Smappee and Happee!

I had plunged and got the Smppee power meter device (Described in another post) and had been using it for some time now.

Let me start with what I was not quite happy about:-) The device when shipped to India got slapped with a hefty customs duty and that spiked up the price much! Secondly the IFTTT integration is not working in a snappee:-) That, probably covers all the negatives!

The device could quickly connect to the WiFi and started reporting current usage right away. It also kept telling how much more or less power I am using each time I turned on or off any device. I had some fun walking around house switching on and off devices!

No devices got recognized immediately. Even when there were large chunk of power drawn by the geyser and microwave it did not immediately report it as a device detected. I communicated that concern to the support team (BTW, I had been bothering them constantly and they had been patiently responding to every comment I had raised. Hats off to them!) and they told me that is expected and it will take some time for the device to identify it as a DNA and isolate devices. And so it did!

Couple of days down the line, it identified my microwave and one by one it found few more. As I am not  keen in mapping all the devices right now as this is a temporary address for me, I have left it after 4 or 5 devices were identified.

I also tried my hand creating a IFTTT workflow for it. When the power shoots up beyond 1KW, I wanted my Hue bulb to light up and it did light up. Unfortunately the latency was too much, like 2-5 minutes or more at times! Is this a workflow that should have immediate response, may be not. But my Hue bulb lit up after the Geyser was turned off instead of when it was turned on!

Overall, its still a wealth of information in its charts, and in its local alerts which keeps popping up on the app. Also even on 3G, it kept reporting the current power usage kind of real time. That was cool!

Today, I have a net outage at home and had to come to office to do my work. I have the Smappee app on to see if it started reporting the real time power usage to know if my network is back! Now that is the kind of trust I have on the device on the reporting!

A week into Automatic

Automatic is a small device that connects to the OBD port of the computer and reads in data from the automobile. I managed to get one from US and was planning to use it in India.

Package arrived safe in my hand and then things started falling apart a bit. The first problem was that the app was only available in US App Store for iOS. I had to create an account there and then get the app downloaded.

Then I connected the device and started setting it up, and when I reached a point where it reads the comp on board of my car, it popped up a message, VIN could not be decoded. Manual option of entering the VIN also did not move it any further, The Setup was stuck at that point and I could make any progress further. I came to a sad realization at that point that the device was meant to US only:-(

Plunging into the User groups, I came across a suggestion from their support head that I can request to bypass this! I immediately shot a mail to the id and got a response back in a day that yes, its possible, but some of the features won't work in India, Like the emergency response and Fuel pricing and Units like Kilometer and Liter instead of the US standard of Miles and Gallons

I was OK with that. So she took some basic info from me in the vehicle and set up my VIN in their system and next time, I tried the setup, all went well!

So now I have it setup and using the Apple Maps, it reports the route I drove, the mileage I got, also rates me on the kind of driving I did, as in any sudden breaks or any sudden acceleration.

Its really cool ride as of now! I have couple of additional features I had in mind, like if it can report if my A/C is on  or not, and for how long, because that gives another aspect to what the load on  the system due to the A/C. And I understand the device probably have a Gyroscope in it, else the Phone definitely has one, and some qualifier on the kind of bumpy ride if I have one, also will be an added data that will be of interest.

When the Phone is not in the car, linked to the system, the Geo positioning goes for a toss a bit, I have my maps offset from the real trip I took for the initial few days when the connectivity was at fault. May be because it could not effectively locate the current position as well as the Phone can.

Also I am not sure how to add more tags to the trip if I choose to, may be to group all my trips organized well.

The kind lady at support also told me that there is a Beta program going to come up later and if I am interested, I can be invited! I hope that will have some of these things considered along with the regional change of units.

I am very happy about the device as of now, it just goes into the background and does all the reading for me and puts in a simple chart in the phone for me to look at. I hope new features will get added to make it more useful by the time the novelty wears off:-)

Thanks team and thanks for the prompt support!

Just to add couple of points,
I have now set up the IFTTT link and is getting all my trip details loaded into an evernote note! Thats cool!

I miss the information about the Fuel level in the app. I believe it is retrievable? If it is, it will definitely a value add.
As mentioned above, an ability to tag the trip as some specific one, will be of great use. And then when I complete a trip in the same route, if it can prompt me with the same name, it will be awesome!
I noticed that the Automatic Dashboard was not working for me in Chrome and IE. It worked well on Firefox though.
Ability to define the local fuel price, and local units, I believe will be there in the Asian version?
And Geo location is also a bit off at times, though I do not hold it too much against the team. It may be a good idea though then to give an option to drag the map around a bit:)

Apple event and some thoughts

Apple had another show packed with things. I watched it with some joy and some pain and some concern.

Apple TV opening up for App store was a breath of fresh air for me. It was too constrained as it is locking up not playing many of the media formats and not able to access a network storage to directly play content. I had to always have some iOS or Mac OS machine on for my media player to work:( But now with the Plex and VNC actively jumping into the fray to build apps, I am hoping I can soon shelf the WD TV or atleast use it else where as a second player.

The Siri Remote was interesting. I am not a great gamer so did not get intrigued by that feature. But having Siri to control home is of interest to me as you could have understood already from my blogs. What I am not clear is if the HomeKit is already baked into the puck and do I have to keep pressing the Siri button on the remote to initiate the Siri or there is some way I can have it always On. Because for a media room it may be fine to have the button pressed, but for some other a hands free mode is very useful.

Then there was the iPad Pro. I always liked the ability to digitally draw and mark things up and the Pencil is right there. But it also meant that apple is slightly forking off from Job's ideas. The large iPad and the pencil were two was probably a sign of days to come. Also we saw a bigger spotlight on Microsoft and Adobe than couple of years before. Is that bad in itself? No. But something tells me the tracks are about to shift.

It looked to me that Johny Ive is a person of great skills and being now at a plateau where there is no one to really push him, he may be a bit lost with motivation. I feel that Ive is missing Jobs to push him. Now that Jobs not around, I would hope Ive will do it to himself and continue the legacy. 

One more time

Come September 9th, Once again Tim Cook will walk on to the podium and unleash a lot of applause.

Last time, I had guessed Apple TV will be announced, but that was not to be. But this time every one is sure it will be and I am not going to question it.  My request for the features remain  what it was last time, so nothing much to add there.

I am also guessing iOS9 and El Capitan will be available for public. Now, that is a very conservative list. But I am really eager to see what the Apple TV and Homekit will bring to the foray!

View from the top

Branto Orb is a new 360 Degree rotatable and pan-able camera which probably apt to be kept on  the roof to look around for you. This alone is a great feature for a security camera. This indigogo project does not stop at that.
Unlike Canary, they are planning to allow two way communication. Both Audio and video. No, they do not have an inbuilt screen. But they support audio video streaming protocol to channel it to Airplay ready or  Miracast capable devices to stream it up to a TV or audio system.
They also add the capability for this device to send IR signals so that it can control devices in the room. Normally I do not like devices to club diverse features into one since this kills the flexibility big time. This is one exception. Since enabling the dump devices like old TVs and A/Cs which do not have WiFi and Automatable capabilities is a big plus which goes OK with the camera. If you have a security camera in a room where A/C is there or TV is there, or some other device working only with IR only remote control, this brings in the automation to them. And chances are for some time,  this will be the case in many countries.

Second thoughts on Smart things

I always had a bias against Smartthings. May be I did not like the look of it or may be some thing else. But lately I just happened to look in detail about its capabilities and what is coming up in V2.0. I should say I am having second thoughts. The following are the main points which made me re think

1. Integration with SONOS. This is a major one for me.Having committed to SONOS in big way for my distributed audio system. What Smartthings allows me to do is to have my alerts and event responses broadcast-ed via the flexible speaker configurations that SONOS can provide. This can really give a voice to SONOS. SONOS being not very open to all the other vendors at the moment, I am not able to identify any other means this can be achieved cleanly.
2. Integration with other Automation gadgets I have. Philips Hue, August Lock etc are few which are there in the long list. This vast coverage of devices which are leading in their own capabilities is a definite plus for me. August Lock integration will be introduced in the new version of the Hub via Bluetooth. Now that does raise few questions to me as in positioning of my Hub in relation to the door etc. But that will have to wait until the 2.0 hits the shelf. Then there is the possible integration with Roomba using Thinking Cleaner face plate. This is a face plate add on to Roomba which will give WiFi Control to Roomba.
3. Cost. The cost of this hub is minimal. When this is probably not THE reason for me as its only one component we are talking about, it is definitely a reason.
4. Integration to Apple HomeKit Platform. The reason I am holding back on any hub is mainly because I want to know how HomeKit may play in the field and what does it leave open. I find Siri Integration that HomeKit brings forth a definite plus as with this and the SONOS it gives a life and personality to the Home. I am still holding back until the details of HomeKit is out, but this hub does show promise since it has capability to integrate the myriad of gadgets which  may not naively work with Apple HomeKit.

Voice your SONOS

Talked about in Many forums, I finally decided to try SONOS voice app. Its a third party app with a very simple interface and all it does it mute your music for the time you talk through the App. You can play the audio with the flexibility of the SONOS system. Any room, All the rooms or Some rooms. Upto that its sheer bliss.

The only down side I see is that the starting of the app takes a bit of time and the volume for some reason I see as low compared to the music volume.

The app takes almost the same time as the SONOS app takes to start up so you cannot really complain about it. All the discovery of speakers process may be taking time.

Volume is a bit of a let down. At 50% level I can hear the music playing in my bedroom upstairs, standing down stairs where as at the same level the audio is barely audible next room. May be issue with my voice:-)

The final glitch is the feedback. If you try to use the Voice in a room where you are trying to play it, there will be the audio feedback. The developer of the app says something to effect that its to do with  the buffering that SONOS forces on the feeds.

This is where I was wondering why SONOS them selves not updating their app to include voice into it. They have the API which others are using, they have the App. It will give a nice integrated interface. I am not even complaining why they are not giving a Karaoke when they have the technology to control the Vocals (SONOS Bar can boost the Audios and also it can drop the volume of Bass. May be this will work in only 5.1 Channel recording, I am not sure. But even simple apps are there which can identify the vocals and trip down that some what) since I think this may not be a sure hit solution, and they may not want to do a half baked one. BTW, a nice addition could be an integration with some Lyrics server and download and show the Lyrics on the app if that is possible!

So SONOS, I hope you do come up with the Public Announcement Option for SONOS!