Andrew O'Hara
Wemo launches a new, smaller smart plug, one of our listeners builds a HomeKit-compatible laser tripwire, Eve updates its app and brings forecast triggers to Eve Aqua, and Stephen gets started with Homebridge on this week's HomeKit Insider podcast.
A lot happened during this past week in the world of HomeKit. Belkin's Wemo brand launched a new, smaller version of its popular HomeKit smart plug that debuted earlier this year at CES. Functionally, it isn't much different but it is now one of the smallest smart plugs on the market.
Eve also updated its app recently which brought new life to the Eve Aqua, Eve's smart HomeKit watering system. It adds tight integration to Siri Shortcuts and with this new complex shortcut, watering can be paused based on weather. We talk in-depth about the Eve Aqua and how we've used it to maintain our gardens this year.
We also dive for the first time into HomeBridge with this episode, starting to talk about what HomeBridge can do, how easy it is to set up with HOOBS, and why users may explore different types of HomeBridge setups.
Links from the show
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6 Comments
Link for trip wire not working
From a discussion in the podcast regarding the question about a leaky connection of spigot to eve aqua, the answer you're looking for is "teflon tape." It's inexpensive and available in the plumbing supply section of any hardware store. It's a roll of white tape maybe a centimeter wide (no adhesive involved) that you wrap very tightly once or twice around into the threads on the spigot. The material is stretchy/flexible and will sink into and take the shape of the threaded portion of the spigot, essentially creating a white layer of this material on the spigot. Then simply hand-tighten the eve aqua onto the spigot. The teflon tape then creates a seal within the threaded portion of your connection and will stop most leaking.
I love HomeBridge. Super simple to install on Docker (on a Synology NAS) with great graphical UI, and allows adding POE based security cameras natively to HomeKit, and it is even possible to add AI face/car detection to those cameras (see https://github.com/Christofo/sssAI) to trigger HomeKit automations/alerts.