What's up guys!
It's Chris Majestic here with Majestechs.
I've had several people ask me questions about home automation and how I have certain things
working in my house so I want to do a 3-part guide on home automation.
The very first video is going to be a general overview and that's going to include everything
you need to know about home automation and what's out there so stay tuned.
So the first thing you need to know is that modern home automation is usually done with
what's called a "smart hub".
Well what is a smart hub?
A smart hub is going to be a central connection point for all of the different smart devices
that you have in your home.
It's also going to handle all of the configuration and the processing for what you want to do
with home automation.
So there are a lot of smart hubs out there nowadays and it can be a little confusing,
but the one that I normally recommend...
I normally recommend 1 of 2 to most people.
The very first one is going to be Samsung SmartThings and the other is going to be the
Wink Hub.
Now both of these have their strengths and their weaknesses but personally what I recommend
to most people is the Samsung SmartThings Hub just because it's a little bit more flexible
and it allows for more expansion and scalability than something like the Wink Hub, but I normally
recommend the Wink Hub to people that want simplicity.
If that's your most important thing to you and you don't really want to do crazy and
elaborate things with home automation and you just want to do some simple stuff then
you can get the Wink Hub.
It's really easy to get started with and it's going to be a little bit more intuitive than
something like the Samsung SmartThings Hub.
That being said, all the other hubs have their benefits as well but as far as scalability
and interoperability working with other devices and other smart hubs and things like that,
Samsung SmartThings is pretty much going to be the best right now.
One thing you need to keep in mind when you're looking at these hubs is that most of them
are cloud-based.
What that means is that the configuration is stored out there on the cloud and that
means that it needs to have a constant Internet connection in order to work.
Since it's cloud-based and it requires a connection to the internet, if you lose Internet connection
you have nothing so if you're using it in a critical situation like "I don't want to
carry keys because I just want to use my phone to unlock my door."
If you've lost Internet in your house you can't unlock your door so you want to have
a failsafe in place, something as simple as a key, just in case you do lose Internet and
you can't get into your house.
So now that you know what the hubs are, when you go to buy one of these hubs you're usually
just going to buy a hub by itself and then you're like "okay now what?"
What you need to know as far as devices is that these devices use certain protocols.
Now I know when I say the word "protocol" I lose Iot of people so don't think that this
is really that complicated because it's really not.
Basically, the protocol is the way that your smart hub is going to communicate with the
devices that you buy.
I'll use Samsung SmartThings since that's the hub that I use and that's the hub that
I recommend to most people.
So if you buy a Samsung SmartThings Hub and you go out there to the store, whether it's
Lowes, Home Depot, you go on Amazon and you want to buy sensors, the thing to keep in
mind is that it's going to be compatible with most of the protocols out there but the main
2 that you're to see are Z-Wave and Zigbee.
So if you see that it says it's a Z-Wave sensor, like a Z-Wave water sensor or something like
that, it will work with Samsung SmartThings or if you see a Zigbee device, whether it's
like a motion sensor and it says Zigbee, that will also work.
So if you want to, you could actually take something like SmartThings and turn that into
an actual alarm, which is going to include things like open/close sensors, whether it's
a tilt sensor, or motion sensor, all those types of things.
And have it actually work as an alarm system for your house.
You could do sirens and a water sensor, put that in the basement and you could buy a water
shut-off valve and if there's water in the basement, shut the water off.
Whatever you want, there's some type of Z-Wave or Zigbee device out there that does it.
So that moves us on to one of the most popular things that people do with smart hubs, and
that's lighting.
So when it comes to lighting you're really going to have 3 different options.
One is going to be a new wall switch, whether it's an on/off switch or a new dimmer.
The second option is going to be a wall outlet.
Maybe you have a lamp plugged into the outlet and you just want to switch that on or off.
The third option is really the most common, which is just to swap out a bulb, so maybe
in your bedroom you have a lamp or a light in the ceiling.
You just unscrew the regular bulb you have in there, put in a "smart bulb" or a "connected
bulb" and that's just going to work through your smart hub.
So you have a lot of different options when it comes to lighting.
Okay, so that brings me to myself.
So what devices am I using?
What kind of home automation do I have set up?
Well, I use the Samsung SmartThings Hub as my central smart hub.
I also have the Logitech Harmony Home Hub.
I also have an Amazon Echo as well as the Echo Dot and I do use that voice control automation
so that works through the SmartThings Hub as well as the Logitech Harmony hubs to control
things like the TVs and lights in my house.
Alright, so I just want to briefly show you just in case you haven't seen any of my other
videos, just some of the home automation tasks that I have setup.
So the best way to show you this is going to be with the Amazon Echo since I have the
Amazon Echo linked to SmartThings and the Harmony Hub.
Chris: "Alexa, open Chris' garage door."
Alexa: "Okay."
Chris: "Echo, turn on basement TV."
Alexa: "Okay."
Chris: "Alexa turn on outside garage lights."
Alexa: "Okay."
Chris: "Alexa, turn the house alarm on stay."
Alexa: "Okay."
Chris: "Alexa, set the downstairs temperature to 74 degrees."
Alexa: "Setting downstairs A/C to 74."
Alright, so as you can see I have all of these things set up and they're all working together.
So this is where your planning really comes into play so you want to make sure that all
of the devices you're buying are compatible with the hub that you're buying and make sure
the hubs are compatible with each other as well.
So depending on how deep you want to go as far as adding a bunch of devices and a whole
lot of different automation, it can be very difficult to set these hubs up.
Now this is where getting a Wink Hub over a SmartThings Hub actually comes in handy
because the Wink Hub is a little bit easier to set up and use compared to SmartThings.
Now, it is easy for the most part to add devices to either one of these but when you're setting
up your automation, that's when one really shows over the other.
So you have to be patient either way.
You have to do your research and it's going to take you some time to get these set up.
Alright guys, well that's going to be it for this video.
Now keep in mind, this is video 1 of 3 so I'm going to have a 3-part series.
So this is going to be just a general overview in this video.
I'm going to go in more detail in the other 2 but I thank you for watching this video.
Hopefully you found it helpful.
If you did, please mash that "Like" button for me.
Don't forget to subscribe and I'll see you in the next video.