Smart Home, Home Automation, Gadgets and Green Tech!
www.speaktothegeek.co.uk
New video every Saturday
If you have a product you'd like me to review then please get in touch via the 'business enquiries' email address to discuss.
If you have questions or wish to provide feedback on one of my videos then please leave a comment on the relevant video and I'll do my best to reply - any help I provide is then public and may help others out too. I am unable to respond to email requests for assistance, advice or queries due to the quantity I receive even though I'd love to be able to! Thank you for your understanding :)
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0:45 I can appreciate your comment - my Ioniq went in for some warranty work and the garage gave me a Peugeot 3008 diesel manual as a courtesy car. Fine (although I loath SUVs) but I'd not driven a manual for 20 years! Manoeuvring out of their tight car park could have been very expensive! 😆
That’s a long time to go without manual practice! I managed ok but I did keep clipping my feet together when I used the clutch and brake at the same time. I think the Corsa’s pedals are especially close together as I’m only a size 8
@@SpeakToTheGeekTech I ride manual motorcycles - but prefer to drive automatic cars.
I love my Eeros. I upgraded from 3x Eero 5 to 3x Eero 6s. I wish I didn’t have to bridge it to my Sky router, but it is very reliable. Waiting for the 7 to come down in price. It will be interesting to see when wifi 7 comes devices. My auto update has never worked. I have always done my manually.
I would have loved to try the 7 out but they were just so much more expensive. Maybe Amazon will want me to give them a test, hint hint Amazon :)
Charge for dynamic DNS? Hard pass from me buying this Amazon day
It does seem a bit penny-pinching, and then I realised I don't actually use built-in router dynamic DNS anyway. I have a Synology NAS and I use their DDNS service, plus I use DuckDNS for Home Assistant. Both of those work extremely well. I haven't needed to use a router DDNS service in many years.
Great video, easy to follow along.
Glad it was helpful!
There's an updated video now building on this and covering specific Octopus smart tariffs just in case you had an Octopus tariff kzread.info/dash/bejne/oJptktyOkqfRlJM.html
I got this, I dont find this useful esp. if you have smart meter installed for gas as well. If you had just electricity, then this may be good. I am using the visual Geo Usage monitor. It also converts gas readings from hideous m3 to kwH. If I had to pay for this, then I would not buy. On hind sight I would not have registered to get this device.
It's not for everyone. With gas, the only advantage you get directly is more immediate gas energy readings in the app (within 30 minutes rather than 24 hours or so without). If you don't have or want a display then this device is a great alternative that lets you do the same things but in the Octopus app. However... where the use of the device really shines is if you want to have your live power and energy data in a 3rd party service, such as a Home Automation platform like Home Assistant. The Octopus API lets you pull that live data straight in really easily and you need the Home Mini to in order to provide it in the first place. If neither of those scenarios apply to you then it probably wasn't intended for you in the first place.
Really disappointed in the Eero app, unless you can do it with the newer hardware: can't choose the WiFi channels, transmission power, channel bandwidth. Dynamic DNS requires some sort of paid subscription. Thanks for an inferior product, Amazon.
You are totally correct, you can’t change any of that. It’s a plug and leave some sort of system will very little fiddling allowed
Thanks ❤ Any recommendation (not Nivea I mean)?
I've not tried anything else to be honest!
Hi, can this turn off my stove top after i set a timer?
Dunno, can you do it with your app? If you can do it with the app then you can do it with the Home Assistant integration.
@@SpeakToTheGeekTech i dont know, thats why im asking, i dont own appliances of this brand yet
I bought a 3 node Mercusys AX3000 last August to replace a powerline network that was proving unreliable. Added three further nodes I bought afterwards from eBay. Mercusys is the cheaper version of Tp-link Deco. Even though it uses the same 2.4/5GhZ for wifi backhaul I’ve had absolutely no issues with it at all. Solid and fast wifi absolutely everywhere in the house and garden. No paywall or additional subscription options on it either 👍 Only thing it doesn’t do is separate SSID eg for IOT devices, although there is a separate guest network I could turn on if I wanted to use it for that. Price up and down all the time on Amazon, typically £160. Recommended. And there’s a HA integration as well 😊
Nice! Yeah Amazon appear to be the only ones offering a subscription for basic functionality(although Netgear and Asus offer one for advanced cloud services like family protection which is sort of justified) I hope they don’t start a trend!
Can i directly use this CT with my load and connect with Acrel meter or have to put Arduino circuit between it.
No idea - this is a very specific project for a single purpose. Whether the components might work in your circumstances in a different solution I couldn't say sorry.
I'd have thought you'd be a Ubiquiti guy.
Purely down to cost. Maybe in 5 years when these are no longer viable to use I could be in a position to spend a bit more. A three node 6E tri-band mesh system from Ubiquiti is around £750 when I checked last.
When r u going to 'payoff' your utility electric service❓ Add up decades of your lost monthly payments renting energy..bad long-term 'investment'❗Owning the means of production (in this case, Solar Generation using free 'fuel'*) is the ultimate ROI.💲💲 *this is why utilities are building solar farms as fast as they can... it's a great investment to collect sun's free 'fuel' & sell it to masses at Full electric Rates....making insane profits for investors! Own the Source yourself...skip the power handlers selling you free 🌅energy from above🗽🌻$ saved is ^$ earned 🗽
Great video but incorrect info about Zenwifi. I have XT8 and firmware from March 24
*MY* Asus CT8, as shown in the screenshot in the video has had no firmware for years which is why I ditched it, so it's totally correct info. I didn't mention other models in the lineup.
That's fair enough but the CT8 looks identical to the XT8 so there could confusion. I agree that I would be more than disappointed if my routers were no longer getting firmware but it is not across the board with Zenwifi products.
unless it's able to flash Open WRT, it will stay on the shelf. most old routers that can flash openwrt, then install openwrt-mesh. job done and open source
Nope, it’s definitely hands off in that respect! Which can be a good thing where I’m concerned because it means I can’t fiddle!
I have an AIO together with a Gen3 inverter. The installer said they had to be on separate accounts. At the moment I don’t have a second battery connected to the Gen3. At some point I would like to add either a 5.2kWh or 9.5kWh battery to the Gen3. This would mean there would be two batteries. However, the Gateway wouldn’t know about the existence of the second battery, because it simply only sees the Gen3 as the inverter source. What is the practical solution, please can you inform me, does GivEnergy have this in hand?
All inverters and gateways can be on the same account. GivEnergy are the only ones who can help if you have them split on different ones at the moment.
I would like to see a wifi coverage map, is it better in one direction rather than another? What about straight above or below etc
I’m working on something. Looking into the best software to do that for free :)
subscription, ehh, no thanks, instant no from me! Looked good before then.
But… subscription only for some features. I am not subscribed and whilst it annoys me they’ve done that I am not missing the features really. It keeps the price of the hardware down.
I have the same BT Wholehome system, it did have a few issues at first but mine has been rock solid for years but i do have them all ethernet connected. Probably 50+ devices spread out over the network.
Mine were Ethernet connected, and I tried them wireless and a mixture. You have more patience than I did! I had a family screaming at me during lockdown and I was trying to work too, no time to wait for them to debug it!
I had that system also, very solid, I just remember plugging them in via ethenet to start with (in same room), left them for 1/2 hr, and then moved the discs to where needed (but on wifi only - no cable - I didn't use an app, as was on EE), all very solid it was (sadly moved to vodafone, and the router was only compatible to BT/EE/Plusnet)
We've just gone through this, previously had BT complete system with 2 discs, which was perfect in our house (2 discs which ran around 300bps) - switched to Vodafone, but the single router wasn't enough to covery whole house, got a mercusys 3 box mesh system off amazon at £70, set it up using my old BT SSID & Password, and plugged it into the back of the new vodafone router, voila everything in the house just reconnected to the new mercusys routers , which rocksoild wifi all over house (took about 10 mins to set up from start to finish & didn't need to retype the password / SSID on any devices on the old wifi)
Mesh is definitely worth it!
Thanks for that video. Good review at a great time because I am looking at getting a mesh system set up in my apartment. I have been using the ASUS you mentioned for a few years at my house and once I got the settings right (and there are a lot!) it was faultless and has been for over a year now (touch wood). All the advanced features are freely available, although you do need a web browser to access them which was very daunting for someone that’s not experienced with these things. That’s basically why I’m leaning towards the TP Link for the apartment. Everything accessible through the app and no pay wall. But the features are very similar and it has the 6 GHz band for wireless backhaul (I hate cables!). Also, both integrate well into HA! I was surprised you didn’t include that into your review by the way. 👍🏻
Thanks! And please click my Amazon links if you plan to buy (any product, just click through and then find what you’re really after!) because I get a bit of commission! I decided not to cover Home Assistant in this video because it was already quite long. I had a play with the eero sensors in HA which are provided by upnp and they weren’t that interesting. I know Asus had a lot more but I never really used them. It’s on the list for the future if I can figure out something useful to do with them!
@@SpeakToTheGeekTechif I click your link and then click “open in Amazon app”, will you still get the commission?
I think so, Amazon referrals is a dark art!
I’ve used the tplink xe75 pro in a more industrial situation over 3 floors and a fairly large area Mesh systems in general are very good and well worth while.Nice review and very nicely explained.
Thanks! And yeah I don’t think there’s really a wrong answer when picking a mesh solution. Apart from BT, that’s a wrong answer :)
I found the BT gear to be an absolute nightmare when using at someone else's house, the house was massive so mesh was a great way to cover it all. Ended up replacing with a Deco system that worked brilliantly for a few years. When doing a CCTV upgrade he finally agreed for me to go full unifi which has been rock solid.
Deco seems great value. I like the unifi kit but it is priced quite high hence why I selected eero as a more wallet friendly option. You get what you pay for though so I have to live with features being behind a paywall.
interesting, the saving and period to recover the installation costs doesnt make it worth while.
It's not supposed to recover its installation costs from running, its purpose is to heat your house not earn you money. Any savings on your bill are an added bonus. I have another video all about the installation costs and how it didn't cost much difference to a boiler installation.
Hi, would you be intrested in trying the Homely heat pump controller/optimiser? It now has a portal to see all the data from your heat pump and will improve energy bill saving of your heat pump. If you are intrested, let me know :) Enjoy your Daikin.
Hi, thank you for the offer. However I have already given this a lot of thought and am following the product's development (for a couple of years!). I think that the end result of the solution and its own internal logic is amazing and exactly what ALL heat pump controllers should do. But for me personally I don't think it's suitable yet. This isn't intended to be overly critical, but reasons why I haven't adopted it and potentially areas you could consider as improvements in order to make it more widely appealing. Firstly it appears that Homely replaces your existing controller? If so, there then doesn't appear to be any replacement for the in-home display (just a wireless display-less temperature sensor?). This fails the WAF test because now we can't see at a glance what the temperature is in our house. Our Daikin 'thermostat' lets us see that, let's us easily check the water tank temperature, temporarily adjust the setpoint or quickly boost the hot water. This was one main reason I didn't use Tado a few years ago and chose Evohome instead to control my boiler. Crucially, and this brings me to my second concern, Homely appears to be app controlled only. If we lost internet access, or your cloud services went down, how do we configure our heating if we wanted to? I remember speaking to Karolis at Fully Charged Live a few years ago about this and he was of the opinion that you shouldn't need to change things often, and it would still continue working offline. He's correct of course but it misses the point - most of the time it's left alone, but it's those few occasions where we want manual control and don't want to suddenly find there's an issue. With heating systems it's very important there's an easy control available for the less technical-minded to press. Lastly I was also disappointed by the lack of an open API to control the system. I'm not sure if this is still the case, you have mentioned a dashboard so perhaps that has changed now? Essentially any system I buy I would want to be able to present heating and hot water entities to something like Home Assistant. If I decide by an automation that I want the whole system turned off, or put into holiday mode, or the setpoint dropped or increased for some reason, I want to be able to do that. Again, that all comes down to being another option for manual intervention. Homely should accept that humans sometimes want to override what is optimum for reasons it doesn't need to understand, but it should just accept that and adapt as necessary. Sorry for the long reply but I hope this feedback is constructive because I do very much want to see Homely succeed. I don't speak to everyone of course, these are just the concerns I see. My brother-in-law for example thinks Homely is amazing as it is and would love it on his Samsung heat pump!
thank you for sharing the story. did you note the faulty AC compresssor part number and was it different after replacement? it is common issue in corsa-e and Opel dealer in Poland wants 2000 gbp for new AC compressor after the warranty, Opel community discovered it is a faulty Valeo compressor made in China but PSA did not make any official service recall.
I didn't check sorry, with hindsight I probably should have to make a note for others but it's too late now.
It is likely the switching power supply in the C cells is interfering with the chip detection circuitry in the door opener. The feeders must use a different means of detecting the cats' devices. Please put Sheldon on fat cat food. He's not going to like it, which is kinda the point. Fat cats are not healthy, and tend to croak long before their time.
Thanks. Sheldon has lost weight / is losing weight slowly and is much healthier since recording this. The problem is he's actually generally a very large cat so not just fat! I wouldn't consider him fat anymore which is good!
We had a quote of £1138 which i feel is almost too good to refuse, waiting for the survey now to see if the sums will add up. Based upon my own assessment on heat punk it calculated 3.65 SCOP, to which i was hoping for more.
I think a SCOP of 3.65 is reasonable. Don't forget you can always get a much more efficient system from a custom-designed independent Heat Geek approved installer. It's whether you think the additional cost of using those installers is worth it for the most efficient system. For me personally I am happy with SCOP I am getting, and the extra cost of something more efficient would have priced me out of it. I'd rather be 'more efficient' than nothing at all!
Still loving this😂
I'm happy it's the gift that keeps on giving :)
I've switched from Ring and Blink cameras to a whole Eufy system now. Very happy with the whole setup for my use.
How do you find searching for specific events? I will be putting out a Eufy review video later this year (got distracted with other things so must crack on with that) but compared to other solutions I've tried, the static thumbnails on the event recordings and navigating the timeline of events is awkward. However, the responsiveness of the funky little robot-head 360 pan tilt camera is amazing. It follows me around perfectly!
@@SpeakToTheGeekTech I can't say i've had to do too much of that, searching for specific events that is. I do find the web portal pretty useless for my situation but the mobile app works well for what I need. I started with just the doorbell which worked well but the upgrade to the homebase 3 unlocked the suite of "bionic mind" features and it's detection/filtering is absolutely perfect for human, animal, vehicle movements. The face recognition is great so members of the family aren't constantly triggering notifications to my phone.
Nice honest review. Good video as always. Thank you.
Thanks!
I've just applied for planning permission in England and environment planning have recommended a noise survey. I decided to put it out front so it wasn't in earshot of my neighbours bedroom windows, but instead its around 5 metres away from a stairwell window. They have taken the distance between the properties of 3.3. metres and used that value to calculate the decibel value at the stairwell window and are recommending a noise survey. You can install a gas boiler that sounds like an aircraft taking off, but apparently that's fine.
Ah I think I replied to your tweet earlier. The official distance for noise purposes should be to the window, the direct line of sight at whatever 3D angle that might be. A noise survey can cost a couple of thousand pounds with no guarantee of approval afterwards which is why we didn’t go down that route.
@@SpeakToTheGeekTech Ah yes, tis me indeed. In my instance they are calculating the noise value based on a distance between the properties and that value 3.3m is not the distance from the proposed heatpump location to the window in question. Its actually more like 5 metres which means the value would be 41db which is below the MCS required value of 42db. However im not sure how to correct thier assumption after the planning has been permitted. Ive sent an email. see what happens i guess.
Haha just thought you would know, sorry for wasting your time👍
It’s no problem, you have to ask somewhere. If I could help I would!
i'm still not understanding how to put my data in and get my ROI for my solar/battery usage, i also have an EV so idk if to include that or not... running HA with all teh data, just not sure how to put it in
My demo and spreadsheet is more a starting point for the logic rather than a generic solution for everyone. I have an update coming out in a couple of weeks which may help you. Perhaps I’ll put together a generic solution that anyone could use but the problem is everyone’s setup and usage is different so it’s very difficult to do.
The energy used to charge your EV should count though… it’s all part of your demand.
@@SpeakToTheGeekTech Can we connect on a call, i'm happy to pay ?
Can i connect my feed in tartif array to the Sunsynk 8.8kwh hybrid inverter and my non-feed-in tariff solar array and keep them separate coming out of the inverter so i can keep my feed-in-tariff-intact.
No idea sorry, this video is about a Home Assistant dashboard card that is designed to look like the display on a Sunsynk inverter, rather than Sunsynk hardware itself
love the FF vhs overlay lol takes me back
:) that pops up every now and then in many other of my videos!
added a link in your tweeter feed, see if that works with HA eye motion app
I'm not seeing anything over on Twitter from you?
@@SpeakToTheGeekTech is you tweeter account @SpeektotheGeek just posted another post
i use unifi equipment. Its a bit more pricey but its worth it.
I've not tried those yet. I think quality of the video and the products is important, but the user interface is the main deciding factor for me. Getting buy-in from the family...
the dancing got me to like the vid lool
I'm considering the dad dance test as a new baseline for assessing motion blur and motion tracking capabilities of cameras.
Indeed a usefull video! Of course I liked it!
Thanks, glad you liked it!
[6:40] “currently no way to integrate this to Home Assistant” - if you’d have put that at the start of the video I’d have saved 7 minutes of my life 😂 I guess it wouldn’t have done your KZread analytics any good though And HA integration isn’t necessarily a must have for everyone. But probably is for a high % of your viewers…
Perhaps, sorry! But in my defence I usually state in the title or thumbnail if this is a Home Assistant video. At least now you know to cross it off your shortlist if that’s your criteria!
Always have to key in the lock. Might save your life if you have a fire. Dont have cat flaps perhaps?
I think keys in the door are bad, cat flaps are bad but a necessity if you like non-cat-piss floor. I reckon better euro cylinder locks with thumb-twists is a better compromise. I have those on my other doors. It’s just this cat flap one that is a regular mortise lock
Didn't catch me stealing that 8.2
I have a 24/7 manned watchtower looking out specifically for you…
Hi, i currently have an EV charger and its only about 16 months old. I am about to have a solar install and GivEnergy inverter and battery. My question is is it a super easy job for an electrician to just take the old box off and use all the existing cable etc? I was quoted £700 for install by the solar company and that didnt include the price of the charger!!! Many thanks
Is £700 just for the install of the a new GivEnergy charger? That sounds expensive if existing wiring is being used.
@@SpeakToTheGeekTech Yes thats what i was told, im not paying that it daylight robbery. Hopefully when the sparky is here doing the install i will just ask him direct if he can do it and i will pay him direct.
When will this unit be compatible with Octopus intelligent go??
That's the million-dollar question :) Still waiting - it's technically compatible, but we are waiting for Octopus to add it to their supported devices. They have it in their R&D service at the moment (been there about three months I think so far) so must be testing it in the background.
Thank you
Updated my rates on my energy dashboard (IOG tariff so shouldn’t need to update the YAML?), yet no price information now shows?
If you have the Octopus Energy integration then you can tell the energy dashboard to use the entity provided by that integration to display the costs. I assume you are saying you are typing the rates in manually? Nt sure why that would stop it displaying anything at all, but I recommend the dynamic approach instead and then you never have to update anything.
@@SpeakToTheGeekTech thanks. I’ll have another look. However it’s just last night that isn’t showing any import at all. 1-3rd July all showing imports and costs?
I'm getting this error message after upgrading BottleCapDave's Octopus Integration. 'Cost override has been deprecated. It looks like you've setup the cost override entities for electricity meter 1xxxxxxx356. These cost override entities have been deprecated in favour of setting them up via the integrations page. Please click "Learn More" with instructions on what to do next.' Is this related?
Can solcast be used to find out if a PV system is underperforming at all and send alerts if it is?
Maybe - it gives you the forecasted generation per hour so you could always compare actual generation against expected generation via an automation and alert you if it's more than x% below the forecast. I'm sure you could get much more complicated on the analysis too, taking the longer term into account but there's probably better tools than Home Assistant for that which I'm not aware of.
Vauxhall shite enough said
I tried many.. many options and I always had issues trying to make it work and your video was it! Thanks for the quick video that resolved my issues.
I’m glad it helped!