Home Automation | Luke Browning

Make your Dumb Wireless Doorbell Smart with Home Assistant

Smart doorbells such as Ring, Nest and Arlo have become all of the rage in the last couple of years with promises of real-time press and motion notifications, two way communication and a camera to see who’s there. On the whole, they work well but often have a number of disadvantages to a regular old doorbell…

UK Smart Heating Systems – Hive 2 vs Nest 3 vs Tado 3

With so many smart thermostats being available on the market and each company’s product ranges beginning to mature, I thought it was time to run through the latest releases from the most popular smart heating systems on the market in the UK. These are; Hive Active Heating 2, Nest Learning Thermostat 3 and Tado 3.

The Current State of Smart/Connected Lighting in the UK

Since the emergence of home automation hubs such as SmartThings and Wink in the US in the last couple of years, us Brits have been left longing for similar tech to come to our shores.

Xiaomi XiaoYi (Night Vision) Camera Review

Much to my surprise, it seems that China based Xiaomi don’t only make attractive, low cost phones with high end specs, they also make decent looking IP cameras (among other things!). I was recently on the lookout for a couple of cheap cameras so that I can see what’s happening around the house whilst I’m out. Whilst browsing the EU warehouse at GearBest I found stumbled across these for £20/$30 for the top of the range model (they do a model that looks identical but without the night vision) so I thought I’d take a punt.