House Projects

[scheides]

I've been on a bit of a home automation kick lately. Mostly just dabbling, trying to keep things on the cheap, semi-aimed at increasing efficiency.

First off, in the name of efficiency, I replaced of the most commonly used bulbs in my house with Cree brand LEDs from Home Depot. I made a nifty spreadsheet weighing hours used per day, wattage, etc and figure I should save a solid $20 per month with about a $300 investment. These things are supposed to last 20 years, so if they hold up like some of the other LED bulbs I have, I will be happy. I got the soft-white version and they are nearly identical to the incandescent bulbs that I replaced them with.



Next up, I installed a 'smarter' thermostat. I had a cheaper unit that I could not get the schedule to work to save my life, so I grabbed a Nest on black friday. Instead of putting it in the corner next to a window where the current thermostat is, I got some 18/5 cable, cut a few holes (PITA in this old house, bleh) and mounted it right in the center of the entire living space.



This thing is awesome, it has a motion sensor on it and does auto-scheduling and auto-away, and I can check the status or change things on it from anywhere, anytime.





Next up I grabbed a few of the Belkin WeMo light switches. These things are nice for an out-of-the-box product. I ordered from amazon but you can get them at BestBuy now as well! Basically I wanted to setup a schedule so lights were on/off surrounding my normal schedule, and some random on/offs for semi-theft deterrent.



Next piece to the puzzle is garage monitoring. I wanted a way I could open/close the garage remotely and get notified if it gets left open. I decided to do a little home-brew action with a raspberry pi. I followed this guy's tutorial & codebase and have been modifying it to add features.

Setup for testing on my ottoman:


Mag switch installed:


Temporary wiring install for initial testing. I think I bumped some other cabling though when I was installing, because my existing garage door openers don't seem to work as well as they used to, only from about 5-10' away, not outside the garage.



I added a rpi camera module & setup the dashboard so it would display a static image that is updated every 5 seconds, and then I wrote some scripts that will email & txt me in case the door gets left open for too long. Lots of refinement to do here, but I can access the unit remotely and it works absolutely perfect thus far.









'Access Door' is the human-sized door with a handle on it, I will be running a mag sensor to it as well but for now the pin that would connect to it is just simply unhooked (thus it shows 'Open').

And yes, I will be cleaning up the wiring and mounting, just wanted to get things rolling with it

[asshanson]

Originally Posted by scheides

First off, in the name of efficiency, I replaced of the most commonly used bulbs in my house with Cree brand LEDs from Home Depot. I made a nifty spreadsheet weighing hours used per day, wattage, etc and figure I should save a solid $20 per month with about a $300 investment. These things are supposed to last 20 years, so if they hold up like some of the other LED bulbs I have, I will be happy. I got the soft-white version and they are nearly identical to the incandescent bulbs that I replaced them with.

You inspired me to do LED replacement. So far I have just done the kitchen/dining room: 7 recessed floods, all were 65W. Replaced them with GE 10W that are actually a little brighter than the old bulbs. I went with GE because I found them for a few bucks cheaper than the Cree and the specs were nearly identical. Next I need to find 6 LED candle style for the living room ceiling fan and bedroom ceiling fan. That will probably be it, since we don't use the other rooms much. I figured it will take about a year for them to pay for themselves at $7.50 each.

Next up on the list is a projector for the basement. I'm getting one from our realtor, it's a couple years old but can't complain about free. Just have to find a screen now.

[asshanson]

Originally Posted by asshanson

You inspired me to do LED replacement. So far I have just done the kitchen/dining room: 7 recessed floods, all were 65W. Replaced them with GE 10W that are actually a little brighter than the old bulbs. I went with GE because I found them for a few bucks cheaper than the Cree and the specs were nearly identical. Next I need to find 6 LED candle style for the living room ceiling fan and bedroom ceiling fan. That will probably be it, since we don't use the other rooms much. I figured it will take about a year for them to pay for themselves at $7.50 each.

Sooo, LED prices are getting cheaper every year. I bought a pack of 8.5W LED A19 bulbs with medium bases (i.e. standard sized light bulb) at Home Depot for $7/4pack. The light output is 800 lumens for 8.5W which is incredible efficiency. That will be like $5/year savings per bulb, so they pay for themselves in a few months.

My living room and bedroom only have overhead fan assemblies as the switchable light source, and they use the small candelabra bases, and LEDs really suck in this size with any substantial light output. So I rewired our ceiling fan to the usual 'medium base' light bulb sockets instead of the mini candelabra ($3/socket at menards with pigtail), and plugged in these crazy bright LED A19 bulbs. They look decent in the fan, and have WAY more light output for the same wattage as my old LED candelabra lights. It's by far one of the best $15 investments (bulbs and sockets total) I've ever made in the house, plus I can reuse the candelabra lights elsewhere now. And the CRI is awesome compared to the cheapo LEDs I bought off amazon from china, our living room felt dreary with those daylight LED bulbs before, it's amazing how much difference the CRI makes.

Any rate, I totally recommend the Phillips LED A19 bulbs on sale at Home Depot for $7 for 4pack. By far the cheapest LED bulbs I've seen and so far love the quality. (I have no stock in Home Depot, just trying to pass on a good deal to others).