this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2023
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Home Automation

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Home automation is the residential extension of building automation.

It is automation of the home, housework or household activity.

Home automation may include centralized control of lighting, HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning), appliances, security locks of gates and doors and other systems, to provide improved convenience, comfort, energy efficiency and security.

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This is kind of a sarcastic post, but I have a newer google nest video doorbell and I swear, every time someone is at the door, it would take like a full minute to load the live feed. Like, what’s even the point by then?!

Does yours pull up faster? Do I have a dud?

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[–] SDkahlua@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

I use Eufy and it’s pretty quick.

[–] ebikr@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

I just ask them to go away and come back in 5 minutes.

[–] tiberiusgv@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

What do you have now? I'm guessing it's cloud based and I won't be at all surprised by your issue. Need a local solution.

[–] WhoKnows78998@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yes. Google nest and it pops right up on my Google home device. It will also pop up on my Alexa like 40 second later lol

[–] Mastasmoker@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

The nest is slow on some days and fast on others. Several times having deliveries that need to be signed for and can't get the driver before he's walking to his truck

[–] Altsan@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

My nest will give me the notification quickly but it takes forever to load the video. Doesn't matter if I'm on cellular or wifi. Video just loads slow.

[–] i_can_only_see_text@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

UniFi doorbell is basically instant. Stored locally, but you need hardware.

[–] ummagumma696969@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

It definitely took a while for them to work out the kinks. The problems with the app were pretty terrible for a while.

[–] DidYouRebootIt@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

My Nest pulls up in about 2 seconds.

[–] bownyboy@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No.

I have Nest Doorbell (or whatever it's called now).

I also have 500meg fibre broadband. The Hello is 2 meters from the broadband router.

It always alerts me AFTER someone has arrived / pressed the doorbell. By the time I open the app and view the video it's 30 seconds to 60 seconds after they have pressed the doorbell. By then they have typically left.

[–] WeazolGamer@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

this my issue with it too.
I can walk outside to take the trash out, come back in and sit down, and then i get the alert showing i was at the front door

We have had Ring and Nest. Nest hands down works immediately. Love that it records 24/7.

[–] ummagumma696969@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

Vivint sucks, don't go with them whatever you decide. Their alarm system is fine but the doorbell is shite.

[–] Ok_Area4853@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I have a ring doorbell and it works great.

[–] TheJessicator@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Mine too. I particular love having Alexa answer the door instead of me, though, if I am not available to respond. Person detection could do with some work, though. I've had everything from raccoons to black bears get detected as people. Package detection is great when that works too.

[–] Ok_Area4853@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh, I've had branches that apparently look just like people. I know exactly what you mean.

[–] TheJessicator@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lol, kinda funny, I have a huge rhododendron bush that was constantly picking up a vague face pattern too. I eventually got so fed up with it after 2 months of constant person detected notifications that I went outside and pruned that piece of bush a tiny bit and it stopped seeing a person there. That was a year ago. That 1 minute pruning did the trick!

[–] Ok_Area4853@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, that's what we need to do. But it's literally a stick. Just a dead stick of a branch. Not even remotely human like. So odd. I think the thing just doesn't like motion at all, and frankly, I'd rather it was more sensitive than less sooooo.. am I really complaining?

[–] TheJessicator@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I'm going to bet you know by now Lorraine which stick / leaf is confusing it. 10/10,strongly recommend.

[–] AlteredStatesOf@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

I use Vivint and it loads within 5 seconds or so. Didn't realize this was such a big issue for other manufacturers

[–] HillarysFloppyChode@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

I have a Unifi system and my Nest doorbell loads instantly. I have a new model though and it's wired.

[–] joefez@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

I have a Eufy hard wired doorbell and find the same as you that if someone rang it, the lag was bad bringing up the feed from the doorbell, although the notification was normally fairly instant. What has helped is enabling the guest WiFi network on my router and only having the doorbell on that. It can still be a bit temperamental, but 90% of the time the lag is gone.

As an aside I have a hybrid 2.5 + 5ghz network, as I suspect many do, with boosters round the house - all supplied by my service provider. I know some home automation kit can struggle on hybrid networks. Be interested to hear if people are still getting lag on exclusive 2.5ghz networks?

[–] Feta__Cheese@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

I have Wyze and I get the notification pretty fast on their app but Alexa takes 30 seconds to let me know there’s someone at the door.

[–] ReViolent@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

Using Ring2, works flawlessly.

[–] GaTechThomas@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

Unifi is nearly instant. Notifications are nearly instant. If you don't want the Unifi app, which isn't bad, then Home Assistant has integration that lets you get all the features you would typically need.

[–] fleetmack@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

my lorex takes a while to load if i use the lorex app, so i just open blue iris, which is near instant. i also display the live feed on my tablets which are wall moumted in my house, i use this more than i'd have ever thought

[–] Gordon_Explosion@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

This is a great question, I've noticed the same thing. I'll get the alert instantly, but when I try to open it and communicate with the person at the door it takes a long ass time to load.

[–] HTTP_404_NotFound@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

I mean... between my amcrest door camera, and my reolink RLC520s combined with frigate-

I have verbal notifications given before someone is at my door. I also use my door camera for triggering my porch lights at night. It works pretty good. Not instantly, but, within a few seconds. Not bad for waiting on AI to analyze the stream.

[–] Silent-Piccolo@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

Ring camera live views seem to load pretty fast.

[–] TheDrunkTiger@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

I have Arlo. It's useless for answering someone who rang it. Even worse, 20% of the time it'll crash all of my Arlo security cameras.

I have an IT and AV/Automation Company. I have personal properties using Savant, Ring, Nest, Dahua, Ubiquiti, and Doorbird. They all respond immediately and are usable.

The only time I really see latency issues has been on installs where the internet connection is weak to the device or site in general, specifically low upload speeds.

[–] BeachBarsBooze@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

I'm currently pretty happy with my Ring Pro 2 doorbell and iOS-based devices as the receiving side for button pushes at my front gate. I will say that it was hardly a good experience early on though, with the same exact issue you were seeing. Rings would come late, if the person was actually still standing there, interactive conversation was often impossible.

In my case it ended up being that the Ring seemed very finicky about staying connected to specific wifi configs, particularly newer wifi if I had most legacy speeds and protocols disabled. It won't do 5ghz fyi. I'm a network engineer by trade and have a Cisco enterprise deployment at home, so coverage outside to the Ring was not an issue, but it sure hated staying reliably connected, or initiating the connection when someone pushed it.

So, what I ended up doing was hiding a tiny little MikroTik 'mAP lite' in my plastic irrigation controller box near by: https://mikrotik.com/product/RBmAPL-2nD

The mAP Lite is a 2.4ghz-only access point about the size of 2/3 of a credit card, and thickness of an RJ45, literally, since it had to be thick enough to accommodate the ethernet jack. It can be powered with PoE. It supports a huge variety of modes but I'm using it in a bridging config wired to wireless. It can still have an addressable interface on the bridged ethernet network, so I retain access to configure it even though it's in bridge mode.

My irrigation box already had extra CAT5 in it home run to my wiring closet, as I'm using one of the wires for serial control from my home automation. So, all I needed to do was terminate one of the spare cables. Now I've got a tiny AP about ten feet from the Ring with wifi tailored just to it. I created a unique SSID that I joined it to, stuck it on its own vlan, and firewall rule lets it reach the internet. The wifi config on the Mikrotik that I found best serves the Ring was their "2Hz-only-G" band choice, channel width of 20 MHz, frequency of 2422 MHz. I'd initially left frequency to auto but it seemed to prefer one that would only achieve -74dB RSSI, but at 2422 it's consistently locked in at -67 dB and goes to live view instantly, and my phone gets the push notices within a second or two. So, initially sucked, after some work it's great.

[–] tungvu256@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

this is why i stay away from anything that requires cloud to work.

my amcrest ad410 is all local so it loads pretty fast. works great with Home Assistant hub as seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leGsc11h5aw