One Nerdy Life to Live: 2018

Since moving into our new home I have found that I enjoy the simple things, like using my cell phone to open the garage doors, turning on and off lights with the tap of my finger, and double checking the number of eggs in the container in the fridge. Our first housewarming gift was a Honeywell WiFi enabled Thermostat from my father-in-law. The device had me intrigued as to what else could be purchased for our home.

Honeywell Thermostat - my first new toy.

After purchasing our new house in 2016 the first thing that needed to be fixed was the Garage door opener. While doing some research on garage door openers I stumbled upon the MyQ Chamberlain automatic door opener, that would work with any installed motors. So I bought the product and installed both sensors and then plugged in the WiFi-enabled opener. The set-up seemed simple and worked well, with one exception, both of my garage doors would open any time I would use the app for just one door on my phone. So after a few months of fidgeting with the doors, I finally got wise and called the support center where they said to unplug one motor while programming the other, that way the door opener would not ping off of both garage doors, genius! I now have both doors working properly and even made my wife extremely happy by re-programing her original door opener back into the system.

MyQ Chamberlain WiFi Garage Door Openersynced to a Ryanor Navigator.

After much thought, our bedroom got a WiFi enabled switch, so we didn't have to get up out of bed to flip on the switch which was the whole way across the room from our main door. I did some research and to try out a simple switch I bought the Wemo Light Switch. It was easy to install and as soon as I flipped the power on from the breaker I had access to the Wemo Switch. I then bought another plug and have used a few of the WiFi-enabled plug-in switches for lights that I cannot easily access the outlet for.

All Wemo Switches and Mr. Coffee Maker
(Appropriately Named "Gibson Covfefe")

I purchased the Wink Hub to help centralize the Apps I use into one app and found that GE Light Switches will work with the hub, except once I installed the switches, which took a while because of the electrical wiring was a nightmare to figure out. I think the previous owners did some of it themselves. So anyway I now also have Bluetooth enabled GE Dimmers and Switches that do not link to my Wink Hub because I still need to purchase the $100 Avi-On Remote Access Bridge for all of the switches to link to my Wink Hub.

Ring Doorbell- Links to the Wink Hub easily

For Christmas, my wife bought me an Amazon Echo Dot and the Ring Doorbell, which work well with my in-home system of home security and automated applications. For father's day, my wife also fed my addiction to technology with the Wemo Mr. Coffee Maker. (I really do have the best wife ever!)

Amazon Echo Dot with GE Dimmer and Wall Switch.
(One more to add eventually!)

With the Wink Hub, list of link-able products I bought the GE Quirky Pivot Power electrical outlet, the Quirky Egg Minder, and the Quirky Porkfolio Smart Piggy Bank. All linking to my Wink Hub and WiFi to have WiFi controlled outlets in our sunroom, count how many eggs are in my refrigerator, and count the coins I place in my bank.

The Wink Hub (Bottom Right)
All thing Quirky (Pivot, Egg Minder & Porkfolio)

I like technology and creating a home full of automation has been an interesting learning experience. I am still learning more about the whole process and hope to continue to grow the accessibility in my home.