Home and Kitchen – Page 39

Fellowes Powershred 12Cs Cross-Cut Shredder review

Spring is here! The flowers are budding and the birds are singing. Unfortunately its also tax season, and time to clean out that mountain of forms, papers and receipts you have been hoarding all winter long! We like to have a paper shredder here in the House of Bob, but our last shredder met a horrible end due to overexertion. Fortunately, Fellowes was kind enough to send me their Powershred 12Cs Cross-Cut Shredder to evaluate as part of the annual office Spring cleanup. How does it handle the job? Let’s shred!

First Impressions

The Powershred 12Cs Cross-Cut Shredder is a heavy-duty shredder designed for household use. Measuring in at 15″ tall by 9″ wide by 17″ deep and nearly 16 pounds, it’s a small beast. But it’s a nice looking beast! The form factor is streamlined and professional looking. The unit is all black with a combination of shiny and matte surfaces. You’ll want to find a permanent spot in the office for this one, but it will look good occupying that floor space or nested under a table or desk.

Construction is solid. It’s a heavy-duty plastic two-piece assembly, with a massive 4-gallon catch bin that slides out of the front of the unit. The bin also has a small window so you can see when you’re hitting maximum capacity, which is a nice touch. There’s a single beefy control slider on the top of the unit, and the power switch is on the back. The feeder is silver and beveled to guide the materials into the shredder. I’ve killed shredders before that don’t feel like their built to handle the weight of the shredding motor & mechanism; that’s not the case here.

Operation and Use

Preparation for battle is simple. You plug the unit in and turn on the power switch on in the back. The control slide has three positions: center is the off position (when not in use), left is the on position (for munching), and right is a reverse mode (for “I shouldn’t have tried to fit that in there…”). There are three LED lights above the slider to indicate operation (green), overheating (red), and activation of the SafeSense safety feature (yellow). The shredder is motion activated, and starts grinding when it senses that material has been inserted in the feeder.

As far as shredding goes, the feeder can take a stack of up to 12 sheets at a time as well as paper clips, staples, plastic credit cards, and the assorted extras you might find in junk mail. All material is shredded into 5/32″ by 2″ cross-cut particles. The shredder can run continuously for about 5 minutes before overheating, at which point it requires 15-20 minutes to cool down before continuing.

Another feature is what Fellowes calls its SafeSense technology. It’s activated by your hand or finger touching the feeder, at which point the shredder stops running. It’s a nice safety feature, especially if you forget that you have left the shredder in the on position.

The Test Case(s)

Enough with the specifications; it’s time to see if the Powershred lives up to its name. Here in Bob’s house, we keep the paperwork flotsam and jetsam in a box (or two) in the closet until Spring cleaning time arrives. You’re looking at 25 pounds of receipts, papers, junk mail and assorted plastic credit cards that have been waiting for this moment to meet their shredding demise.

Let the Destruction Commence!

As we worked our way through the collection, I found that thePowershred 12Cs Cross-Cut Shredder did an excellent job with most tasks. Papers (alone or in stacks) flew through the beastie as it chuckled and begged for a real challenge. I had a stack of expired credit cards and used gift cards that it chewed up with equal zeal. Staples and paper clips didn’t even phase it. The feeder is 9 inches long, but even when I fed 8-1/2 by 11 sheets in lengthwise, the shredder sucked it all in.

Junk mail, however, did pose some challenges. You know those thicker mailings you get with brochures or little sticker books in the package? I’m happy to report that, while operation slowed a bit with these heftier feedings, the shredder chugged through them without too much trouble. There was one extra-thick mailer, however, that did slow it to a stop. We had to use the reverse switch a couple of times to back the envelope out and refeed it to chew it through. It got there eventually, but I admit that I was pushing the max capacity of the device. You’d probably want to break down bigger items like this (or old checkbooks, for example) to make sure they go through.

The SafeSense technology works well. If you even brush it with your finger anywhere on the metal feeder, the unit will stop and alert you that the safety feature has been triggered. I tested this a couple of different ways, and it works consistently once contact is made.

The collection bin does a nice job of trapping all the shredded bits, including paper dust. I did notice that it was easy to overload the bin unless you are paying attention to the window, however. Sliding the bin out is easy, and it locks firmly in place when you put it back in.

As far as negatives go: removal of the bin can get messy if you overload it before removal. There are also stray shredded bits that get knocked loose from the shredding mechanism when you remove the bin that requires cleanup. This unit is a lot cleaner than others I have owned. The good news is that the bin area is spacious and clear of obstructions, so it’s easy to run a vacuum nozzle through occasionally for quick cleanup. It should also be noted that the bin is flush with the bottom of the unit. I had it set up on a carpet, so the bin would catch occasionally when sliding it out. I believe that this would work better on a smooth surface, but I consider this a minor issue in practice.

In our test of the Spring cleanout boxes, we found that the 5 minute continuous run time is pretty accurate before it overheats, and we were able to go farther with brief breaks. We ran it as fast and far as it would go, and it took about 90 minutes total to get through the 25 pounds of test material. For an occasional-use home shredder, I think this a pretty good expectation for that amount of material all at once. If I were keeping up on my regular cleanup, I would expect that I would not see it overheat very often.

Conclusions and Pricing

Not everyone needs (or wants) a home shredder. We like to have one handy because we seem to collect a lot of printed material with personal information on it. If you decide you need one for your house, it should really do three things well:

Shred your papers, documents, and cards into consistently small and unrecognizable bits;
Minimize the mess from paper dust and flying particles in regular use; and
Show enough durability that you don’t need to buy a new one every couple of years.

Retailing at about $125, the Fellowes Powershred 12Cs Cross-Cut Shredder meets all of these requirements and meets them well. It performs better than the cheaper models I have killed over the years, and it looks nice in the office. I’d recommend it as a solution if you are looking for a new paper shredder in your home office.

Source: The sample for this review was provided by Fellowes, and is available at Amazon and other retailers. For more info visit their site.

Product Information

Price:	$125.00
Manufacturer:	Fellowes
Retailer:	Amazon
Pros:	Handles up to 12 sheets of paper, paper clips, plastic cards, and staples easily. Sleek profile for the office (despite the size and weight). Large collection bin for easy cleanup.
Cons:	Bin can get stuck on thicker carpeted floors.

Filed in categories: Home and Kitchen, Reviews

Tagged: Office, Shredder

Fellowes Powershred 12Cs Cross-Cut Shredder review originally appeared on on April 5, 2017 at 7:11 am.

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LEDVANCE’s Sylvania Lightify Gateway review

The LEDVANCE Gateway is a smart hub that interprets commands from a Wi-Fi network and transmits them to devices on its ZigBee network, and also monitors the status of those devices and reports it to authorized users. It is metaphorically the jam that holds all of the intelligent LEDVANCE products together. But, like the jam that holds your sandwich together, there are competing brands to choose from and different qualities of each. What you choose depends on your preferences and, to some extent, budget. Ok, enough of this metaphor, I’m getting hungry and want to check out this hub. Let’s see how it works and what it has to offer.

You may have noticed that the manufacturer listed in the title of this post is LEDVANCE but the device is branded with the Osram trademark. This is because in January 2016, Osram GmbH spun-out some of its business units into a new company named LEDVANCE. The portfolio of the new company includes, amongst other units, connected and intelligent lighting solutions for smart homes and smart buildings. The app on the iTunes store and the Google Play site are still branded as Osram, even though the iTunes app has been revised 6 times and the Android app 7 times since the rebranding.

The actual product is a 60 mm wide, 60 mm high, and 41 mm deep (not including the outlet prong) box. The plug is a 15 amp non-polarized design so it permits the most flexibility when installing it into your chosen receptacle. When installed and configured correctly the symbol on the front (which I think looks like the alphabet used by the Predator) glows green with just enough brightness that it is easy to tell it is functioning during the day but isn’t obtrusive at night. When the hub is offline the symbol glows orange/amber and when it is logging into the WI-FI it blinks orange/amber. The gateway requires 5 watts, so that’s 3.65kWh/month, or less than a dollar.

The set up process is easy but sort of lengthy, the video that they send to you in the sign-up email is not found on YouTube, and the only other YouTube videos are in German. So, I’ll describe the setup here and provide some pictures to go along with it for those of you who don’t sprechen Deutsch. These are iPhone screenshots but the process on the iPhone and Android is very similar. I’ve covered the MAC addresses, SSID’s and passwords used with The Gadgeteer logo for security. Download and install the companion app before plugging in the hub. Current versions are 32 MB for iOS and 27 MB for Android. The first step is to scan a QR code on the back of the hub. This allows the app to look up the SSID and password of the hub’s built in ad hoc Wi-Fi network. Alternatively, you can type in the 13 character alphanumeric serial number. (If you plan to integrate this into Amazon Alexa, write down the serial number; you’ll need it later, but you’ll also need to keep the hub plugged into the wall.)

Assuming you don’t have an existing account you must create an account here and verify that it is a real account. I just used a throw-away Mailinator account for this demo. The account will be verified so you need to use an account that you can actually access. You may share this account login information with up to four other devices to permit shared operation of the hub. App settings will be synchronized across each device through the internet.

After creating the account you can finally install your hub. The unit will power up and start an ad-hoc Wi-Fi network. The app will conveniently display the password to the network and display the name of the SSID you need to join. Task switch to the settings screen and join the provisional Wi-Fi network.

After task switching back to the app, and after the phone is connected to the hub, it will search for 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi hotspots (or 2,4 GHz in Europe) and display the detected SSID’s on the next screen. If you don’t broadcast your SSID you can still type it in by selecting “Hidden Networks”.

Here you will provide the password to your SSID and the hub will associate itself with your home Wi-Fi network. Mid last year, this article was published on how there were security flaws in the Osram app and how the home Wi-Fi password was not encrypted in the app. The app has since been patched and this security flaw has been fixed. Also, unlike SmartThings, there is no option to run the hub off of a wired connection and there doesn’t appear to be a battery backup to the AC power.

Once the hub has associated itself with your network it will ask you to plug in your devices. Turning them on, off, and on again should signal the controller within each to join the newly established network. ZigBee devices can only be part of one network at a time. If the lamp is not responding then you may need to turn it on for 5 seconds and off for 1 second 6 times in order to reset the controller. Other devices may have a hard reset button.

After the devices are found you are brought to the home screen. This will show two empty categories: group and scene. Groups are collections of devices that you can turn on or off at the same time and apply dynamic lighting presets to all at once (more about this later). Scenes are groups of devices that have preset settings, but not each device in a scene has to have the same settings. Each device in a scene may have independent or shared correlated color temperature, brightness, or hue. Think of a scene in a theatrical production: there may be some bright lamps with red filters and some dim lamps with blue filters. This arrangement could be set by selecting one scene button on the Lightify app.

The cloud with a plug on top of it means that the hub is communicating with the smartphone/tablet using a local Wi-Fi router and also an internet connection. If the smartphone/tablet is not using the same router (if Wi-Fi is turned off on the phone) then the plug disappears. In this case there is about a 0.2 sec delay between pressing the on button on the phone and the light turning on/off. If communication through the router is used then the response time to the button press is almost instantaneous.

To create a group press the + group in the upper right. it will take you to a screen where you can enter an group name and select which device, from amongst all the devices on the network, belong to the group. Once the group is created return to the Home screen. On the home screen the switch to the right of each group looks like a Decora switch that is pressed in when active and flat when switched off. Pressing the circle to the left of the group name will take you to a device settings screen where the settings for each or every device in the group may be set. (More about this in the next paragraph). On the device setting screen there will be a + Scene button on the top left which you may use to save the current condition of the devices within the group. Pressing the name on the home screen will allow you change the name and set the members of the group. Once a scene is created the color of the button on the home screen will roughly match the colors of the devices in the scene.

On the devices screen, each device is listed in a separate category. The color of the icon roughly matches the selected hue of the bulb. Pushing either the icon or the name brings you to the device settings screen.

The device settings screen has a main light control wheel that features rotary sliders around a central on/off pushbutton. Adjusting the correlated color temperature sets the hue to the correct color, from cool blue to warm orange. The intensity may be adjusted independently of the hue. Using the outermost slider turns the display into a color wheel which allows the user to specify the hue and saturation. If the Lightify lamp is lit while you are adjusting these settings it changes color according to your selection. The lamp is very responsive to your color and brightness selections which makes finding a lamp color an easy experience. Unfortunately, there is no record of actual RGBW values. Pressing the device name at the top of the screen allows the user to edit the name of the device. Pushing the rocker switch icon at the top left allows the user to change the default appearance of the device. There are three more buttons at the bottom of the screen: Presets, Favorites, and Camera.

The presets screen shows 14 different color presets. There are three presets that are static color settings: plant light, active, and relax. There are two long-period dynamic lighting presets called day light and good night light. The good night light will fade to off in a user-set amount of time and the day light will simulate the color of sunlight throughout the day. The other light patterns are short-period dynamic lighting presets and include Fireplace, Ocean, Evening, LIGHTIFY Loop, Candy, Polar light, White and White, Activate, and Chill Down. The speed of the color change may be set for each dynamic preset and the brightness may be changed for all of these except for Activate and Chill Down.

The color loops and the dynamic lighting are unique features of the Lightify gateway. I was unable to create this with the SmartThings hub CoRE programming, but it may be duplicated if the actual header information is programmed into a SmartThings program. Still, this would take some above average programming knowledge. The main differentiator is the speed at which colors may change. Note that the presets may not be saved as favorites, may not be saved as scenes, and will not resume if the bulb is turned off. They may only be set from the device screen or the group screen.

The favorites button lists the 16 favorite user settings for each device. The favorites may be saved by pressing the circle inscribed heart to the top right of the setting wheel. Note that when I added my Android phone account to the iPhone account that the existing favorites disappeared. The favorites show the approximate hue and brightness, but there is no way to name the favorite.

The camera icon allows the user to match the hue of the light to a grouping of pixels in a stored image or a captured photo. This is a neat trick but I believe it is mostly a tool to demonstrate the range of the RGBW lighting capabilities.

There are six more capabilities of the gateway. Four of them are under the Features menu: Scheduler, Wake-up light, Vacation Modes, TV Simulation. The scheduler will simply turn on the light for a predetermined period every weekday the scheduler is selected. Any number of schedules may be set, so more than one on-off cycle may be scheduled per day. The wake up alarm will dim the selected light from a low brightness to bright daylight and then switch off at a desired time. The smartphone/tablet that created the wake-up event will signal an alarm (alarm and tickling [sic], digital alarm clock, fog horn, old alarm clock and ringing, seagulls on beach, whistle, or wild birds). The acoustic alarm won’t sound if the smartphone/tablet is in silent mode. The vacation mode will turn on and off the lights between every 5 minutes and every 2 hours (user-selectable) in the time period selected. Finally, there is a TV simulator that uses the color loops to simulate a TV being watched within a user-selected time period.

The settings menu allows the lights to work with Nest home and away profiles so that different lighting can be set to each mode. The settings screen on the iPhone allows customization of the today screen widget, and a widget is also available on Android, that allows the user to set group and scene lighting from outside of the app.

Lastly, the gateway can be integrated with Amazon Alexa smart home automation to permit devices to be turned on and off and set to a percent intensity. Sadly, Alexa doesn’t allow the setting of color or correlated color temperature. Alexa only controls devices through the gateway; if you want to control groups you need to define them within the Amazon smart home settings. Also, since you will have to speak the name of your device, make sure it is one that you will be able to roll off your tongue. In the images above I have FlexOut RGBW 01 listed as a device but I renamed this to Strip for use with Alexa.

In conclusion, the LEDVANCE Lightify Gateway provides flexibility and creativity in the operation of lights and plugs. The gateway provides limited automation in the form of turning on and off lights and plugs using ZigBee switches and sensors, programming lights and plugs using timers and alarms, and coordinating modes with a Nest thermostat. The gateway also allows limited control with Amazon Alexa. More advanced automation, such as integration with IFTTT, Stringify, or other home automation devices is not supported. However, this gateway is available for $32.59 alone, and is often packaged with LEDVANCE lamps for even larger savings. If you want to explore home automation without breaking the bank, and if you want flexible, responsive, and creative lighting capabilities from the palm of your hand, then the LEDVANCE Lightify Gateway may be just what you’re looking for.

Source: The sample for this review was provided by LEDVANCE Sylvania. Please visit their site for more info and Amazon to order.

Product Information

Price:	$32.59
Manufacturer:	LEDVANCE Sylvania
Retailer:	Amazon
Requirements:	Requires active WiFi Network and LIGHTIFY Compatible ZigBee Products Free LIGHTIFY App runs on Apple iOS7 or above and Android 4.1 or above
Pros:	Inexpensive saves favorite settings color looping scheduler Nest and Amazon Alexa enabled
Cons:	No IFTTT or Stringify

Filed in categories: Home and Kitchen, Reviews

Tagged: Home Automation, LED lighting

LEDVANCE’s Sylvania Lightify Gateway review originally appeared on on April 3, 2017 at 10:03 am.

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Traeger wants to make you a ‘smarter’ griller this summer with their new Timberline grills

The weather is warming up and that means sun, fun and grilling season. This year Traeger wants to make your grilling and smoking even easier. With their new Timberline 850 and 1300 model grills they’re introducing WiFIRE control. With WiFIRE you can control your Timberline grill from your phone. So you can adjust your grill from the couch, or across town using the Traeger App. It lets you kick up the smoke, set timers and change the temperature. A great feature if you’re busy doing some inside cooking while also grilling outside at the same time.

The Timberline grill comes in two models, the 850 and 1300. Each model number designates the amount of grilling area in square inches. So for example, the 850 model gives you 850 square inches of grilling area. Price wise the Timberline grills aren’t cheap, $1699.99 and $1999.99 for the 850 and 1300 models respectively. But, if you really love to grill and want to be the envy of your neighbors this summer, then check out the Timberline grills from Traeger.

For more information or to purchase one head over to Traegergrills.com. Happy grilling!

Filed in categories: Home and Kitchen, News, Outdoor Gear

Tagged: Cooking, Grilling

Traeger wants to make you a ‘smarter’ griller this summer with their new Timberline grills originally appeared on on April 3, 2017 at 9:00 am.

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Eufy RoboVac 11 robotic vacuum review

When you live in a nearly 100 year old house with hardwood floors and 2 dogs that are over-achievers when it comes to shedding, you learn to live with pet hair. Seriously, Steve – our older dog – sheds enough each week to create a 1/3 size replica of himself. There are many automated solutions out there for vacuuming up the excess pet hair, but many of those devices have interesting definitions of how much is “excess”. How well does the Eufy RoboVac 11 stack up against the competition? Let’s find out!

The RoboVac 11

Eufy is about 13 inches across, 4 inches tall and weighs in at around 3 and a half pounds. Pretty average, size-wise. As you can see from the picture below, Eufy has 2 side brushes on the underside that spin as the vacuum moves to help dislodge dirt and debris. The vacuum sits just ever so much higher off the floor than other robo-vacuums, and there is a pretty good reason for this. More on that shortly. Setup is easy – snap on the 2 side brushes, peel off the plastic cover that protects the body in shipping, place the unit on the charger and you are ready to go.

The manual tells you to place the base unit/charger in a place where you can have approximately 3 feet on both the right and left sides, and 6 feet behind – assuming you place the base against a wall. Problem is, our house is 1200 square feet split among 2 humans and dogs, so finding anywhere with that much open space is as statistically close to impossible as you can get. I am happy to say that is merely a guideline – I was able to get this in our dining room with about 2 feet on either side and maybe 3 feet behind, and Eufy seems to like that arrangement just fine. After an initial charge of about 6 hours (unusual to say the least, and no subsequent charge has taken that long), Eufy was ready for action.

A remote control is supplied in order to program Eufy. You’ll need 2-AAA batteries as they are not included in the package. Once the batteries are in, you can set the time. A word of caution here: whenever you use the remote, you should have it pointed at Eufy. The remote does not operate on radio frequencies but rather on infrared, so if the command from remote does not reach Eufy directly, you may end up wondering why things don’t work as expected. My example: I did not aim the remote at Eufy when setting the time, so I can only assume that Eufy’s internal clock started ticking at midnight. That assumption was proven when Eufy started working on its schedule – which was off by as exactly the difference between midnight and the time when I set the remote. Lesson learned.

But does it vacuum?

Like other robotic vacuums, Eufy has a bumper guard on the front and sensors elsewhere to help guide it through what it calls “obstacles” and you call “furniture”. The RoboVac 11 does not come with any sort of electronic fence but it does appear to have a cliff sensor because not once has Eufy ever tried to fall down the basement stairs. There are a few operating modes: spot (moving in ever-widening circles), edge (find the edges of the space and clean along them), single room (good if you don’t have an open floor plan) and manual (you guide with the directional keys on the remote). There are also a couple of automatic modes including a max clean which amps up the suction for carpeting but drains the battery faster. You can also program Eufy to clean at a specific time of day and when the time comes, it will clean using a variety of the modes to cover the most space.

The front of Eufy showing off the bumper:

And the back where the collection drawer and HEPA-filter is located:

This has to be one of the quietest vacuums I have ever seen. I mean, this guy is astonishingly silent and yet effective. Every time I empty the container I am surprised by how much dirt has been collected. And the house shows it – in the couple of weeks Eufy has been on the job, there is a marked reduction in the dog hair hanging around. The house just looks good.

The quirks

And you knew there had to be some, right?

The first one really isn’t a quirk, but more of a wish for different behavior. Eufy does not have an app to control it as some others do. It would definitely add to the price (which is tantalizingly low), but having the option would be nice, especially if it could tell me things via the Internet – like that it is stuck somewhere, the battery is low, it missed a cleaning cycle. Just a bunch of different “smart-home” type data that is becoming common with automated appliances.

On the getting stuck thing: I suppose Eufy does not get stuck any more or less than any other vacuum, but there are a couple of places in my living room where Eufy just doesn’t seem to learn to avoid. One is a cold air return grate of the floor, another is under an ottoman in the living room, and another behind the TV where the dangerous octopus collection of power cords live. Eufy will wander into these traps a couple of times a week, and when Eufy becomes trapped, he beeps a few times and shuts down. The first obstacle is easy, but if Eufy runs while you are gone, you may play an elaborate game of hide and seek when you see he isn’t on the charge base. And the remote does not help.

Another quirk: carpeting. Most of our house is hardwood flooring, but we have an area rug in the living room that Eufy navigates just fine. Weirdly, though, we have a thinner runner rug by the front door, and about half the time Eufy gets on that carpet and then can’t keep going. It must be something to do with the way the wheels interact with the carpet, but often I have to rescue Eufy from the rug.

Finally, getting back to home base can sometimes be a challenge. There does not appear to be any sort of system that would allow Eufy to home in on the charge base, or if there is it is somewhat ineffective. At least once a week I have to pick Eufy up and put him back on life support because he died in the field. One afternoon just for laughs (thanks to the cold medication I was taking) I put Eufy on auto and let him clean a while, then hit the home button. What ensued was a weird dance around the charge base even though he was only about six feet from it when he received the recall order. All told, from the time I told him to go home until he finally parked on the base it took nearly 10 minutes. And he was not vacuuming during that time.

One thing that isn’t a quirk, however, is the dog reaction. The first couple of days Eufy was in the house, the dogs ran up to him and barked, and when he turned they ran away. Steve spit tennis balls at him those first few days, but Eufy took it like a champ and kept on going. Now Eufy is just another thing in the house and the dogs are OK with him as long as he doesn’t run into them while they sleep on the living room carpet.

Maybe the last quirk is that after having him around long enough, you too might anthropomorphize the device and start thinking of it as a “him” with the name “Eufy”.

The verdict

The Eufy RoboVac-11 is a great automated solution. It works as well as any of the other big names but does so at a fraction of the cost. It is very well made and appears that it can stand a very long life running into the sofa legs. The house regularly looks cleaner than it has for some time, and in the end that is the reason you buy something like this. Replacement supplies like the HEPA-filter and side brushes are available on Amazon, so you should have no trouble keeping your Eufy running smoothly for a very long time to come.

Source: The sample for this review was provided by Eufy. For more info visit their site or check Amazon for pricing.

Product Information

Price:	$240.00
Manufacturer:	Eufy
Retailer:	Amazon
Pros:	Low price compared to others in the same class Well made Incredibly quiet
Cons:	No app to control

Filed in categories: Home and Kitchen, Reviews

Tagged: Vacuum

Eufy RoboVac 11 robotic vacuum review originally appeared on on April 1, 2017 at 5:41 pm.

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Notion home awareness sensor kit review

Home automation, security, and remote monitoring are all hot topics right now. The ability to know that everything at your property is fine when we’re not physically there is a priceless gift for chronic worriers and people who like to feel in control. There are many systems on the market that will let you install cloud-enabled smoke alarms, window and door alarms, temperature alarms, leak detectors and more. But I’m going to tell you about a system where one sensor can do all of those things. Let’s take a look at the Notion home awareness sensor kit.

What is it?

The Notion home awareness sensor kit is a home monitoring system that uses a bridge and wireless sensors that will tell you if a door has been opened or closed, a window has been opened or closed, if there’s a leak, if the temperature is higher or lower than a set temp, and if there’s a smoke alarm. But instead of picking and choosing different sensors to monitor different things, each Notion sensors can do everything.

What’s in the box?

You can buy Notion systems with 3 or 5 sensors. I received the 3 sensor package which includes:

1 Notion bridge
3 Notion sensors
Quick start guide

Design and features

The Notion system consists of a bridge and a set of sensors. The bridge shown above looks like an AC adapter. It’s made of white plastic and has an LED on the top edge that blinks green to indicate that it’s communicating with the sensors.

The sensors are also made of white plastic with an LED at the 9 o’clock position.

The sensors are 2-inches across and have adhesive on the bottom that can be used to stick the sensor to a door, window, ceiling, etc.

You’ll also notice the QR code on the bottom, that’s used during the setup phase to identify each sensor that you want to install.

The sensors run on a CR2477N coin cell lithium battery. According to their online FAQ, that battery should power the sensor for about a year.

Installation

Setting up the Notion system is extremely easy. The first step is to install the Notion app on your iOS or Android device. You’ll then create an account and follow the step-by-step instructions to add the sensors to the bridge.

I installed one sensor on my basement door by peeling and sticking the adhesive.

I placed another Notion sensor on the front door. If you notice the oblong sensor above the Notion in the image above, that’s a sensor from the SimpliSafe security system that I reviewed almost 8 years ago.

I put the third sensor in the bedroom.

Note that each Notion bridge can handle up to 15 sensors on its network.

Each sensor can have a maximum of 3 tasks that can be chosen from the list above. When you add one task, it affects the rest of the tasks that you can add to that one sensor. For example, if you choose Door as one of the tasks, you’ll not be able to also add the window task to the same sensor.

Some of the tasks can be customized to alert based on a certain condition like the temperature going above or below a specified temp.

Once you’ve setup the tasks for each sensor, you can view their status through the app’s sensor screen. Clicking on each task will show you more details about that task including a log of alarms and the ability to customize how you would like to be alerted when an event is detected.

You can add multiple people to your Notion account who will be notified when an alarm is detected and you can also set a quiet time when you will not be notified of an alert or you can set the system to only notify you when you’re away from home.

The screenshot above might lead you to believe that the Notion system will alert fire or police if an alarm is detected. It won’t. The app just detects the emergency numbers based on your location and puts them on a screen for your reference. Of course, you really just need to call 911.

Using the system

After the Notion bridge and sensors are installed and configured through the app. You can just sit back and wait to be notified about alarms. The notifications show up on your mobile device like you see above.

Sounds fantastic right? Yeah, that’s what I thought. But unfortunately, it has not been all rainbows and unicorns…

Problems from the start

Things worked pretty well for the first day when I was mainly testing the door opening and closing tasks. But the next day, the basement sensor started reporting that it had gone offline.

It spontaneously came back online only to disconnect again the next day. Before you ask if the bridge was not close enough to the sensor, it was in the same room with an unobstructed line of sight to the sensor about 20 feet away.

I left the sensor in that state for a couple of days just to see if it would come back online on its own. It didn’t. I then removed the sensor’s cover and that must have done something (what, I don’t know) to fix it because it’s been online ever since.

That said, another sensor has gone offline and would not reconnect until I removed the cover and jiggled the battery.

The next problem happened today when the front door sensor reported that it had detected a leak when there was absolutely no water, steam, condensation or anything remotely damp near it. The weird thing is that when I went into the sensor log page, it didn’t show that it had detected a leak. An hour later a sensor that was sitting on the desk next to me also notified me of a non-existent leak and this time it did show up in the log but again, there was no reason for it to detect water.

Testing sensor tasks

I tested the leak detection feature and found that it doesn’t take much water for it to send an alert. But I don’t know why it sometimes detects a leak when there isn’t one to detect.

I also tested the door opening and closing tasks which was more reliable than the other tasks.

The temperature task also works well.

The most disappointing task is the smoke alarm task because the sensor does not really detect smoke at all. It actually listens for an existing smoke alarm and alerts off of the sound which I think is a lame way to do it because the sensor depends on a working smoke detector to work.

Final thoughts

I like the idea of the Notion home awareness sensor kit and had high expectations for it. But it didn’t take long to discover that this system has some technical problems:

The sensors randomly disconnect.
The sensors detect leaks when there aren’t any.
The smoke alarm task doesn’t really detect smoke.
No notification when sensor batteries are low.

Add in that the system won’t work without power and an internet connection and it just has too many issues for me to be able to recommend it.

Source: The sample for this review was provided by Notion. Please visit their site for more info.

Product Information

Price:	$219 (3 sensors and 1 bridge), $299 (5 sensors and 1 bridge)
Manufacturer:	Notion
Pros:	Easy to set up Each sensor can do multiple things No monthly fees
Cons:	Smoke alarm doesn't detect smoke Leak detection task is not reliable Sensors randomly disconnect Won't work without power or an internet connection

Filed in categories: Home and Kitchen, Reviews

Tagged: Sensor

Notion home awareness sensor kit review originally appeared on on March 30, 2017 at 11:14 am.

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