When it comes to building a smart home in 2021, there are now more options than ever
before.
So in this video, I'm gonna walk you through how to go about building a smart home, what's
new in the world of smart home tech for 2021, and then ultimately my recommendations on
some of the best platforms and how to build a smart home.
So let's dive in and the first thing that we need to talk about is the first step that
you do when deciding to build a smart home, which is which Platform you're going to use
to run all of your smart home devices.
There are two main directions to go here.
The first is you can go with an integrator which is a company who will come in and install
everything for you and give you the platform that everything runs on.
Some of the more popular platform companies like this will use Control4, Savant, and Crestron
which all mainly target the luxury home market.
The second is by using platforms like the Google Assistant, Amazon's assistant, Apple's
HomeKit, Samsung’s SmartThings, Wink, and then other smaller platforms like the open
source home assistant platform, which is mainly targeted to people who are very tech savvy
and like to tinker a lot with their home electronics.
Now the big three platforms right now in my book are Amazon's assistant, Apple's home
kit, and the Google Assistant and the reason I picked these three is because each of them
contain a pretty powerful smart assistant.
Now, why is having a smart assistant so important in your smart home platform?
Well aside from making it feel like you live on the Starship Enterprise, having a smart
assistant being able to control all of your smart home devices is super convenient.
So, for example, you don't have to carry your phone around with you everywhere you go to
control the lights or other devices and you don't have to walk up to a specific display
like on a thermostat or another third-party screen to control all of your devices.
You can control them from wherever you are in your home by just using your voice.
Now with quite a few options, you may be asking yourself do I have to choose just one assistant
platform, or could I use multiple ones?
You can use more than one in your home, you'll just need to make sure that the one that you
are using can control all of your smart home devices because not all smart devices can
be controlled by the big three assistant platforms.
The reason not all devices work on each of the big three platforms is historically the
platforms have had different standards for how to communicate with them and Apple has
usually been the stickler for requiring specific hardware requirements for devices to work
with their HomeKit platform.
Which is why you’ll see some devices that work with the Google Assistant or Amazon Assistant
but not with HomeKit.
Apple has relaxed some of the hardware requirements for HomeKit devices, so hopefully that'll
open it up to more smart home devices out there.
Plus Amazon, Apple, Google, and the Zigbee Alliance have all decided to come together
and form a working group called Project Connected Home Over IP, which plans to develop and promote
the adoption of new royalty-free connectivity standards for smart home products that put
security as a fundamental design tenant.
So, what does this mean for you as a user?
Well, As time goes on and you buy new smart home devices, those smart home devices should
work with all of the major platforms out there because these platforms have joined together
and agreed upon universal communication standards for smart home devices.
Now, what is Zigbee you may ask?
With Smart Home devices there are actually several different technologies at play depending
on the smart devices you use.
Some devices will use Wi-Fi or Bluetooth which you’ve probably heard of while others rely
on ZigBee, Z-Wave, or Thread.
Zigbee is probably the most popular one of these out there so I'll use that for my example.
Now in simple terms these are local mesh networks that typically consist of a hub that is directly
wired into your router and your devices, you can think of them like they’re daisy changed
together.
So, for example, when your Zigbee hub sends out a signal to one Zigbee device that device
will then carry on that signal to all of the other Zigbee devices in your network.
The benefit of these types of systems is they typically have more range than a Wi-Fi network
with one router.
The only downside is you'll need to have a hub to control your Zigbee or other similar
type of network and sometimes different smart devices will require different hubs.
For example, in my home my Lutron Smart blinds are connected directly to the Lutron hub which
is wired into the router and my Philips Hue lights are connected to my Philips hue bridge
which is a hub that is also connected into my router.
Now recently, with a popularity of smart assistant platforms like the Google Assistant, Amazon's
assistant, and Apple's Homekit, hubs have become more and more unnecessary to control
your smart home devices because many of the devices today will just directly connect to
your Wi-Fi network with the only downside being when your Wi-Fi goes down, you'll lose
the ability to be able to control your smart home devices.
For the everyday consumer, I don't think you're going to need to worry about whether or not
your smart home device uses Zigbee, Bluetooth, or Wi-Fi.
For most consumers the simple thing to do is to decide on the platform that you want
to run your smart devices on and buy smart devices that are certified to work with that
platform.
Now, if you're the type of consumer that likes to tinker with technology, or you just want
more control over your smart home then yes, I do think you should pay more attention to
the technology that you're smart home devices are using.
All right now that we've gone through the different platforms and the different types
of technologies used in smart home setups, let's talk about what types of smart home
devices you can use in your home.
In general, I break it down into these categories: music, media, lighting, climate, security,
and appliances.
First let's look at music with whole home audio.
This type of functionality allows you to play music and media throughout your home typically
using smart speakers that run voice assistants and you do have quite a few options here.
Amazon, Apple, and Google, all make their own smart speakers, that will play various
music streaming services natively on the speaker itself.
There are also third party speaker systems, you can buy from companies like Sonos and
Bose that can work with all three companies’ platforms.
Some Bose and Sonos speakers will even allow you to have Alexa and the Google Assistant
directly on their speakers.
We've done reviews on quite a few smart speakers, including the Google Nest Mini, Nest Hub,
Nest Hub Max, Nest Audio, Google Home Max, Amazon Echo, Amazon Echo Dot, and the HomePod
Mini.
The Google Nest Hub and Amazon Echo Show have the added benefit of having a screen on them,
which makes controlling your media as well as other smart home devices even easier.
If you're interested in learning more about any of these devices, I'll leave links to
videos that we've done on them in the video description below.
Next, let's take a look at how to control media rooms within your smart home.
Now typically this involves controlling a TV or projector associated speakers and then
the lighting of your media room but we'll get to lighting in just a second.
Right now Apple, Amazon, and Google make the best TV streaming devices that will enable
you to turn on and off your TV and related devices with an assistant.
They all deliver content from major streaming services and some can support the latest formats
like 4K HDR with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos.
Google and Amazon's devices are typically around $30 to $70 US dollars while the Apple
TV 4K runs a bit more at $179 US dollars.
The Chromecast with Google TV and Apple TV in particular make it really easy to stream
content from your device's directly to the TV by using either Apple's AirPlay or Google's
casting feature.
Personally, I use both the Apple TV and the Chromecast with Google TV and I love being
able to ask the Google Assistant or Siri to turn off the TV and you can do that with just
your voice with these devices, and it will not only turn off the TV but because it uses
HDMI CEC the TV the receiver and either the Apple TV or Chromecast will also turn off
as well.
Next up, let's talk about smart lighting and this category is particularly interesting
because neither Apple, Amazon, nor Google produce their own smart lights unlike with
the speaker and media device categories.
There are generally two approaches to doing smart lighting within your smart home.
You can either make the light bulb smart or you can make the switch that controls the
light bulb smart.
And you can use a combination of these approaches as well.
The main players in smart lights right now are Philips, GE, LifeX, Ikea, and Eufy.
These smart light makers make LED bulbs that are typically in three categories: plain white,
bulbs that go from daylight to warm light, or multicolored bulbs.
Sometimes the bulbs will use Bluetooth or Wi-Fi or other types will need a ZigBee hub
or something else that connects into your router.
Smart lights can save you a lot of time.
You can turn off all your lights by just using your voice at night, you can control your
lights through a smartphone app and you can set up routines for your smart lights as well.
For example, I have mine to set to automatically fade in over 30 minutes in the morning and
then I have them display sunrise colors.
I'll have them automatically change to daylight during the workday and then change to a warmer
hue in the evenings.
You can even have them use your location and use geofencing technology to turn on and off
your lights when you come home and leave.
There are also other accessories you can get with your smart lights like wireless dimmer
switches that you can assign to control a variety of lights in your residence.
Philips Hue probably has the most accessories and smart lights available today and they're
the brand that I have in my residence.
We did a review of them that I've linked below in case you're interested.
For Smart Light switches some of the popular brands out there are WeMo, Casa, Ecobee, and
Lutron.
These switches connect to your home's Wi-Fi network and replace the switch you have in
your existing wall allowing you to either control the lights with the switch or with
a phone app or with a smart assistant.
These are a good option if you're doing a remodel or building a new home and you need
to put in light switches anyway, or if you have a light fixture that you just don't want
to put smart bulbs in or can't find the right smart bulb size to put in.
Next let's talk about climate control within a smart home and here we're mainly going to
talk about smart thermostats.
These are Wi-Fi connected thermostats that can be controlled by your smart assistants.
Most smart thermostats will work with each of the big three smart platforms and they're
installation is typically pretty easy.
Some popular ones include the Nest learning thermostat made by Google, the Ecobee4, which
Amazon has a sizable stake in and various other ones as well, like from big name brands
like Honeywell.
Some you can program like more traditional thermostats with a weekly schedule while others
like the Nest Learning Thermostat, learn your pattern and use AI to predict what the temperature
should be set to.
Most now allow you to stick sensors in different rooms around your house to aggregate the temperature
data in your home to give you a true home temperature.
Next, let's talk about smart home security systems.
The options here will vary greatly depending on your location.
Here in the US, you can choose to go with the service from large brands like Brinks,
ADT, and CPI, or you can do a more do-it-yourself route by doing the install of the sensors
base station cameras and supporting equipment yourself.
Some companies that allow you to do this are Ring and SimpliSafe.
They allow you to do the install and placement of security devices but also have a monitoring
service as well.
Nest is another large brand in the home security space, but the company recently discontinued
their Nest Secure alarm system at the end of 2020 and earlier in the year, they struck
a deal with ADT where Google invested 450 million dollars in the company.
So you can expect more to come in this space from Google's Nest brand.
The last option with Smart Home Security is a complete do-it-yourself route without a
monitoring service which opens you up to a lot of other third-party devices out there,
especially with cameras.
Just make sure you buy cameras from a company that you trust with your privacy and you also
want to make sure that the cameras you buy are compatible with these smart home platform
that you've chosen because being able to tell the Amazon Assistant or Google Assistant to
bring up a video feed on a display or tell Siri to arm the system, makes using these
systems much more convenient.
The last and final category of smart home devices is a catch-all category that I like
to call appliances and accessories.
There are so many devices in this category and it grows larger and larger every year.
The basic concept is that these are devices like your typical home appliances like your
stove, refrigerator, washing machine.
But also home accessories that can connect to your smart home platform like smart blinds,
robotic vacuum cleaners, smart scales, smart plugs, etc.
My go-to smart home accessory over the past few years has been smart plugs.
They turn any appliance into one that can be simply turned on or off by any of the major
smart home platforms.
They're especially handy when it comes to holiday decorating.
For example around the Christmas time frame I use about five to eight smart plugs to link
all of my holiday lights to the Google Assistant.
Once you've chosen your smart home platform and start buying devices for your smart home,
you're just going to be amazed at how easy it is to automate some of the most mundane
parts of your life.
Like turning off the lights in every room of your house with your voice, having your
Roomba clean the kitchen after cooking or do things you could only have dreamed of years
ago, like having blinds that automatically close at sunset or adjust their tilt throughout
the day based on the angle of the sun.
Most of the major smart assistant platforms have routines and automations that you can
create within the platform to help automate all of your devices.
So, for example, when you come home, your lights can automatically come on, your thermostat
turns up, and your speakers start playing the latest news from BBC or NPR.
Or when you start getting ready for bed your thermostat lowers the temperature, the lights
turn to a sunset color and slowly dim over 30 minutes, the blinds close, your bedroom
fan turns on, and your assistant tells you what's on your calendar for tomorrow and then
starts playing ambient sounds of the forest to help you drift off to sleep.
This level of customized automation is no longer a dream.
It's attainable and accessible to millions of people out there, thanks to these smart
home platforms and the thousands of devices that run on them.
Smart home tech has the potential to really change our lives for the better and it's an
important part of what we do here at 6 Months Later Reviews.
So if you'd like to learn more about a particular smart home device, we may have already done
a video on it or are about to.
So, make sure you subscribe to the channel to see more videos of smart home products
and tech like this video and if there's a particular device that you'd like to see us
do a video of make sure you leave a comment below to let us know.
Well, I hope you found this video helpful and informative and if you did and liked it,
make sure you hit that thumbs up button below.
Well, that's gonna do it for me.
For 6 Months Later, I'm Josh Teder.
Thanks for watching.