I absolutely love smart home tech. I got a degree in Computer Engineering because software alone doesn’t do it for me, but I love the edge where the physical world and software meet.
Where to start?
If you’re just starting out it can all be a little overwhelming. Things are expensive and it can be hard to know where to get started.
By far the best bang for the buck is going to be a smart video doorbell and smart lock for your front door.
Even if you rent, in most states you’re allowed to add your own lock to the door, and the video doorbell I recommend below has a bunch of mounts available that don’t require any tools to install/uninstall and so no damage to the door.
Doorbell
Smart lock
The smart lock supports Apple Key, meaning if you’re an iPhone user you can just hold your phone or Apple Watch up to the lock to unlock. No need to remember a code. I’ve tried many smart locks including Yale and August (now the same company) but this is the most reliable and easiest to use of all I’ve tried. I’ve since replaced all the others with this one.
You can generate as many unique codes as you’d like and give them out to your dog walker, or any contractors you have coming over to do things on your house while you’re away at work.
If someone rings the video doorbell while you’re away, it rings on your phone. You can chat with them, and if it was someone you forgot to give a code to but they need to get in, you can remotely unlock the door for them and let them in.
Another nice feature of the video doorbell is that it has limited facial recognition for people who show up regularly. We have a nanny that we pay hourly and we use this feature to keep track of their time. We can pull up the app, and it will show us when they arrived and when they left. Easy time keeping.
Going Further
The next major life enhancement is a bit more expensive: lights. However, once you have complete control over not just the brightness but the color of all the lights in your house, you’ll never go back.
Philips Hue are the ones I recommend. There are many cheaper alternatives out there, but the Hue lights are rock solid stability. They’re more stable than the major assistants. Friends of mine have tried other, cheaper lights and are constantly frustrated.
Its reliability comes in part from its use of the Zigbee protocol for control instead of bluetooth or wifi alone like other cheaper lights.
Advanced
While these devices are very useful on their own, the real power comes from putting them together.
Every platform (HomeKit, Google Home, Alexa) all support some kind of automation. Apple specifically offers a trigger “When the last person leaves”, which will start when it detects that everyone connected to the home app has their GPS location is outside of the house.
However, that’s only helpful if EVERYONE is on HomeKit and uses an iPhone. Anyone in your house using Android won’t be detected, any guests who aren’t permanent members of the home won’t be detected.
Instead, I’ve set it up so that when the door locks anytime between 7am – 7pm it will
- Turn off all the lights
- Start the robot vacuum
No more forgetting to turn off the lights, or turning them off manually from the app when you do remember. If you have smart outlets, you can even make sure appliances are turned off like the toaster, or non-smart lights. If we come back before the vacuum is done cleaning, it simply returns to the dock. You could also set it so that unlock turns on certain lights, etc.
Now, my robot vacuum and doorbell don’t have native HomeKit support built-in. In fact many of the neatest smart home devices only support Alexa and Google Home for historical tech reasons (Apple used to require special security chips that were quite expensive in order to be certified, they have since relaxed that restriction but the damage is done)
So how did I get it to trigger the vacuum when we lock the door? That’s a story for another time.