7 Common Smart Home FAILS and How To Avoid Them

I'd add #8, building automations without accounting for other people using the house (either others who live with you or, more often overlooked, guests staying over). Occupancy detection based on your phone being present, press the light switch vs double tap to turn on different lights / scenes, etc.

My key one - stay away from just about all of the propriety systems. They will always die and eventually become unsupported. Open standards and software for automation is fantastic and should be promoted more.

Awesome video. My favorite is the don't replace existing functionality, just enhance it. Or make sure if the "smart" tech fails, your house will still function. This is fantastic advice. Thanx for the great video.

In Addition to #6: Dont think about all the cool function you can implement, think about the user and the convience of use. For example: IKEA smart light bulbs support three analog values: brightness, color-temp and transition time. So i added three analog sliders for each bulb in my dashboard. But do i really need these endless combination possibilities and control the brightness in 5% steps? No! Now i have just three buttons that run pre-defiened presets and thats enough and i am happy with it!

Mistake 1: trusting any Amazon/Alexa product.

Documenting everything was the best thing I ever did, especially with HomeKit codes or how cables were run. Also glad you called out replacing smoke alarms. Scary how many people are jumping into smart smoke detectors but using cheap $5 knock off junk by companies that don’t exist anywhere outside an Amazon ad.

Extra Mistake : Consider a naming structure and stick to it, it really helps when troubleshooting or writing automations my current is device_location_attruibute wallswitch_bedroom_battery motionsensor_stairs_action

I love this video! To me, these are smart home principles and too often I violate a principle and then I'm disappointed. These principles are going to become a checklist for me when I'm adding components to my smart home. Thanks for laying these out

Great advice!! - I like to remind people that eventually they will move and need to either hand-off the system or remove components so don't make it too complex or reliant on you to make it work. #1-3 become really important when it is time to sell.

I think my biggest waste of money has been between smart buttons, smart light switches, smart wall plugs and smart bulbs. If i had known since the beginning what are the advantages of each one and how each applies to different scenarios would have saved a lot of money. And definitely stay away from proprietary stuff, 10 different hubs, etc.

I've always kept in mind an advice from Reed, which is to always think a lot on when to not run automations, the spous approval factor goes way up! Great video!

Respect for the Mitch Hedburg plug! That guy was hilarious!

I haven't gone crazy with home automation, but one of the main things I always look for are systems that can be run entirely locally and don't rely on cloud services for basic functionality. I've had to sometimes build DIY solutions from the ground up, which can be super annoying, but I have the time and skill to do it and it can be fun. Security cameras were the latest one I played with. I don't particularly care for all of my streams to go through remote servers, even if the apps and features certainly make it easier to manage them. I got clever with my latest solution and got to blend good points about two different systems together without having to lose either one. I originally tried to set up object detection on my cameras via ZoneMinder, and while I appreciated the tagging for what type of object it found, I found that it didn't really work as well as the native object detection that already came with my cameras. That being said, I didn't want the cameras on the public internet, so I couldn't use the app that came with them for notifications for motion. Worked around it by letting the cameras still do the object detection, but they upload snapshots to my server that then sends me a notification with the thumbnail. A lot of work to replicate what was already there if I just wanted to use the camera app, but this way is fully self hosted and doesn't rely on third party servers.

Documenting EVERYTHING and logging is key, also taking a lot of pics and take the time to sort it smart. Saves me a lot of head ache. Another tip is when you log things is to ad a ton of different terms for the ”thingy” you looking for, two years later you will find it.

The "Mitch Hedberg Principle of Home Automation" is a great call! "Elevator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience".

Another well produced, informative video. Thanks Rob! "Operating without Internet" has become my #1 focus on my journey to DIY smart home fun. Privacy has little to do with that decision - it was not being able to use the Belkin/WEMO devices, while sitting on my couch, on my home network that pushed me over that edge. Now to find the wi-fi enabled speaker and media player set up that can be used to play local audio files as notifications. Something other than a Nest Mini. I'm pretty excited about the Year of the Voice and Rhasspy know-how getting incorporated into Home Assistant.

As part of number 1, don't forget to restart things once in a while just to see how they react: what happens if I restart home assistant? What happens if I restart that ESP? What happens if I restart my access point? and so on. A house that can't repair itself after a small failure isn't smart :)

As I am about two years into the smart home journey - I wish I would have seen this first. Great advice for someone starting fresh and seasoned veteran. I learned the hard way about not documenting and now keep a folder for each device I add and the uniques steps I had to do to connect. One last thing I would add is that to not be afraid to try it. I have added items that I thought I would love but did not work and I have added items that I was unsure of and now love.

First off… props for quoting Mitch Hedberg. That guy was legendary and lost too early. But then… had I been drinking anything when you said “who doesn’t want robots to do their budding” would have made me spew through my nose! I honestly only watched this one out of boredom was was entertained. Good job buddy!

Love the Mitch reference! "Sorry for the convenience!" lol