I have added home assistant to the mix, after years of watching from afar, the IFTTT subscription and eWeLink subscription finally pushed me to install it on a spare Pi, I want to reduce my reliance on 3rd party clouds, especially with some of the less well known manufacturers. It works with nearly all my smart home stuff (with the exception of the flic hub I am hoping the new API will fix this). There is now a plugin for sonoff which works without having to change the firmware so I can wait a bit longer for the Shelly UK plugs which should be coming soon. 

I have updated the garden TV to use a firestick, which gives me Alexa in the garden through the voice enabled remote. I have also purchased a Chromecast with Google TV, it’s impressive but not impressive enough to move away from Roku. Alexa in the garden has always been something I wanted to have, but I didn’t really want a device outside full time that would allow people to control my house!

In new smart home news, I have the new Echo on order and the curtain bots have shipped, I’m really looking forward to trying both these products! Unifi have announced a G3 instant camera which will be a great replacement for the NEOS cameras and consolidation is what this iteration of the smarthome is all about. FTTP is now available, so I am weighing up my options when it comes to providers as I will have to leave my current provider (Plusnet) as they have no FTTP offering. I am currently looking at the 900Mbps service from Zen. I am unlikely to change until after Christmas though!