Twice a year Kevin and I gather up a bunch of your questions from the Internet of Things Podcast Hotline and find answers for them. The episode stars all of our listeners and this time around y’all want to know about helping students build Amazon Alexa skills, how to use a sensor to track when the washer or dryer is done, and how to know when you left the stove on. Y’all also asked for an update on my Grand Google Home experiment, which caused my family to mutiny.
Smarter appliances were a big trend this episode, but y’all also wanted a smarter mailbox, an update on Wink and the safest way to set up a Wi-Fi network for your devices. Sadly, we recorded this before Apple shared the news that it would work with router makers to create a separate network for IoT devices. John asked a question about surge protectors for IoT devices, which was honestly something I had never considered. Kevin thinks it’s a good idea for those higher priced items. We round it out with a question from Kiril about which tablet he should buy to support remote monitoring of his Ring doorbell. We hope you enjoy the show, and appreciate Schlage and Afero for their continued support of the IoT Podcast Hotline.
Resources from the show:
- Chatterbox Kickstarter
- Google’s computer vision kit
- SmartThings how-to for monitoring laundry
- How to build your own laundry sensor
- The Wallflower or Inirv stove monitoring options
- Basic surge protector from Amazon
- Eve Home energy strip
- Blink camera for your mailbox
- The Lenovo Smart Tab for Alexa
You can get a whole house surge protection system that gets installed at the breaker box, there is also versions that condition the power as well. They do cost more obviously but in the long run might be a better option than a bunch of surge protectors all over the place and if you get a model that conditions the power then you also will have cleaner audio and video if you have sensitive speakers that pick up the noise in the electrical signal.
Im currently apartment living so didnt want to go that particular route but I do have a UPS in each of my rooms for my sensitive or power dependent smart devices so they wont go down when there is a power outage like my cameras, smart speakers and so on. even my router is on a UPS as typically when the power goes out the cable lines and phone lines are still good and can then still get online when the power is out.
Just a thought.
An option for surge suppression when there are so many endpoints throughout the house is a whole home surge suppressor. They can be somewhat inexpensive compared to adding individual devices for dozens of devices. They are attached at the power panel and can be homeowner installed if you are comfortable opening the panel.
Regarding the Eero router and providing a QR code. Go into the Eero app, hamburger menu icon, guess access, at the bottom there are two buttons – Send Invitation and Share QR code. The Share QR code opens a QR code and the other person can use their camera to scan it.
Or print it out, post it somewhere so people have access to it if you aren’t home.
I can’t believe I never thought about printing it out.