in this video I'm going to give you a
tour of my smart home showing you the
kit I use and how I use it make sure you
stick around and if you like what you
see hit subscribe below and keep an eye
out for more videos
[Music]
hi I'm will from well sorry tech and
today we're going to have a walk around
my smart home showing you some of the
kits I use day-to-day now I started my
smart home back with an echo dot and a
tp-link smart plug while I was at uni
but since graduating I've moved into
this lovely house which has enabled me
to expand my setup massively to what you
see today if you stick around until the
end I'll be able to give you the best
hint to start your smart home and
remember anything I mention will be
listed in the description below the most
smart home tour soon starts at the front
door but given this a rented house I
couldn't change the lock and there was
no existing doorbell for me to alter so
I haven't and so we're going to move
very swiftly on into the hallway just
like that
so in here we have some hue light bulbs
we've actually got a few light bulbs
throughout the house
a selection of normal white or white
ambient or color and connected to our
radiator is a Honeywell either home
thermostatic radiator valve now the
Honeywell system is great it means I can
have independent control over each room
in the house so I'm not wasting energy
heating rooms I'm not in now we're
moving into the sitting room and we've
got some lovely artwork on the wall this
was newly created and we've got these
beautiful shelves behind me now these
shelves I actually built myself back at
the beginning of this year so I got a
selection of SCAF boards
I sent them down and treated them with
some Danish oil and put them together
like this really nice effect we've got
the philips hue light bulb on top on
this side we've got a record player and
on the other side we've actually got the
brains of the kind of TV system the
entertainment system so we've got a
hi-fi
amp or an AV amp which is connected to
the four speakers so we've got a two
front and two rear surround sound system
we've also got a Sonos connect there and
that is providing an ability to connect
the sonar system to my hi-fi in here so
I don't need a dedicated sonal speaker I
can play it play it through my normal
speakers in here which is really nice
effect and I've also got an echo dot
there and an Xbox so that's great we've
got the Philips hue colored lights and
over on this
of the room we have the TV now this is
the Philips Ambilight 55 inch TV it's a
really good TV really enjoy it
the Ambu Lite ability is really good the
ability to collect Ambilight with two is
great just to provide that fully
immersive feel it was a big upgrade for
my last TV being 4k being smart
having the Ambilight feature as well so
I'm really pleased with this as you can
see we've got some quite small speakers
at the front this is because I wanted
the room to not feel like an
entertainment room well I'm not feel
like a TV room to feel more cozy and
kind of sitting room now in here we've
also got a Neos smart camera so this is
the same body and shell as the wise
camera that you get in America but we
don't have that over here we only have
Neos virgin it's great camera great
little thing well I'm actually done with
this one is reflashed it with the
original defang firmware which takes it
off the Neos cloud service and makes it
more private so this is the dining room
in here we have three Philips hue light
bulbs white ambient light bulbs - Rick
you're in the orbs on top of the calyx
is here under the calyx we've actually
got some colored LED strip we can create
a really nice warm ambience in here in
here we've also got a so nice one with
Amazon echo built in it's nice to have
the voice assistant built in to the
speaker so it's all in one place and
we've got good sound quality coming out
of it we've also got the Honeywell Evo
home gateway in here which is a small
touchscreen interface which enables us
to set up schedules on the heating and
turn it on and off manually up here we
have the Neil's camera so as you got a
2-pack and this one is that he's still
running the original Neil's firmware and
that's it for in here now in this
cupboard we have the brains of the house
we've got a Linksys wrt54g makes the
easier
assigning dhcp addresses really that's
the only reason I changed we've also got
a Philips hue hub and we've got
a Raspberry Pi sitting in a yogurt pot
it's doing that because it keeps the
dust off and that is what's running the
brain so that's what's running home
assistant now I'll do plenty of videos
about home assistant in the future but
that's what it is
it's sitting right there and now coming
into the kitchen we've got a few smart
home products in this kitchen we've got
a Phillips you light bulb and light
switch we've got some LED strip under
the counter and we've got a sonar
symphonic speaker and there's the
bookshelf speaker they made in
collaboration with IKEA
I've actually hacked this speaker to
enable me to use external speakers so
I've got a little switch on the side to
Swit between internal and external
speakers I just thought I'd quickly
mention these light switch covers I
bought these on Amazon on I believe a
Black Friday deal and they are not bad
they do the job the problem I have as
you can probably see is my back boxes
are actually attached on the outside of
the wall they're not flush and so when I
try tightening up the light switch
covers it just has nothing to press
against ordinarily I'll be pressing
against the plaster around the around
the back box but because they're
wall-mounted back boxes rather than
flush mount back boxes and it's got
nothing to press again so I just kind of
have to tighten it as much as I can
without accidentally flipping the switch
and we've got a very small courtyard as
you can see but we've done quite a lot
with it in terms of smart stuff not a
huge amount we've got the festoon above
us and that's provided into a smart plug
we've got the heater on the back wall
here that's plugged into a smart plug
that enabled me to set a very simple
automation that if it's on after an hour
it goes off it just means I can't
accidentally leave it on it burn the
house down we've got our speakers we
have one speaker in there
and we have another speaker yeah so
these are pointing in at each other into
the table which just means we can have
it a bit quieter and still experience
the noise we only wanted as background
noise anyway what it means we're not
disturbing our neighbors at all in the
same way I'm thinking about putting some
LED strip along the bottom walls just to
up like the walls bottom to provide a
bit of color and here we are in the
master bedroom nothing particularly
special here we've got some more hue
light bulbs we've got another
thermostatic radiator valve by Honeywell
zero home and we've actually got an echo
spot in here now the echo spot has since
been discontinued and I'm not really
surprised why all it is is an echo dot
with a clock face so this is the spare
room this is actually where Florrie
works we've got a nother Philips hue
light bulb and light switch actually in
this room the light switch the original
light switch is behind the door which is
just a bit stupid so by moving over to
the philips hue system we could stick a
light switch on the right side to for
easier access and ease-of-use really
we've also got a google home mini in
here and this actually came free with a
spotify deal it doesn't really fit the
ecosystem that we normally use hence it
being in the spare room but it doesn't
able us to provide a little bit of radio
music for our guests that we have
staying and for Florrie while she's
working so now we're going to go into
the cave or my office and yeah in here
it's quite a small room as you can see
we've got some philips hue light bulbs
we've got some normal light bulbs we've
got some smart plugs and so all of my
desk area over here is controlled on a
smart plug which basically means I can
come in turn the desk on and
everything's on but that means I'm not
wasting power on my monitor or my lights
or my speakers or anything like that
while I'm not in here though behind me
we have a charging station it's made
from an Ikea pegboard and what I've done
is I've mounted a 10-way you
speed charging brick and from there I
can charge most of my devices in one go
so I've poked all the cables out the
back and then coming back through so
it's all nice and neat and tidy I've
also got cable ties to hold each device
upright and keep it separate so
everything has its slot also behind
there we have a we masti one mini this
is currently connected to a door sensor
so I can tell when the doors open and
shut
I've also set it up to include a PIR
sensor I haven't quite got around to
putting that in I'm not sure whether or
not you have the purpose I hoped it
would in this particular environment
just because of the way that if I'm in
the room I'm probably sitting quite
still anyway so it might not notice me
it's great bit of kit I will be covering
the Wii Master you are mini and other
esp8266 devices throughout many of my
videos because it's kind of the basis of
projects that you can make really and
they're great bits of kits little Wi-Fi
enabled microcontrollers yeah that's
about it for this room if you want me to
go into more detail let me know in the
comments and I'll do a full overview of
all the tech I've got in here now I said
I'd give you a hint as to how to start
your smart home so here it is the first
thing you should do is buy a voice
assistant whether that's a Google home
Mini or an echo dot or a bigger version
instead these are provides an excellent
user interface to start with be that via
voice all via the app now it's great to
use really simple really intuitive and
has awesome features through automations
and routines now if you liked what you
saw today make sure you hit subscribe
and you'll find out more about my tech
and how you can build yourself the
ultimate smart home
[Music]