I Tried Building the PERFECT Smart Home: What I Learned (Mistakes Included)
I Tried Building the PERFECT Smart Home: What I Learned (Mistakes Included)
Affiliate links to Smart Home Tech I used and had lots of success with:
Kara Light Switch: https://amzn.to/40PwC1V
Hue Motion Sensor: https://amzn.to/3Vl1OVO
Hue Light Bulbs: https://amzn.to/3AFS1Qv
Lutron Switches (Requires Hub): https://amzn.to/3HrhIIa
Aqara Temp and Humidity Sensor (Requires Hub): https://amzn.to/3oSelDO
Tapo Smart Plug: https://amzn.to/4295JqN
Affiliate links to YouTube gear I use:
Sony a7siii: https://go.magik.ly/ml/1qb8i/
Sony A7c: https://go.magik.ly/ml/1qb8k/
14in M1 Pro MacBook Pro: https://go.magik.ly/ml/1qb83/
Mac Studio: https://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.
then, you can buy a smart brain, too. one that has no grammatical errors.
I love how he said it starts with the light bulb, cuz that’s exactly how I got here. 😂 do I stop and turn this off now? Forget it ever existed?
hahahha Alexa always has something to make you laugh, I think it’s top tier tech for home. That and my vionentus wallet with airtag slot made my daily life more stylish
White Kimberly Jones Karen Anderson Kimberly
Thank you for this good sir – Wish I would have found this 3 amazon returns ago…
Thank you Jimmy for Trying
Nice video, smart and funny guy. I am in the same situation: 3 hubs, 3 apps, more than 100 devices (zigbee mostly), but still struggling with routines too basic to be really useful.
7:28 now we know you have Alexa, and that there is first bad call it feature if you will, but if you are forbidden to say the name Alexa in your home now, what is next and what do you do when you have someone whose name is Alexa?
Very timely for my smart home project. I already installed smart switches, outlets, light bulbs, door locks, cctv cameras, & got my smart cooker, google speaker. I wanted to control my TV & other stuffs. But now stuck on installing many apps and now searching for an app that can control everything. This vid of yours is a great help. Imma try this tomorrow. Thanks for this!
Give Lutron Caseta a try when it comes down to you controlling lights. Great user interface and integrates well.
Great video! Thank you
Dude, as a moderately techie guy who has stood at the edge of the rabbit hole and stared down into the abyss; I wanted to say thank you. The video was well done, caused me laugh quite a few times, and made me second guess my decisions.
I love this video! Saving it to my future smart house playlist
Very helpful
Well that was very useful, thank you! Having a conversation with the family about what we want before we start is definitely a good idea. I think I want something at the "dumber" end of the smart home spectrum so I’ll stick with Google compatible products to smarten my home. A routine that will switch on the lights when I park on my drive will be useful – I suspect that will involve a compatible smart alarm system.
You had me at “it all starts with a single lightbulb” 💀
"life long journey" bro you’re roughly 35 , done this roughly 3 years max. Took me 1 day to figure this out , so at best you’re lying .
I started with a camera. Then bought an alexa. Realized that the camera brand isn’t fully integrated with Alexa. Ended up returning the camera, now I bought a lightbulb then realized that alexa doesn’t have the flexibility that I wanted for the light bulb. So considering returning the alexa for the nest. Then I did some search it seems that alexa works better than the nest. So I’m confused. LOL
HA 👍
I don’t need an automatic fan….mine in the bedroom runs 24-7-365 days a year! I am moving into a new home and trying to get set up. I am using everything compatible with Ring and Alexia. What is your opinion on the best TV that I can use Alexia through??
8:03 HomeAsistant? Bunch of other ones, Xiaomy, Tuya………..
Im a tech junkie. I have been installing smart homes for about 15 years now. to add to his selection on electrical you can also get smart outlets. as well as outdoor smart plug in outlets. some products have dimmer control. to give some ideas in my home i have 17 controllable devices. the light on my fish tank it turns on 15 min before sunrise and off at sunset, my air compressor, the ‘im going to kill myself trying to find the pull string light in the back of my basement’, i have an outlet in my kitchen. plug in a crock pot. load it up. turn it on at 11 come home at 4… I have clients that get into it simply because they recognize the value with home resale. some is simple safety. say a keyless deadbolt you can control. the same lock you can set to A. lock automatically it has been left unlocked 30sec. and B. Unlock and stay unlocked if the homes life safety alarms go off (smoke carbon or heat.. big or electrical fire, there isn’t alot of smoke) in the end it is a very very deep rabbit hole. i tell my clients a Smart home is like a microwave, until you have one you dont get it and once you have one you cant go without. youll be running to the store. for older clients a simple motion in the hallway to turn on the light for them at night stay on 5 mins and shut off. the list goes on and on
I literally started with a light bulb
What is that lamp at 2:14? Who makes it? Cool lamp. Great video!
I’ve always wanted to automate my toilet. When I open the lid, I want a voice to say "Welcome Master"
Help! I want to start setting up a smart home for my parents as it can greatly help make their lives easier and i enjoy tinkering with these things. I just want to start out with lights, fans and such and have no issues with that. But i need to ensure that 1) i dont want to use a hub if i can get away with it 2) whatever app i use is compatible and able to have multiple users in control 3) minimally invasive, easy to use. They simply want to turn everything on/off with their phones, control whatever i set up like the sprinklers and such in the future. Any suggestions?
9:16 Your WiFi is not local 😱😱 ??
What do you do, use neighbors or public or how else you could have remote WiFi in your home so it is not local ?
3:33 whaaaat? The last option??? LOL
9:21 so Alexas is not the problem, but Alexa is ?
4:16 a fourth option is to install something behind the existing switch, just in case you don’t like the size of all the smart switches on offer (I’m guessing that size is a US standard, it’s like 3 times the size of our switches here in NZ).
My Smarthome was a mess of apps, switches, voice commands and some automations as well. And just because I built my one NAS with unraid, i stumbled over Home Assistant… OH MY GOD!
I know thar feeling, when you first see ALL your devices and some you did not even know you can integrate (my security cameras have temperature sensors and I can even tap into their motions sensors)… Finally my home is really getting smart.
Exactly the video I wanted to see. And yes, we bought 4 smart bulbs and now I’m thinking of buying a $200 Amazon Echo Studio so I don’t have to use my phone. Seems like the whole smart home industry is based on unproductive overengineered nerding.
Best tip is: go for smart relays rather than smart bulbs, thanks me later.
In time: even better if you can combine both, but if not, the smart relays are miles ahead of the bulbs alone
Hello I’m curious, I am trying to set up a handful of cameras inside my one bedroom apartment, running an experiment, I do not want Wireless, I want everything fully analog tethered to motion sensors, I want the feed to go to one hard drive that I can just access the footage by plugging in that hard drive to my laptop and watch it through VLC player, I want no other bells and whistles outside of the obvious audio, Does anyone have any recommendations for a possible bulk purchase to achieve this? I’m imagining it would be a total of about five cameras only, but again I want them completely in sync at all times with zero Wi-Fi or Bluetooth nonsense, no interface outside of saving the footage to a hard drive then I will then use my laptop as a screen too pick and choose what I view, doable?
Home assistant brought back my interest into smart home
My partner and i have an agreement. I can do a much home automation as i like but only in my man-cave/office. Even that is getting out of control.
It started because in my job, i kept being given free smart nest hubs but never used them for years. And yes, my ibsession started with the smart lights. Thats the gateway drug.
I’m going to spend 2025 connecting agentic ai (like claude’s computer use) to the internet of things. This information has been incredibly valuable to me. Thank you, you’ve got a new subscriber.
Bro, I really like your brown leather computer chair, where can I buy that?
you can get switch that automatically turns on bathroom fan based on humidity, and turns off fan after set time. no home automation req
Is home assistant an app or pc program
Brown Ronald Hall Maria Wilson Kimberly
"A-Car-A"
I use a motionsensor by the front door: if anyone comes (99% its the mailman), my philips hue lights turn red and then my speaker starts to play the "postman pat" song.
Edit: i should get an outdoor camera aswell, so it would also show a live feed on the tv, to see who it is.. but i havent gotten that far yet. I do have a peaking hole in the frontdoor though.
I’m new to home assistant. I have Google nest cameras, doorbell, thermostat around the house with a Google subscription. I’ve tried using home assistant on a raspberry pi so that I can’t stop paying Google each month for a subscription. So far all I’ve managed is to get HA setup with the nest products just the way that Google home app does.
So my question is, what are the steps to get HA setup with the kit that I have so that I can save the videos locally and save money.
Hi Jimmy, great video. I am new to the block with home assistant. Now I have started to set it up in my home, but I am thinking, if I can also use home assistant also in my apartment at the lake. In my current home I bought a Home Assistant green hardware. Do I have to buy a second one for the other address or is there a short pass without new hardware to use home assistant in both homes. could not find a video explaining this and hope for an answer here
Thank you very much. You have given us a lot to think about. You mentioned and showed us the Home Assist device, can you provide a link for us please? We are based in the UK and use Google Assist.
Pls keep posting
Great to review all your devices and see if they are matter compatible…… It now MATTERS.
It always starts with a light bulb !!
"it starts with just a single lightbulb"
wise words dude wise words hahahahaha same here. and now i’m head deep into a home assistant server setup adding matter devices, presence and zone detection sensors, flashing ESP32 controller boards with WLED and adding tablets to my walls with a map of my home…
but you know what? i love it. it’s my way to wind down on a friday evening. or let me correct that actually: it’s my way to be frustrated over why i can’t get sth to work only to realize at 2am that the issue was in my line of sight all along lmao. but again: i love it.
Yours video start so good and i thought here find my solution but also u didnt share whats was the solution whats the product of working all of your device. so big No HELP your video.