Happy Saturday Everyone, watch til the end before you judge me 😉 BUY ANY OF THE PRODUCTS FEATURED IN TODAY'S VIDEO: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. By buying through any of the links below I will earn commission at no extra cost to you :) GLOBAL: switch-bot.com/PaulHibbert UK: amzn.to/48g9m15 US: amzn.to/3v0QvZK
I give zero shits about anyone dumb enough to use a corporate spying device some 5 YEARS after it was PROVEN that the company does in fact listen in randomly and record the things you say and do without your knowledge even keeping videos of people having sex in their own beds because their device and smart TV are facing their bed.
No paul. I judge all books by their thumbnails. We ain't got time for these sort of things its 2024 soon. And the world end is just around the corner. All hail our robot over lords.
Following watching this video i started the switch to HomeKit, as a household of Apple products it works really well. I have don't have a complicated set up at home so it was a no brainer for me. I have actually managed to automate more items than before and now considering camera and doorbell options. The Aqara doorbell, i am not sure as its massive but cameras thinking Eufy 2 series which looks good and seem very reasonable
Thank you for pointing out the lock in of any proprietary ecosystem. That fact alone has pushed me into an open source ecosystem. Yes, Home Assistant, no machinations needed. Now what I and at least a few others would like is a tutorial on how to remove all and any apps so that "everything" works with Home Assistant alone. Thank you.
Totally with you on the Alexa app and home screen, a total waste of space. But to be fair the Apple one isn't a great deal better. I have them both setup. Support for multiple homes and multiple spoken languages is also a nightmare in both systems. I use home assistant to make a bridge between Tuya and HomeKit, and is holding up nicely. Wouldn't it be great if one day it all just "werked". I notice Google Home is not even a contender 🤣... also agree 🙂 Good video as always, although not truly sure who the sponsor was 😅
I wondered if HA would pop up. The glue that holds the smart home together. May have to try Homekit presence detection. Currently using Hie … Hue. Apple keeps asking if I want to allow it to keep background privileges. YES STOP ASKING ME. I could do with further explanation of how this works. I have two iPads of various vintages. Do they have to be excluded? How did I add guests. Sister and mum are iPhone users. Ps: I kept the freudian typo and yet it just works in both the Homekit and Hubitat ecosystems.
Home Assistant is good, but with the aide of Google Home, it becomes more awesome. For example, I can control all devices in HA by voice control through Google Home. And you can even omit to specify the light of which room you'd like to turn on or off. Just say "turn on", the light closest to you will be turned on without affecting the other lights. HA can't do this without Google Home. So you see, Google Home is not that bad.
@@chriswatt2702 HA Geofencing is the best. It can monitor your location every 5 seconds in the region you specify. You can't do that in GA, which usually update your location every 15 minutes, yes MINUTES.
I use the geo-fence feature with Alexa, I live in New Zealand. Think maybe you're missing a step...everything you mentioned can be done in Home Assistant aswell.
@paulhibbert If you setup a second shipping address in Amazon. So US in your case and select it as your primary, then you'll be able to access US content, on a FireTV or Alexa. That's the step you're missing.
Hey Paul, big fan. You’ve helped loads so far and I’ve run into a wall here. Wondering if you can help. I’ve just gotten the Aqara hub and h1 dual rocker switch. The right switch I’ve got turning on my regular light switch, and the left one I wanted to use to trigger my studio on scene which is currently triggered by my flic button. The flic button works amazingly, as I can use that as a trigger for my Alexa routine, however, the h1 doesn’t even show up as a trigger. As a work around, I’ve created a trigger on voicemonkey, connected Aqara to IFTTT and set it up that way. It works, but with serious delay sometimes takes 15 seconds to trigger as opposed to instant with the flic button. If I got a home pod, would this work?! I know you’ll probably say, stick to flic, but I simply do not want to as there might switch would just be so much handier and I’d rather repurpose my flic. Let me know your thoughts!
Hey Paul, other day i connected my M2 to Alexa via matter and to my surprise I can now trigger routines with light switches on and off positions. Give it a try if you like
The main problem with HomeKit is, that you can not make any backups of your configuration. For me it broke once and I had to reset and manually add all devices and rebuilt all automations.
Paul I think that you have best entertaining content. Your videos make me want to dabble with smart home equipment. So I am going around asking TH-camrs like yourself that are gurus with home automation to ask if they can guide me on trying to get my mother’s iPhone to ring over her apple HomePod mini. She is hard of hearing. As an excuse we can say my daughter lowers the volume of the ringer by mistake when she means to lower the volume for her games. Is there a way to get the iPhone to ring over the apple home pods. I know you can make a call, answer a call from, and transfer a call back and forth to home pod, but is there a way to make all the HomePod ring . Is there something in settings. Maybe an apple shortcut to make. I would really appreciate the help.
I use the Apple geo fencing to unlock my door using Nuki lock. Works really well, only issues I have with my smart devices is with Aqara, always something losing connection.
I have all my devices set up for both the Siri and Alexa platforms. I use Alexa for hands-free voice commands and I use the home app on my iPhone for manual control of devices.
Great video and information. I’ve been looking at some of your back catalog and you mentioned a zigabee hub that could be used to improve apples home compatibility. The one in the video is no longer available and it would be good to combine some features for example Aqara temp sensor with evohome. Are you aware of any hub that could offer that integration?
Merry Christmas Paul, Ive subscribed because this kind of content is great. Love the more technical stuff, love to know how you get all your stuff working! Have a great day.
Completely agree about the Alexa app, there’s such a lack of thought about it as a smart home control interface, that lack of thought continues through to how they utilise the space on their smart displays too
Hi Paul, Hope you had a good Christmas, I so get where you are coming from with the Alexa app its like they don't test their products in the real world. How many WIFI enabled devices do you have on your current router? My last count I have over 30, not all being used at once but was recently told that my router typically has 12 WIFI channels, I say this as I have recently started getting drop out issues. Any thoughts?
Can Samsung smart things integrate with home kit? I like a lot of features home kit has and I think it would be a fun switch to make but I don’t want to lose anything. Please and thank you
You know about the shortcut app right where you can set up automations that do multiple different things, well, when Amazon starts charging a subscription fee, I’m sure you’ll make the move
Paul, there is a workaround, but that's the point you're making, you can tie Alexa to IFTTT and create those reaction rolls your mentioned as being missing in comparison to Home Kit. Thanks for the insight 👍🏻
his point is not having to use multiple systems (like he currently does) which means saying "siri, x" one minute and "alexa, x" another minute. most people prefer to only have one system to talk to
I use home assistant for geofencing. With their app I find its brilliant, very reliable. I don't like the Iphone anyway, its too rigid and non customisable for my liking. Also I like having wireless Android Auto in the car with the maps and satellite view enabled, I could not give that up, its too good.
What's your radius for Geofencing? With Paul's it's when he loses Wi-Fi connection his doors lock, which could be 50 meters up the street, before they hopefully lock. In that time someone has entered his home and done terrible things.
I wonder when the wife comes home if she constantly ready for when she turns on the kitchen light if the living room TV will turn on and a disco ball lower from the ceiling..lol
Google does everything youve mentioned in this video as well as having YAML scripting if you sign on to the preview programme. I know Paul has issues with GH understand him, but personally I've never suffered feom that, especially if you set the listening sensitivity to 2+
Google doesn't work locally well as well as it's routines is pretty wacky at times. I have no idea why these companies are struggling so hard to enable automation locally but when you choose the home assistant path it might be the better since integration with Home assistant is seamless and google voice is probably the best. (btw I own both Alexa and Goole integrated with home assistant. )
@@remy44444 I'm not too worried about having it work locally. I have FTTP which has never dropped out and any general maintenance is done at 3am. On top of that I have 5G backup to my home WiFi in the event there was an outage. Because I write YAML routines for Google Home, there really is nothing that requires me to start using Home Assistant at this point.
@paulhibert what would you recommend automatically turning on my stairway lights when I approach/am on the stairs? I have a "weird" split stairway. currently limited to Alexa and mostly use wifi switches. Haven't put one on the stair light yet because there are 3 switches that control it, and I had enough problems installing a smart dimmer switch on a two switch setup in the kitchen. I ended up having to get two dimmers to get it to work. Don't ask me why. (amazon basics smart dimmer switches) afaik Alexa doesn't really respond to motion sensors... or is there a way to do it? Not quite ready to switch fully to some other system like home kit (apple yuck) or home assistant.
Alexa’s constant “by the way” comments after commands, drove me so nuts I got rid of it and switched to Homekit. I have a lot of devices that aren’t Homekit compatible, but it’s been really easy to use an old laptop to run Homebridge. I’ve had it for months and it’s been a breath of fresh air. My only regret is not switching earlier.
Great video. On point #4, Alexa Routine triggers, you can do that with Wyze & Philips Hue bulbs and smartplugs in the US. While HomeKit Automation offers much better logic functions when converted to Shortcuts, I agree that the inability of Siri to easily speak during automation is a major problem. I currently use HomeKit turning on Philips Hue smartplugs to trigger Alexa Routines when I want HomeKIt to speak
@@cbcdesign001 Sorry 'bout that Paul. My second workaround is to use a smartplug that can be controlled by HomeKit and recognized by IFTTT as an "IF" with the Alexa Skill IFTTTrigger for Alexa Routines
Paul doesn't always clarify his Amazon account country status. Sounds like he's ALL UK and therefore doesn't receive the benefits of the US. I live in Australia, but have my Amazon account set to the US and my Tuya/Smart Life devices can now trigger Alexa routines directly through the Alexa app.
Am sad that Home Assistant only gets a minor mention these days, especially for this one since presence detection via WiFi-connected devices JUST WOOOOOORKS and has been there for years. Maybe consider including HA for stuff that's stupid simple to setup (like sub 5 minutes)?
Even Google Home has the home screen as the "favourites" that can have selectable favourites on it, no ads. I don't get why Amazon can't do that. I use Home Assistant more often though, because I am a geeky nerd who lives alone and doesn't have a girlfriend lol :). Actually - being serious I do have a partner, and I do use Home Assistant, but I don't play with it constantly so it doesn't break too often :) I like the dashboard HA presents.
I have all my devices working in Homekit, Alexa and Google via HA integrations. So no need to choose, but also more sophisticated automations without worrying what eco-system triggers it
Happy holidays, Paul. Entertaining and educational as usual. Just a tiny note, uniqueness is an absolute; either a thing is unique or not, so 'entirely unique' is a tautology. Have you considered that you probably could make a second living by hiring yourself out as a consultant to help others set up their smart homes?
I don't really use the app for either platform but rather prefer using my word hole to direct the digital minions. The thing I (and more importantly, my wife) appreciate most about the HomePod over an echo is the ability to say "Do a thing at a time"; so Siri/HomePod understands "Turn on the coffee maker at 6:30am" and will create an automation to do so. The same command directed at Alexa will immediately turn on the coffee maker... Other than that Alexa/Echo is generally feels more "complete" when interacting with it than does Siri/HomePod. I use both with Home Assistant to make up for various deficiencies in each.
It’s the aqara g4 which is really good. BUT, since moving here it seems to recognise vehicles turning in the road as people loitering 🤔 notifications for these alerts is a bit annoying and I haven’t found a way around it yet. Eufy have a doorbell that I THINK is HomeKit compatible, I tested it for Alexa at the time and it was probably the best doorbell I’ve tried
Hey Paul, I’d love to see you try out the Homey Pro to see if that has any potential for you. Everyone else that did a video on release never did a follow- up, so I’d love to see your take on more extensive coverage. I firmly don’t expect it to replace Home Assistant for very Home Assistant specific things, but I feel like it can do *a lot* and I’d love to hear more about it to see if I’d get one myself.
You found the same as me pretty much. I also ended up with am combination of home assistant and amazon. Amazon is pretty my for the other half to use as she likes voice. What I have done is add Apple Bridges in Home Assistant so that all my non-matter devices can still be made available in Home Kit. I also use HomeBridge with the Ring (yes - I know - but the boss lady likes ring and I'm not daft enough to argue) to allow that to work with Home Kit. It allows me to use it on my iPhone and iPad. But at the end of the day I've made nice dashboards in HA that let me do everything I like and most importantly I have a happy partner!
I use Alexa around the house, I find that it doesn’t seem to hear or very intermittently work when cooking with an extractor fan. The mini speaker that I brought while I was testing the company I work for new smart items I found the sound on music and responsiveness was really good, the only issue I have is the cost of them. I can buy almost five dots for the price of a mini speaker. That and the cost of the smart items that are compatible on home app are expensive also
We use Alexa for voice and HomeKit for Automations/Primary interface. This is why I carefully planned my devices even before Matter. Matter is slowly making more options available like my Eve devices to voice control in Alexa. I wanted to use Home Assistant but with the initial issues connecting to Alexa it would not have been approved by the wife.
I had enough with Alexa the moment i came downstairs one morning and my echo show was displaying a FULL SCREEN ADVERT for EE in my kitchen. I tried so many ways to disable ads but no matter what I did they just appeared in a slightly different way. I am not paying money to put an unwanted digital advertising billboard in my house. I still have echo and dot devices as the voice assistant is faster than Google for controlling smart home devices, but i suspect I'm going to eventually phase out alexa. The ads on the alexa app are infuriating too
Got rid of Alexa 2 years ago tried google it was rubbish switched to apple homekit and love it Siri is a bit dim but for my smart home it works perfectly don’t miss Amazon at all
I love the idea of zoned presence. But in practice, none of the folks in my home - myself included - like the same lighting paradigm each and every time we walk into a room. The only places where we do like it are utility rooms (laundry, workshop)… and in those rooms, a mere motion-sensing fixture is sufficient. But in the kitchen? Wife might want Christmas themed lighting in a given moment, while she might want purple lighting in another moment. As the investment in Alexa has already been made, we will live with it for some years.
5:28 I have the Venetian blinds with the two pull strings so no wand to screw. I wish Switchbot would develop something for these blinds without having to take them apart and fit a motor in there (I would be worried to take the blinds apart and the motors are stupidly expensive).
Damn. That’s a lot of potential opening up. I can now add the fingerbot to my coffee machine and have it in HomeKit. Also. Great set of jokes. 👏. PS Merry Christmas
Great video Paul, even if you're becoming an apple fan boi ;) 😂 Google has Matter too and a nicer app than Alexa, but like Alexa you can't trigger from device, have to use Home Assistant for that, so I use a combination of Google and HA, but yes wish I could do Geofencing better. Merry Christmas 🎉
Great video as always Paul, really enjoyed it. I think you have hit the nail on the head with everythng you have said, the Amazon Alexa home page is a joke, so much clutter on there it is an app I tend to try and avoid. Apple home kit on the iphone and I pad I really like the lay out but the control for lighting is really basic, colour temperature is a nightmare to set (Alexa is better refined in this application), I also have Hive set up in both Alexa and home kit and Alexa is better than apple in this regard too. There is still a few things I would like to buy but I can't see that they are avaible (for e.g. vertical blind control which would be nice). My smart home journey has come to an abrupt halt because there isn't anything I need at the moment. Have a great christmas! 👍👍
Merry Christmas. 👍 Unfortunately as an iPhone user cannot support Apple anymore. I’ve never supported Amazon. Both their smart home options I don’t use or need. Makes my life easier avoiding these corporations.
Although it is not super straightforward but with aqara you could record your TV remote (on the G3 hub for example) and then create a scene to turn on BBC One, call it that way and export that scene to HomeKit. You could then indeed say « Siri, Turn on BBC One » and get it launched. That said I really wish it would be simpler…
Yeah totally get it, I may make the switch from Amazon to apple. Sick of my echo asking me that I thought you might want a new pair of socks or asking me to review a product my wife bought on amazon when all I want is reliable smart control.
I've had alexa for years and the experience gets worse with every update. I swear someone who is high up asks the question of how they can annoy the users without getting them to throw said device in the trash or out the window.
Agree the Alexa app is exceptionally poor. Not only laid out poorly but so slow. Not being able to trigger with certain devices is annoying. Agree on current best middle way is HA and Alexa. Have a great Christmas and thanks for another entertaining year
If you have Tp link you can set up Shortcuts that enable you to control them via Apple as well. Not perfect but I can tap one button on my phone and trigger a bunch of stuff to happen at once or use my voice. Great video once again. Space Muppet - so funny. And true.
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Happy Saturday Everyone, watch til the end before you judge me 😉
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I give zero shits about anyone dumb enough to use a corporate spying device some 5 YEARS after it was PROVEN that the company does in fact listen in randomly and record the things you say and do without your knowledge even keeping videos of people having sex in their own beds because their device and smart TV are facing their bed.
No paul.
I judge all books by their thumbnails.
We ain't got time for these sort of things its 2024 soon.
And the world end is just around the corner.
All hail our robot over lords.
I for one welcome our robot overlords
01:05 - iiiiiiiit's STEWIE! 😏😉🤣🤣🤣
😎🇬🇧
Sorry left early. I boycott Apple .
Following watching this video i started the switch to HomeKit, as a household of Apple products it works really well. I have don't have a complicated set up at home so it was a no brainer for me. I have actually managed to automate more items than before and now considering camera and doorbell options. The Aqara doorbell, i am not sure as its massive but cameras thinking Eufy 2 series which looks good and seem very reasonable
Your phone is lost or stolen, the finder/thief walks right into your freshly unlocked front door.
Thank you for pointing out the lock in of any proprietary ecosystem. That fact alone has pushed me into an open source ecosystem. Yes, Home Assistant, no machinations needed.
Now what I and at least a few others would like is a tutorial on how to remove all and any apps so that "everything" works with Home Assistant alone.
Thank you.
Totally with you on the Alexa app and home screen, a total waste of space. But to be fair the Apple one isn't a great deal better. I have them both setup. Support for multiple homes and multiple spoken languages is also a nightmare in both systems. I use home assistant to make a bridge between Tuya and HomeKit, and is holding up nicely. Wouldn't it be great if one day it all just "werked". I notice Google Home is not even a contender 🤣... also agree 🙂 Good video as always, although not truly sure who the sponsor was 😅
Google can do one 🤣
(covering the microphone of his nest speakers) "shhhh, nasty Paul Hibbert can't get to you, and we love you, Google Assistant"
I wondered if HA would pop up. The glue that holds the smart home together.
May have to try Homekit presence detection. Currently using Hie … Hue. Apple keeps asking if I want to allow it to keep background privileges.
YES STOP ASKING ME.
I could do with further explanation of how this works. I have two iPads of various vintages. Do they have to be excluded?
How did I add guests. Sister and mum are iPhone users.
Ps: I kept the freudian typo and yet it just works in both the Homekit and Hubitat ecosystems.
Home Assistant is good, but with the aide of Google Home, it becomes more awesome. For example, I can control all devices in HA by voice control through Google Home. And you can even omit to specify the light of which room you'd like to turn on or off. Just say "turn on", the light closest to you will be turned on without affecting the other lights. HA can't do this without Google Home. So you see, Google Home is not that bad.
@@chriswatt2702 HA Geofencing is the best. It can monitor your location every 5 seconds in the region you specify. You can't do that in GA, which usually update your location every 15 minutes, yes MINUTES.
I use the geo-fence feature with Alexa, I live in New Zealand. Think maybe you're missing a step...everything you mentioned can be done in Home Assistant aswell.
Missing a step? It’s not there as an option when creating a routine. There’s no step to miss 😂
@paulhibbert If you setup a second shipping address in Amazon. So US in your case and select it as your primary, then you'll be able to access US content, on a FireTV or Alexa. That's the step you're missing.
Merry Christmas Paul, to you and your family!
And have a great New Year!
Thanks dude!! You too :)
HomeKit does already have support for TVs, I think that TVs just arent included in Matter yet
Hey Paul, big fan. You’ve helped loads so far and I’ve run into a wall here. Wondering if you can help.
I’ve just gotten the Aqara hub and h1 dual rocker switch. The right switch I’ve got turning on my regular light switch, and the left one I wanted to use to trigger my studio on scene which is currently triggered by my flic button. The flic button works amazingly, as I can use that as a trigger for my Alexa routine, however, the h1 doesn’t even show up as a trigger.
As a work around, I’ve created a trigger on voicemonkey, connected Aqara to IFTTT and set it up that way. It works, but with serious delay sometimes takes 15 seconds to trigger as opposed to instant with the flic button.
If I got a home pod, would this work?! I know you’ll probably say, stick to flic, but I simply do not want to as there might switch would just be so much handier and I’d rather repurpose my flic.
Let me know your thoughts!
You scared me man. The title of this video- I thought my 15 Alexa devices were going the way of Zuckerberg Portal.
Hey Paul, other day i connected my M2 to Alexa via matter and to my surprise I can now trigger routines with light switches on and off positions. Give it a try if you like
The main problem with HomeKit is, that you can not make any backups of your configuration. For me it broke once and I had to reset and manually add all devices and rebuilt all automations.
Paul I think that you have best entertaining content. Your videos make me want to dabble with smart home equipment.
So I am going around asking TH-camrs like yourself that are gurus with home automation to ask if they can guide me on trying to get my mother’s iPhone to ring over her apple HomePod mini. She is hard of hearing.
As an excuse we can say my daughter lowers the volume of the ringer by mistake when she means to lower the volume for her games.
Is there a way to get the iPhone to ring over the apple home pods. I know you can make a call, answer a call from, and transfer a call back and forth to home pod, but is there a way to make all the HomePod ring . Is there something in settings. Maybe an apple shortcut to make. I would really appreciate the help.
Thanks Paul. Happy Saturday and Merry Christmas. 🎄🎄
You can set what a device is displayed as inside the devices settings in HomeKit
you have HA i don't know why to use homekit or alexa for automations. To me it is only voice assistant and this is it.
I use the Apple geo fencing to unlock my door using Nuki lock. Works really well, only issues I have with my smart devices is with Aqara, always something losing connection.
I have all my devices set up for both the Siri and Alexa platforms. I use Alexa for hands-free voice commands and I use the home app on my iPhone for manual control of devices.
Great video and information. I’ve been looking at some of your back catalog and you mentioned a zigabee hub that could be used to improve apples home compatibility.
The one in the video is no longer available and it would be good to combine some features for example Aqara temp sensor with evohome. Are you aware of any hub that could offer that integration?
Merry Christmas Paul, Ive subscribed because this kind of content is great. Love the more technical stuff, love to know how you get all your stuff working! Have a great day.
Thank you my friend! Happy Christmas to you too! ❤️
Completely agree about the Alexa app, there’s such a lack of thought about it as a smart home control interface, that lack of thought continues through to how they utilise the space on their smart displays too
Hi Paul,
Hope you had a good Christmas, I so get where you are coming from with the Alexa app its like they don't test their products in the real world.
How many WIFI enabled devices do you have on your current router? My last count I have over 30, not all being used at once but was recently told that my router typically has 12 WIFI channels, I say this as I have recently started getting drop out issues. Any thoughts?
Paul goes apple when HA finished its year of voice.
You sell out! 😂
Home assistant
Home assistant!
Oh Home assistant!
Can Samsung smart things integrate with home kit? I like a lot of features home kit has and I think it would be a fun switch to make but I don’t want to lose anything. Please and thank you
Alexa to me has just gotten a lot better lately. She literally does scheduled commands now.
You know about the shortcut app right where you can set up automations that do multiple different things, well, when Amazon starts charging a subscription fee, I’m sure you’ll make the move
Are you going to be looking at Homey / Homey Pro? I’m seriously considering one
I can't believe you talking Home Assistant is a good thing!😂
Paul, there is a workaround, but that's the point you're making, you can tie Alexa to IFTTT and create those reaction rolls your mentioned as being missing in comparison to Home Kit. Thanks for the insight 👍🏻
I was going say IFTTT works for me.
I heard the kernel of a Jordan Perterson voice when you questioned Mark Z. Perhaps Jordan could be a new character in your comedy grab bag!
With Matter, you can use any voice assistant and smart home platform you want. Or all of them, at the same time.
his point is not having to use multiple systems (like he currently does)
which means saying "siri, x" one minute and "alexa, x" another minute. most people prefer to only have one system to talk to
As we say in the Netherlands:
🎼All I want for Christmas is Hue! 🎶
I asked you before and I'm asking again, can you please try Google home and compare it to alexa?
Happy Christmas Paul !
Do you know a door lock uk compatible with locks have to lift handle up before locking?
I use home assistant for geofencing. With their app I find its brilliant, very reliable. I don't like the Iphone anyway, its too rigid and non customisable for my liking. Also I like having wireless Android Auto in the car with the maps and satellite view enabled, I could not give that up, its too good.
What's your radius for Geofencing?
With Paul's it's when he loses Wi-Fi connection his doors lock, which could be 50 meters up the street, before they hopefully lock.
In that time someone has entered his home and done terrible things.
But.... home assistant?! HOME ASSISTANT! Merry Christmas 🎄
Happy Christmas Paul, thank you for this year of endless informative entertainment
Happy Christmas my friend!
Love your content Paul
I wonder when the wife comes home if she constantly ready for when she turns on the kitchen light if the living room TV will turn on and a disco ball lower from the ceiling..lol
Google does everything youve mentioned in this video as well as having YAML scripting if you sign on to the preview programme. I know Paul has issues with GH understand him, but personally I've never suffered feom that, especially if you set the listening sensitivity to 2+
Google doesn't work locally well as well as it's routines is pretty wacky at times.
I have no idea why these companies are struggling so hard to enable automation locally but when you choose the home assistant path it might be the better since integration with Home assistant is seamless and google voice is probably the best. (btw I own both Alexa and Goole integrated with home assistant. )
@@remy44444 I'm not too worried about having it work locally. I have FTTP which has never dropped out and any general maintenance is done at 3am. On top of that I have 5G backup to my home WiFi in the event there was an outage.
Because I write YAML routines for Google Home, there really is nothing that requires me to start using Home Assistant at this point.
@@remy44444
Pair it with smartthings and it's game over 👌🏻
@paulhibert what would you recommend automatically turning on my stairway lights when I approach/am on the stairs? I have a "weird" split stairway. currently limited to Alexa and mostly use wifi switches. Haven't put one on the stair light yet because there are 3 switches that control it, and I had enough problems installing a smart dimmer switch on a two switch setup in the kitchen. I ended up having to get two dimmers to get it to work. Don't ask me why. (amazon basics smart dimmer switches)
afaik Alexa doesn't really respond to motion sensors... or is there a way to do it? Not quite ready to switch fully to some other system like home kit (apple yuck) or home assistant.
oh - have you seen Amazons upcoming dashboard thingy? The wall mounted one?
I've an echo dot that won't pair to my phone or any other device. Any ideas? Everything else works fine.
Happy Christmas Paul, are you doing a sale video?
Thanks for the videos over 2023. All the best for Christmas and 2024.
Thanks dude, happy Christmas to you and yours!
“Ripe muppet” 😂😂💀
Haven't used an crApple product since 2010. Loving Smartthings!
Alexa’s constant “by the way” comments after commands, drove me so nuts I got rid of it and switched to Homekit. I have a lot of devices that aren’t Homekit compatible, but it’s been really easy to use an old laptop to run Homebridge. I’ve had it for months and it’s been a breath of fresh air. My only regret is not switching earlier.
Can you buy Homey Pro review it and tell me if its as good as everyone is saying
OMG!! The Alexa app drives me nuts. To use the announce feature I have to hunt through random seeming menus blocked by crap.
Depending on how strong your Wi-Fi signal is would determine when the lock would lock or unlock your door.
It seems you might need to try/retry google home, since it's both alexa and homekit combined.
Thought you never be in on HomeKit. I am a Apple Fan Boy LMAO Welcome to simplicity
It is tough knowing what both ecosystems can do that the other can't. Really frustrating in fact! 😂
😂😂 simplicity 🤦 The internet is crammed of 'how can I sideload this' 'does it work on Apple' begging posts from frustrated fanboys 🤣
@@stepheng8779 It’s coming
Apple simple? Haha. It’s not April 1 yet is it?
Great video.
On point #4, Alexa Routine triggers, you can do that with Wyze & Philips Hue bulbs and smartplugs in the US.
While HomeKit Automation offers much better logic functions when converted to Shortcuts, I agree that the inability of Siri to easily speak during automation is a major problem.
I currently use HomeKit turning on Philips Hue smartplugs to trigger Alexa Routines when I want HomeKIt to speak
Don't mention Philips Hue, you will make Paul unwell on Christmas Eve Eve. :)
@@cbcdesign001 Sorry 'bout that Paul. My second workaround is to use a smartplug that can be controlled by HomeKit and recognized by IFTTT as an "IF" with the Alexa Skill IFTTTrigger for Alexa Routines
Paul doesn't always clarify his Amazon account country status. Sounds like he's ALL UK and therefore doesn't receive the benefits of the US.
I live in Australia, but have my Amazon account set to the US and my Tuya/Smart Life devices can now trigger Alexa routines directly through the Alexa app.
@@SmartHomeHASHTAGS Thanks. I know several Canadian users do the same thing.
Am sad that Home Assistant only gets a minor mention these days, especially for this one since presence detection via WiFi-connected devices JUST WOOOOOORKS and has been there for years. Maybe consider including HA for stuff that's stupid simple to setup (like sub 5 minutes)?
Christmas episode next week featuring the wife, but you’ll like the week after 😜
Why not mix ecosystems? I do it a bit!
01:05 - iiiiiiiit's STEWIE! 😏😉🤣🤣🤣
😎🇬🇧
Even Google Home has the home screen as the "favourites" that can have selectable favourites on it, no ads. I don't get why Amazon can't do that. I use Home Assistant more often though, because I am a geeky nerd who lives alone and doesn't have a girlfriend lol :).
Actually - being serious I do have a partner, and I do use Home Assistant, but I don't play with it constantly so it doesn't break too often :) I like the dashboard HA presents.
Happy Christmas Brendan! ❤️🎄
Is it not possible to run them in parallel?
I have all my devices working in Homekit, Alexa and Google via HA integrations. So no need to choose, but also more sophisticated automations without worrying what eco-system triggers it
can you make a Google Home comparison as well?
Yes! Trying to get in this video before boarding my 7 hrs flight
Happy holidays, Paul. Entertaining and educational as usual. Just a tiny note, uniqueness is an absolute; either a thing is unique or not, so 'entirely unique' is a tautology. Have you considered that you probably could make a second living by hiring yourself out as a consultant to help others set up their smart homes?
I don't really use the app for either platform but rather prefer using my word hole to direct the digital minions. The thing I (and more importantly, my wife) appreciate most about the HomePod over an echo is the ability to say "Do a thing at a time"; so Siri/HomePod understands "Turn on the coffee maker at 6:30am" and will create an automation to do so. The same command directed at Alexa will immediately turn on the coffee maker... Other than that Alexa/Echo is generally feels more "complete" when interacting with it than does Siri/HomePod. I use both with Home Assistant to make up for various deficiencies in each.
Great video thanks
What front door camera do you use for it to show up on HomeKit? I hate my ring doorbell, the amount of times it just doesn’t work is insane
It’s the aqara g4 which is really good. BUT, since moving here it seems to recognise vehicles turning in the road as people loitering 🤔 notifications for these alerts is a bit annoying and I haven’t found a way around it yet. Eufy have a doorbell that I THINK is HomeKit compatible, I tested it for Alexa at the time and it was probably the best doorbell I’ve tried
Hey Paul, I’d love to see you try out the Homey Pro to see if that has any potential for you. Everyone else that did a video on release never did a follow- up, so I’d love to see your take on more extensive coverage.
I firmly don’t expect it to replace Home Assistant for very Home Assistant specific things, but I feel like it can do *a lot* and I’d love to hear more about it to see if I’d get one myself.
Ditto
Didn't switchbot already have HomeKit support? Then what does matter change....except adding a limit on how many devices you can add?
Matter has enabled Homekit support for nearly all their bluetooth range. They weren't supported previously 👍
As always great video
You found the same as me pretty much. I also ended up with am combination of home assistant and amazon. Amazon is pretty my for the other half to use as she likes voice. What I have done is add Apple Bridges in Home Assistant so that all my non-matter devices can still be made available in Home Kit. I also use HomeBridge with the Ring (yes - I know - but the boss lady likes ring and I'm not daft enough to argue) to allow that to work with Home Kit. It allows me to use it on my iPhone and iPad. But at the end of the day I've made nice dashboards in HA that let me do everything I like and most importantly I have a happy partner!
I use Alexa around the house, I find that it doesn’t seem to hear or very intermittently work when cooking with an extractor fan.
The mini speaker that I brought while I was testing the company I work for new smart items I found the sound on music and responsiveness was really good, the only issue I have is the cost of them. I can buy almost five dots for the price of a mini speaker. That and the cost of the smart items that are compatible on home app are expensive also
Captain spec muppet tripping made me laugh
We use Alexa for voice and HomeKit for Automations/Primary interface. This is why I carefully planned my devices even before Matter. Matter is slowly making more options available like my Eve devices to voice control in Alexa. I wanted to use Home Assistant but with the initial issues connecting to Alexa it would not have been approved by the wife.
Didn't you change to Aqura last week?
Hence the desire to get more involved with Homekit, they are very interactive
Good appraisal of this item.
I had enough with Alexa the moment i came downstairs one morning and my echo show was displaying a FULL SCREEN ADVERT for EE in my kitchen.
I tried so many ways to disable ads but no matter what I did they just appeared in a slightly different way.
I am not paying money to put an unwanted digital advertising billboard in my house.
I still have echo and dot devices as the voice assistant is faster than Google for controlling smart home devices, but i suspect I'm going to eventually phase out alexa.
The ads on the alexa app are infuriating too
Got rid of Alexa 2 years ago tried google it was rubbish switched to apple homekit and love it Siri is a bit dim but for my smart home it works perfectly don’t miss Amazon at all
Merry Hibbmas!
Right back atcha my friend!
Happy Christmas Stewie (and keep doing the shortish videos, so I don't have to reach for the heart medication).
Damn you vile woman!
I switched two years ago am my wife even uses home kit I have Apple TVs and you can get your tvs to do what ever you want
No more free Alexa guard. Jeff Bezos needs another yacht.
Morning Sir... Happy Christmas!
Morning dude, right back atcha!
I love the idea of zoned presence. But in practice, none of the folks in my home - myself included - like the same lighting paradigm each and every time we walk into a room. The only places where we do like it are utility rooms (laundry, workshop)… and in those rooms, a mere motion-sensing fixture is sufficient. But in the kitchen? Wife might want Christmas themed lighting in a given moment, while she might want purple lighting in another moment. As the investment in Alexa has already been made, we will live with it for some years.
Alexa voice control works so much better than Siri…
"Alexa, Bedroom" to turn all devices in Bedroom Group ON or OFF.
5:28 I have the Venetian blinds with the two pull strings so no wand to screw. I wish Switchbot would develop something for these blinds without having to take them apart and fit a motor in there (I would be worried to take the blinds apart and the motors are stupidly expensive).
Damn. That’s a lot of potential opening up. I can now add the fingerbot to my coffee machine and have it in HomeKit. Also. Great set of jokes. 👏. PS Merry Christmas
Great video Paul, even if you're becoming an apple fan boi ;) 😂 Google has Matter too and a nicer app than Alexa, but like Alexa you can't trigger from device, have to use Home Assistant for that, so I use a combination of Google and HA, but yes wish I could do Geofencing better. Merry Christmas 🎉
Great video as always Paul, really enjoyed it.
I think you have hit the nail on the head with everythng you have said, the Amazon Alexa home page is a joke, so much clutter on there it is an app I tend to try and avoid. Apple home kit on the iphone and I pad I really like the lay out but the control for lighting is really basic, colour temperature is a nightmare to set (Alexa is better refined in this application), I also have Hive set up in both Alexa and home kit and Alexa is better than apple in this regard too. There is still a few things I would like to buy but I can't see that they are avaible (for e.g. vertical blind control which would be nice). My smart home journey has come to an abrupt halt because there isn't anything I need at the moment. Have a great christmas!
👍👍
Merry Christmas. 👍 Unfortunately as an iPhone user cannot support Apple anymore. I’ve never supported Amazon. Both their smart home options I don’t use or need. Makes my life easier avoiding these corporations.
Ooooooh I didn’t know about the tv remote thing, might have to get that sorted for my new ambilight TV, it just weeeeeeerks
It just werrrrrks!!! Xxx
@@paulhibbert With the Hue Go’s synced too it’s a thing of beauty xxx
Hubitat C-8.... local control, zwave, zigbee, matter, home kit, Google, Alexa, etc....
Although it is not super straightforward but with aqara you could record your TV remote (on the G3 hub for example) and then create a scene to turn on BBC One, call it that way and export that scene to HomeKit. You could then indeed say « Siri, Turn on BBC One » and get it launched.
That said I really wish it would be simpler…
Seems to work pretty well with Tuya as well
What's your view on Google home ,paul
If you said goodbye to alexa, what smart speaker do u use now? And i guess alexa cant talk to apple routines?
Yeah totally get it, I may make the switch from Amazon to apple. Sick of my echo asking me that I thought you might want a new pair of socks or asking me to review a product my wife bought on amazon when all I want is reliable smart control.
I've had alexa for years and the experience gets worse with every update. I swear someone who is high up asks the question of how they can annoy the users without getting them to throw said device in the trash or out the window.
I owned a HomePod but had to switch back to Alexa because Spotify is still not on HomePod
Agree the Alexa app is exceptionally poor. Not only laid out poorly but so slow. Not being able to trigger with certain devices is annoying.
Agree on current best middle way is HA and Alexa.
Have a great Christmas and thanks for another entertaining year
Thanks dude, Happy Christmas! ♥️
If you have Tp link you can set up Shortcuts that enable you to control them via Apple as well. Not perfect but I can tap one button on my phone and trigger a bunch of stuff to happen at once or use my voice. Great video once again. Space Muppet - so funny. And true.