I Tried Building the PERFECT Smart Home: What I Learned (Mistakes Included)
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Published 2023-04-30
Kara Light Switch: amzn.to/40PwC1V
Hue Motion Sensor: amzn.to/3Vl1OVO
Hue Light Bulbs: amzn.to/3AFS1Qv
Lutron Switches (Requires Hub): amzn.to/3HrhIIa
Aqara Temp and Humidity Sensor (Requires Hub): amzn.to/3oSelDO
Tapo Smart Plug: amzn.to/4295JqN
Affiliate links to YouTube gear I use:
Sony a7siii: go.magik.ly/ml/1qb8i/
Sony A7c: go.magik.ly/ml/1qb8k/
14in M1 Pro MacBook Pro: go.magik.ly/ml/1qb83/
Mac Studio: go.magik.ly/ml/1qb8o/
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
1:00 What's the Goal?
1:50 What Needs Automating?
2:40 What Devices Do We Need?
5:53 Smart Home Standards
7:53 Smart Home Ecosystem
10:23 Home Assistant
12:21 Conclusion
Let’s talk about what I learned trying to make this house smart, this includes all the things I would do differently with everything I know now. That’s the idea, make things more convenient and make less things for me to worry about, which you’re about to see from me, actually leads to a lot of inconveniences itself.
We’ll need a way to control the ceiling fan, the 3 lamps, and the blinds. We also need something that can tell when someone is in the room, and a way to tell how hot or cold this room is. So, what devices are available to do these tasks? If you’re trying to control lights, you have smart bulbs, smart plugs, and smart light switches. Each have their own pros and cons and really you have to figure out for yourself what’s best to use for your situation. As for the ceiling fan, I’m going to use a smart switch since I don’t care about the fan speed and the fan will only be kept on medium anyway when I have it on. Now the hardest part was finding devices for the blinds. I had to purchase these aqara E1 drivers, to smartify and motorize these existing blinds.
To solve the remaining items, we’ll need to use sensors. These are the “eyes” of your smart home. These can be used for your smart home to understand what’s happening in your house and can be used in your home automations. And sometimes you can actually find multi-purpose sensors that have more than one sensor built in. Like the one I have right here. The Philips Hue motion sensor, has a motion, illuminance and temperature sensor all built into this single device.
The primary smart home ecosystems are Alexa, google home, and Apple Home or Homekit. You have to be careful using one because you have to be on the lookout to see if your specific ecosystem is supported by the device or hub that controls all these devices. So it requires a bit of research to make sure you have the right device. These systems don’t talk to each other and you get stuck in a situation where a bunch of devices only work on one platform but not the other. So my solution for a while was to just use both google home and apple home and use them for different things.
Home Assistant is a tool that enables you to consolidate pretty much all your smart home devices and more like your NAS into a single point. And from there it can behave as your smart home letting you control all your devices in the Home Assistant app, or then route all of your devices back to your desired smart home ecosystem even if they were not originally supported by that ecosystem. See this TP-link motion controlled light switch? It’s not Apple Home compatible, but with Home assistant controlling it, it can be used in Apple Home. Home assistant also has super robust automations that let you make some really complex stuff. The level of customization Home Assistant provides is fantastic. That being said, it has its own issues too, some integrations with Home Assistant aren’t very good and doesn’t work the way you’d expect. Home Assistant also requires being a bit techy to fully setup, and since the automations are so robust, it’s easy to make a mistake that leads to unintended consequences, like the lights turning on randomly at midnight causing your significant other to wake up. So if you’re willing to spend some time with it, it can definitely enhance your smart home, and make it so much better as long as you’re aware of its limitations.
So here’s a summary of all my tips. Research what you’re buying, make sure they’re compatible with everything you use now and in the near future, use 3rd party platforms like Home assistant to further consolidate what you need and force compatibility for the devices that aren’t compatible with your smart home ecosystem and use it to control all the automations in a single place. And take it one room at a time to keep the end goal in sight.
All Comments (21)
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"But we're here to spend 100s of hours now to save a minute or two in the future." 😅
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I love your sense of humor and subscribed for that alone :) When I started automating my home, I did one thing right and one thing wrong. First, I used the "sigh" method of automation. What made my husband or son (or me) sigh? I remember my first one was my husband (who had bad knees) would sigh in frustration when he sat down, got all comfortable, had a cat in his lap, and realized he forgot to turn on the fan. So, I created an automation that when he sat down in his chair, the fan would turn on. My son would feel terrible when he would do the trash at night but then forget to close the garage door. So, I created an automation that would close the garage door after a certain time. These automations worked great and were invisible to the family. They didn't have to remember a certain phrase with Alexa. They didn't have to change their routine in any way to accommodate the house. Just live your life and the house worked for you. The thing I did wrong was not getting buy in from my family. In my defense, it never occurred to me that they wouldn't love home automation. When my son heard the garage door close, he didn't think, "Ah, the house is taking care of me". What he heard was, "I forgot the garage door! AGAIN!" So now, when I hear a sigh of frustration, I ask my son what he thinks. Does he want an automation? If so, how would he like it to work? Since doing that, he's even approached me with automation ideas!
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Definitely feel like this man spent many hours in his room messing with lights and tinkering. Absolutely love it.
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I reckon the real value in smart home automation is making optimal use of passive heat gain and loss to maintain a comfortable temperature with minimal energy use. Automated blinds or even air vents networked with brightness and temperature sensors and perhaps weather forecasting could go a long way.
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2:05 I control the TV and the lights with the IR-blaster in my phone. It takes a little getting used to but the ability to make buttons you use often larger slightly reduces the initial convenience problems. Of course you won't get that feeling that buttons give you (both sensing what button your finger is on and feedback).
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In response to the bathroom fan, I found the DewStop switch to be very handy. You can calibrate the sensitivity for the season and it automatically times out if you are going number 2.
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I love this video! Very clear and answered all my questions regarding advanced home automation. I’ll definitely try Home Assistant coming from a background of programming Crestron and Control4 systems
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I watched this video several months ago, and fast forward to today we moved into a house that really need automated window shades that were in a very high inconvenient location. I quickly remembered your video because of how much i enjoyed it and searched through my YT history and finally found this video again! We just bought the Aqara motor. Thanks for your tips!
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Hi Jimmy, I use Home Assistant as well. I get up early for work which in Winter is before sunrise and I have an aquarium in my room. When I turn the light on this wakes the fish and I did not want to influence their circadian rhythms by then switching off the light and leaving, so my automation is as follows. - If it is a work day, gradually fade the lights up and start to indicate by colour going whiter closer to my departure time. - Leave the lights on, this is enough to side illuminate my aquarium and the fish start their day, - 45 minutes after Sunrise, the curtain will open to allow natural light in. - 60 minutes after Sunrise, the internal lighting will go out.
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I am in this ship. I am comfortable with the automations. I helped a neighbor get his up, and I realized that we have a lot of work to do to help the public understand.
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Found this video while looking for ideas for other Smart Home automations. Glad to see my own trip down the rabbit hole is similar to others. Started with some Arlo smart cameras and a Nest Thermostat. Then added a Gen 1 Google Assistant speaker. Then was off to the races as they say. Now just about every outlet, light switch and fan in my home is smart. Once you start it's really hard to stop. Recently added Home Assistant as when my GF moved in I needed to also support Apple/HomeKit. Had that same issue and needed to force compatibility as you say. HomeBridge is great for that too. When we eventually sell this home it will be hard to leave so much of this hardware behind. But looking forward to Matter and hopefully my next Smart Home will be easier and deployed smarter. Also really like what you did with the blinds may look into adding something similar.
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Literally bought my Philips hue bulbs last week and now I’m going down this automation rabbit hole. Can’t wait to start putting more things up in my new house!!
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This is what Home Assistant is for! Gluing all of these standards together. Zigbee, Z-Wave, Thread/WiFi for Matter, WiFi, Bluetooth, the cloud, basically regardless of device manufacturer. Well worth getting it set up. I use Aqara devices with a Zigbee USB stick on my Home Assistant server with zero issues. The automation capabilities are unparalleled in even professional installations!
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The most frustrating thing about smart homes is the vast difference in connectivity standards and interfaces for controlling your devices in ways that are both convenient and compatible with existing home designs.
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🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 00:00 💡 Start with identifying the problems you want to solve in each room before buying devices 01:13 🛠️ Focus on automating one room at a time instead of the whole house 02:50 🔌 Consider smart bulbs, plugs or switches for lighting control based on your needs 03:49 ⬆️ Smart switches may not work if you rent, smart plugs offer flexibility 06:09 🤝 Zigbee, Z-Wave and Matter are protocols for devices communicating through a hub 07:34 📱 Pick devices compatible across platforms to avoid multiple apps 08:46 🏠 Google, Apple and Amazon have main smart home ecosystems to link devices 10:38 🧙♂️ Home Assistant consolidates devices and enables complex automations 13:16 💡 Research carefully, focus on compatibility and take it one room at a time Made with
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Thanks for this video, I found it really complete and helpful to understand the world of smart home devices since I am starting my software engineering journey in two weeks and I am looking forward to dedicate my time in learning while having fun with useful things as well, like domotics, assistants and smart devices... this video really helped me to have an overview about this world, thanks a lot !
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Feels like the best video on the topic I watched! I‘m not new to the smart home world any longer but not having made big changes to my system and having moved to a bigger place recently, I feel like I‘m starting over somehow 😂
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so much knowledge keep up the good work
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I started with Homey Pro as my main smart ecosystem. Incredible experience. Recommend to both techies and non-techies
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The video I’ve been waiting for. One of us. One of us.
