Hmm. Good point. I think it should. The primary reason I don’t like using invizible in VPN mode is because I want my standard web browser not to go through Tor so I can access my bank and stuff like that and don’t want to have to switch it between VPN and socks mode.
That and I use private DNS or DOH and I have to turn that off in order to use it in VPN mode.
It’s sad that this app does not support Socks 5 proxy. Otherwise, I could use a Tor hidden service as my HA entry point.
Yeah, that’s what it looks like to me as well, but since I’m currently using Zigbee devices, I would need to either move them to a new hub, or get a second cloud connect, ZBT1, so that one could be dedicated for threads and the other could be dedicated to Zigbee.
Isn’t the HA cloud dongle able to do both because they’re on the same 2.4 gigahertz or whatever?
Remember that a fan does not cool the environment. It cools you due to pushing the hot air away from you, but it does not actually cool the air itself. I have a dumb window air conditioning unit in my room that I’ve connected to a smart plug and I’m using the forecast temperature from the weather provider to automate it turning on. Eventually, I think I’ll actually get a temperature sensor and switch the automation from the online forecast to the sensor instead. But the online forecast is cheaper, so that’s how I’ve at least started out.
I was looking at the wireless models, which I assume requires the app to initialize, and then you can uninstall it. With that said, I did pull down the app just to take a look at it, and it does not appear as though it requires any sort of account setup to initialize the cameras to begin with.
I don’t have any bulbs from them, but I did just recently get a smart plug from third reality. And so far I like it, although I’ve only had it a couple of days.
I intend to go with Reolink. The recorder can support up to 8 cameras per recorder and it publishes an RTSP stream. The only downside appears as though you need the app to set it up originally, but I don’t think it requires any kind of cloud account from everything I can tell, which was my biggest requirement, but I think it is Chinese.
Hmmm. Good point. I dont really see a way around that one though.
If the living room has smart lights you could turn them to red if a person was detected at midnight
Do you at least have the volume set at a low level, like 10% or 20%, so that if nobody is in the family room, it doesn’t wake anybody else in the house up? But yes, if you had a presence sensor in the living room, then you could do it on the condition that there was somebody in the room.
The way I see it is trigger at midnight. If presence is detected, set Alexa volume to 10% and announce, hey, you should probably go to bed.
I didn’t see an answer online so I decided I would email the company support just to make sure. Drawing 550 watts. It’s definitely capable of holding it while it is running. But I do not know how much power it takes to actually start it up. So that is a very good point. And I want to make absolutely certain I don’t kill the plug.
The thing on the side says it pulls 550 watts, which is about 5 amps. But I would definitely take a look at it while it’s running on the smart plug, and if it’s pulling anywhere near that amount, I would unplug it. But that’s a good point.
Plus, the smart plug will actually give me a good idea of how much power the damn thing is using. I know what the power draw on the side says it is, but I don’t know if it’s actually using that much or if it’s using less.
I’m currently running mine on a spare Raspberry Pi 4, but the fan on it is kind of loud, so I’m considering getting myself one of those home assistant green machines.
I believe when you signed up you were given a link to access it externally and you have to enter that into your companion app as your server address and then there’s an option to enter the internal IP address and your SSID so that when you are on Wi-Fi it will just go directly to it instead of using the external link.
So far the only thing I find that I don’t particularly care for is that apparently you need the reolink app to set up the cameras for the first time. I wish there was an open source way of doing it, but I can at least get their app properly through the Aurora store in order to at least configure it. And I’m guessing that I will have to enable parental controls on my router and disable the hub from being able to access the internet. They may well be telling the truth about not using my data nefariously, but if I can just stop the hub from accessing the internet entirely, except during specific times where I manually check for software updates, then they can’t do anything.
Here at least, our mail is absolutely never delivered in the morning. It’s always mid to late afternoon. Although perhaps a door sensor might work better anyway, because sometimes if the mail person gets here really late, it might be dark, especially during winter, with the time change.
Hey, thanks so much. I am brand new to all of this, and so I really appreciate all the help. I’ve never even considered trying to do a smart home before because I want everything to be open source as much as I possibly can. Basically, everything I’ve ever seen is like Samsung this and Google that and cloud account this and Amazon account that and all that shit.
So far im thinking
I’m not sure if I’ll need a motion sensor or not, because the cameras record when they detect motion, and so they might present a motion detection sensor to HA through the hub.
My goal here is to replace my ADT security system with something I don’t have to pay a monthly fee for and yet will be able to get the same functionality out of. I’m thinking I might need some sort of Zigbee buttons for arming and disarming the alarm and setting up those Zigbee buttons for a panic mode as well. I saw a YouTube video where in order to arm the alarm the guy had to press a Zigbee button twice and then had to press the same Zigbee button twice again within ten seconds or it wouldn’t do anything.
Edit: Something I ran across today that might also be cool is to put a light sensor inside the mailbox so that when the mailbox is opened, light will hit the sensor and trigger it. And so you can know that the mail has run.
The hub does not appear to require an account from everything I can tell, but I have also done limited research so far. Although according to the following post, the battery cameras will indeed work with Home Assistant with the hub as the bridge between them.
https://community.reolink.com/topic/13274/reolink-home-hub-supports-home-assistant. It also appears as though you can make the battery camera’s live stream too home assistant, but that obviously it drains battery quite fast while doing so. So you do not want to do so. In most cases you’ll want to use them in motion only detection mode. Are you able to stream the camera through the companion app on your smartphone with your wired cams?
What I’m looking to do is be able to live stream the camera from my smartphone when I’m not at home if I decide to. The vast majority of the time though, I would be using it in motion only mode so that I would receive a notification if there was motion and then could look at the camera.
I don’t see anything to indicate what it is. The sensors connect wirelessly to the panel that sits at the front door. But I see no branding on the sensors themselves unless maybe they’re on the back and I need to remove them to check. The system was installed in like 2023. The panel itself has no visible branding except for the ADT logo and it is currently not connected to my Wi-Fi network but it does apparently connect to ADT through cellular over I think it’s AT&T.
I’m very leery of Orbot because last time I used it it caused my phone to drain super fast and caused my battery to heat up to such a point that I thought it was going to explode whereas invizible has never done that. I have several apps running over the socks proxy, such as Signal, SimpleX, antennapod, fdroid, monfluo, etc.