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?

This thread has been a bit quiet recently so I thought I'd mention something I found the other day - for those interested.

For all those who want some clever switches but want to keep the standard Feller wall switch look, Feller now do a four-way Philips Hue wall switch. It has no batteries, relying instead on kinetic energy to power.
It can be used standalone or mounted alongside an existing Feller switch with a double base plate.



It's not cheap but can be multi-function as holding one of the four switches rather than just pressing produces another state, as does pressing the top two together or the bottom two together.

I'm using mine one with my home automation system, controlling a zigbee dimmer to dim the bathroom lights and operate the shutters.
Ideas for combination button presses could be to start a shower timer for the kids which could flash the lights on and off when they've definitely spent too long in the shower.

As a plus point , the new Philips Hue hub firmware supports Zigbee 3.0 protocol so I can use the Philips Hub as a Zigbee hub which is one less bit of hardware to buy.

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As an update to my own situation got both, Alexa and google home and 15 cheapest smart sockets from Amazon I could find. Now all lights ( 2 setups, daylights and evening lights), coffee machine, robotic vacuum, netflix, spotify is all within voice control or timed/event based. Stereos still need to be turned on manually or just leave them on and have not found any affordable way to include my curtains to this (they are completely manual still) but other than that, very happy with the setup and after 6 months, have no complaints. Once I have time will still try to get cortana on board to control computers but lets see.

Total cost for the whole setup 2x Amazon Echo and 1x Google Home mini and smart sockets, roughly 400 CHF

Sorry, I missed your reply back in May last year. Thanks for the comprehensive info.

If you're still interested, I got a U-Bolt Pro, by Ultraloq.

It boasts an impressive array of modes of operation: you can operate the lock via a smartphone app (press a button on the app, or simply shake the phone within a few metres of the lock), via Auto Unlock (simply enter a zone around the lock with your smartphone on your person), with your fingerprint, with a PIN code (it accepts any long string of numbers as long as the correct code is embedded somewhere in that string, so you can disguise the code if anybody is watching), and even with something called a "key", which is a piece of metal with serrations along one side.

The deadbolt also optionally auto-locks, which I find reassuring.

With an optional wifi bridge, the lock can be operated remotely via the app (ties in nicely with my smart doorbell) and you can receive notifications telling you who operated the lock and when.

And it looks pretty good, too.

The only issue I had is that it was quite an effort to fit this lock to my bizarre Swiss front door, which has very different specs to your average American door. Other than that, it's great.

I was wondering if anyone else was having fun automating their home with the Shelly Cloud switches: https://shelly.cloud/

As long as you have a neutral, and the wall switch/socket is within range of your wifi, they work a treat. They Definitely get a thumbs up from me.

Can you go into more detail on this point? What the challenges and how you got round them? I'd be quite keen to fit a lock like this on the door between our garage and the house.

I've got a few used for various tasks.

Our house came with a steam shower with a built in radio and speakers. The radio was bust but the amp was always on which was a waste of energy.

After removing the amp and FM module, I fitted an amp a PSU and a bluetooth module for a few francs and wired that up to the speakers. It's all sealed within the shower. The Shelly turns it all on and off.

Now people can switch it on and listen to music or podcasts on their phone in the shower, and there's an auto-disconnect and switch-off after 60 minutes if they forget to turn it off.

One problem I have is that the Shelly devices have no switch-debounce on the switch. My kids seem to have a habit of bashing the wall switches in the house which is fine for an on-off switch but a pain for a momentary switch.

Standard Swiss Feller wall switches can be set to be momentary by sliding a little metal strip with the switch - something that is mentioned in the instructions that come with the switches.

Swiss doors (mine, anyway) are quite a lot thicker than American doors, apparently. I had to weld an extra section onto the spindle to make it long enough to get through the whole door, and I had to find extra-long bolts with the correct thread and low-profile pan head to replace those provided to connect the front of the lock to the back. (I ended up ordering these from a specialist wholesaler in the UK as I couldn't find small-diameter bolts long enough in the shops here.) Then I had to do some home-made modifications to my door (read: cut away some wood and metal that I unexpectedly found on the edge of my door) because the existing lock that I was replacing had been set far too close to the edge of the door -- but that was a problem unique to my door, I think, not a general Swiss issue.

It was actually very easy to fit the lock, it's just that the thickness of my particular door necessitated some extra work. YMMV!

Yes, I have the same problem with my kids. Doesn't the 'edge' setting on the Shelly switch work for you in this case?

thanks for the details. I think welding is beyond my capability.

If it was triggered on a rising edge only then yes, that would probably help, but it's any edge.

I've just thought though that I suppose the 'easiest' thing to do would be to flash it with my own code (it's ESP8266 based) with some switch-debounce code included.

That's another job for the list.