’s far too expensive for me to consider putting more of them around my house.</p>
<p>The last thing that’s a bit strange is the way it integrates with HomeKit. For example, my <strong>I’m leaving</strong> scene in the Home app says it will adjust the thermostat to 65º. That’s not quite what I want, though; I want the thermostat to enter its “away” state where it cools or heats the house less while I’m gone. To get that behavior I need to open the ecobee app, tap on the <strong>Account</strong> tab, scroll down to <strong>Integrations</strong>, and tap on <strong>HomeKit</strong>. From there I have to scroll down to the <strong>Scenes</strong> bubble, find the <strong>I’m leaving</strong> scene, and make sure it uses my <em>Away Comfort Setting</em>. This will ensure that the thermostat does the right thing in both heating and cooling mode. It’s a pretty involved and inscrutable process that I truly wish was clearer and felt less fragile.</p>
<p><img src="/assets/images/home-app-front-hallway-ecobee.jpeg" alt="Home iPad app showing Front Hallway with ecobee thermostat" /></p>
<h2 id="automations-with-this-device">Automations With This Device</h2>
<p>Being my first ever HomeKit accessory, I didn’t quite grasp how to set it up within the Home app. For the longest time I had a single accessory named <strong>ecobee</strong> in a room in my Home that was named <strong>House</strong>. Today, though, I have a <strong>Thermostat</strong> in my <strong>Front Hallway</strong>. I have the remote sensor in my Upstairs Hallway where it shows up as two named sensors: <strong>Temperature</strong> and <strong>Motion</strong>.</p>
<p>All told the ecobee thermostat adds three different sensors in the Home app:</p>
<ol>
<li>Motion</li>
<li>Occupancy</li>
<li>Temperature</li>
</ol>
<p>And two more for the remote sensor:</p>
<ol>
<li>Motion</li>
<li>Temperature</li>
</ol>
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Front Hallway</th>
<th>Upstairs Hallway</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><img src="/assets/images/home-app-ecobee-front-hallway.jpeg" alt="Home app showing my front hallway room" /></td>
<td><img src="/assets/images/home-app-ecobee-upstairs-hallway.jpeg" alt="Home app showing my upstairs hallway room" /></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>The automations I’ve set up for this thermostat are fairly simple:</p>
<ul>
<li>At 10:20 PM every night, my <strong>Goodnight</strong> scene sets, which sets the thermostat to the overnight temperature.</li>
<li>When the first person arrives home, the <strong>I’m home</strong> scene sets, which tells the thermostat to resume its schedule. This works particularly well in case we come home late at night. The ecobee doesn’t start heating or cooling, it just resumes its schedule – even if that’s the overnight one.</li>
<li>When the last person leaves, the <strong>I’m leaving</strong> scene sets, which sets the ecobee to its Away Comfort Setting.</li>
<li>And lastly the internal schedule I’ve set on the ecobee itself, which starts heating or cooling the house at 6:30 in the morning.</li>
</ul>
<p>For the most part my interaction with the thermostat is completely hands off. It does what I need it to do when I need it to do it. Occasionally, especially around the change in seasons, I find myself turning the heat on and off based on the high and low temperatures for the day and sometimes I even do that by saying, <strong>Hey Siri, turn off the thermostat.</strong></p>
<h2 id="wrapping-it-up">Wrapping It Up</h2>
<p>I would definitely buy another ecobee thermostat if I needed to, and I would recommend it to others too. It’s a solid thermostat that does its job well. Beyond that it has some really sensible and economical features like eco+ and smart home & away that help the environment and save me money. Lastly, ecobee (the company) is always looking for ways to improve its products and regularly pushes out updates that make this smart thermostat even smarter.</p>
<h2 id="further-reading">Further Reading</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://homekitnews.com/2019/05/30/ecobee-smart-thermostat-2/">Ecobee Smart Thermostat at HomeKit News</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imore.com/best-ecobee-thermostats">Best ecobee Thermostats at iMore</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/the-best-thermostat/#other-smart-thermostats-we-like">The Best Smart Thermostat at Wirecutter</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.ecobee.com">ecobee.com</a></li>
<li><a href="https://smile.amazon.com/ecobee-SmartSensor-2-Pack-White/dp/B07NQVWRR3">Ecobee SmartSensor 2 Pack on Amazon.com</a></li>
</ul>Michael FeyWelcome to the first post of substance! In today’s post we’ll cover my initial piece of HomeKit tech: The ecobee smart thermostat.HomeKit Builds & Reviews: A Series2021-05-04T00:00:00+00:002021-05-04T00:00:00+00:00https://homekitbuilds.mrrooni.com/2021/05/04/homekit-builds-and-reviews-a-series<h2 id="tldr">TL;DR</h2>
<p>After a number of years of not caring too much about HomeKit I picked up a couple of accessories and started nerding out on it <em>hard</em>. I’m going to use this site to write up the problems I’m solving, the accessories I’m using to solve them, and my reviews of those accessories.</p>
<p>Now on with the full post:</p>
<h2 id="in-the-beginning">In the Beginning…</h2>
<p><img src="/assets/images/HomeKitIcon.png" align="right" alt="Apple's HomeKit Icon" />My first HomeKit accessory was an <a href="https://www.ecobee.com/en-us/smart-thermostats/">ecobee3 smart thermostat</a> that I purchased in 2017 to replace a Nest thermostat that developed a short in its backing plate. I had been an early adopter of Nest (prior to its acquisition) and had been hopeful their products would get HomeKit support. When that turned out to be a false hope I turned the premature death of my Nest thermostat into an opportunity to buy a device that supported Apple’s latest technology endeavor. HomeKit was still relatively new at this point, but being a big Apple nerd I was predisposed to buy in.</p>
<p>That ecobee was also my last HomeKIt device for nearly four years. As cool as it was that Apple was getting into the home automation space, I didn’t really want to have to talk to Siri to turn my lights on and off. I also didn’t want to control my house with my phone. That position was strengthened every time I heard an anecdote about smart bulbs being disconnected because someone flipped off a light switch, or a houseguest being unable to figure out how to “use” someone’s smart home.</p>
<p><img src="/assets/images/homepod-white-shelf.jpeg" alt="The original white HomePod, on a shelf" /></p>
<p>In 2018 I purchased a pair of HomePods to act as stereo speakers for my living room Apple TV. This was less about building a smart home and more about building a great entertainment setup with killer sound quality. Nonetheless it added the ability to ask Siri questions in an ambient fashion and integrated a voice assistant into my home. Still, I was plenty content to have my home be no smarter than that.</p>
<h2 id="so-what-changed">So What Changed?</h2>
<p>Although I had no real desire to build a smart home, there <em>was</em> one piece of tech I wanted: A HomeKit-enabled garage door opener. I even started going down the rabbit hole of researching a Raspberry Pi setup that I could retrofit onto my existing garage door motor. The market for HomeKit openers was surprisingly barren and for the longest time it seemed my only option was to spend over $300 for an add-on to my existing opener. I wanted a smart garage door opener, but I didn’t want it that badly.</p>
<p><img src="/assets/images/meross-opener-small.png" align="right" alt="Meross Smart Wi-Fi Garage Door Opener" /> And then it happened. I caught wind of a company named <a href="https://www.meross.com">Meross</a> making highly-rated <em>affordable</em> HomeKit-enabled garage door openers. I did my research, made sure it would work with my existing motor, and pulled the trigger. It was awesome. I could ask Siri if the garage door was open! I could ask Siri to close the garage door! I could set up a geofence to do the same!</p>
<p>That Meross opener kicked off a whole new hobby. Next thing I knew I was buying smart bulbs, smart wall switches, and door sensors. The Home app moved to my phone’s home screen. I was perusing <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeKit/">the HomeKit subreddit</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvzGb0KKrZ7J3TF8hTnNzQw">watching</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85yH56DS5mg">YouTube</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/ShaneCreates">videos</a> looking for tips, tricks, gear reviews, and cool ideas.</p>
<p>I. Was. Hooked.</p>
<h2 id="whats-all-this-then">What’s All This Then?</h2>
<p>Because I’m still so early in the stages of adding new devices to my home, and because I think the HomeKit ecosystem has matured nicely over the last few years, I wanted to share my experiences.</p>
<p>Each post will be focused on a particular problem or enhancement to my house, the accessories I used to solve it, and what I thought of them. These posts will be one part <strong>How To</strong>, one part <strong>Review</strong>.</p>
<p>I am following a set of rules when adding accessories to my home, and I’ll talk about those as part of each post as well:</p>
<ol>
<li>Make sure all smart accessories can still be controlled via physical controls.</li>
<li>Keep it practical. I <em>could</em> go nuts with smart everything, but I’m trying to restrict it to enhancements that actually make sense.</li>
</ol>
<p>I have a third rule that HomeKit actually solves for me by default: Ensure I’m not crippled by an internet outage. When you add an accessory to your home it is always controlled over your local network via your home hub. Yes, you can access your home when you’re away, but all control within the house happens over the local network, not over the internet.</p>
<h2 id="its-all-about-the-automations">It’s All About the Automations</h2>
<p><img src="/assets/images/homekit-automations-small.png" align="right" alt="The Automations tab from the Home app" /> The other thing I’ll cover with each post are the automations I’ve created to make my smart home even smarter. As I mentioned at the top, I’m not interested in having to shout, “Hey Siri” every time I want to turn on a light. The power of HomeKit isn’t completely about Siri, it’s about the automations and scheduling.</p>
<p>Finding ways to automate away the actions that I was doing on a regular basis has been fantastic and has really made it feel like my HomeKit setup is working for me.</p>
<h2 id="wrapping-it-all-up">Wrapping It All Up</h2>
<p>I hope you enjoy these posts. As always, don’t forget to like, comment, subscribe and smash that bell so you get notified when I post new content. Wait a minute, wrong social platform…</p>
<p>I will be sharing these posts on Reddit and Twitter, so don’t hesitate to reach out if you’ve got questions or comments. Cheers!</p>Michael FeyAfter a number of years of not caring too much about HomeKit I picked up a couple of accessories and started nerding out on it _hard_. I’m going to use this site to write up the problems I’m solving, the accessories I’m using to solve them, and my reviews of those accessories.