Hi All - We are in the process of buying a new to us house built in the 60s. We are replacing the furnace and AC with a new Trane system and the company is installing a Trane XL850 Nexia enabled thermostat. I am totally and completely new to the topic of home automation. I was not familiar at all with Nexia so I checked into it and saw that they are a subscription service ($10-15/month) to use their cloud-based service. That was not appealing to me but the idea of the services available was really appealing.
We have some it appears to be very simple asks when I look at all the possibilities that one could do. It would be nice to tie furnace automation in with our smartphones and tablets to set the scheduling and changes from there as opposed to standing in front of the thermostat. We don't have any sensor based zone systems or anything as such either. We also need to replace all the locks in the house and have growing children, so this would be a great opportunity to put Nexia-type or Z-Wave type locks with keypads on the door. This way I could give my kids a code instead of a key, lock and/or open the doors remotely and all those things. That is really about it for now. I don't have any Hue lights, any other security or video things or anything as such. If I were to think of any future expansion I would do, I could see possibly adding a camera to the entry door to capture when anyone approaches or a package is delivered. I wouldn't mind integrating my garage door opener into that mix and maybe eventually some indoor lighting.
I did some searching around for information on this site, at Reddit r/gadgets and r/homeautomation but thought I would ask here and for anyone else coming into the same boat as me. I was not really finding a newbie FAQ and it seems like there is much information overload. Suggestions or help as to how I might proceed?
We have some it appears to be very simple asks when I look at all the possibilities that one could do. It would be nice to tie furnace automation in with our smartphones and tablets to set the scheduling and changes from there as opposed to standing in front of the thermostat. We don't have any sensor based zone systems or anything as such either. We also need to replace all the locks in the house and have growing children, so this would be a great opportunity to put Nexia-type or Z-Wave type locks with keypads on the door. This way I could give my kids a code instead of a key, lock and/or open the doors remotely and all those things. That is really about it for now. I don't have any Hue lights, any other security or video things or anything as such. If I were to think of any future expansion I would do, I could see possibly adding a camera to the entry door to capture when anyone approaches or a package is delivered. I wouldn't mind integrating my garage door opener into that mix and maybe eventually some indoor lighting.
I did some searching around for information on this site, at Reddit r/gadgets and r/homeautomation but thought I would ask here and for anyone else coming into the same boat as me. I was not really finding a newbie FAQ and it seems like there is much information overload. Suggestions or help as to how I might proceed?
