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Electronic thermostat, lock, light: How I tried to turn an old building from 1918 into a smart home

2022-01-16T17:37:10.515Z


The roller blind goes up automatically, the lamps go on by themselves - a dream. But behind the tech magic are also flashing boxes, knotted cables and lots of problems. A field report.


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Smart door lock on non-smart front door: no tie for life

The blinds in the bedroom go up quietly.

Light hits my face, wakes me up.

Good Morning Sunshine.

Waking up has never been nicer.

Although that should work on a maximum of three days a year - I live in Hamburg.

Half of the year it is still dark in the morning, in the other half it rains.

What makes my new Ikea roller blind special: It doesn't have a side pull, but a motor, a battery, a radio module and a gateway.

The latter is used to connect the roller blind to WiFi and the Internet.

So I can control it from my cell phone or say “Hey Google, blinds up” to the smart speaker in the kitchen so that the window protection in the bedroom goes up.

I'm shuffling into this kitchen now.

A Google display beams at me and tells me that great weather is expected today.

It asks if I want to hear the news.

The smart speaker with a display was my gateway drug.

Der and LED lamps that can be controlled remotely.

"Hey Google, lights on." And there was light!

At least if the girlfriend or guests hadn't operated the old, real light switch and thus disconnected the networked lamps from the power supply.

Then an Amazon Echo speaker with Alexa was added.

It can do the same as the Google display, but tells the better jokes.

But: Two smart speakers, which I use to play with the light and search Spotify, do not yet turn my apartment into a smart home.

Hence the roller blind.

I wanted to find out how smart my little home could get.

Like more than half of the people in Germany, I live in rented accommodation.

Another challenge: The house is from 1918.

The technology fails when the door is stuck

I notice that when I want to install Nuki, a networked door lock. The Smartlock is supposed to make my apartment door smarter by recognizing me from afar when I come home. "Open sesame," that's how I imagine it. So off to the installation in the hallway. There, a motion sensor registers me, which only needs milliseconds to signal my presence to the Philips lamps and thus switch on the light.

To install the smart door opener, I insert the key into the lock from the inside and put a battery-operated box with a motor over it.

A door lock that allows a key to be inserted from both sides at the same time is actually a prerequisite.

This is to ensure that the door can be opened from the outside with the key if the battery inside the Nuki fails.

I can only close from one side and studiously ignore the warning.

The Nuki box flashes and turns the key noisily and powerfully, but cannot open the door.

I restart the calibration several times.

But not only the house is old, but also the door, which always needs a little extra push before it opens.

The wood, the frame, it's an old building.

This is where the Smartlock fails.

It could have been so useful. You can open the Nuki with an app and remote control, which I had already stuck to the outside of my door. If I had been late, guests could have come to my apartment with it by entering a numerical code. It would be even easier for me: The Nuki app on my cell phone would give my location. If I left the apartment, Nuki would lock the door automatically - and open it again when I got home. I didn't even have to pull my phone out of my pocket to do it.

But for now I have to abandon the Smartlock project.

I'm not completely unhappy about it, because the reality of my small apartment also means that no matter how chic the smart home devices may be, their gateways are annoying.

Smart home is not for people who find Internet modems, WLAN routers and multiple sockets to be an aesthetic impertinence.

Can it be one more gateway?

The Hue gateway, which holds lamps, sensors and wireless switches together, not only occupies a socket, it is also connected to my router via network cable. Just like my computer, my backup hard drive and my Apple TV. There was no free socket on the router for the Ikea gateway, which can only be used with a network cable. The Nuki gateway would at least have connected wirelessly via WLAN. So I needed a multiple socket for network cables, a network hub, which in turn needed electricity - and I needed another multiple socket. Behind the smart home magic is a corner full of blinking boxes, knotted cables and dust bunnies.

My reality also includes a sometimes shaky internet connection. If that collapses, the apps on my phone won't reach the smart devices. But even when the Internet is running, there are sometimes strange errors. A while back, the light control went out every few hours. Where sensors would otherwise switch on the light: darkness. Instead of atmospheric light scenes, the radio switches activated: frustration. At some point it worked again. I don't know why.

My cell phone vibrates. Tado has recognized an open window. Tado is a smart thermostat that is supposed to help me save "up to 31 percent of heating energy". I can't say what I'm actually saving. But I promise myself a small effect. With the old thermostat, exactly two temperatures and two times could be set, for the day and for the night. If I left the apartment during the day to go to the office, I would turn the heating down and come back to a cold apartment at night only to turn the heating up to the max. Not particularly smart.

Of course, Tado also needs a gateway that needs to be connected to the router and powered.

Once that's done, sensors measure the temperature in the bedroom, living room and kitchen.

I can therefore always query the current temperature in my home via the app.

The quality of the room air is also displayed: Is it too cold, too humid?

Tado not only turns down the heating when a window is open, but also when the sun is beating down.

I can also set at what times the apartment should be heated and to what temperature.

And when I leave the apartment, the system notices that too and turns down the heating.

And now also a subscription?

The other day I was out and got a WhatsApp message: "Uh, do I actually have to ask you if you can turn on the heating for me?" What can I say?

The girlfriend had refused to install the app.

Tado had thought the apartment was deserted.

It was getting chilly.

more on the subject

  • Smart speaker in the test: Now listen to me! By Matthias Kremp

  • Testing the air purifier: Take a deep breathBy Matthias Kremp

  • Philips Hue wall switch module in test: This thing is supposed to make stupid light switches smartBy Matthias Kremp

  • Nest Hub 2 in the test: In bed with GoogleBy Matthias Kremp

Like light and blinds, Tado can be connected to Google Home and then controlled by voice.

So that Tado takes into account what the weather is like and where I am, I have to take out a subscription for around 25 euros per year.

Apart from the fact that my home now requires a functioning internet, is at the mercy of various apps, monitors my location and has the occasional hiccup, I should also rent some features.

The day comes to an end.

The light in the hall has dimmed to 50 percent.

As I wonder if my life has become more comfortable, the bedroom buzzes.

The roller blind darkens the room and draws attention to the status lights of the gateways and power supplies that illuminate the hallway and living room.

Photos by Hanna Lenz

Source: spiegel

All tech articles on 2022-01-16

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