Ranking All My Smart Home Products and Projects. SMART HOME TOUR.

today on the hookup I'm gonna take you on a tour of my extensive smart home setup and rank each of my improvements on a tier list to help you spend your money wisely when it comes to smart home projects having a youtube channel devoted to smart home tech pretty much gives me a free pass to test out any new smart home product as it comes available sometimes the results are revolutionary but occasionally they turn out to be a massive waste of time money and energy as I give you the Grand Tour of my smart home I'm gonna rank each product or project on a tier list with S tier at the top meaning products that every smart home should have an F tier at the bottom which are the pieces of technology that are ultimately pretty worthless and in some cases cause more problems than they fix this video was sponsored by little solar LED outdoor lights their newest product the 30 LED landscape spotlight has adjustable brightness and color temperature for selectable modes give either low brightness 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lights are still fully functional in the color accuracy hasn't been noticeably affected I know this isn't necessarily a smart home project but it's fun to be able to turn on different effects for different holidays that you don't traditionally decorate for on my tier list I put year-round LEDs in the low C tier because the cost is high the impact on your daily life is low but the fun factor is definitely there moving towards the front door you'll notice a few security cameras I've got a total of nine hard-wired IP security cameras that record 24 hours a day seven days a week at low resolution and then I use AI computer vision to detect people and other objects in the video and trigger full resolution recording not only do these security cameras give me peace of mind knowing that my property is always under surveillance but they're extremely useful for keeping track of kids while they play outside spotting delivery drivers or just generally giving vision of parts of the property that you don't normally go to when I think of technology in my home security cameras are absolutely in the S tier on my list and our product that I would recommend to anyone and everyone having multiple wired cameras and in an extensive setup is obviously a little bit better but battery-powered camera technology has also come a long way and even though I have a wired camera pointing directly at my front door I still use the euphy battery-powered video doorbell to enable two-way talk I also use a quick set z-wave smart door lock that's one of my wife's favorite smart home additions the downside of these things is that you need to change the batteries every four to six months but that'll hopefully be solved soon with all the wireless power technology that was being shown off at CES this year right through the front door is my dining room and on the wall is a big bank of switches that barely ever get touched behind the panel are two Shelli 2.5 smart relay modules that turn the traditional light switches into smart switches even though smart switches and lights are the first things that people think about when someone says smart home I'm gonna put switches solidly into the beads here when you install a smart switch you should already have an idea about how its use is going to be automated and how it's going to add additional functionality save you time and/or money the dining room is also where my eco VAX d-bots 950 robotic vacuum lives out of sight and out of mind every night the Dee Bob methodically vacuums the first floor of my house and it only requires my attention about once a week to quickly empty the bin robotic vacuums are another thing that I would absolutely put into the S tier of home automation there are unfortunate limitations that may prevent a robotic vacuum from being effective in your house but for most people they provide a massive increase in the cleanliness of your home without very much effort on your part the fish tanks are also automated in this room but I'm just going to throw that in with Smart Switches because it's more or less a set and forget it kind of thing the last thing to see in my dining room is the first of my Amazon echo hole home audio setups using speaker groups in the Amazon echo app allows you to set up synchronized whole home audio using almost any echo device in my case I'm recycling some 20 year old computer speakers that I got in college and giving them new life by connecting them to an Amazon echo dot I'll talk about voice assistance later in the video because as you can see the microphone on this device stays meet at a hundred percent of the time but I think that whole home audio deserves to be in the low 80s ins - a lot of music and already has multiple smart speakers take some time and setup different speaker groups this kind of whole home audio was insanely expensive as little as five years ago but now comes with every single smart speaker and every voice assistant on the market moving into the kitchen we've got a bunch more smart switches and lights but in particular I'd like to point out the smart dimmer because unlike a smart switch a dimmer can be usefully automated even if you still manually interact with it the majority of the time this dimmer along with all the other dimmers on the first floor automatically changed their initial turn on brightness throughout the day you can of course manually override those settings using the paddle on the switch but the vast majority of the time it provides exactly the amount of light you want with just the click of a button even though smart switches were in the B tier I'm going to put smart dimmers into the a tier because the potential to add increased functionality through automation is significantly higher than a standard switch in the pantry I've got what I guess you would call a smart trashcan which is really just a motorized hands-free cover the trashcan works pretty well if you load it up with four C batteries but I didn't want to have to change the batteries on my trashcan so I bought the twelve dollar official AC adapter which basically doesn't work at all and introduced enough noise into the circuit that sometimes the infrared sensor doesn't work and you have to manually press the open and close buttons which kind of defeats the purpose smart trashcan goes in the D tier great idea poor execution the only other smart device in the kitchen is a first generation echo show that acts as the main voice assistant for the first floor in the echo app we have it set up to use the first floor speaker group for music playback meaning you don't have to say anything special to get it to play music on the entire first floor voice assistants are a pretty difficult piece of to rank since they're basically just music playback devices if you don't already have a bunch of smart devices in your house that being said for me in my family they are the most common way that we interact with our home if we need to change the brightness of a light close the curtains or turn on the TV we're probably going to use an echo command to do it I'm gonna put them solidly in the a tier but be aware that their value is largely based on how many other smart devices you have in your home and of course also be aware that privacy is a concern since the three big names in voice assistance also happen to be the three biggest data brokers out there right next to the kitchen is my desk area where I write and edit all of my youtube videos I've got some fun stuff in my desk that I custom-built for the space including a USB hub for my computer outlets with USB charging and five buttons that I can use with home assistant to control the lights around my desk under the desk is my computer and networking equipment coming up next month I will be releasing a video about upgrading from a unify USG to the unified dream machine pro but as you can see I haven't done it yet you may not think of your home network as part of your smart home but it's actually one of the most important things when you consider connectivity and security I've got a whole series of videos on building and setting up the ultimate smart network to use with a smart home consistent secure Wi-Fi is easily in the B tier and should be a major consideration for anyone building a smart home my desk area also has the first automated window coverings in the house a semi smart blinds driver that closes the curtains reflections off the sliding glass door caused problems with the HTC vive virtual reality trackers so asking the echo to turn on virtual reality flips a smart switch to turn on the VR lighthouses and shuts the curtains these curtains really only get shut for VR so automating them is a little bit silly but other blinds and curtains get open and closed daily and for those the convenience of motorisation is huge I would definitely put the automation of routinely open and closed curtains into the high B tier of home automation it's not something that needs to be in every house but if you're looking for a fun project that's absolutely going to have a positive impact on your life window coverings are a really great project heading out to the patio you're gonna have to pardon my dust since I'm in the middle of a major construction project but a few of my favorite things are out here motorized roller shades provide some relief from the late day Sun that blasts the patio and even though the stepper motors that drive these shades aren't outdoor rated they're still going strong after three years and have even survived a hurricane the pool is also automated with Amazon echo in response to commands like turn on the hot tub or turn on the pool light my daughter and her friends get a surprising amount of use out of those functionalities and it's both inexpensive and pretty simple so I'll put pool automation in the B tier assuming you already have an electronic pool controller and pool of course landscape lighting using LED strips was a project that I just kind of attempted on a whim but it turned out to be amazing at least from my view we have a large concrete wall and palm tree stand behind our screen pool so it's not an issue at all but if you had rear neighbors I could see how they would be very annoyed looking at it from the opposite direction RGB landscape lighting gets more use than holiday lighting and it looks great so I think it belongs somewhere at the bottom of B tier I definitely recommend it back inside to the family room where both the LG TV and Samsung soundbar have Internet connectivity and hdmi cec control which allow me to control both of these for the automations that means that unlike my previous setup where i had to use a logitech harmony universal remote I can use the remote that came with the lg tv to control everything when combined with home assistant automations the lighting in the family room is also super customizable with individual zones and dimming but one of my favorite hacks is this extension cord with a shellye dimmer built-in using this one dimmer I can set the brightness of the up lights behind the TV and the two lamps on my daughter's desk and just like the kitchen dimmer these automatically adjust their brightness based on the time of day and are tied to a switch on the wall it's not physically connected to them both downstairs and upstairs our climate is controlled by eco be three connected thermostats which I've always been a little bit underwhelmed with the major selling point of these thermostats is that they can sense when you're away and adjust the temperature to save you money on your heating and cooling bill and after talking it over with my wife we decided that we'd rather pay a few extra bucks each year and come home to a comfortably cooled house for me smart thermostats go really low in the C tier if you've already got a programmable thermostat and you've got 200 bucks to spend on your smart home you're much better off spending it somewhere else the last thing in this room is not something that I would call smart but it appeals to the gadget lover in me our couch reclines with motors and before you say that's totally worthless a single handle does the job faster and without power you're not wrong but the main advantage of a motorized couch is complete control and the ability to independently adjust the headrest and foot rest for each person my wife initially wanted me to automate these but after looking at the mechanism driving it I decided it was a pretty bad plan since the beefy linear actuators could easily crush bones if they got caught in it during the closing process motorized couch see tear for sure in the guest room / playroom / wife's office the blinds open and close each morning and night before they were automated we just kept them closed since the privacy is an issue in that location but it's nice to get some extra light in the room during the day there's also some RGB LEDs above the Murphy bed and a unify access point nothing else too exciting in this room out to the garage the most impactful project in here was a smart garage door which was actually my first DIY home automation project a relay lets you virtually press the open or close button on the main unit to operate the door in a simple read switch uses a magnet to detect whether the garage door is open which eliminates the doubt of whether or not you forgot to close the garage door garage door automation is super useful really cheap and really easy to do I definitely put it in the a tier and it is a great place to start for anyone who wants to do something a little bit more advanced than changing a light bulb alright so you know your garage door is closed did you leave the stove on well you could theoretically rely on the sense energy monitor to set your mind at ease but it probably won't work resting comfortably in the ft r is the $299.00 sense energy monitor installed in my main electrical panel according the documentation of the sense it should continue to discover devices the longer it's connected but in the 10 months that I've had it it's only found 13 devices and aside from the garage refrigerator and the kitchen ice dispenser it detects devices extremely inaccurately the garage also has another recycled old stereo and an echo input that participate in whole home audio and yes that is a subwoofer mounted to the wall also in this wall are the power supplies for my house LEDs and my sky drop smart sprinkler system smart sprinklers have two huge advantages over their non connected counterparts first instead of using a rain sensor to unnecessary watering after a rainstorm they can use local weather forecasts to skip waterings before a large storm second they make the process of checking and adjusting your sprinklers infinitely easier because you can turn zones on and off easily via the phone app smart sprinklers are an 8 here for sure but I'm not sure I would specifically recommend sky drop so I get the feeling they're gonna go out of business pretty soon ratio seems to be doing really well and they offer integrations with home assistant smart things and even if the garage lighting is also hilariously bright when my single builders grade fluorescent fixture burned out I decided to get myself an upgrade so I researched on YouTube and it seemed like all the hot rod channels seemed pretty happy with their Barina LED fixtures I picked up a set of 12 for 80 bucks and I didn't really think about how bright 12 20 watt 6500 K LEDs would be with all the lights on you could easily fool someone into thinking they were standing outside in direct sunlight so to prevent myself from going blind I installed them in banks using a shell e1 where I have to always on lights controlled by the light switch for normal usage and then an echo command to turn on the other 10 lights if I'm working in the garage all right back inside and upstairs all the upstairs doors have magnetic door sensors which I absolutely love we use the sensor on my daughter's door to know if she comes out of a room looking for us at night when my daughter was about four years old she got really sick at night and my wife and I were sitting out on the patio when we finally came inside we had a crying daughter sitting in a bathroom that looked like a scene from The Exorcist a simple automation triggered by her bedroom door opening after bedtime flashes the lights on the patio and the garage and should prevent something like that from ever happening again door sensors are an absolute must for me as a parent and if you've got kids under 10 I would put this in the hi beats here if you don't have kids I'd say it's probably significantly lower in my daughter's room she's got fancy under-bed LED lighting using a Shelly RGB W 2 and Nana leaf panels on the wall these are fun and fitting for a kid's room but might be a little bit tacky in adult living spaces I think low C tier is appropriate for indoor LED RGB effect lighting I'm also using a Shelley 2.5 and a Shelley one behind her switch is to tie her under bed LEDs and her Nana leaf together and as a little automation so that if you turn on the main lights first the LEDs will come on as a warm white color but if you turn on the LEDs first they'll come on with colors and effects this is another example of how smart switches are moving up closer to the 8th year because they let you tie in a bunch of devices together and switch devices that aren't physically connected to each other in the same electrical circuit the studio slash home gym slash kids guest room has some smart switches and dimmers that tie the ceiling fan light to the LEDs that are above the Murphy bed and the shelving unit but that's about it in my daughter's bathroom the only smart device is a Bluetooth shower light speaker connected to an Amazon echo flex so she can listen to music in the shower next is the master bedroom where the second robotic vacuum lives this one is a Robo rock s5 that cleans the upstairs once a day but it doesn't start unless the house is empty I'm using the home assistant integration to tie the start command to our occupancy sensor which works perfectly as long as you're not quarantined in your house robotic vacuums are still definitely in the S tier for me I think everyone should have them not just smart home enthusiasts on to my favorite project in the whole house we've got three windows that span most of the wall so I install the wooden valence that goes from wall to wall behind that valence is an automated curtain rod from semi smart and three of my DIY automated blinds motors so I can say block out the Sun and close all the blinds and curtains at once as lazy as it sounds the truth is that before we automated these window coverings we just left them closed most of the time also behind the valence is a strip of SK 68 12 RGB W LEDs that have an awesome trick up their sleeve not only do they provide high-quality warm white light for everyday use but an automation type to Google Calendar wakes me up on work days to a beautiful 20 minute artificial sunrise of all the LED projects in my house this one is definitely my favorite and it has the most positive impact on my life if you have to wake up before the Sun actually rises I'd highly recommend getting an artificial sunrise solution this one definitely goes to the top of B tier because it's an LED project that can be used in multiple ways every day of the week the last room in the house is the master bathroom in this room we've got a Shelly H and T sensor that detects high humidity to turn on the shower exhaust fan and a really high-quality shower speaker called the Juno AI with Amazon echo built-in if the juno a I had better firmware it would be much higher in my tier list but it's got some issues as much as I love and use my Juno AI it needs to go into the seats here like I said even though we use it every day it needs a little bit more improvement to justify its price tag and that's it that's my house maybe it's not as flashy as some of the other smart home tours but I like to focus on functionality I'm sure I forgot a lot of stuff but this video is already way too long if you made it this far hit that thumbs up button so the video gets suggested to other smart home lovers thank you to all of my awesome patrons over at patreon for your continued support of my channel if you're interested in supporting my channel please check out the links down in the description if you enjoyed this video please consider subscribing and as always thanks for watching the hook out [Music]

Channel: The Hook Up

Views: 489,899

Keywords: home assistant, hassio, home automation, hass.io, smart home, diy, electronics, arduino, esp8266, nodemcu, wemos d1, automation

Id: n0dfuj60aaI

Length: 18min 42sec (1122 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 01 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/DarkbunnySC]

I cut a lot of stuff for time (mostly explanations of why I put things at specific spots on the tier list). Let me know if you've got any questions about why I put things in a specific tier. Here is the list for reference: https://imgur.com/6ivczR9

[u/2nd-tim]

Looks like you just got the wrong trash can. We got an iTouchless version and AC adapter and it works great. Keeps the dog away from it which was a problem with a normal can.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07Y2CDS89

[u/sparkrussell]

What I have discovered with smart thermostats is it works best when using a location based system integrated with a smart home hub to mange pre cooling Or heating when away. I draw geofences around work and other frequent shopping places, movie theaters etc. then when you leave the geofence kick the thermostat out of away mode and send it an ETA. Depending how far those areas are, your house has opportunity to cool or warm up. I use HomeSeer with the PHlocation plugin and on the phone I use geofence on IOS to send geofence enter and exit messages.

[u/tshontikidis]

Looking at roborock, thoughts on that vs your other one? How well does it integrate with HA or Node Red? You go full local?