What apps and cameras are you very pleased with at your property?
 

We were app-less and camera-less from 1984 to 2022. Now we are exuberant about the following:

1. Honeywell thermostat app

2. Wyze camera for driveway (hardwired)

3. Wyze camera for beach (hardwired)

4. Wyze camera for lake (solar panel)

5. UBox rotating camera for backyard and generator (solar panel)

6. Generac app for exercising, maintenance, and logs

7. RF antenna remote monitoring system for the propane tank (readings sent to Irving)

Its fun to use these products from a long distance.

It would be nice to have an app for JP Pest.

Are we missing any apps or cameras that have been very useful to you?

Much thanks!

Home Assistant
 

If you want a centralized monitoring and control tool, handling temperature, presence, motion, door/window openings, cameras and more, check out Home Assistant. You can build one yourself or use the prepackaged "green" option. It integrates with lots of brands, using LAN,WiFi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, Matter and more. You need to like tinkering, but if you do - your cottage monitoring dashboard can be a work of art. Great winter project.

We use Ring for cameras (doorbells, solar cams and hard-wired cams). Ring can integrate other features/sensors in such as temp and water alerts, alarms, etc but we haven't gone beyond cameras.

Kohler has their own app for watching and maintaining our 2 generators.

Kwikset for electronic door lock integration.

MyQ for garage doors.

Ambient Weather station with dashboard viewable online to anyone that goes to their website.

MyLeviton app for setting/scheduling our outdoor lighting/lamp posts.

Wireless driveway sensor system.

Sonos throughout the house.

Samsung Smart Things to control our Samsung Mini split heating system and Samsung frame TV's (all of our tvs are Samsung).

Next up for me us adding a higher resolution POE camera system. The Rings are convenient but simply don't offer the high-quality images I want. Facial recognition and license plate reading are definitely lacking, plus I want a higher end PTZ for looking out at the lake. We are prewired for it, I just need to do it.

How are the outdoor lighting and lamp posts controlled? Are the circuit breakers wifi or are the light switches wifi?

Thank you.

The Ring cameras and any wifi style camera can be easily defeated/ jammed. Of course it is illegal to use a jammer but if someone is going to break into your home or business, they aren't worried about using an illegal jammer! I like Hanwha cameras (South Korean company) and their Wave recording appliance. Axis makes good cameras and their appliance, Axis Camera Station is a good option.

The switches are wifi enabled. We have 8 granite lamp posts around our house as well as lanterns on either side of our front door. Both switches are controlled by the app. We have them set up for a dusk to dawn activation.

I am not overly worried about someone trying to jam my cameras, living on the side of a mountain in Gilford I don't think there is anyone that high tech around. :laugh:

I'd see them coming before they got close enough to try. I do plan on upgrading though, I will probably run both.

I have the Eufy line of cameras. They work very well. All wireless and have solar charging. Not to worried about people hacking them.

Reolink POE cameras and a ton of mixed protocol sensors and switches running on an old Dell thin client PC 4-6 watts) on Home Assistant. Couldn’t be happier. Steep learning curve as noted above. Steve

Sig Sauer.

Never fails.

Unless it’s a P320 🤣

+1 for the Eufy Cameras

I have a number of them on my property: several spotlight cams on the house itself (hardwired for power), several of the older 4G LTE cellular solar cams, and several of the newer 360 4G LTE/Wifi Cams, also we have a couple of the doorbell cams too.

All work great through the app!

Reolink cameras, I've been using these for about 5 yrs now.
Have 2 placed outside, front and back, both powered by solar panels, and two
inside the house with direct connection to A/C.

I find these cameras to be very good clarity in daylight and at night.
Having them hooked to WiFi and controlled by my Mobile phone, allows me to monitor the house when traveling, and turn on spot lights or Alarms when needed. Would highly recommend this brand to anyone !

I use and like Reolink too (at the shore). I also have some el cheapo YI home cameras for non-critical applications. My house is hardwired with an Elan/Nice smart-home system...

No…series 80.

The best vintage 1911’s.!

I have those as well, was a costco thing a few years ago and they work great and no monthly sees. Only downside is the battery is not replaceable but when they finally quit working I'm sure I'll come up with something.

At the island home we use Nest cams which have been great. Super user friendly and extremely reliable even outside in the cold and heat! I wouldn't be without them!

At my mainland home I had IC Realtime camera system installed. They have great clarity and I can easily read package address labels easily on my porch. I have eight of these cameras of which two are PTZ that have an amazing zoom!! Credit to Orbit Satellite and Sound Systems who installed this system.

Thermostats at both homes are controlled remotely by Honeywell Redlink system which has been super dependable over the years. Its a great feature to turn on heat or AC remotely when needed!!

Dan

Through Home Assistant I am running Reolink cameras, Zigbee door locks, light switches and sensors, z-wave devices, ESPHome custom cameras and sensors, remote lights and bulbs, Honeywell thermostat integration (for heat pumps) google home thermostats, environmental sensors, scene controllers, automations for control, and on and on. Higher WAF(wife approval factor) than my old Vera system.

I feel your pain... One of my Reolink Camera batteries 'is not' replaceable.
The solar panel keeps charging the battery as needed, but after 5 yrs it's starting to not hold the charge. Anyway, after 5 yrs I feel I've got my money's worth, so eventually will purchase a new camera.

Mysa for In-Line
 

We do use Nest and are pretty happy. Use them at several houses. Use Nest for Doorbells and Smoke Detectors as well.

We use Ecobee for Heat (Low Voltage), aka Forced Hot Air + Central AC for main residence and we wanted an intelligent thermostat for Electric Baesboard Heat (Line-Voltage). VERY few options, only one I could really find 5 years ago was from a company called Mysa. After quite a bit of research, I pulled the trigger and bought 8 (1 for main residence and 7 for Lake house). They work great and do exactly what I need them to do. I've even played with their humidity sensor to test accuracy and surprisingly it very accurate when I compared it to other sensors I've got.

We use a Ring camera and could not be happier. As long as the internet is functioning, so is the camera!

Attaching current view.


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