A Vote For Good Service

Sometimes you get a pleasant surprise.

Yesterday was a “free” day, one of the handful of days off I have scheduled myself for between now and the end of the year (and we all know what happens after that…)

I had a few outside errands to run, and some yard clean-up to do, but it was also an excellent day to tackle two things I had been dreading–sorting out the networking electronics on a door lock and on our thermostat. I love connectivity; I hate setting up connectivity.

The door lock was by far the greater challenge. Our original builder’s special south-facing lock set was peeling, chipping, and crying for replacement. We had ordered an Emtech brand lock with a sleek outside touchpad and inside handles to complement our decor. A week ago, with the help of a power tool packing neighbor, I got the lock installed, and functional using the outside keypad. Just two problems. One, it made odd beeping sounds, and two, I could not connect to our home Wi-Fi network.

I was struggling with manuals and Internet videos when Barb decided to call Emtech’s telephone customer support. I inwardly scoffed–do companies even staff those lines anymore? As I expected a long, Muzak-tinged, hold ensued. Eventually, a friendly voice did answer and we described our difficulties.

The tech support person was patient and hardly laughed at my mistakes as we went through the entire procedure step-by-step. We detected one small error in my procedure–yes she said, I needed to remove and then reinsert all four batteries after doing a factory reset, not only the two I was taking out and putting back in to “save time.”

Our support person then transferred us over to customer support for Yale, the company that handled the network connectivity for the lock. Again, the agent was patient and helpful–and this time we uncovered a problem with our original installation of the lock hardware. We called in a local locksmith (showed up in ten minutes, charged us as if we were Powerball winners) and he took care of the necessary drilling and adjusting of the deadbolt.

Another call to Yale, a little tweaking, and Barb and I can now each operate our side door lock remotely. Will we ever use that superpower?

Why was I planning on spending the rest of the day working on our thermostat? Our system relies on wireless remote sensors to feed the main thermostat brain the temperature in various areas of the house. After Cooper chewed up one of the sensors a replacement was necessary. I found the correct gizmo online and it arrived on Sunday–with no information on how to get it to talk to the main thermostat. Yesterday I eschewed all self-attempts to install the device and just called the Honeywell Hotline.

Under the direction of a young man on the phone, I spent five minutes of tapping through items on the thermostat’s touchscreen menu, memorized and punched in one code number, and voila, the sensor was connected.

The only thing we have to do now is to keep it from our very curious dog with a propensity for chewing….

AND IF YOU HAVEN’T YET DONE SO, PLEASE VOTE!

Ring-a-Ding-Ding, I Do Hate This Thing!

The sound of glass breaking. Once, then twice. I roll over, squinting to view the digital clock on my bedside cabinet. 2:37 a.m. I know from experience that no one is breaking one of the glass panels in our paneled front door. I know it is only the Ring app on Barb’s phone–the latest in modern security–letting us know a fern from our potted plant is waving past the sensor at our entrance. It’s another dream disturbed, another good night sleep lost.

Remember when we built this house five years ago, the original raison d’être for this blog? We put some technology in: wi-fi and soundbars and an electronic door lock. We have added tech through the years: Alexa now allows Google to track our every move and utterance, and we have a nifty motorized window shade. But we had resisted Ring.

Our front and side doorbells were nothing fancy. If someone pushed the doorbell button, Westminster chimes played. The tones were slightly different for the two doors, though I admit the dogs learned which tone was for which door better than I did. We would then stand, walk to the appropriate door and open it. Just like it has been done for millions of years.

A few months ago, while having some Wi-Fi updating done, we succumbed to temptation and had the Ring doorbell/security cameras installed, and added the app to our iPhones and Apple watches. And gave away a little bit of our sanity.

My wrist now vibrates every time Barb takes Cooper out for a walk. I get a tingle every time Barb goes out to water the flowers. I am alerted every time a goose waddles by and whenever debris gets blown by one of the doors.

Yes, I also now know important things such as every time FEDEX or Amazon makes a delivery to our home. But unlike many of our neighbors, we don’t do all that much online ordering. So far, deliveries have accounted for less than 1% of all the alerts–and the most frequent of those deliveries has been Lou Malnati’s Pizzas. And believe me, I don’t need an app to be watching for those particular deliveries (donations of thick-crust cheese and pepperoni, well done, gladly accepted!)

Yes, the installer gave us tips for minimizing all the nuisance notifications, but spoiler alert, the tips haven’t helped. Yes, I could totally turn the alerts off. Then what was the point of getting the contraptions in the first place? Good question!

So if I seem a little blurry-eyed on many a morning, if I keep checking my watch as another alert blazes through, you now know what’s going on. It’s just my head Ringing.

(Added note: I have received approximately 14 alerts while writing this blog. Ouch!)

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TikTok Problem Solved. No, Not THAT TikTok

So many of you wrote in with your thoughts, suggestions, and tips in regards to that awful tick-tick-tick in our walls. Though all of your help is appreciated, none of you nailed the cause of the noise. It wasn’t bees, or raccoons, or birds in the venting. It wasn’t the house settling. And much to my relief, it wasn’t scary mojo from long-forgotten burial grounds beneath the basement. But it is to the basement we shall go to solve our problem…

Thursday evening the printer died. Alexa2 stopped answering questions. By checking our phones I could tell that one of our wifi networks had died (no, I don’t know why we have two networks, the installer just did it that way.) So I visited the basement utility room to reboot the router or modem or whatever the black box is called. And the ticking down here was louder. I knew I was near the source.

I hunted around and saw a small green signal light flashing in time with the ticking. I flipped a switch under the flashing light and the ticking ended. Eureka! And what was the device that had been causing the ticks and the flashing light? It was an electronic air cleaner, part of our HVAC system.

When I think of house air filters, I think of fiberglass sheets in flimsy cardboard panels that slide into metal frames in the air duct system. You buy the filters by the case, and if you remember, you change them every few months, trying to avoid skinning your knuckles forcing them into place. That type of filter served us well in all our prior homes.

But the architect for this house designed the system with more “state-of-the-art” electronic air cleaners. These use filters to trap large particles, and electric charges to clump and remove smaller particles. But as the repairman explained to Barb, they are temperamental little beasts. They get dirty, they stop filtering, they click—and unless you pledge to clean all the parts several times a year, they are expensive to maintain. The workman let us know that many households left the casing in place but pulled out the electronic innards and inserted replaceable HEPA filters. Something for us to chew on.

Barb and I have developed a philosophy. We believe that the more gizmos and gadgets we have in the home, the more gizmos and gadgets we have that can go wrong. Yes, of course we love some of the doodads. Alexa keeps us entertained, the electronic keypad on our side door lets me go for a run without bringing keys. But sometimes plain-old plain-old wins the day. Give me those old cardboard air filters any day. I’ll live with a set of skinned knuckles. That is what Band-Aids are for.

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