if you're like me then you own a ton of Google home smart products and today I'm
going to walk through all the best smart home devices throughout your smart home that
integrate and interact really well with Google home
hello Automaters thanks for tuning in again I'm Brian from automate your life
and today I'm going to take the frustration out of automation by helping
you pick all of those products in the right spots in your smart home now some
of this I'll explain why I've made a certain choice I have and some of this I
won't I'll just roll through a number of different products that maybe fit a very
specific situation now let's start with the smart speakers themselves number one
if you are picking a smart speaker than the top two I'm going to tell you about
today are the Google nest hub Max which is the premier smart display from
Google and I think there aren't enough features there that I would recommend
that you upgrade from one of these unless you're finding this at about that
$70 price range then I think that's a pretty good deal and you can head here
to the smaller device otherwise the new Nest Mini is fantastic and in pairs I
must say they are great sounding I have that in my bedroom right now and just
across that bedroom pair is great sound now once you step outside of the actual
Google speakers things get a little more interesting
what I mean by those speakers are the ones that aren't branded Google so we've
seen LG come out with a thinQ WK7 I don't really recommend that speaker it
doesn't get enough updates for me the Lenovo smart display in the Lenovo smart
clock we've seen those I really love the Lenovo smart display and that's my pick
over say the JBL smart display as well I just don't like the look of that one
feels a little cheap versus the Lenovo smart display and I haven't found it
getting quite as fast of updates as the Lenovo we did touch on the Lenovo smart
clock so I'm going to tell you the Lenovo smart clock is not quite as good
as what you're going to get with a Google Nest hub so if you are picking
between those two and their close prices head here one of the best speakers
you're going to have in your smart home is your TV
this is the case for a lot of people now what's really great about a device like
the chromecast and I'm showing a chromecast ultra box here is that it can
be used in multi-room audio groups or multi speaker audio groups so that means
you can turn your TV into a smart speaker simply by attaching that
chromecast device so you can go all the way up to this chromecast ultra you can
stick around that thirty to thirty five dollar price range with a chromecast and
get a lot out of your TV now let's say you wanted to control more than your TV
and you wanted to control your TV all through the Google Voice assistant the
way to do that still today is the harmony hub now I haven't had the best
experience with the Harmony Hub over the years but it has started to become more
and more reliable as things have kind of evened out and everything has been
upgraded on that device as much as they need now the nice thing about the
Harmony hub is it can help you control through IR all of your different blu-ray
players or PVR's or DVRs whatever you want to call them your TV itself
anything with an IR control can be turned on
basically by that harmony hub it's very powerful and you can set up those
activities and just ask your Google assistant to start those activities it
will use harmony hub and connect and then create or execute those commands
that you have asked for one of the biggest choices you're going to make in
your smart home is actually your router now the ISP might give you a router and
you might find that that hits a limitation pretty quickly in your smart
home as you start to get lots of these devices Wi-Fi devices or other Ethernet
connected devices in your home you're going to hit a limit very quick and
where you won't hit a limit is with nest Wi-Fi now there's really nice
integration with nest Wi-Fi into these into the Google Home application I can
manage it all through that application I don't have to go anywhere else and I
recently did a review on these and I have to tell you they are fantastic and
maintaining connection to just a ton of smart home devices and that's what
you'll find with most of the routers you're going to get from an ISP or most
of those 50 to $100 routers and the mesh Wi-Fi systems that aren't
really made for the world of IOT so nest Wi-Fi is definitely that middle ground
you're not going and buying kind of a prosumer level solution which you can do
but I think the nest Wi-Fi is enough for people for the next three to five years
the nest hello is the doorbell you want and while that might seem pretty obvious
when I start to name some of these nest devices the big difference with the nest
hello is its ability to actually identify people in your smart home or
coming up to your smart home ringing your doorbell you'll actually get a
notification that says who they are if you've put that person's face into the
nest application and put them as part of that face match that's very powerful
stuff and you can get those notifications coming up on here with a
display of your feed and it's just that it's a different kind of notification
but that's what you can get with that versus some of the other doorbells out
on the market today now you will also get those notifications on your smart
phone from nest but what I'm going to tell you with a smartphone and I've had
both iPhones and pixels in the last year I'm going to tell you in general you're
going to want an Android phone if you've got a lot of Google stuff this makes
sense but the pixel three XL I had that one here for a couple of months I still
have the device and I will say it's probably that right budget level for a
lot of people and I think it kind of splits the market really well in terms
of its performance in terms of its capability it's got an amazing camera
and really it just does everything you want and the apps work and look better
and you get earlier updates with any of the pixel devices versus say having an
iPhone and then waiting for some of these Google home or Google Nest updates
it might take you a little extra time now the pixel 4 I've also had for a
while here and this is the box from that device and the pixel four is that next
level and it might price itself out of the market for a few people but I have
to say that the camera is absolutely spectacular it takes the best photos I
have ever taken and I'm starting to shoot you too
videos entirely with that device so it is an incredible camcorder as well now
the processor really ups the game here on this versus the pixel 3a and really
what you do with that is your Google assistant integration is lightning fast
and you can walk through apps walk through your smart home really just move
really quickly throughout your day and on your phone with a simple squeeze to
talk now here's where we'll diverge a little bit from the nest family of
products and cameras are something that a lot of people want to add and I think
the nest cameras are still the premier device and especially something like an
IQ version of their nest cams there they are the premier but they are so
expensive and you don't need to spend that and I'm here to save you a little
bit of money at automate your life when you go buy these kinds of products so
the wise cam is the ultimate budget choice and they're working on some cloud
service issues that they have but in general this is the camera you're going
to want it can give you access to a lot of other great products from wise that
have good integration but the nest cams can be displayed on these Google smart
displays as well speaking of saving you stuff I like saving you time and one of
the easiest ways to do that is to get a smart vacuum and the entire series of
iRobot smart vacuums are where you want a head the reason I say that is the
integration is really well done between Google and Roomba here and our iRobot
and so you can have a look at that but what you can do is you can start and
stop and pause cleaning so you can leave it in the middle of the floor if you
want but you can also start and stop and pause with in any room send it to a
specific rumors or a specific space and then you can also send it home when
you're done with it or you just want it to stop you need to the home to be quiet
or something I do this stuff all the time with my smart vacuums and iRobot so
the Roombas are the best when you head into the kitchen there are a lot of
different appliances now but my favorite is the instant pot and I use this thing
almost on a daily basis at this point we my favorite things about this is I can
check the status with my Google assistant as to what my instant pot is
actually doing I can turn it on and off so I can kind of preset the cooking mode
that I want to have occur and come home to a cooked meal when I move over to the
coffee maker this is a wild thing and you could go and spend a ton of money
but what I would recommend especially if you have kind of a push button on or off
coffee maker which lots of them are at this point I have my little switch
bought device actually attached and this just brings out a little hand and it
pushes the on/off button so I can ask my Google assistant to turn that on and off
now I would recommend that you do have the the hub that goes with this the
switch bought hub and once you have that it will work all the time you can do
that again remotely if you'd like and there are other uses for those switch
BOTS that I'm sure your going to come up with as soon as you see that device
smart lighting is one of the hardest topics to tackle and it'll be the most
divisive I'm sure on this video but when you get into this you really want to
look for maximum compatibility and it's funny because people get on Philips you
so badly but what they actually have done is created the maximum
compatibility on the smart home market here for lighting they have the ability
to go into every voice assistant out there they have the ability to integrate
with Samsung smartthings habitat all of these different hubs very easily and
they are they have their own hub now what also is really interesting about
their compatibility is they have smart light switches and this is actually a
ZigBee bulb from area that is a cheaper version of a color bulb looks every bit
as good as some of the philips devices but is half the price so not only can
you go get that hub get a lot of great integration and automation with your
Google Voice assistant and there's some specific stuff that you can do like the
wake up routines and they go to bed routines that bring your light on and
off over 30 minutes and not only can you do stuff like that but you can connect
these devices from these other vendors and
create all this automation so Philips U is still the best for my hub perspective
definitely the next component of this is non hub or you know for people who are
just going to add a few bulbs I don't necessarily think you go you buy Philips
you and you spend $50 on that hub you can go and get great - yeah or smart
life that's the application bulbs out there and I have some great ones that I
will leave links down below great color bulbs they're Wi-Fi
connected and if you have a good router or a good mesh Wi-Fi system like the
nest Wi-Fi system you're not going to have reliability issues with those
devices and they integrate really well with the Google assistant and a lot of
people will talk about lifx and I think if you want that ultimate pretty light
you can go get a couple of lifx bulbs but personally I find their pricing
model to be the worst of them all so I think you want to watch that that's
gonna point more to the smart life side of things now when you're heading to
light switches and you get a little deeper on that side what I think I'm
going to tell you is you want a smart home hub and there's a couple of options
number one hub ITAT which is a great option there habitat elevation is
entirely local control as long as you're directly connected with a ZigBee or a
z-wave product that is entirely localized control now if you connect
something like Philips hue that's not necessarily the case anymore but in
general the automations run very fast on habitat but my personal preference is
still Samsung smartthings in 2020 this is what you look at and then you
can buy all kinds of different z-wave and ZigBee light switches that are out
there today my favorites in the z-wave side of things is the ge in Brighton
series now they are excellent have one for everyone in your home every
situation within your smart home and you know if you want something kind of more
specialized I really like some of the things I saw from in a Novelli at
CES and then zoos as well has a couple of interesting options with double
switches and things like that now once you have that Smart Home Hub you're
going to run a lot of the automations directly off of there but the control
interface between Samsung and Google is really powerful you can actually pick
which devices from Samsung smartthings get integrated into here and this is a
really important thing for managing when you have multiple smart home hubs or
when you have multiple solutions connected together because again you
could connect Philips hue into Samsung smartthings you can connect things like
tp-link or casa into smart things switch bought which we talked about a ton can
go into here so you can end up with duplicate devices but Samsung makes that
easy and they're automations with all of these different products are the best
right now and the best way to get home automation done and then you can run
some of those scenes with Google assistance smart plugs and smart outlets
are really the same deal as lots of the smart lighting you can go a lot of
different ways but my favorite is the smart things Wi-Fi plug I keep telling
people this it integrates into this hub but you also don't need the hub to put
that in and you get energy monitoring because it is a Wi-Fi device that's my
favorite and you can also again look into that smart life application I have
a bunch of smart plugs again in my home for that and I actually have a smart
power bar that I have recently purchased that goes within that app and you can
control the individual outlets and you can also power on and off the USB ports
on that one so the smart life there's a couple of links I'll leave again down
below you can have a look at that and they are very reliable when you have
good Wi-Fi when you head outside and you want to get a smart plug out there there
are some specifics that you need to think about there so you don't want to
get water in and so there's a lot of good connected plugs I'm gonna go back
to the smart life platform there are cheap versions out there I don't like
any of the iHome or the I devices and I find most of the smart plugs out there
in the 40 to 50 dollar range when there door rated so I think you can look into
this smart life thing and also these kinds of things might be something that
disappear when you leave them outdoors so I think you go cheap here and if it's
not going to get wet there is no reason you can't use any of the regular smart
plugs that I've already talked to you about here I have put a lot of these
outside I put them in extreme weather conditions you can go ahead and do it as
long as they're not going to get wet one exception here is if you want to
look at something that integrates with smart things if you're kind of in that
direction there is a great GE in Brighton so we're back to those guys
outdoor z-wave switch let's get back to a couple of those bigger devices now the
August smartlock pro and they now have any smaller version is the one that I'm
going to recommend and there's two reasons for it because you can see how
hard I'm pushing you within the Google Assistant you want kind of these two
things in 2020 this doesn't do a lot of the automation that this can but the
August smartlock pro integrates really well with both of these devices so
that's very powerful for you in that new version it's smaller I think it looks a
little nicer I was very impressed with it in terms of a thermostat it becomes
really easy again you could go with ecobee and I've seen that actually in
Allen's home who works with us here on automate your life on our website Allen
has the Eco being a number of those temperature sensors it integrates really
well but really you don't need a lot of integration with a voice assistant when
it comes to those really smart thermostats but what I do like about the
newer nest thermostats is the ability to actually diagnose HVAC issues now this
is a recent feature that Google has added and I think it puts them kind of
that step above because they can actually tell you before your HVAC
system is going to have a problem so you're not left in the cold I think
that's really important and a really smart ad or addition to the nest
thermostat when you get into the garage you can look right at the mic you hub to
add to almost every garage door opener that's out there it's
it has really great integration but the funny thing is if you're a little bit
older it's not going to work now that hub is going to work for a lot of people
just check that your device is capable of that because I tried to set it up in
a couple it did not work and then I had to find a specific opener that did but
what I've done instead is and again this goes to that same little trick I used
with the coffee maker and actually one of my patrons actually reached out and
showed me how they did this little 3d printer made this implementation really
good but they just took a garage door opener one of their little remotes that
they have and usually people have an extra one of those stuck a switch bought
on and press the button and this gives you full voice control as you come up to
your home you can ask the Google assistant especially if you have a phone
with Google assistant that's listening you can just ask the Google assistant
there to open your garage door and that's a really great point because in
the car you're probably going to want your Google assistant but the right way
to do this still today they have some of these other Google assistant connected
devices but to be honest they have not been very good I have not enjoyed them
use an Android smartphone if you have an old one you can go ahead and get that
connected into a Wi-Fi hotspot when you come into the car or just use an
existing Android phone to use the Google assistant that's my opinion it gives you
access to Android auto like features in a lot of cases now there are a number of
situations we didn't deal with within your smart home so go ahead and leave
those questions down below guys I would love to enter what I think is the right
solution for your smart home and I answer these questions all the time now
what I will tell you is I answer just a ton of questions from Automator zon our
latest series which is just about Automator x' answered so it's all your
questions that you've had on the channel I take them I break them down and I give
you those quick solutions here on a channel so go watch that otherwise guys
check all the links down below and of course thanks for watching and don't
hate automate