Home Automation Project Post 7

<a href="http://heavy.com/tech/2015/06/irobot-vs-neato-best-robot-vacuum-reviews/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Source</a>

There are some things I’ve talked about in my Home Automation series so far. I’ve talked about video surveillance and home security. I’ve talked about home door locks and lighting automation. All of these things are fast and relatively easy projects to begin. I also mentioned that having and maintaining your home network is critical. One of the recap things I am going to do today is to list out a number of the products I’ve considered and used in building our my project. Canary is the product I’ve used for Video Surveillance. Yale is the door locks (automatic) I use. I am a huge supporter and long time user of the SkyBell video doorbell system. Finally for network protection and monitoring the Fingbox product is amazing! Finally, I love the Hue lights and have played with them extensively!

The next concept in home automation is as I have mentioned many times making your life easier. In that vein, one of the solutions I’ve used and find impressive is the iRobot Roomba. This system is an automated vacuum cleaner. They have some products, the one we decided to go with integrates with Amazon Echo and wireless or WiFI networks. That allows you to have the application on your phone and vacuum when you are not home! Or tell Alexa to start vaccuming becuase surprise guests are at the front door!

Our dogs voted against getting the Roomba. It bothers them when they are trying to sleep on the Tile floor in the living room. Other than the Lab complaints the system has preformed extremly well in keeping the main level of our house cleaner. Well, at least the floor. I suspect the dust that collects on higher ojbects isn’t something that a ground based Robotic Vacuum will be able to clean. Perhaps a dusting drone is in our future? Launch the drone and it will gently dust all the items in your hosue. The Dust Drone© coming to a store near you!