The setup for our smart home is from brilliant to basic

Why is your home smart? Compatibility of everything you want to do in a smart home and how to do it with a connected device

For example, today, you can set up an automation that will unlock your door, turn on your lights, start your sprinklers, shut off your HVAC system, and have your cameras start recording video when a smoke alarm goes off in your house. The key phrase is you, all that will happen unless you put in the work to set up automation. In the future, a smart home could have the intelligence to do all of these things automatically, and — crucially — only if there is an actual fire, not just when you burn the toast.

For this interoperable future to be a reality, however, we need a common connectivity protocol so that all devices can talk to each other and not be limited by only working with certain platforms. This is where Matter becomes key to the future smart home. Data collection is the main piece of the puzzle.

Adding smart tech to a light bulb is more expensive than adding it to a door lock. More and more makers of devices are charging subscription fees for feature and security updates in order to manage their costs of cloud server and resources. It’s not uncommon to spend more on new garage door openers or smart controllers if you want to be able to close the door from the office, but is that something worth it?

It’s not all compatible: Not everything works together. The smart lamp you bought may work with Apple Home and your iPhone but not with your son’s Android phone. Your roommate has two smart speakers but no multiroom music in the whole apartment, because he has Amazon Echos. If the smart lock in your new home is Z-Wave, you can’t control it without buying a smart home hub.

The Verge Covers All the Matter Platforms for Living in a Home: An Overview of How Smart Home Lighting Can Help People with Limited Mobility

All of the major platforms support Matter. There are many smaller ones that fit more specific needs, as well as more complicated ones. We’ve written deep dives into each of these platforms on The Verge, and they’ll be available later this week:

It can be helpful for a home to be more accessible for people with limited mobility. People with disabilities can have more independence by controlling locks, lights, shades, appliances, and more by voice or using a touchscreen device. Smart buttons that can trigger automations and routines offer a simple, accessible interface for children or those with limited cognitive or physical functions, and programming routines in someone’s home so that they happen automatically can make a huge difference in someone’s daily life.

The simplest smart home lighting is what I have. Light switches and bulbs. It is an easy way to circumvent the weird wiring and light switch setup in an old house, without having to use voice or phones to control the lights.

Smart Homes: How Smart are Smart Devices for Living in a Smart World? A Short Review on Amazon Prime Day Sales, and the Constraints from Google

But beware, what can be given can also be taken away. A recent example is Google announcing it’s ending support for its smart security system, Nest Secure, leaving users with useless paperweights (although Google will help you recycle the devices). Anything connected to the internet needs regular security updates. While companies are starting to give timelines for how long they will protect their hardware with software updates, if and when they do, non-smart counterparts may continue to work as designed. While basic functionality should remain in most cases (although not with the Nest Secure), the fancy features you paid extra for could be gone.

Smart devices with connected advantages over their non- connected counterparts. A smart door lock can still be used to lock your door, but you can now use a locking device when you are out of town. A smart sprinkler system will still water your garden, but now it can avoid overwatering by not running before, during, or after a rainstorm. A smart light switch will still turn the lights on and off when you flip it, but it can also turn them on automatically using a motion sensor and even turn on lamps and lights in different rooms.

Every action in this morning routine is automated. The lights, locks, thermostat and other items are connected to one another by wireless protocols that allow for the automations of them. I can also make adjustments at any point via an app on my phone or with a voice command to a smart speaker. I live in a smart home, so it’s all because of that.

The lights are not on while we leave the house for school and the door is locked. When I arrive home an hour later, the robot returns to its dock and empties itself, the door unlocks as I approach, and the lights turn on.

I tell Alexa that I’m going for a shower, and it’ll turn on the towel heater and set a 20-minute reminder to turn off the hot water. During the winter, it would turn on a room heater and electric blanket at 11PM every night (after yelling at me to go to bed), and we’re now in the process of switching these over for cooling fans as the weather improves. Setting timers for cooking has made my life a little bit easier.

I became an Amazon shill because of the low prices on Echo devices in Prime Day sales. I have three fifth-generation Echo Dots and an Echo Show dotted around my home, paired with a buttload of Alexa-compatible energy-monitoring smart plugs and lights. We eventually plan to get a thermostat from Tado, but for now we’re just using gadgets with voice commands and automations.

We don’t really have to change anything in our home, we just need a couple of speakers, and a Chromecast to play music. However, at the beginning of last summer, our old living room air conditioner finally stopped working completely, and we hastily purchased an LG A/C. It isn’t the most up-to-date smart home technology, but it does work with its own app. It is cool that we can easily turn it on 30 minutes before we get home, rather than having it automatically turn on in the morning. Maybe we have to rethink the entire idea of smart homes.

Under my desk is a tiny brick of a computer (an Intel NUC) running Home Assistant, which serves up a pane of buttons and widgets to each family member’s phone. Control of every light bulb, myQ garage door, sprinkler system zone, and the myq door are all via buttons that we can use to spray the stray cats in our yard. TP-Link smart plugs are attached to our humidifier, workbench and fan. Buttons for the heat pump AC and heating systems in five rooms to control their temperature, speed, and vane direction. We never use the Ring Alarm system because we no longer leave the house.

I admit, this is not a single solution, but I am not looking for a one size fits all solution. I want privacy and permanence. Big Tech doesn’t need to stay focused enough when a long home loan is what most of them have been around for. I don’t want to throw out equipment that was good because one bad quarter means the brand won’t update their app anymore. Home assistant helps Matter even though it might solve all of this.

The light switches feature double and triple-clicks, which can be used to turn the light on in a room without being too bright. Triple-click down in the vestibule triggers the “goodbye” automation, which, right now, simply turns off all the lights, but even as I type that, I’m realizing… it’s incredible! Every house should have this.

Smart Home Setup Google Amazon Apple Nest Echo: A Honeywell Smart Speaker for a Climate and Terrain Containment

This programmable smart speaker is based on the M5ATOM design and can be programmed to access AWS, Baidu, and other cloud platforms, using the built-in microphone and speaker for voice interaction.

Houses in some parts of the world are designed with considerations for the climate and terrain. Not in suburban Texas! There is a room in my house that has a lot of air coming from the upstairs bedrooms and the thermostat is in that room. It’s a totally different microclimate. I replaced the OEM thermostat with a Honeywell T9 and stuck a remote sensor in each bedroom. I’m able to set a temperature range in the bedrooms, which is a big improvement.

My favorite thing I’ve done so far is putting Hue bulbs in the bathroom I share with my spouse, along with a double rocker switch on the wall. Top left puts the bulbs into full daylight mode at 100 percent, top right is a warm white setting, and bottom right is even warmer and dimmer to help us wind down at night. I have Hue bulbs in my older kids’ bedside lamps, too; they come on gradually, starting a little before wake-up time, shut off once we leave for school, and default to gentle, warm light at bedtime.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/23728273/smart-home-setup-google-amazon-apple-nest-echo

The Verge – Smart Home setups for writers, editors and writers in our homes — A case study with the Nest Hub Max and the Iphone

My spouse and I both used Android phones until recently, and we have a Nest Hub Max, so a lot of our older devices only integrate with Google Home, which makes controlling them from our iPhones obnoxious. Controlling them from the Nest Hub Max is also obnoxious but for different reasons. I set up Homebridge on the wrong device to try to get our devices to show up in Apple Home, but I don’t think we have yet because I have put all our devices on a separate area in my network. Next, I will attempt to get even further over my head and create Home Assistant. I am confident that it will be fine.

We asked the staff at The Verge what kind of smart tech was used in their homes, and most of them had at least one plug and two speakers added by mistake. Here are some of the smart home setups that our editors and writers live with.