RACV Smart Home Starter Kit
A GOOD-VALUE FOUNDATION FOR ANY BUDDING SMART HOME.
RACV IS BEST known as an automobile club in Victoria. However, its Home division has become the exclusive Australian distributor of Samsung’s SmartThings smart home products. The Smart Home Starter Kit is designed to provide the basic sensors needed to set-up an automated smart home (or an advanced home security system) and be as easy to install as possible. Even the packaging is friendly thanks to plenty of how-to visuals and quick-start guides for each device.
Inside the box are two multipurpose sensors, three motion sensors and a SmartThings Wi-Fi hub. The latter plugs into your router and is necessary in order to communicate with these (and any other) devices. That’s because smarthome devices mostly operate using very-lowpower wireless technology called Zigbee and Z-Wave. Both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are comparative battery vampires and using them would decimate battery life to the point of impracticality. Zigbee and Z-Wave, on the other hand, enable battery life to be measured in years.
That said, while smart home devices are able to form a wireless mesh network that can extend coverage, these SmartThings sensors have that function disabled to get the most out of battery life. As such, if you are monitoring large premises (and outdoor areas) you may require additional hubs to boost coverage – each one only has a range of 4.5 metres but they can be wirelessly-linked together to extend the network. However, we found that just one sufficed in our three-storey, Sydney townhouse.
It’s also worth noting that, while devices like this have a habit of being a home network security risk, Samsung’s SmartThings devices utilise 128-bit AES encryption to keep the hackers out.
To use the kit, you need to download the Samsung SmartThings app, which walks you through connecting to the sensors by scanning QR codes. The first connection takes a few minutes but the process speeds up and we had everything connected inside five minutes. Physically installing the sensors is also a breeze: they’re all backed with 3M sticky tape that provides a stable platform so long as you don’t
INSIDE THE BOX ARE TWO MULTIPURPOSE SENSORS, THREE MOTION SENSORS AND A SMARTTHINGS WI-FI HUB. THE LATTER PLUGS INTO YOUR ROUTER AND IS NECESSARY IN ORDER TO COMMUNICATE WITH THESE (AND ANY OTHER) DEVICES.
position it in front of an aircon vent.
The multipurpose sensors comprise two parts, which are connected via a magnetic switch. You stick them on doors and windows and the sensor reports whether it is open or closed. They also measure temperature and vibrations. Meanwhile the motion sensors affix to a magnetic, round base. Once the base is installed you can tilt and rotate the sensors to a generous degree and so position them just right. We found they sensed people within about three-metres but were a little more sporadic when it came to registering our cats. They, too, measure temperature. Once you’ve positioned the sensors, the app allows you to assign them to ‘Room’ groups for easy management.
At this point, it’s worth remembering that a core function of this kit is to act as triggers for other devices which you’ll need to buy separately. The good news is that smart-home device manufacturers generally use the same standards and so you don’t need to buy the same brand. Indeed, the app picked up the Belkin WeMo, D-Link Kasa and Philips Hue smart bulbs that were already installed on our network and easily allowed us to control them. Furthermore, by linking our existing Samsung account to SmartThings, previous Samsung smart devices that we’d registered – like Smart TVs – became controllable too.
Once all your devices are installed you can use the app to set up ‘Automations.’ These are basic, ‘If x then y’ commands that activate a function once the sensor (or an activity) is triggered. At a basic level, this might be turning on the lights when motion is detected. This can be taken up a level with Scenes, which allow you to combine devices’ behaviour – perhaps by changing the colour of the lighting and playing some jazz music – and activating it at certain times or under certain circumstances.
The app can also register your phone’s location and turn on your lights and notify people when you arrive home. You can add other admins to your SmartThings network either by adding their own Samsung accounts or getting them to download the SmartThings app and scanning a QR code.
Other core features include the Smart Home Monitor security tools. With these you can disarm the monitors or arm them in ‘Stay’ and ‘Away’ modes. In away mode notifications will flash up on your phone if any sensor is triggered. Pre-set commands include door, window and motion triggers, however, recent software updates now throw smart smoke alarms and moisture detectors (for flooding) into the mix.
A great thing about the world of smart homes is the large community of enthusiasts. Many of them use the IFTTT app – which stands for If This Then That. This enables you to easily add more-complex automation features to your network, especially Google Home and Amazon Alexa voice controls. There are numerous, ready-made applets that you can install which allow you to add various triggers or more-sophisticated responses. For instance, you may want to sound a siren or a loud, “Intruder Alert” warning if a sensor is triggered when it shouldn’t be. Other applets are more whimsical such as, “Execute Order 66” which plays Star Wars’ Imperial March. Meanwhile, gaming teenagers will be terrified of the voice-controlled router commands such as, “Turn off internet.” We were impressed that, in our tests, despite processing occurring across multiple-device plus the cloud, many of these instructions executed in just a few seconds.
Ultimately, we’re very impressed with RACV’s starter kit. It’s good value at $299 and, if you live in Victoria and really don’t want to install it yourself, you can pay a reasonable $79 to have it professionally done (RACV is in the process of making this an inter-state service). With each device costing around $80 individually, the kit is worth considerably more than the sum of its parts. As such, whether you want to monitor your home, set up serious security or automate many mundane tasks, this Starter Kit is a great buy.