re: Smart Home Enthusiasts

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eta i have some zwave room sensors, alarms and open/close sensors still NiB i will give someone on here for just the cost of shipping that i never used.

rick, you get first choice on it. its multiple kits but it is zwave, not zigbee.

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I still have a few samsung smartthings cameras and motion sensors still unopened in their boxes. Thanks for the offer, but I'll pass on this one. I might even extend the same offer to the board if someone is willing to pay for shipping, I'd send what I have.

I got real into clearance shopping for awhile and that was pretty much where my smart home funding came from was retail arbitrage. I'd buy a dozen google nest cameras on clearance from HD for example and then sell all but a few that I wanted. The downside is I still have several things boxed up that I've never touched sitting on a shelf.

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eta i have some zwave room sensors, alarms and open/close sensors still NiB i will give someone on here for just the cost of shipping that i never used.

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I may take you up on that if you're serious. I'm still in the "discovery" mode of what all I would want to do with HA but I can tell I could get carried away quickly.

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the one that the wife really hated was my 'blues clues' "HERES THE MAIL IT NEVER FAILS" when the mailman opened the mailbox blasting all over the house.

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My wife is just starting to get to her limit of how much Bluey she can handle. I'll have to start paying attention for ideas to use sound bites for.

Also, is there a consensus on what garage door opener to use? I have a MyQ and was disappointed to see it isn't supported. I have a Konnected opener saved but was wondering what other options are out there.

I bought the $25 meross wifi opener on Amazon and it's perfect. Because it energizes the "doorbell" wires coming from your wall switch it will work with virtually any opener. I don't think the $35 "homekit" version is worth the $10 unless you are all in on the apple ecosystem. They are the same device, they just charge a premium for the homekit certification.

You can "trick" Alexa into voice controlling your garage door too using a set phrase which I can show you how to do. It also has a widget for android and ios which is nice as I can open and close it from my phone home screen in a pinch by just tapping the screen

I have a routine in Amazon to auto shut the garage after 30 minutes which works great most of the time except when I'm working on the yard and have to get something from the garage and it shut on me. The trick there is to just put something on front of the garage eye when you're getting ready to work in the yard so it won't shut on you.


Shoot me an email to my user name at live dot com with your address and I'll toss those in the mail for you. They are actually really solid devices for what they do and the battery life is outstanding.

ETA I've moved 4x and went from myQ to generic gocontrol zwave openers to a regular meross to the homekit meross.

Regular meross has been my favorite choice by far.

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Is the response time pretty good or do you see a delay between a door opening and the lights turning on?

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The response time is great, it's one of the few smart home accessories my wife will admit she likes (that and the Meross garage door opener/with a super brite LED light that lights up the garage when the door opens after dark).