Ivd.ru decided to figure out how exactly the smart home is working with Alice.
We are accustomed that smart homes are complex automation systems that can afford only owners of luxurious country mansions. However, with the development of electronics today, the prices of the "iron" decreased strongly, and a smart home can be collected almost from the electronic designer (well known, for example, a complex of Hardware-software ARDUINO, on which adolescents are trained in many robotics circles).
Nowadays, even more important than the program part of any smart home. From how correctly the program is written and an interface is convenient, the success of the implementation of a particular control system depends largely.
What can software developers offer us? Consider a system of a smart home developed by Yandex.
Complete set of smart home from Yandex
Yandex.station
The central device is Yandex.stand - the smart home is managed through it. The control center is activated by voice commands. For this, Yandex.stand is equipped with 7 microphones and speakers to support a dialogue. A smart home can be controlled and remotely, for example, through a smartphone: To do this, you need to install a special application.
Yandex.station - Smart Column for Smart Home
The remaining devices are connected to Yandex.station by Wi-Fi. This may be the most different equipment for lighting and power supply, climatic and household appliances. Equipment can operate both in direct control mode, and indirectly, using scenarios software.
Scenarios - This commands that allow you to work together a smart home devices. For example, you wake up and say the phrase "Good Morning, Alice!". In response, the program launches a whole series of processes: Increases cheerful music, the lighting system switches from the night mode to the day, the kettle is turned on, etc.
A hundreds of various devices can be connected to the system of the smart home. Some of them release Yandex, but the overwhelming majority - from other brands: LG, Samsung, Redmond, Xiaomi, etc. Calculate the technique suitable for this smart home, simply: it has an inscription "works with Alice".
Smart socket
It is included in the usual outlet, and any other devices are connected to it: a table lamp, a heater, iron - everything that works through a simple switch.
Smart Yandex rosette, white
When integrating into the system of smart home, the owners are able to remotely turn on and off the instruments connected to the outlet - through a column or alice in the application. It makes life more convenient and safer: You can not only be guaranteed to disable potentially hazardous appliances from food, but also to create the illusion of the presence of people in the house: include light, TV, etc.Smart light bulb
Allows remotely control lighting, turn on and off the light, adjust the lighting level, in some models it is possible to change the color temperature of the light.
Smart Yandex light bulb
For work, for example, you can enable lighting with a temperature of 6000 K (invigorating light of a bluish shade), and for recreation and relaxation to choose a reddish lighting temperature of 2800-3000 K. Today a large number of smart light bulbs are represented: Phillips, Xiomi, Redmond.Smart remote
Used to manage any devices on the IR channel. With it, you can turn on, turn off and adjust the operation of televisions, air conditioners, and potentially any equipment that is equipped with ports and sensors.
Very convenient, since now you do not need traditional control panels with a bunch of buttons. It is enough to just say: "Alice, turn on the TV!", And the TV will be enabled. In the same way, feeding the voice command, you can switch the program, change the volume settings, turn on the air conditioner, change the temperature of the cooled air.
We test smart sockets Yandex and Redmond
Smart REDMOND and Yandex sockets require downloading applications - R4S Gateway and Yandex, respectively. You can register directly in the application or through the account on social networks.
By connecting and configuring the application, we completely subordinate smart sockets of our will. The functions of the functions have the same: you can turn on and off the supply of electricity (we connected the lamp), you can also assign the power or off time using the timer.
Design
Externally outlets are similar, the housing has rectangular outlines and is made of high-quality plastic. The color of the case at the smart yandex rosette is black, Redmond is white. The design is masterpiece not called, in any case, models from brass or patinated bronze are losing. Visually smart sockets resemble adapters.How to work
The Yandex application has been successfully installed on an old smartphone with Android 3, and the R4S Gateway application Zakaprizninently and demanded a version not lower than 4.3 (or iOS not lower than 8).
Both sockets have illumination of the power buttons. Redmond indicates that it has built-in overload protection, the smart yandex socket does not say such protection. But the yandex rosette is designed for current to 16 A, and Redmond - only up to 10 A. This means that the redmond-outlet can be connected with a power of up to 2.3 kW, and to a smart outlet of Yandex - up to 3.5 kW, which It is much more convenient, especially if we are talking about connecting heating devices.
Testing smart lamps Yandex and Xiaomi
Apparently, the lamps are very sensitive and to overheating, therefore they are not recommended to be used in closed or narrow flaps of a small volume, where the temperature can easily exceed 35-40 C.
Both light bulbs support data transfer via Wi-Fi 802.11 b / g / n 2.4 GHz, so they can be installed at a considerable distance from the control center.
To use the Xiaomi lamp you will need the MI HOME application, the Yandex light bulb is controlled by the application of the same name. With their help, you can adjust the brightness and color temperature, set the time of turning on and off, program in advance the operation mode and select it later so as not to configure the necessary parameters each time.
Design
Visually, the blast of the smart yandex light bulb is made in the form of a bowl of matte white glass. The lamp has a familiar pear shape with the E27 base and will harmoniously look in most lamps, as modern and not very.
The Xiaomi lamp has a flask less familiar cylindrical shape, and its massive case is made of silver-gray plastic, which is worse combined with classic plagues. Both lamps have the same maximum power of 10 W, which roughly corresponds to 80-watt incandescent lamps.
Smart Yandex and Xiaomi light bulbs, as well as a smart base for a lamp from Redmond
How to work
In these models, the color temperature changes step in wide ranges: the Xiaomi lamp from 1700K to 6500K (very wide range!), In a smart yandex light bulb from 2700K to 6500K.
Also, a smart Yandex light bulb you can assign our own name in the settings so that Alice can understand what lamp you can turn on or off. It is very convenient if there are several such lamps in the house.
The editors thanks Yandex for the provision of devices for review.