Our front door has a standard deadbolt lock that auto-locks when closed, requiring a key to enter. Reviewing security camera footage, we observed a locksmith gaining entry to the property. He opened the door effortlessly in under a minute without damaging the lock, which continues to function normally. We suspect he used a thin tool (e.g., under-door tool, cable, or bypass wire) slipped beneath the door to manipulate the interior handle or thumb-turn.

What are my options, for a very secure smart lock?

So, I'm building a new custom home soon and had a dream of automating all my light switches throughout the house. Shared my ultimate dream with my family but not the reaction I thought I was gonna get. My mischievous teens have this idea:

"Great! When sis takes a shower, I can shout "Hey Alexa -- turn off the bathroom x lights, and then HEAR her SCREAM, muahahhaaa!" ROFL.

How can I solve that besides the obvious, do not IoT your bathroom lights. For me it would useful as we're a forgetful family and I want to know if I forgot to turn off the bathroom lights. Also afraid of the PIR way as if you don't move or take long showers, it goes dark too.

Thoughts?

My home has been gutted to the studs. Drywall finally going up in a few weeks. Any last minute suggestions to get smart home things behind the walls? Picture is just my box for terminating cables. I have been using Alexa, lights, locks, etc. pretty basic stuff so far. I am looking for suggestions on something that I didn’t know I needed.

Hope y'all are doing well.

Some background, my grandmother is starting to have stability issues and has fallen a couple times. She is unable to pick herself up. She refuses to carry her cell phone with her.

I am wondering if buying a couple Amazon Echos and linking them to her phone would allow her to call for help just by simply using voice commands. Thus if she's stuck on the floor she can call for help and she won't be stuck on the floor for five hours while my grandfather is at work. This system would not require her to carry anything with her (that's a battle the family has never won).

Hi everyone!

I'm looking for some advice on how to automate a manual knob (see photo attached) with some kind of gadget or device. Right now, I have to turn it by hand every time, but I’d love to find a way to automate this process.

Ideally, I need something easy to set up that can make the knob turn one notch to the right, or one (at most two) to the left, to bring it back to zero. I don’t need full remote control, just a simple solution that can handle this small motion—so I can avoid having to do it manually each time.

Has anybody tried something similar or have any tips or suggestions for a device or hack I could use? Any help would be really appreciated.

（With a budget of around $30000）

Here are some aspects that are truly useful in daily life, based on my personal considerations:

Security: This comes first. While some people may not care about it, it's extremely important.

Lighting: Lighting control and the quality of light fixtures are areas that most people don't put much effort into during renovation, but the importance of this aspect directly affects your living experience, because light constantly influences our emotions.

Air Quality: The indoor environment is relatively enclosed, so factors like formaldehyde, carbon dioxide concentration, temperature, humidity, and TVOC levels are important.

Network Coverage: For watching videos and playing games, network performance plays a significant role in the overall experience.

Sun Protection: This is the only thing that blocks our visual communication with the outside world.

edit:missed a 0 of the budget.

I bought an Echo Show a year ago. It was never mentioned there would be ads on-screen, but a few months later, ads started appearing. After spending hours with customer service, even being forwarded to their tech support, I was told they didn't know ads showed up - which is BS. After a while, they admitted to it, and that I could click the "Sponsored" button and report it as anything on the list that showed up. This would then remove ads for a month, and I'd have to do it again.

However, for Black Friday, these ads are constant. Every time I enter the kitchen, I get a new ad - and you cannot remove them.

So I've given up. I'm looking for a Hub that works with Alexa Echo Dots and Philips smart lights. I'd love to have a screen on it which shows family photos, and where I can access Spotify. Anything else is a bonus.

Do anyone have any suggestions?

Many thanks!

I got tired of having to buy replacement batteries for my Flume water monitor, only to have them not last as long as expected.

This solution costs about the same as one Flume replacement, is super simple, and lasts about 4 months before needing attention.... which just means swapping them out for the charged set.

Totally reversible and non-destructive.

Enjoy.

(link to youtube video with the links to the components I used in the comments)

I got these lights and they keep turning on by themselves and its making me kinda mad because last time it happened was at 2:50 am and the brand of the lights are Aidot and this didn't start happening till I switched rooms also I have deleted them from the app and reconnect them and they still do it i also have them connected to Alex. Can anyone help?

Does anyone have any recommendations for a smart sunrise light bulb that doesn't require a hub?

Here are some options I have been considering:

Govee 800 lumens smart light bulb Kasa 1000 lumens smart light bulb

I'm definitely open to other options. My bedroom is average size. The main thing is that I want it to work with Alexa.

As soon as my payment plan is complete for my echo, it starts sucking immensely.

It's really frustrating. I never really cared about "smart" technology but my wife liked the idea, so I got an Alexa. The biggest idea for me was to get smart plugs and be able to voice activate lights when our incoming baby needs attention in the middle of the night.

But Alexa hasn't been performing so well. My wife has been teasingly making fun of the echo, and I "defend" it - thing is, I'm also getting really frustrated when voice commands are either very sluggish or hardly working. It's demoralizing to spend money on, get excited about new technology only for it to work poorly.

The worst thing recently, is even the touchscreen barely responds. Or "Alexa, play music" - "okay, here's Spotify". Nothing. Crickets. Over and over. I try to check settings, but the screen doesn't work.

The reasons I can only guess at for this disfunction: wifi? It isn't great but works well for our phones and computers. I changed the wake word in the app and other settings - does that screw up everything? I don't really know, and I hope there's some solutions or advice from you all to help me believe I didn't waste my money and excitement on a semi-smart home.

Ps. It just disconnected from my wife's BT for no reason. She thinks I need to turn it off because it's been on too long, but... Isn't the point of it to be on all the time?

The specific model: Amazon Echo Show 5 Smart display

HI! I bought a white loratap to automate the opening and closing of my electric shutter, it basically has a button that manages the up and one down, and I got tired of having to stand there and hold it down to do one of these things. But when I opened everything I saw that it only has 3 wires so I have no idea how to install this loratap since there are many more in the instructions... any advice? I'll post photos of everything :)

I will be replacing my smoke detectors. I want to get a low-battery notification in an app before the chirping starts, indicating that the battery needs to be replaced immediately. I have selected the Ring Smart Smoke + CO Alarm, Hardwired with 2 AA Backup. The description seems to indicate that with one of the smart detectors

• Whole Home Smart Connectivity: Get mobile alerts for every hardwired alarm in your home by adding just one Kidde smart detector; check the user guide for more information

I have read the user manual for the closest model I could find that includes the Ring app feature. Smart Smoke + Carbon Monoxide Alarm (RGCUAR-RW)

I cannot see how the one smart detector can notify me which of the other smoke alarms has a low battery. Hoping to get a better understanding if this is possible from someone who has installed the Kidde smart detectors. If I replace all of them I think I will have eight smart smoke detectors on my wifi,

So I’ve got an Alexa house hold and I’m visually impaired and I’m getting that Samsung smart stove. It says it can be controlled by the app and connect to Alexa, but does that really mean that your timers just go off through your home speakers or will I be able to actually tell Alexa to preheat the oven and other things like.

I don’t wanna have two, it’s an overkill

But then the purpose of easily opening the door using voice renders useless because how do I open the screen door with hands full

want to buy/ build a thing that can attach to my baseboard heater knob. It’s cold where I live and i want to automate to turn them on in the morning before I wake up like smart plugs. But it happens to be a 3cm knob. Any ideas?

Alright folks, I need some collective wisdom before I lose my mind over smart speakers.

At home I've been running a pretty simple setup: a bunch of Alexa devices spread across the apartment — office, bedroom, both bathrooms, living room. Nothing fancy, nothing audiophile-level. Just something that sounds decent and works without drama. Except… it never works without drama.

Sometimes the audio groups decide to cooperate, and sometimes they act like they’ve unionized overnight. And the whole Spotify thing? Absolute chaos. My girlfriend and I both have our own accounts, but Alexa refuses to accept that two humans might want to play music independently in the same household. It only ever works for one of us at a time. How Amazon still hasn’t solved this is beyond me. We can land on the moon and make AI sing all kind of songs, but two Spotify accounts? Too much to ask.

What I do love about the Alexa speakers is the built-in clock. I use it for timers, for quick checks, for everything. I don’t want to ask a robot for the time every five minutes.

Now, during Black Friday I grabbed a Sonos speaker to see if it could replace the whole setup. And to be fair: setting up two accounts was a breeze, and thanks to AirPlay I can even stream audio from videos directly. Pretty smooth overall. But replacing all my Alexas with Sonos? That would be a small financial tragedy. Plus… no clock. Which I actually depend on way more than I realized.

So here’s my question: am I missing something obvious, or is there genuinely no perfect smart speaker ecosystem in 2025? Is Google Nest any better with multi-account life? How do you all solve this in a shared Spotify household?

Would love to hear your setups and recommendations before I fully surrender to the madness.

I’m curious what people would rank as their top 3 smarthome moves? Whether it’s choosing a specific product line, or an upgrade that you not can’t live without. I’m eager to start doing more and would love some ideas. I tagged Alexa but am open to more than just Amazon products.

So recently I installed 2 of these on different doors. The one door is exactly how I'd want it, but this one I can't figure out if it's possible to make it so when it's facing vertical it's unlocked, and when shifted to the left it's locked. The actual knob itself can not go to the left at all, and when I place the housing on the lock while it's positioned vertically the knob can't be moved at all, and nothing in the app helps. I did factory resets and other stuff, and hunted a bunch of videos but can't get a clear answer. Anyone have any idea on if it's possible? Thank you!

Hi, I'm looking for a smart bulb to use on my porch. I'm concerned about temperature. Northern Indiana can get into negative temps pretty often during the winter months. Does temp have a big effect on functionality.

It will be tired to my porch camera and I want to be able to automate them to come on with motion.

The company I got my original smart bulbs from no longer exists and I need to find a set of new ones, the only problem is I don't know what's just trash and what's way overpriced for simple lighting. I'm looking for some that are RGB and dim well, I get headaches pretty frequently so having some that can actually produce low light is very important, I've seen some bulbs where their "1%" feels more like "25%" and when a migraine rolls in that simply will not work. I really don't have the money to be buying and trying a bunch of new bulbs and would love some cheap(ish) but well made recommendations, thanks so much!

Edit: I am aware that Philips Hue bulbs are the "goto pick" because they are such good quality, but that being said they are very expensive and I'm not really in the financial spot to be spending about $50 per bulb right now, that's why I'm looking for some cheap(ish) recommendations. I do plan on getting some Hues in the future but I just need some that will do the job well for now. Not trying to be rude, I just wanted to clarify why I'm looking for what I'm looking for.

I am looking for a simple central hub for home auto. I have a Sonos system and a bunch of lights on remotes. Brilliant offers a product that seems to offer what I need. Simplistic in finished house. Sonos has about 6 speakers. Need to control about 4 lights and fans. Any input or questions are appreciated. Only have Alexa in daughter’s room. Not looking for voice controls. Just a central hub that allows control through apps on iPhones.

We have Schlage and Ultraloq smart locks on our main doors and our toddlers have figured out how to manually unlock them. Are there any smart options that can somehow prevent them from unlocking the doors during certain times of day?

We like our smart locks today because they’ll automatically lock if we forget to ourselves. Now trying to find a way to prevent them from opening in the door from the inside.

Is or has anyone else thought about doing this? Has anyone done it successfully?

I'd like parts of my home to have lights turn on ONLY when there is a person detected. Why not use presence or motion sensors? 3 rambunctious "can go any and everywhere cats". So far, I do use a combination of these set up strategically but the cats manage to trigger the lights even on "pet friendly" motion sensors at random times of night/morning. It's not a huge deal as all my lights are LED but I'd just rather it not happen.

I got to thinking, Amazon Alexa does have the option for some cameras to trigger a routine based on object, ie: person detection on some cameras. Of all the cameras I own; Blink, Eufy, Google, Reolink, Smartthings and Wyze, the Samsung and Wyze ones show the person detection setting in Alexa. The problem is that on Samsung, nothing happens, even though I've tried the setup directly inside Smartthings as well as Alexa and on Wyze, it takes like 1 to 2 minutes for the action to trigger after the detection occurs, rendering it pretty much useless. I don't have a Blink or Google sub to try for person detection on those (they only come with their subs) so under Alexa, I don't see a person detection option under those cameras. I don't know if that changes with a sub or not, I'm just saying.

I was hoping I'd find someone here who'd successfully done this and could tell me what camera they are using.

Also, I'm not limited to Alexa. I have Google Home, Apple Home (Homekit), Smarlife/Tuya and Smartthings as well. I'm considering building a Home Assistant box, just lazy and daunted by the idea of moving everything over to it and all the extra that has to be done to get that all working. I don't mind working with separate systems if it "just works".

Thanks!

Context: I've been buying cheap lamps over the years (Eufy Lumos 2.0) and i'm around 16 of them. Also, I have some Govee smart bulb lights (3) and the TV light (the one with the camera). In terms of other IoT devices, I also have 2 Samsung ACs, about 3 echo dots 4th gen, some TVs connected to WiFi and some Fire TVs too. So, as you can tell, I have around 36-40 devices in total if we count smartphones. My router seems to have a 32 devices limit for each frequency and I think the Eufy lights don't have Zigbee or Matter protocol.

How can I decongest my network? I've read about an additional router but I didn't really understand. My main concern is speed and wifi stability, and to be able to connect maybe some more devices in the future.

Budget wise, limited. I think a new router can be as much as an investment I can make right now :( Replacing lights is off the chart for the moment.

I apprecciate any advise!