Light, Sound and Video

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Scott admonished that my last post was particularly "upbeat". In my defense, I planned on two posts all along, what's going on outside and the electricians. Ah, the electricians. Things always seem brighter when they're around. (Pun intended, but it's actually true.) They were on site a couple weeks ago just in time to shed some light on Paula's visit.

In the primary bath Scott's towel warmer and the vanity lights are installed. Except for water the primary bath is complete!

In the den Scott's TV is programmed, the mini-fridge is installed and working and we have music! Beth hooked up the ceiling speakers to the Sonos AMP and set up the drawers for album storage.

 

Upstairs the pendant lights are installed over the stairwell, in the living room, kitchen and bedroom. They are soooo pretty!

The TV in the living room is installed with a Sonos Beam sound bar, all programmed and ready to go. The ceiling speakers are hooked up to the Sonos AMP and sound amazing.

And the Google Nest doorbell is installed and working. It's fun being able to see who's at the house or frustrating to see who isn't.

Yes, we have a smart home. After a lot of research I chose Apple HomeKit as the central control hub for the house. Currently the Lutron Caseta hub controls the lights, SmartThings can control the TVs (I haven't figured out why), Google Home controls the doorbell and Sonos controls the amps and speakers. 

As I added lights to the Lutron Caseta hub they were automatically added to Apple Home and ready to be controlled on both our phones in Apple Home and via Siri. Super easy! I had to play with the names and categories to make it all make sense. For instance, "Siri, turn on the Exterior Front Porch lights," was clumsy (default category, name) so I made a category called Porch that turns on both the porch lights and the light over the garage.

Now I'm spending lots of time on the internet searching for things like "can i add google nest doorbell to apple homekit," and "how do i add sonos amp to apple homekit?"