It's 2022. And a lot is changing in the world of smart homes, From new devices,
to new smart home standards. There is a lot of information out there and I'm going to walk you
through everything you need to know in order to start or expand your smart home in 2022.
So first, what do you actually need in order to start a smart home? All you really need is a smart
phone or computer and some disposable income to buy smart devices. Okay, so that makes sense. Now,
you can just start buying devices for your home, right? Well, actually no.
Before you buy anything, you need to decide on a smart home platform. The main 4 platforms
out there are from Amazon, Google, Apple and Samsung. These platforms help you setup, control,
and automate your smart home devices, and are often linked a smart assistant.
If you’re more technical or want to have expanded capabilities beyond what these
main platforms allow, you can go with other 3rd party platforms like Homey, HomeBridge, etc.
I still think the advice to pick your smart home platform first makes sense in 2022, though that
strategy does come with some downsides. Now, the main downside is lock-in. For example, if you buy
smart plugs from TP Link that are compatible with Google and Amazon’s smart home platform but later
want to switch to using Apple’s HomeKit, those smart plugs won’t work with Apple’s platform.
Now thankfully, these downsides are finally getting addressed
thanks to something called Matter. Matter is a new smart home standard designed by
all of the big smart home platform and device companies and is being released later this year.
So how is matter going to benefit you as a home user? Three things.
First, it's going to make smart home devices easier to set up. Second, it's going to make
managing those smart devices easier, and third and most importantly, it's going to make the
Matter supported devices you buy interoperable with different smart home platforms. So,
in theory, when you buy a Nest thermostat from Google that supports Matter, you'll be able to
control that thermostat using Siri and HomeKit, which is currently something you can't do.
Another benefit you get with Matter is local control. So when you talk to a smart assistant
to control your lights or go into your smart home app to adjust the thermostat,
the commands to your lights and thermostat will run over your local network,
bypassing the cloud, which ends up making your smart home a bit faster and more reliable.
So what exactly does this all mean for buying smart home devices in 2022?
Well, for some device categories, I think it's going to be worth it to wait
until the Matter-supported versions of those devices are released later this year and
you'll know you're buying a matter compatible device when you see this logo on the packaging.
To start with, Matter will support lightbulbs, plugs, outlets, door locks, thermostats, blinds
and shades, garage door openers, home security sensors, wireless access points and bridges,
and TVs and streaming devices. Just note at the time of this recording, that smart home
security systems as well as cameras are not included in the matter 1.0 standard.
Now, if you're expanding your smart home or you're just curious to see if any existing devices that
you own will be able to be upgraded to the Matter standard. The answer to that question is yes.
Typically these are devices that have either thread or Wifi radios
built into them, since those are the communication technologies Matter uses.
Some popular devices that will be upgraded to Matter at some point this year are Echo devices,
Eero Wifi routers, all Nest displays and speakers, the latest Nest Thermostat, Apple’s HomePod Mini,
Apple TV 4k, all Samsung SmartThings Hubs, Samsung smart appliances, and smart TVs. Android,
iOS and iPadOS devices will get Matter control support. We’ve done reviews of most the devices
I’ve just mentioned, so if you want to learn more, check the links in the description below.
Now do note the higher cost Nest Learning Thermostat will not be updated to Matter,
and Amazon’s Ring has not announced support for Matter at the time of recording.
As a general rule of thumb, if you're buying any smart devices before the Matter standard
rolls out later this year, I think it's worth it to do just a quick Google search,
just to see if the device that you're going to buy will be able to upgrade to Matter later on.
If it won't be compatible, just remember it might not work with your smart home platform of choice.
If you want to learn even more about the Matter standard, The Verge put together this really
great guide and I've linked it below in the description. So now let's talk a little bit
about the different types of devices you can buy for your smart home, how I've used some of these
devices in my own smart home setup and then, if I think it's worth it to buy that type of device now
or wait for the Matter standard to roll out. First, let's look at lighting and shades.
Smart lighting was my first smart home purchase years back and generally, you can go about it two
ways. You can either make the light bulb smart, or you can make the light socket or light switch
smart. Philips Hue continues to be the dominant smart lighting player here in the US
for smart light bulbs and that’s the brand I’ve used for the past several years now and
while they can be more expensive than competitors, their accessory ecosystem remains one of the best
out there.One of their accessories I love to use are the motion sensors, so when I open the door to
my apartment my hall lights automatically turn on, and they’re great for closets.
And you can automate your lights through your smart home platform, so you can set them to turn
on and off at specific times, you can also set what color temperature they should be
throughout the day and for some smart light brands, you can select specific scenes for
your rooms. Like my bedroom, where I wake up to sunrise colors and go to bed with a sunset scene.
For light fixtures that can't take a smart bulb, that's where the smart light switches come in from
companies like Lutron and I've left links to some of these products and our reviews of the Philips
Hue lighting system in the description below. And if you're interested in buying smart lights today,
Philips has confirmed that their entire lineup of products will work with the Matter standard.
Next up, Smart Shades. There are a few companies now like Lutron’s Serena brand
and IKEA that are making all different types of smart blinds and smart shades
for all different types of windows. Some of these blinds can automatically adjust their
tilt settings, according to the time of day and can automatically
close at sunset. I've reviewed a set of the Serena wood blinds, which are a bit pricey,
but work really well. That review and other products are linked in the description below.
Now, the next part of your home I'd look at automating is the thermostat.
Smart thermostats like the Nest and Ecobee and others from brands like Honeywell
allow you to control your thermostat through your smart home platforms
and automate your home settings, So, for example, if your thermostat knows no one
is home based on motion sensor data, it'll go into a away mode and not run.
Next up lets talk smart locks, doorbells and home security systems. First Smart
Locks. I've had the August Wi-Fi lock which we've reviewed and in general,
the benefits smart locks give you are you can unlock your door with your smart phone,
be able to remotely check the status of your lock, easily give people temporary access to your home
and be able to automate your lock, so it will automatically lock at night etc.
Now, smart locks are going through a bit of a transition with Matter
and newer technologies coming to them like Thread. So in my book,
it may be worth it to wait to see what comes out later this year, for smart locks specifically.
Also, if you’re an iOS user and want to take advantage of the new Home Key feature
in iOS 15 that allows you to tap your phone or Apple Watch to a lock and immediately open it,
only one lock at the time of this recording from Schlage seems to support it, so
if that’s of interest to you, I’d definitely wait to get a lock like that.
Next, Smart Doorbells. these are great additions to any home because they can detect when packages
are left on your doorstep, when someone is at the door they can send a notification on
all the smart speakers in your home and even show the live camera feed on smart displays
like with my Nest Doorbell, or on your TV like with the Apple TV 4K.
Some can even use facial recognition to let you know who's at the door.
This is another category where I’d probably wait for doorbells that support the Matter's standard,
and in my case, it's unclear whether or not the Nest doorbell will be upgraded to Matter
later this year. Now, if you're looking at buying a smart home security system
and integrating that into your smart home,the hubs that many of these systems use
won’t actually work with the Matter Standard. So whether you’re going with one from players
like Ring, Simplify Safe, or the more traditional ones like ADT, Brinks and CPI here in the US,
you should be good to go and not need to worry about Matter compatibility at this time,
just make sure the one you pick will work with your smart home platform of choice.
Now, the next category of devices to talk about are those that make your existing devices in
your home smart. So think smart plugs and smart switches. For example, I use a smart plug from T-P
Link to automate when my humidifier on and off. They’re incredibly easy to setup and made by a lot
of brands including Amazon. IR blaster hubs are another type of device can help automate existing
devices in your home by mimicking the infrared signal output from devices controlled by remotes.
So you could automate turning on and off an audio receiver or bedroom fan.
There are even little tiny robots that you can get, like, the one I have made by Switchbot,
which can automate any device that turns on and off with a button. I use
mine to turn on my espresso machine each morning. I'll leave a link below to the
video we did on the switchbot i you want to learn more about how it works.
Now, another trend that's become quite popular in smart homes for the past couple of years
have been smart home appliances. So you can monitor whether or not your stove is turned off,
or get a notification once your load of laundry is done, or be able to automate
certain tasks have your Roomba vacuum the downstairs every other day starting at 10am.
Now, do note that not all smart appliances will be able to support the Matter standard,
when the standard rolls out later this year.
So those are all the category devices that I consider automating in my smart home. But there
is one more category that's really important that I've yet to talk about and that is the category
of entertainment. Think smart TV streaming devices, and smart speakers for multi-room audio.
Smart TVs and TV streaming devices allow you to stream content from your favorite apps
and watch live TV as well as turn on and off your TV system with a smart assistant.
We've reviewed two of the main devices here in the US, at least,
which are the Chromecast with Google TV and Apple TV 4K and if you're interested in those reviews,
check them out in the description below.
Now smart speakers in the home have two important purposes. One is to play audio in multiple rooms
around your home and the other is to pick up voice commands for controlling your smart home,
like turning off the lights or turning up the thermostat. Often I find it's easier to just bark
commands to one of the assistants, then to dig out my phone out of my pocket or to go to another
advice to make adjustments. Though there are now smart displays like Amazon’s Echo Show which is
wall mountable l and Google’s Nest displays, which we’ve reviewed, that allow you to control your
smart home and make adjustments which is useful. For playing audio unfortunately, the smart speaker
device category is one of the most fragmented device categories in these smart home
to date and it's unclear whether or not the Matter standard is going to do anything at all
to fix that. In general, there are two different ways to cast media from your phone or other device
to your smart speakers. And that's by using either Google's Cast System or Apple's AirPlay 2.
Amazon has their own cast mechanism but it’s not at a device OS level like Apple and Google’s,
so it’s not going to be as accessible as those two.
You can buy smart speakers made by the smart home platform companies themselves, think the
Amazon Echo, Nest Mini from Google and HomePodMini from Apple, all of which we’ve reviewed. But if
you want a more premium sound experience you can get speakers made by third parties like
Bose and Sonos that will also allow you to run the Google Assistant and Amazon Assistant on
them. You can get Siri for HomeKit only on Apple’s HomePod Mini, which we’ve reviewed.
For multi-room audio, depending on the cast mechanism that you use, you can group third-party
speakers in with the speakers made by the big tech companies. For example, I group my Sonos
speakers with my HomePod Minis, and I group my Onkyo receiver with my Google speakers.
However, you can't group Sonos speakers with Google speakers and you can't group
an Amazon Echo, Google Home Max and an Apple HomePod Mini together as a speaker group. So,
you'll need to be careful with what speakers you choose for your home.
So what about if you're building a new home? In general, my advice when building a new home
is to build for plug and play. Technology in the space is moving so quickly, I personally
wouldn’t bother with things like an embedded an intercom system, hole for your TV in the wall,
or screens in walls, because that tech will become outdated way quicker than your home will.
In general, I would not put in anything that's going to be a real pain to rip
out. And whatever you do for the love of tech, do not mount the TV above the fireplace.
Now if all of this smart home stuff sounds too complicated and you’d rather just have someone
come in and build one for you, there are smart home integrators out there that you can hire
and they’ll come in and set everything up for you and use smart home platforms like Sevant,
Crestron, and Control4 to control your smart home, you're just going to be reliant on those
companies to fix anything that goes wrong, and you're going to spend more,
which is why you typically see these systems in the luxury home market.
If you’re in the US, you also work with companies like Best Buy for a smart home consultation as
well. Now we've done a ton of reviews and videos on smart home tech, I've left a bunch of them
in the description below. Plus our smart home playlist, so make sure you check that out and
if you have any questions at all about starting a smart home or expanding one, leave them in the
comment below and I'll try to reply with the best advice possible. Hit that thumbs button
if you like this video, and subscribe to the channel to see more smart home related videos,
like this one and product reviews that we've done like our August Wi-Fi smart lock review,
and our Apple HomePod Mini Review. For 6 Months Later, I'm Josh Teder, thanks for watching.