There are a few third-party ways of controlling Xiaomi vacuums but none of them are very clever with the mapping/zone cleaning without a bit of work.

I'm in the process of getting room coordinates so I can include them in rules for my home automation system (openHAB) as some areas (not rooms as it's a bit open plan) need cleaning more regularly than others. When this is finished, I can create a schedule, use a delayed start, press a button on my wall touch screen or just ask Echo to "vacuum the kitchen".

All that functionality already works apart from the zoned cleaning automation.

You can do similar stuff with Home assistant.

It's amusing (at least the first time) to call out "Echo, where's roborock?" and get a call from the other side of the room "Hi, I'm over here!"

Cool... congrats!
If only I had more time to play around with such things... but I am stuck with Google Home due to its easy to use setup and use of devices

Just as an update, a few months ago, I finally decided to go full in and install relays on all my window shutters. The only thing I'm still not able to do is to easily put a group/all in a horizontal position, but aside that, being able to close and open them on a schedule and via google home is really awesome.

I wouldn't have been able to do the herculean task for physically installing the relays without Jose's help, so a big shout-out to him. I pre-setup the relays one by one, and he then patiently fulfilled the installation puzzle (not all places he installed the relay had that much space). He then helped me fully test the installation and troubleshoot the couple that were more reluctant to work. If you need any help for this kind of installation, I couldn't recommend him more.

Our house was build this way, every electrical point including sockets, blinds, door contacts, heating valves etc. are cabled star formed to the server room, where it is connected to KNX gateways. We than have sensors (motion detectors, weather stations, push buttons and iPads) around the house to control. We also use DALI for lights because of the dimming functionality and use HDBaseT to distribute video sources to all our TVs from the server room, meaning only one Apple TV, NetPlus box etc. for all TVs.

If you don't mind us asking, how much did that add to your build over a normal ethernet in every room setup?

Hi all,
I am on this same situation and considering which one to invest.
Aside from controlling lights, coffee maker, roborock and air purifier (think will just use smart sockets) would also like to control my samsung tv and denon stereos for chromecast, spotify and netflix and in the future curtains (those are completely manual now so would need first to find some affordable engine for those).
These aside from basics like setting up timer, making a phone-calls, calendar notes, calling an uber or ordering pizza with ios devices.

After reading online reviews it seems Alexa is a bit more advanced but then again, it is not officially supporting Switzerland.

If anyone has been able to integrate this many different branded devices to either one would be great to hear.

Hi,

Google voice recognition and ability to answer questions is superior to Alexa. In terms of controlling devices, which is of secondary importance to me I think Amazon and Google are about equal. A bit advantage to Google Assistant is that it is the same application that use on your phone. Also it looks like Google is getting closer to being able to do a lot of the processing on the device rather than having to send everything to the cloud. I have not heard about Amazon making so much progress in this area. Also the integration with Chromecast makes Google Assistant extremely useful.

Have fun
Martin

If you have third-party smart home software such as openHAB or Home Assistant, you can control all of the above and write rules so that different devices interact with each other.

I set up my Amazon Echo so you can turn it into a Google Assistant by asking it to "Ask google".

There's a whole thread on the subject of Home Automation so perhaps it's worth a mod moving these posts there.

There was some talk in this thread a couple of years ago about IFTTT. Is anybody here using this? I'm about to take receipt of a long-awaited smart front door deadbolt and would love to coordinate it, along with my Ring doorbell, Roborock vacuum cleaners, Xiaomi Yeelight bedside lights, and whatever else we're bound to get in the future... plus, if possible, manage the radiators and security alarm in our weekender. The door lock manufacturer suggests using IFTTT, at least for integration with Ring.

I think I can live without remote control of our smart sonic toothbrushes!

Is this, or any part of this, feasible? Are there better/cleverer alternatives? So far, I get the impression that IFTTT is somewhat unreliable, with the pre-written applets working sometime but not always. And I have no clue how to go about creating my own rules.

The big problem with IFTTT is that it involves at least one cloud service. If your other devices are also controlled via their own cloud, you could have a lot of problems if one of these clouds has a problem or is down.

Personally, I wouldn't have anything 'mission critical' controlling my house that had to use a cloud service. That includes IFTTT.

Sure your own internet can go down too but you still wouldn't be able to have cloud access. It may not be IFTTT at fault if something doesn't work but another link in the chain outside of your home environment.

Everything that I have controlled in my place can be done, when at home, independently of internet access and any clouds.
Of course this means I don't get any SMS service and I cannot use Amazon Echo but for the Echo service, I can control anything that the Echo does using my phone or a wall-mounted panel.

Additionally, I'm not sure that IFTTT copes with complex logic. Sure, it's "If this, then that" but a rule could be:

"If this, AND that, OR the other, but only when Time is....then do this otherwise do the other, but only before 21.00, and not at weekends."

Out of interest, what smart deadbolt are you getting?