dennis s. hurddennis s. hurd

Monday, July 09, 2018

My Own Little Red-Light District

Another day mentioning home automation? Clearly, people need something to keep them occupied. Fortunately, for me, for years now, that hasn't had to involve working for anybody else. So, I'm back at the task of ensuring that requests spoken to Google Home can include apartment lighting.

My Amazon OrderMy four, wireless-wifi, outlet sockets will not arrive from Amazon for another day or two. I needed to try something other than commanding Netflix programs be played on the TV. Rather than bothering with Walmart Canada's rather poorly-designed website, I wanted to see what was actually on the shelves at the uptown Supercenter. I took a quick trip to the Royal City Mall. The cabinet with some of the smart home devices was locked but an associate opened it and give me to time check the boxes against what I could learn on the web. Hum, hadn't heard of Merkury Innovations, but I spied a 75-watt, coloured, LED smart-bulb.

Most any wifi-enabled device will work with my Google Minis as long as the product has an app which can be linked to Google Home. My original idea was to try to keep things simple and see if I could use the Smart Life app, as I know that will work with my future sockets. I did add the bulb and linked it. Unfortunately, that app could only turn the light on and off. I paid the extra $3 for the coloured bulb, and damn it I want to be able to add an IFTTT recipe so when I say, "Blue Moon" the living room will change accordingly and allow us to bask in that hue. Hum, what will my codewords for red, or green be?

2018_07_09

I decided to load the suggested app for this bulb. It is called, Greeni. I can now say, "Okay Google, turn on the tall light in the living room." It will. Next, I can ask it to "change to orange and dim" and I can see it magically happen. I was going to use one of the four plugs for our living room table lamp. Yet, maybe I will save to use it elsewhere and get another one of these bulbs. I could create a group and add them. Watching TV might be relaxing if we have several dimmed, red lights on.

Barking at a lamp and seeing an immediate effect is satisfying. I like giving orders. Perhaps feeling like a tiny dictator is the reason I'm keen on all of this.


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