pavalov

I've found two things I like better about the Google Home Hub: 1) I can see my commands typed out on the screen as I say them, so I can quickly correct errors in how it heard me. 2) The room-centric smart home controls work more the way my wife approaches device control. She hates having to remember all the Iris device names. In contrast, the room groupings are intuitive. You simply say the name of the room you're in and tell it lights on. Simple. Neat. I find myself using it over the Alexa serial commands (Alexa has never worked well with my Iris Scenes.)

Are you controlling it with Avi-on?

Whoa! If this is real -- and priced well -- it opens up the platform in truly exciting ways. Thanks for sharing the info.

I just started testing the Google devices this week because I was attracted to the room-based grouping of devices with the Google Home Hub. I'm still testing and will report back, but so far, it has been nice to be able to control all the lights in a particular room without having to write two Iris Scenes (XRoom Lights On and XRoom Lights Off) for every room in the house. Alexa may have this capability with its Groups and Routines, but it seems as cumbersome as the Iris option. What are your thoughts on a comparison of the Alexa vs. Google systems?

An electronics contract manufacturer?

I've been watching for more news on Alexa Guard. I don't find anything new, and interestingly, Amazon seems to have pulled the original press release (see the dead link in the article excerpt below). One writer has raised an interesting question: Will this be a "free-standing" feature, or will a home monitoring partner such as ADT be required? From CEPro: "Welcome to the new era of voice assistants as security and wellness tools, starting with Amazon’s Alexa Guard, a service that recognizes and reacts to three distinct sounds (for now): smoke alarms, carbon monoxide alarms, and breaking glass. Announced yesterday, Alexa Guard will send an alert when one of these sounds is detected, although it is unclear if Amazon would alert users directly through an Alexa app or only through third-party solutions providers." https://www.cepro.com/article/amazon_new_alexa_guard_sound_recognition_security_adt#

A nephew asked me tonight what SH system to use. I can't recommend Iris anymore with the uncertainty of the sale. Smart Things seems a challenge for folks new to the SH world, so I don't know that I want to steer him in that direction. What system should I recommend?

Scunny, that is my hope as well, but I'm uncomfortable steering anyone this way until we see how it shakes out. Rdisom's right that Iris has hit the sweet spot between useful complexity and accessibility, so -- marketed well -- a buyer has a real chance to grow the platform.

Thanks -- hope Mike doesn't find himself disappointed by his employer.

Who is making this representation? I.e., whose voice is this?

Complete with on-screen time stamp. Nice.

I've had similar experiences, but chalked them up to possible dust. I have 7 First Alerts on my system. When I get a false alarm, I vacuum the unit, replace the battery and put it back in service. I don't think I've had the same unit misfire twice, though.

Google has released a product called the Google Home Hub. Small, inexpensive, limited in sound quality, but offered as an alternative to the Amazon Show. I'm interested in any one's experience with its smart home control features. Here's what the CNET review had to say: Swipe down on the touchscreen for a smart home control panel. The panel shows a status of your home including how many lights are on and the current temperature. You'll see shortcut buttons for common tasks that change based on what devices you have synced to your Google Assistant. You can quickly turn off lights, lock doors or broadcast a message with these shortcuts. At the bottom of the dropdown menu, Google shows lights for the current location you've assigned to the Home Hub. You can also use this menu to "view rooms" and see all of your devices organized by room. The Home Hub's smart home control panel mirrors the new Google Home app. The app used to be strictly for setting up Google's smart speakers and connecting your smart home devices. Now it functions as a smart home control center as well. You can assign devices to rooms. You can invite family members to your home. You can also segment your gadgets into multiple homes if you have an office and an apartment. In practice, the organization of the panel works well and makes a lot of intuitive sense. For the most part, I still prefer controlling connected devices with my voice, but the panel provides a handy visual reference. If you forget the name of a device, you can check it with a couple of taps. Amazon introduced a similar control scheme in the new Show, but it doesn't offer the same handy shortcuts or room-by-room breakdown. I like that both Amazon and Google are expanding beyond voice controls for your smart home, but right now, Google's touch controls are more intuitive and generally more useful. My experience is with Alexa, not Google. Alexa offers a relatively painless interconnection with the devices I have on the Iris system, and the voice control is great, but I haven't found the Alexa app to be very intuitive or feature-rich in terms of controlling my Iris-based devices. The idea that the Google Home Hub can give me visual room groupings is intriguing. So, has any one used Google Assistant for their Iris devices, and if so, have you tried the Home Hub? BTW, Walmart will be discounting these to $99 online the Wed before Thanksgiving.

The text feature might be a good late night option when I don't want to wake folks with a voice command or am too lazy to scroll through 60+ Lights & Switches. The length of that list is another reason why the Home Hub room groupings could be helpful. Thanks for the feedback. I'll report back if I try one.

Alphabetical Temp listing!

Wow . . . sixty responses! Lowes could benefit from aggregate data at that level. Thanks for pulling it together.

Editable would be my preference too, but I'll take alphabetical over random. You never knew where a new temperature-sensing device was going to end up on the list.

But there is a silver lining -- the Climate>Temp list is finally ALPHABETIZED! I've been asking for that for years: if they weren't going to give us an editable list, at least make it alphanumeric instead of purely random. With all the contact sensors and other temp sensors some of us have, the list could get very long and hard to locate items in. For instance, mine lists 50 temperature devices. Very happy to see this change.

A few interesting things from the Specs: no hub required no on-board speaker But nothing about battery life, other than this from the Description: 100% wire-free, battery operated. mount it anywhere within Wi-Fi range; Easily recharge the battery with the USB cable provided. no expensive battery replacements

Distance from your router is a potential issue. How close are you when you try to go wireless?

New revenue stream for Lowes!

Done.

I've yet to see a use case for the new hub. What advantages come from migrating?

For the last week or so, my Video Storage, which used to show the percentage of 3 GB that was taken up, has been showing 0%. From the number of video clips that I have, it should be showing close to 50% usage. Anyone else's video storage status showing the same?

Whoa!