itinj24

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itinj24
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  • Wemo Stage with Thread review: Finally a reliable HomeKit button

    itinj24itinj24
    I must have a faulty unit. I have an extensive amount of HomePod Minis in my house scattered around. Eight of them to be exact. I’m not sure if I need more Thread devices but the response time for mine has been just a little better if not the same as when it was running in Bluetooth. That’s only with one of the configured buttons using single tap.  Double tap or long press doesn’t work at all for me. 

    The worst part is the battery drain. After the update, I replaced two batteries within a week. Not even exaggerating. I saw the battery drop to 94% inside of 10 minutes and kept going from there. Then the Home app stopped showing the battery percentage altogether after two days. I already reached out to Wemo regarding these issues but I’ve never had a Wemo HomeKit device that I was happy with. Shame because that new doorbell looks really good but I’m skeptical.  
    watto_cobra

  • Google's next project is making its ecosystem more like Apple's

    itinj24itinj24
    And then they’ll kill it off in the blink of an eye. 
    scstrrfwilliamlondonravnorodomKTRAnilu_777Alex_VStrangeDaysBeatswatto_cobrajony0

  • First Thread-enabled HomeKit blinds now available to order ahead of official launch

    itinj24itinj24
    vc2020 said:
    itinj24 said:
    When these were first announced, they were being touted as HomeKit blinds for the masses. That to me sounded like it would be something a little more affordable and inline with IKEA’s prices. I’m sure these will be great but it would cost a fortune for me to go with these. Patiently waiting for Aqara to release the E1 roller motor in the US. All their products have been extremely reliable and affordable. I’d love to give them more of my business 
    I ordered the E1 motors off eBay to Canada (they shipped from Europe, I think Slovenia). They arrived very quickly and work like a charm. I will definitely consider these when I move into a larger space but likely only for a specific room or 2.
    So you can use them in North America? Do you need a plug adapter?  What the heck am I waiting for then lol. 
    watto_cobra

  • First Thread-enabled HomeKit blinds now available to order ahead of official launch

    itinj24itinj24
    When these were first announced, they were being touted as HomeKit blinds for the masses. That to me sounded like it would be something a little more affordable and inline with IKEA’s prices. I’m sure these will be great but it would cost a fortune for me to go with these. Patiently waiting for Aqara to release the E1 roller motor in the US. All their products have been extremely reliable and affordable. I’d love to give them more of my business 
    watto_cobra

  • Sporadic problems affecting HomeKit Secure Video with iOS 15

    itinj24itinj24
    welshdog said:
    itinj24 said:
    BLUF:  It has to be the Home Hub causing this. 

    I’m pretty convinced that this is an issue with the Home Hub.  The other day, my dad visited for the first time since I set up HomeKit Secure Video with my Logi Circle 2’s. After he left, I went to add him as a recognized face in my home but noticed that he didn’t show up there. Found this strange since I do have a lot of cameras in and around my home. Also realized I stopped receiving camera notifications sometime early that day before he showed up. I went to check recordings of my cameras to see if any camera caught his face and noticed all recordings stopped at about 1030 that morning. This couldn’t be a camera specific issue. Checked which of my devices was the active Home Hub and it was an OG HomePod. Went to reboot it and it kept saying there’s no Wi-Fi connection. A-ha!  Rebooted the AppleTV it was defaulted to and then unplugged the HomePod until it finally regained connection and sure enough all the recordings for that day were restored, my dad’s face showed up in facial recognition and notifications were coming alive. 

    Absolutely silly that Apple won’t let you choose the active Home Hub and keep it glued.  Why they switch sometimes for no apparent reason beats the hell out of me but what I described above would’ve been the perfect time for my Home Hub to switch, but didn’t.  I do notice varying HomeKit performance issues when certain devices are being used as the Hub. Would be nice to be able to select the best performing one on my own. 

    See this is where I feel Apple almost always drops the ball. They come up with nice hardware we all want and then the software implementation seem to be lacking. Their updates to fix issues are slow in coming and sometimes don't fix everything. I just don't get how a company their size, depth and power and with their reputation, cannot do a better job of polishing the software experience. It's generally good, but there always seems to be little annoying shortcomings that they don't take seriously - at least as I perceive it. Siri is the evergreen example of this. I will give them credit for fixing Maps and making it excellent, but did that happen because they got publicly embarrassed by Maps debut?

    Maps is fantastic now but I fear it’s too little too late.  I live and work in the NYC area. Tons of iPhones and tons of traffic but the self reporting feature in Apple Maps is a wasteland. Likely because people have been on feature rich Waze and Google Maps for so long and just don’t use Apple Maps.  I’d even bet most people don’t even know the feature is there in Apple Maps now and aren’t bothering to even learn about it.

    Back to software, I can absolutely appreciate that Apple is adding more features to the multiple OS’s to enhance the user experience but at what cost?  Feels like taking one step forward and then three back and it’s driving me nuts. Polish a feature and then destroy it in the next update.  A good example is rich image notifications on the Apple Watch with HomeKit cameras. They just disappeared somewhere early during iOS 14/WatchOS 7 and finally returned with iOS 15/WatchOS 8. Just gone for about a year.  Another is auto connecting/simultaneous connecting of iPhone/Apple Watch/Air Pods Pro. Just gone now. Have to manually connect each time to my Watch even when my iPhone is on me. I’m no software engineer or coder by any means but if you polish a feature and then have to tweak it to accommodate another feature, just make sure you go back put together what you took apart.  Thought the iOS 13 debacle was going to correct this but it appears iOS 15 is headed in the same direction. Tons of bugs, in my experience at least. 
    welshdogwatto_cobra