It’s been two years since I moved from my home in Austin to a rental home on Bainbridge Island outside of Seattle, and one year since I moved into my permanent home here. Which means I’ve had ample time to set up a new smart home infrastructure that will wow you with its awesomeness and functionality!
Except…I haven’t actually set up much of a smart home. Part of this stems from having spent so much of my time handling renovations amid the pandemic, but a larger part is the realization that most of my devices aren’t worth the time and trouble to implement. Before you think I’m about to dump on the smart home again, I need to clarify that I’m actually more in a holding period. More specifically, I think that by this time next year I will have a plethora of new gear on hand that works together more easily than it could now, thanks to the Matter protocol.
In the meantime, however, I have about 55 Wi-Fi devices on my network, roughly 30 of which are smart home-related. Some even entered my home thanks to the pandemic and the switch to everyone working from home, validating a trend that many analyst firms have highlighted. So let me show you what I’ve got so far.
Lighting – The most connected elements in my home are lights. I have a half-dozen Lutron switches in most of the main rooms, seven Philips Hue bulbs and bridges (plus a motion sensor), four Wyze bulbs, a Nanoleaf Essentials bulb, and two sets of Nanoleaf light panels. My husband has also set up three connected Elgato Key lights for his work-from-home camera setup that are tied into an Elgato Stream deck so he can hop on a video call and optimize his lights in one quick tap.
All of the lights are connected to Amazon and Google’s smart speakers for voice control and some automation. But my favorite two setups are the storeroom lights, which use Philips Hue bulbs and a motion sensor to turn on whenever the door is opened and off whenever motion goes undetected for more than five minutes, and a button that we use to turn the lights on or off in my teen’s bedroom to signal to her that we need her upstairs.
I also have two full-spectrum LEDs plugged into Wyze-connected outlets that are scheduled to turn on and off so I can light my plants during the winter.
Kitchen stuff – I swapped out my original June oven for the latest model. I still love it with all of my heart, although I wish I could connect it to Google so I could tell Google to preheat it (I can do this with Alexa, but my Echo is in my bedroom, so it’s not really useful). I have an old Lenovo Google Smart Display in the kitchen running through photos; we also use it for timers, weather, watching YouTube, playing music, and settling disputes. My fridge has Wi-Fi, but I haven’t connected it. I also have a connected sous vide cooker somewhere, but I haven’t pulled that out since we arrived. My Delta faucet has an Alexa capability, but I haven’t connected it because I don’t have an outlet by my sink and because I don’t have Alexa in my kitchen.
Living areas – The living room has three different versions of connected lights, so I have them all grouped to turn on as a unit if needed. I also have two Nest Audio speakers, which I loved until I discovered that they hate staying on my Wi-Fi network. Swapping routers didn’t fix the problem, so I now have to sporadically unplug them after they drop off the network for the hundredth time. My den downstairs has a second Google display that doesn’t see a lot of use, but is nice for dimming the lights for movie night and for blasting Spotify while we work out. There’s a Roku box that’s connected to what would be a smart TV if I connected it to the internet. And my den has a section of overhead lights connected to a Lutron switch.
I also have an Ecobee thermostat upstairs, but I need to shell out for a sensor to monitor the temp downstairs, which can vary by as much as eight degrees. I know this because I have two air quality monitoring sensors scattered around the house. One is the Awair Glow smart plug, and the other is the Airthings Wave Mini device. There’s also a connected Roomba vacuum we named Terrance, who as I type this is cleaning dog hair from my bedroom floor.
The boring stuff – As you might be able to tell from my collection of air quality monitors, I’ve gotten pretty into boring devices in the last year. One, called Ting, monitors electricity fluctuations in my home so it can warn me if it detects a fault that might lead to an electrical fire or other problem. Another, from Aquanta, monitors the temperature and electricity use of my water heater; it also has a leak detection sensor that lets me know if anything is going wrong. Finally, I have a Phyn leak monitoring device plugged into my upstairs guest bathroom that tracks water usage and any leaks in my home.
Security – I have too many doors in this house, four of them being patio-style sliding doors for which I can’t find connected locks. This makes me sad, as I really want to build a goodnight routine that locks all my doors and stops me from having to run all over the house checking them before I go to bed. I have three doors with traditional deadbolts and two of those have connected locks on them. My front door has the WiFi-enabled Schlage Encode, which is super handy, although I haven’t opened the app since my first install. The back door has a Z-wave lock from Kwikset that only gets used because it has a keypad. I dumped all of my Z-wave hubs earlier this year after throwing in the towel on Wink.
I also have a Ring mailbox sensor that is more of an annoyance than it is useful, a Eufy connected doorbell that we purchased because it was the best option that didn’t require a subscription, and a Chamberlain MyQ garage door opener that I love because we tend to leave the garage door open in this house more often than we did back in Austin. I also have a door in the garage that leads to the outside (so I suppose that’s eight doors!) that I’d like to get a smart lock on, but I’m waiting for some Matter-certified locks to hit the market next year.
I have a Wyze cam and two Arlo cameras that I put out when we leave town or I am trying to monitor something weird in the yard, but those are only intermittently on my network.
Outside – I have a Lutron outdoor plug that controls some Christmas lights, and I’m waiting eagerly for the Orbit B-hyve faucet controller to arrive so I can hook it up and create a good watering schedule for my garden. I also need to get a septic monitoring device as part of my boring IoT gear, but have been dragging my feet on that.
Bedrooms – Speaking of sleeping, our bedrooms have connected light bulbs or switches depending on whether there are overhead lights or not. My bedroom and my daughter’s bedroom each have Amazon Echo devices, with mine being the latest fourth-generation Echo and my daughter using the original 2014 Pringles that I purchased as part of the original Echo beta. I can’t believe it still works! My daughter also has a smart outlet from Wyze that controls her fairy lights using voice.
If I look at all the smart gear in my home, it mostly falls into the convenience or entertainment categories, and few things — other than the June oven or the boring elements monitoring my home — are truly smart. This list doesn’t include my various wearables or Bluetooth-enabled sensors, exercise gear, or trinkets that are also scattered around the home. For 90% of these devices, once they are set up, I never use the apps, preferring to use automation, voice, or physical buttons to control them.
I no longer spend an hour or so each week futzing with smart hubs and different radio protocols, which is nice, but I also admit that the smart home I have is pretty far off from the smart home of my dreams. I’ll check back in a year or two post-Matter and let you know where I’m at then.
How many apps do you use to control all of the devices and how much integration have you been able to achieve to limit app fatigue?
I only open my Nanoleaf app (for the scenes because I can never remember what they are called for voice control), the Ecobee app because I didn’t connect it to Alexa or Google and want to tweak the temps, and my air quality apps because if I’m not in the room and I can’t see their indicator lights.
Most of the integration is pretty rudimentary and more than you might imagine involves physical buttons 🙂
Thanks for the great article, I’ve used about 40 Philips Hue lights, motion sensors, remotes and such now for some four years without any problem whatsoever. Unfortunately, a few weeks ago my Philips Hue Bridge suddenly died (that can happen of course) and I was confronted with a single point of failure. Due to all kinds of circumstances we were in the dark – so to speak – for four days in a row, until I received a new Philips Hue Bridge. And then it took me even some more days to get everything reset and reconnected to the new Bridge.
For that reason, not wanting to be dependent on just one system, I am now starting to use the Homekit app with Eve Thread enabled devices and Nanoleaf lights next to my existing Philips Hue lights. I hope this will make me less dependent on one system only, make my home smarter, and help me make my next step into using other smart home niceties. I don’t find it particularly easy to integrate Nanoleaf lights with the Philips Hue lights through HomeKit, though. But I guess that’s just temporary unfamiliarity on my side and that eventually I will get things mostly the way I want them to be.
And as I was struggling these past few weeks to get everything working the way my wife and I want, I started to realise that diving into the smart home-world means that getting everything connected is going to be a work in progress for many years to come, would you agree?
At the moment I’m seriously doubting if I should invest more, or wait for Matter to change things and improve connectivity. Would you say that buying Thread enabled devices like Nanoleaf lights and Eve Thread accessories now in 2021 is a safe bet for the future?
I think there are two primary groups of smart home users right now:
1) enthusiasts, who see a cool new device and wonder what they can do with it, and
2) problemsolvers, who have a specific use in mind and then find a device that matches both the problem and their current setup.
Sounds like you’re currently in the second group, which does tend to lead to fewer devices installed, but also fewer headaches. Choice is good. 😎
With regard to the patio door locks, there are a couple of options on the market for the US now, but nothing as cheap or easy as a standard front door lock.
(As a tetraplegic wheelchair user, handsfree locks are a category I follow closely.)
OPTION A: ANDERSEN WINDOWS AND YALE LOCKS, PATIO DOORS
If you’re willing to replace the entire door with a different style (French door or double door rather than sliding), then Andersen Windows has you covered. They have a partnership with Yale to provide smart locks which are very similar to front door locks, but skinnier. Your choice of either Zwave or WiFi/Bluetooth. Beautiful doors, elegant locks, everything works well. The WiFi version works with HomeKit, IFTTT, Alexa, Google Assistant. (I’m optimistic about future Matter compatibility, but no promises.)
If you have buckets of money or want to find a use for your Helium profits, this is a top candidate.
https://www.andersenwindows.com/windows-and-doors/options-and-accessories/smart-home-solutions/
OPTION B: AN AUTOMATIC SLIDING DOOR OPENER WITH LOCK
if you don’t want to replace the sliding door, or you just don’t want to spend that much money, both Autoslide and Olide have retrofit sliding door systems with lock options. The primary feature is automatically opening and closing the door so The power requirements to run that motor mean these are both plug-in options, not battery-operated, but both work well and offer some simplistic integration options.
Autoslide is the easiest to integrate because one of its options is intended to connect the door to a wall-mounted push button, like the accessibility buttons you see on automatic doors at shopping malls. So all you need is a smart switch/relay/button connected via that option and you’re all set.
Olide is more complicated. They offer a bunch of different control options, from facial recognition to handheld remotes, but none of them have any integration options, they are all selfcontained systems. (They do a large amount of sales to small businesses, from warehouses to medical offices.) However, in early 2021 they added a new wallmount battery operated button which works with Alexa. So now you can get integration through an Alexa routine. it’s a much more limited integration than the autoslide option and it also is cloud dependent. And I doubt if you’ll see Matter compatibility anytime soon.
Olide’s biggest plus is cost: project cost is typically 1/3 that of autoslide. You can even get it down to about $400 per door if you do all the labor yourself and keep to the minimum features.
Both of these brands have very good safety features, a real plus over any DIY project that’s starting from scratch.
Both have some models available on Amazon, although you may see a wider selection on the manufacturer’s website.
Neither is cloud dependent except for integration with third-party systems like voice assistants.
In the US, Autoslide is sold online by EvoProducts as the authorized manufacturer outlet. They are also available in other countries.
https://www.evoproducts.com/
Olide is from a Chinese company, Chinentech, with different websites in different countries, all with the usual translation issues. here’s the one for the US. Again, you can also find their products on Amazon in many countries.
https://www.olidesmart.com/products/olidesmart-wifi-switch-automatic-sliding-door-opener?_pos=16&_sid=8b8a8d183&_ss=r
Neither has a lock that matches the security or features of the Andersen/Yale lock, but it’s a glass door, it’s not going to keep out a determined burglar anyway. If the primary function is to keep kids from going through, it should do that.
OPTION C: DIY ELECTRIC LOCK WITH SEPARATE KEYPAD
If you’re not worried about physically opening the door and you want to spend under $150, you can replace the existing sliding door lock with an electric lock and keypad and have a lock that’s about the equivalent of the existing manual lock. Maybe even a little more secure if you go for the deadbolt style. Integration is designed on the same principle as the autoslide integration above: you just use an electric lock and Control that with any smart relay/switch/button you like. Or in some designs even just a plug-in smart plug. This requires more mechanical/carpentry type work than the other options, but it’s certainly doable.
Here’s one that’s currently popular as an all in one budget kit with a Zigbee radio. I’m not sure if it would work with an Amazon echo show that has a zigbee hub inside, but it might. However, this one just works as an on/off switch, it doesn’t allow for keypad combinations unless you start adding a lot of other stuff.
http://www.lingletech.com/
Here’s a project report from 2017 based on smartthings, but you could use the same idea with any controllable relay/smart plug combined with the keypad of your choice and do it on other platforms.
https://community.smartthings.com/t/complete-sliding-door-electronic-lock-with-keypad-access-fully-st-integrated/95168
So there are definitely ways to include patio door locks in your smarthome set up, but the cost is usually higher than a typical front door and with the exception of the Andersen/Yale option, these all require more work for installation and integration then you’re probably used to with smart locks.
Whether that’s worth it to you or not is a very individual situation. For someone like me who uses a wheelchair, these projects can definitely be worth it. Enthusiasts will almost certainly be interested. But your typical able-bodied problemsolver may want to wait for less expensive, and hopefully Matter-compatible, options to come on the market.
Woo hoo! Olide now has new models of both their sliding glass door opener and their swing door opener which come with a built-in Wi-Fi integration that can use the TuyaSmart app or IFTTT for integration with Alexa, Google Assistant, or a number of other home automation platforms. (But not HomeKit)
This might even lead to eventual Matter compatibility, but of course no promises.
Anyway, this now looks like the easiest way to get voice assistant control of automatic doors at home. A typical cost would be around $700 per door, although it depends on which accessories you want. available in a number of countries.
If you don’t need it immediately, I would still probably wait a year or so and hope for matter integration. But if you do have an immediate need, such as for someone in a wheelchair, and you don’t want to pay Andersen prices, this is a big jump forward for this device class.