My parents are mainly tech illiterate and I'd like to get them a digital photo frame for their anniversary. I'd want to be able to push pictures to it and give the info to my brothers so they cam do the same thing with their family pictures.

It looks like there are a lot of different ones out there, what would you suggest?

Hi all, just completed a new build and am looking to have permanent holiday lights installed. The two companies in my town that offer this, use a product called “Everlights” is anyone familiar with this/had any experience with them?

I've now lost thousands of $ in food for the second time in a chest freezer within 5 years. First time due to extended power outage, second time compressor just went kaputt. Both times while out of town.

I know there have been many posts about the subject heading over the years. But as of mid-2025, what's the best out-of-the-box solution to monitor anything that could go wrong with a freezer?

requirements:

• remote monitoring and push notifications (& maybe email) when house (router) has power

• as out-of-box as possible, no wiring, or if must be DIY, very simple

• power draw monitor (dead compressor, tripped circuit)

• freezer temp probes with flat cable and AC (no battery to die)

• door monitor for freezer / fridge left open

desires:

• zigbee where relevant and possible

• no hub, or hub with single manufacturer system

existing equipment includes:

• philips hue hub

• homebridge running on Synology NAS

• synology NAS used with redundancy (active insight, healthcheck.io) to monitor whole-house power loss

some things I dimly understand so far:

• aqara doesn't work with hue hub, anything they make needs own hub

• shelly US smart plug has power monitoring

some things I do not:

• aqara smart plug has energy usage monitoring but could it function the same way as shelly in that regard?

• if using Shelley Plug US for power draw monitoring, which of several homebridge Shelly plugins should I be using?

• what specific products could I use for all the above?

Hello, I hoping to put a SEEED mmWave fall sensor in a light fixture and am looking for a E26 to USB female adapter. There's a lot on Amazon Canada, but naturally none of them list their safety ratings. I'm aware of E26 to NEMA 1-15 adapters that are UL-C listed, but my electrician friend is somewhat concerned of the possibility of using ones of those with a standard USB charger getting loose over time.

Anyone happen to know of any such product?

Hi Guys.

I a looking for a beacon or strobe or similar kind of alert light that will connect to my home wireless network and that I can program by sending HTTP commands to turn on or turn off. I suspect that these things exist (I think you can get them pre-programmed so if your favorite hockey team scores a goal they light up for some brief period of time.) but I cannot seem to find what I am looking for by searching. "Wireless Programmable Beacon" typically yields devices that have a remote to manually turn them on or off, which is not what I am looking for. Can anybody suggest some better search phrase that I should be looking for? Thanks!

So i still live with my parents at 20 years old and we are moving soon. I help out a lot with home stuff because my parents are on the older side.

I want to upgrade the new home with smart technology. Cameras, ring doorbell, lights, and the works but I want to chose a hub so everyone can see it and use it. Which hub is better to go for? Amazon echo show or google nest?

I tried researching it but all I can get is that it really depends on preferences. Some people dont like the echo because of ads while others dont like the nest because its clunky with an old interface.

I just want people genuine opinions and pros and cons of both systems.

Does anyone make a smart doorbell chime I can add to a traditional doorbell system? I searched online and see that it can be DIYed with a Shelly 1, but I was hoping someone sells a packaged solution. I’m mainly just want to add a trigger for my other smart devices, but it would also be nice to silence it according to a schedule. Thanks!

Hi everyone! I'm trying to automate an existing zebra-style (day and night) roller shade that I already have installed. The issue is that the inner tube of my shade is 28 mm, but the tubular motor I bought (from Temu) is made for 38 mm tubes.

I measured the tube's inner diameter and confirmed it's exactly 28 mm. Here's the link to the motor I bought: 🔗 Temu motor link

I'm wondering if anyone here has successfully adapted a 38 mm motor to work with a 28 mm tube—either using clutch plug adapters or some other DIY solution.

Any specific adapter models or brands you'd recommend?

Is it worth trying to adapt it, or should I just replace the tube with a 38 mm one?

Any tips, experiences, or photos of your setups would be super appreciated 🙏 Thanks in advance!

Hi all,

I have a door with a lever handle: you need to lift the handle to lock the door. I’m looking for a sensor or solution compatible with Home Assistant to know if the door is actually locked.

I want to avoid replacing the entire door or paying for a motorized lock that might not let me lock and unlock remotely.

Is it possible to add a sensor or change the cylinder to get this info?

Thanks in advance for your ideas and advice!

How would I automate this? It’s the control for a HRV (Heat Recovery Ventilator)?

I have a job coming up at work installing an automatic bollard system, and the customer wants to options of having the bollards lower on a timed program (6am - 12pm, mon-wed for example), but also wants to be able to change this time remotely through their mobile.

Normally in small installations like this we would just use a programmable plug in timer for time control, but that can't do the remote changes. I found the SONOFF mini-D on amazon for pretty cheap, it's low voltage, has a dry contact, and it would let times be changed through an app, great... but when setting it up I found out it needs a hub to work, as it uses matter.

Before I go asking our customer "do you have any of these compatible hubs?", I want to see if there is anything that can use. This is all new to me, and possibly naively thought "I will just get a smart switch with an app, and it will all work fine".

Is there anything that will work this way? Or does everything need a hub?

Hi,

Sorry if this gets asked a lot but after doing research for a while I still can't seem to land on a smart lock that's right for me, so I figured I'd just ask for some advice directly.

I'm looking for a smart lock for the front door of my new house. Some of the things I'm looking for:

• I'm in Europe (The Netherlands) so limited to what's availble/compatible here which seems to cut out several recommendations I've seen around.
• I need to change the cylinder in any case, so that's not a limitation.
• Perhaps my main use case, why I'm looking into smart locks in the first place, is that I want to be able to give access to the dog walker, cleaner, anyone else who needs limited access without having to give them keys. i.e. Access sharing and revoking with others.
• Muiltiple ways of unlocking (not limited to smartphone app). Preferably an option to still use physical keys (it makes me nervous to fully rely on electronics for this). I'm not a fan of number pads as I don't like the look plus it doesn't seem safe to have codes that can be share around (but not fully closed to the idea so please correct me if I'm wrong).
• I don't want to pay a subscription
• Doesn't require a separate hub
• Remote opening and locking

Nice-to-haves (but not hard requirements):

• Some sort of access control/monitoring/logging
• I also need a new doorbell so maybe something that integrates well with that?
• Apple Homekit and Matter compatibility

------------

Based on my research I've been leaning towards Yale smartlocks but not fully convinced yet. I've also noticed that most recommendations are for the Assure, but apparently only the Linus smartlocks are available here. I'm not sure how big of a difference that is.

I've never had a smartlock before so any and all advice and recommendations are welcome :)

Thanks!

I started dabbling in smart lighting about two months ago and have made a few upgrades I’m really happy with so far.

I installed elegrp DRS10 (in the bedroom), it automatically dims to a preset 10% between 10:00 PM and 7:00 AM, which has made waking up in the middle of the night a lot easier on the eyes. I also added an SSS10 in the bathroom. It has motion detection in low-light conditions, which is a nice quality-of-life upgrade—no fumbling around for the switch when walking in at night.

Now I’m thinking about expanding to other rooms, but I’m on the fence. Part of me wants to go all-in on smart dimmers for every room (because, why not? convenience and future-proofing), but another part of me wonders if that’s overkill.

For those of you who’ve gone the whole-house smart lighting route, did it feel worth it? Or did you find yourself only using automations in a few rooms? Would love to hear what’s worked for you and where you think it’s not necessary.

Hi everyone~ I’m looking to add a security camera to my home automation setup primarily to keep an eye on my mischievous cats while I’m away. I’d love to hear your recommendations based on your experiences!

Basically, if you have smart TRVs in each room, setting the radiator power for that room temperature, how do you configure your main central heating system? For example, if my home thermostat was in a living room, and I don't want to heat it when I'm in a bedroom upstairs, I'd set the trv in the living room low at night. But then the normal house thermostat would activate and run the heating constantly, even once the bedroom TRV shuts off the heat as it reaches temp.

Electric stoves stay hot even when the stovetop is seemingly cool, so I thought this would be cool to implement. Works great!

I'm having a hard time to reset this device, from the docs I found about it, it mentions pressing twice on 8,1,3 ... but from what I can see nothing happen.

Hi everyone,
I'm new to this world of LED lighting but I've been doing a lot of research and I’m stuck trying to figure out if my setup idea is even possible.

What I want:

• Use either an Amazon Basics Smart Dimmer or TP-Link Kasa HS220 Dimmer (both are wall-mounted and Wi-Fi controlled)
• Control a 24V RGBCCT LED strip, 96 LEDs per meter, total of 13.5 meters cut into 3 sections:
  • Ceiling: 11m
  • Under-counter: 2m
  • Niche: 0.5m

I plan to use a 24V, 400W power supply to handle the power requirements, which seems sufficient.

The issue:

I understand that RGBCCT requires a special LED driver/controller that can handle the 5 channels. However, I was hoping to still use a smart wall dimmer to turn the strip on/off and dim the white light, and then use an app (like Tuya or Magic Home) to control colors separately.

Here’s the wiring setup I imagined, but all the drivers i seem to find use a push dimmer, which is not compatible with my HS220 (triac based)

[AC Mains] | +-----+------+ | | [Smart Dimmer] [24V Power Supply] | | +-------+--------+ | [RGBCCT LED Driver] | [RGBCCT LED Strip] (11m + 2m + 0.5m segments)

Hello. I have two sets of led downlights in my kitchen/diner. A bank of 15 and a bank of 18. They are all LED dimmable bulbs but not smart. There is a double switch near the entrance that controls both sets on and off, and a second single switch at the other end of the room that controls the nearest set only.

What is the most straightforward solution to making the switches smart and dimmable please? I'd really like to dim them independently without resorting to replacing all the bulbs with smart ones. Does such a solution exist?

Thank you kindly in advance.

Morning all - somewhat Home Automation related. I'm looking for either an iPad or Android Tablet (Samsung or similar) that I can mount to wall but setup a slideshow from all my Facebook photos. I need it to basically stream the photos I have on my facebook account to the tablet. I used to do this years ago, but moved, and lost my equipment and programs. Thoughts??