jbdragon

ihatescreennames said:

I want a video camera that records to my own hard drive, not some subscription, cloud-based thing. HomeKit would be nice but not necessary. Is there anything out there like that? There used to be but they seem hard to find now. 

There's all kinds of ways to go. Using software on a NAS, to a DVR type solution and from Analog camera's to IP POE camera's. Most of these have app's you can use on your iPhone to see any of those camera's and it doesn't cost you anything per month. It's local storage. I recently did a 8 camera setup for a friend that they got from Costco. That was on a 2 story house, which was a pain. Had to rent a scissor lift to get up high to work. We ran conduit and boxes. Instead of the lazy way of just leaving wires all over the walls. They all plug into the DVR and they can watch the cameras on their iPhone from anywhere. It's also plugged into their large HDTV by HDMI and so they can watch them all that way also.

ZERO monthly fees. When I'm ready to do my house, I'll use the IP POE. These are IP (Internet Protocol Power Over Ethernet) So running a single Ethernet cable is much easier. Buy in bulk and cut to whatever length you want. Everything is in Digital going over the cable. So a better, cleaner picture, and the camera's get their Power from the same cable. So you can run to a DVR POE box directly, or you can get a Switch that supports POE. Put that in a good location for all your camera's to connect to and then run one cable from that to your DVR or NAS, or a Windows computer, maybe a Linux computer. Depends on what software you use.

You can get Camera's cheaper then the price of this one above. Maybe the overall cost is a bit more, but you're not paying anything per month. That's YEARS of savings. $180 a year in storage for a month of recordings? Recordings by the way which are also eating up your Internet CAP!!! Using up some of your limited speed Upload bandwidth. If you're LAZY, you'll be paying more. Take a little time and research and figure out the BEST way that will fit your own needs. There's just many options. It doesn't need to be Homekit supported. What's that going to do for you with a camera(s)? You can get Notified anyway when one see's movement if you want. What else would you want? When you're locally recording, you'll get better pictures and things won't be so compressed otherwise. Crappy pictures where you can't really tell what the person looks like is worthless. Why have a camera at that point? Ya, this BLUR robbed me!!!

In no way do I think it's 1 in 2 places, which is really 50% of the stores out there support Apple Pay. It is growing. A couple new places I go to now support it. They didn't know until I held my Apple Watch over their Terminal and BAM it worked. Most of the time that have no idea. If you ask them, they'll say NO, and yet Apple Pay works. So ignore the worker, look at the machine and look for the NFC symbol on the screen. If it's a large screen terminal, then it may show Apple Pay and Android Pay on the screen. So the NFC symbol looks like your Wifi Graphics on the top of your iPhone, turned sideways. If you see that, go give it a try. The biggest issue I have is having to tell them to activate the terminal so that it works. I guess they expect to see you whip out a card.

Koliadascope said:

The picture of the Home app on an iPad shows a vacuum. Anyone know of a HomeKit enabled robotic vacuum?

A little Google search goes a long way! iRobot Roomba 980,966,960 (Series 900) works with Homekit and Siri

the_understudy said:

What’s it’s USP? There has to be a fundamental reason to its delay. Surely all thT processing power is there for something special?

Siri is still way behind Alexa, crack Siri and it’s a winner, also enabling open source apps is a must. I love it but i’m Out until it makes a compelling case.

Do you actually use any of these voice assistant devices? I do!!!! Siri is not way behind. Alexa is far from better. Personally, I think the Apple Watch which can do pretty much most anything these things can do is the better device to own as it works everywhere you're at. You don't have to litter your house with these speakers to even make them useful and still doesn't cover outside in your yard or maybe your garage. As someone who has a growing Homekit house.
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 I happen to have a Ecobee 4 which has built-in Alexa. So to even use Alexa, I have to stand there in the Hallway. I have to talk loud enough for it to hear me. I wouldn't count that against Alexa, and more so the Ecobee. Though I have an Alexa Dot showing up at my house to play with in my Bedroom along with my Google Home Mini, and then use my iPad Pro for Siri. That way I can better sit there an ask each one the same thing to compare. Guess which one works better to control the Ecobee by Voice? Alexa which is built in. Google Home, or Siri?
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Alexa is actually the WORST of the 3. Here are my real reasons. First off, I got it installed, programmed all up. Using the iPhone to set it up to the Network quicker was a nice feature. So anyway I was able to set a timer, play a song. I tried setting the temp and it didn't know what I was talking about. Ops, Oh ya, I have to go to AMAZON and setup the Ecobee Plus Skill for Voice control to even work with it. Strange when it's built into the device and is still clueless. But OK. Did it. Now what? I also have it setup for Siri control and Google Home Control. So with Siri or Google for that matter I can just go "Hey Siri, set the temp to 68" and Siri will just set the temp on the Ecobee to 68. Google on my Mini works the same. Alexa, on the other hand, seems to be dumber. First off you have to TELL it, or ASK it to do something and with what. So I have to say something like "Alexa, Tell Ecobee to set the temp to 68" So while I don't have to add a Hey, I do have to TELL it and to DO it with what device. Alexa has a ton of Skills. Have you taken a look? So to do anything more than the Basic, you have to install these SKILLS. To use these skills, you first have to know that exist on that Alexa, and then you have to know how to get them to work, which requires saying to correct wording or it'll FAIL.
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Going through, most of the stuff is crap. I've installed a couple Star Trek sound effects, but It's been a few weeks, I don't know if I can even get them to work again without looking up the commands once again. It's really like Apple's App store was in the early days with a ton of Fart Apps!!! That's kind of what it's like there. Just a lot of crap you'll never use. Are you really going to be playing Jeopardy on Alexa?
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Where I think these things shine and are the most useful is really Home Automation. Home Control. I can lift my wrist and go "Hey Siri, Open Garage" and BAM my garage door starts opening up!!! I'm doing that NOW. What's even better, my garage lights are on Homekit controlled Switches. So the one side I'm walking though normally to get in/out of my house, I have those lights linked to the garage door using Apple's HOME app. So that when the door Open's, the garage lights also come on. When the door closes, the garage lights go off. Even if you use the real button mounted on the wall and push that to open and close, the garage lights still go on and off with the door. It's a huge deal for me. It's just so much brighter in my garage when it's dark now. Because the garage door opener lights don't lighten up the garage all that good.
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When I can lift my wrist to set a timer, a reminder, an appointment, see a Message, reply to a message, receive and answer voice phone calls. Ask when the 49er's play next. I can go on and on, and this is on my ORIGINAL Apple Watch. I little slow, but it does it just fine. My Google Mini, Locked in my Master Bedroom. My Alexa, Locked in the hallway. My Alexa Dot that will arrive today will also be locked in the Master bedroom. That's the problem. Locked in their rooms by a power cable. Apple's HomePod is the same. Google comes out and releases 3 devices at 3 price points. Amazon now has 7-8 of these things for sale. Apple? 1 $350 device, that's really more focused on Music. So that's really a $10+ device on top of the $350 you pay up front, in the name of having to pay for a Apple Music Subscription to even make it useful. It's focused on Music after all. Google, ya, they support Google Music, but also Pandora and Spotify. I think I can use them with Alexa also?!?! I think I saw some skills for those. How well? I don't know yet.

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During Christmas time. I was able to go to the Google Mini and say "Hey Google, Play Bing Crosby Christmas Music" It did, from Pandora, even though I don't pay. I tried it again Yesterday and it seems to no longer work. Siri, on the other hand, would tell me how it can't find that in my itunes Library. If I tried to add Pandora in, Siri tells me it can't do that.
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 Alexa is getting thrown onto a lot of stuff. Doesn't make that stuff any better. I would have been better off to just get a Ecobee 3 and then a Alexa Dot that I could place anywhere. But again I was trying to not litter my house up with these things. They all have their Pro's and Con's, but Siri really gets a bad rap. I keep wondering if they even use Siri? Why is Alexa so great? Most of the time I just don't get it. Siri works so well for me. It's not perfect, but then again, none of them are.
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 I can lay down in my bedroom and just ask the same questions to all 3. So far it's been mostly Siri and Google, and the results have been almost a tie. With Siri, for me just a bit better with the answers on a few of the questions. With getting the DOT and being able to also use that in my Master Bedroom, I can throw Alexa into the Mix more also.  They're cheap enough where you can buy them and play around with them.  Apple?  Not really.  The Apple Watch I think is a better device to have, but it's also limited to 1 person and costs more money.
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I've used this app before. It's all right. For me, the smart thing to do is not to eat or drink anything just before or during the movie. Which is good anyway as I don't have to buy over priced food and drinks.

If you didn't know, you can get a MoviePass subscription for $9.95 a month these days. See any move, at any time, pretty much anywhere. As many as you can watch in a month. So long as it's not 3D or IMAX and you can only see a movie once using it. For me, that's the cost of 1 movie ticket for the first showing before prices go up after that. It's really a great deal. I think you can get a Subscription from Costco for a even lower price paying for a year which I think gets it down to $5 a month or something.

www.moviepass.com

I get nothing out of that link. I've been using them for a number of years and was paying $45 a month after it went up in price from $35 a month. For whatever reason, it dropped to $9.95 a month and it's still as good as ever. I still use my Movie Theater Club Card to get free drinks, popcorn and movie tickets. The free movie tickets I'll use if there's something I really want to see in IMAX or 3D, or 3D IMAX. I can use that ticket to reduce the overall price. Then I see it once again a second time for free using MoviePass.