My 2023 Smart Home Tour: See What's NEW and What's Been Evicted!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ส.ค. 2024
- In this video, smart home enthusiast Terry White takes us on a tour of his latest smart home additions and products that didn't make the cut. See his new favorites and products that have been booted from his smart home.
If you'd like to see the first tour, it's here: • 23 Products that Make ...
Here’s the blog post with all the stuff I use and stuff that wasn’t in the video: terrywhite.com/my-2023-smart-...
Here are the products mentioned in the video:
Network Router and WiFi Access Points
Unifi Dream Machine SE: store.ui.com/collections/unif...
Unifi U6 Enterprise Access Point: store.ui.com/collections/unif...
Unifi U6 Long Range Access Point: store.ui.com/collections/unif...
Here's a deeper dive on my Network Upgrade: terrywhite.com/how-i-solved-m...
Network Attached Storage (NAS)
Synology DS 1522+ amzn.to/42PRC9L
Here's a deeper dive on my Synology upgrade: terrywhite.com/how-to-store-a...
Lutron Caséta Light Switches
Starter kit (includes the bridge and a Pico remote):
amzn.to/46dOhUM
Lutron Caseta Diva Dimmer Switch amzn.to/463cIEm
Lutron Caseta Claro Switch amzn.to/3qLyY5v
Ceiling Fan switches with speed control: amzn.to/3fArOaP
Lamp modules: amzn.to/3o7kVSE
Motion/Occupancy Sensors: amzn.to/3exIkcu
Hue Lights for Color
Hue Light bulbs for my floor lamps (starter kit includes the hub): amzn.to/3fc9vca
Hue Light bulb 2 pack: amzn.to/2IZEKLv
Hue Light strips behind my TVs: amzn.to/3ya2ilE
Hue Light strip extension to make them longer: amzn.to/3y8Hpac
Hue Play Bar accent lights: amzn.to/2J6Cemd
Hue Go (portable battery-operated) accent lights: amzn.to/3l2pcUd
Hue Gradient Light Strip in the bathroom amzn.to/3ejuhtS
Motion, Occupancy, and Presence Sensors
Hue Motion for controlling the Hue lights amzn.to/3SKCVR4
Hue Outdoor Motion amzn.to/3SSnmH6
Lutron’s Motion/Occupancy Sensor
amzn.to/3SZaY7U
Aqara FP2 Presence Sensor amzn.to/3peuWSI
Security Cameras and NVR
Unifi Protect: store.ui.com/us/en?category=a...
Smart Door Locks
Schlage Encode Plus Locks for my Front/Back/Garage Entry Doors: www.lowes.com/pd/Schlage/5013...
Smart Thermostats
There is no better thermostat than the one from Ecobee:
Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium: amzn.to/3Mk1bXJ
Additional room sensors: amzn.to/3fsTC1d
Smart Plugs
Eve Energy Smart Plug with Matter (monitors energy and has Thread support.: amzn.to/3ytA6fc
Hue Smart Plug - great to put in places where you also need to make your Hue wireless network stronger. amzn.to/3rH9IKX
Outdoor Smart Plug - Great for outdoor lights and holiday decorations. Lutron Caséta Outdoor Plug: amzn.to/2QdP85V
Alarm System
Ring Alarm with 8 door/window sensors, 5 motion detectors, smoke/CO2 listener, 2 keypads, 6 glass break sensors, and 1 panic button
I love Ring because it works, and you pay $100/year to cover the monitoring and an unlimited number of cameras
8-piece starter kit: amzn.to/3q0UmyJ
You can buy anything else you need (ie. Sensors, cameras, etc.) À la carte and add them at any time.
Ring Outdoor Contact Sensor: amzn.to/3PmYGYj
Robot Vacuums
One upstairs and one downstairs. While these are not part of my HomeKit home, they work fine with built-in scheduling and Google Home and Alexa voice commands. I would say Google has the best Roomba implementation:
Downstairs: Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra Robot Vacuum and Mop - amzn.to/3rEJ7OK
Upstairs: iRobot Roomba i7+ self-emptying, wifi connected, smart mapping robot vacuum: amzn.to/2RcURJD
Smart Shades
Smart Shades by Serena and Smart Wood Blinds by Serena: For the master bathroom, I have one custom wood blind that works natively with my Lutron Caséta hub and therefore is automated out of the box. serenashades.com
Smart Garage Door Opener
Meross MSG200HK amzn.to/3NcQGGH
Air Purifiers
I waited for the Air Versa to ship because it not only had HomeKit support, but it connects via Thread.
amzn.to/3fWkeeL
Starling Hub for Google/Nest Devices
starlinghome.io
Enphase Solar and Storage
estimator.enphase.com/lead?re...
Follow me on Social: terryleewhite.social
Follow me on Instagram: / terryleewhite
Follow my blog: terrywhite.com
Tools Used to Make My Videos:
Adobe Creative Cloud: adobe.com/creativecloud
Screen Recording Software: terrywhite.com/i-use-screenflow/
Check out my gear guide and product recommendations here: www.amazon.com/shop/terrywhite
Photography Equipment - What’s in My Studio: terrywhite.com/studio - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
Terry, you're the ultimate tech nerd who has taken another giant step toward singularity.🤣 I've followed you since I purchased my first Apple 2CI computer in 1991-92. Your Photoshop, Indesign, and Illustrator app tutorials, have been a great assist up to a certain point. But I follow you even today more for sentimental reasons than the need for Adobe apps knowledge and assistance. Ultimately your 2023 Home Smart video on YT probably says more about you than any of your couple of decades of digital tech obsession. I always took a bit of pride in seeing a "brother" do what you do so well. Thank you for the decades of knowledge you've brilliantly shared during my decades as an art director in the advertising industry. As an "early adopter," I too became a tutor amongst my less tech-knowledged colleagues in the "ad biz." My tutorials were mostly free. Some had financial benefits. It has been a great ride.
Wow, thank you for your incredibly heartfelt message. It truly means a lot to me. It's people like you, who have followed and learned alongside me all these years, that make this journey rewarding. I started off with a passion for tech and the desire to share it with the world, and it has blossomed into so much more.
Your words remind me why I do what I do - to inspire, to educate, and to make technology a little less intimidating. The fact that I've been able to have a small part in your journey as an art director, and that you've carried the torch of knowledge sharing, is both humbling and inspiring.
Here's to many more years of learning, teaching, and embracing the tech obsessions that drive us. Thank you for being part of this journey. Let's keep the ride going!
Great setup Terry. Thanks for sharing! The Lutron Serena shades everywhere are incredible. Definitely the show stopper!
Thanks for your support and inspiration!
I teach a Home Environment & Technology course at the University where I teach. This class is challenging for me to teach because, since technology changes so much, I have to change the content every time I teach this course. This is an EXCELLENT example of a Smart Home that I'll be showing my students. I've subscribed to your channel and really appreciate you putting this video together.
Terry you're a grizzled veteran. Everything you're talking about here comes from experience.
Lol years of experience
You know your stuff.
Fantastic video.
It’s my pleasure to be a new subscriber 🤗
@@JDJD-hg9hu thanks and welcome!
Man.. between the shades and the cameras, you dropped some serious coinage! Good for you!
Very informative and professionally demonstrated!!!
Thank you!
I'm so waiting for the sequel "Smart Home III - Cable Management."
haha, I'm bad at cable management.
Cable management is an art form
Amazingly insightful Video Terry!!! Thanks so much for sharing...
Totally amazing. Thanks for sharing
I absolutely love this. Thank you for sharing. Love you brother, Happy Belated Birthday and Father’s Day.
Thanks so much!
I feel your frustration on Apple HomePods, I just keep the HomePods to what they do best which is play music and use my Apple TVs as the Hub for my Smart Home. Great home btw we share a lot of the same philosophy and devices from Unifi for network and cameras, Lutron for lighting, Ecobee Premium, and Apple Home as the platform of choice. The only thing I haven't jump onto yet is my blinds and I am looking at the Switchbot Tilt for blinds and I saw a reddit user that did an awesome mod to place the tilt drive inside the top part of the blind section so it has a clean look and works a lot quieter. Thanks for a peek inside your awesome home look forward to more vids!!!
What a great comprehensive plan / setup Terry! thnx for your time experience and all the homework you did to organize a list of products.
Thank you!
Great video. Great points at the beginning of the video and I totally agree.
Thank you! Appreciate it.
Great job and I like your selection of choices ❤
Just a heads up the new ecobee will let you play music off of spotify or apple music on the thermostat itself. Not amazing sound but still pretty cool.
Yep, my previous model had that too.
Nice setup and great advice! I added this video to my smart home tour playlist
Thanks!
Great video and excellent communicator. Do you have a video on scenes which have been impacted?
I've gone the opposite way. Nothing is hardwired anymore. There's so much bandwidth on the wifi , there's no way your home can eat that up. And yes,ubiquity is a standard, we use it at work. I've been having good luck with the net gear obi
Thanks! I plan to follow up with a Scenes and Automations video.
Great video.
The only critique i have is I feel like smart home tech should be hidden. It doesn’t makes sense if it’s not aesthetically pleasing. It should take away from the styling of the home.
Can you please, do a video with the legal implications of creating a photo using adobe ai, also, when you have your own photo and use a sky provided by adobe (can do & can't s) or a sky provided by AI ? Very appreciated 🙏 🙏 🙏
wow nice, ubiquity is the gold standard for sure, im surprised you didnt go all unifi with the door locks as well and the car charger. grate video and information Terry, met you way back at PS tips and tricks at the Jacob Javits Center in NY. God Bless man.
Awesome brother Terry ! This is way cool and incredibly impressive! you’re just changing my life totally you got me wanting to be a photographer and now a technology geek ! which I’m a electronic guy by education and trade anyway ! So I also love gadgets and technology
Thanks! It’s my hobby and I definitely have fun with it.
Terry, I didn't realize we have gone through so many of the same problems that now we are just looking for the best smart home products. Your home is beautiful and you have so many devices! Does using 2 Lutron Smart Hubs work pretty seamlessly?
thanks and yes two or more hubs works great in Apple Home.
A great setup and the thing with playing with the smart home tech is that you keep tweaking and keep adding to it, to improve the smart ability!
Hi Terry,
Great video. Unifi is also the backbone of my smart home (Homekit) and it works great when I’m at home, however when I’m away it’s a different story! The Home app is constantly updating and more often I get the annoying message that no hubs are responding. Do you mind sharing your VLAN set-up and firewall rules?
Thanks in advance.
Thanks, but I have not setup new or customized the rules. I’m using the defaults.
Terry this is great. Thank you! As a photographer, I have been using 2 different Drobo devices that I'm considering changing out due to them going out of business and your Synology solution looks great. I'm not sure of the best way to change out the system so if you have any pointers on that, I would love your feedback. Thanks!
Thanks! See more in my full post on Synology terrywhite.com/how-to-store-and-backup-your-photos-like-a-pro/
What kind of problems were you having with the Homepods? I would rather learn from someone else’s experience. We are getting ready to build a new home and it will be smart. Playing around with the smart stuff in our current home to find out what works best. I have been using Synology for 10+ years and Ubiquity for the last 2 years. Thanks!
HomePods are “ok” and work well for most users. With Apple Home there has to be at least one Home Hub. This can be an Apple TV or any HomePod. If you have more than one Apple TV or HomePod then Apple will randomly pick one to be the Hub at any given time. My Apple TVs are all plugged into Ethernet giving them the best performance. Since HomePods are WiFi only they will always be slower than an Ethernet connected Apple TV. There’s also a processor difference. HomePods use Apple Watch processors. Again slower performance.
So my problem was that any time a HomePod would become the Hub my entire Home would slow down. Accessories would take much longer to respond. Sometimes Automations would simply fail. I would know that a HomePod has taken over without even looking. My guess is that they are simply not strong enough to handle large Apple Home installations. If you only have a few accessories then they probably work fine.
Lastly Siri just isn’t that great. I could issue the same command to Alexa or Google and they respond instantly. With Siri it was always “just a sec”, “working on that”, “I didn’t get that”, etc.
I finally asked myself what am I getting from these HomePods besides music (a very limited selection of Music platforms) and the answer was “nothing!”
Now if Apple ever let us choose the Home Hub or eliminate HomePods as Home Hubs I’d give them another try, but as long as they can randomly take over as the Home Hub I’m out!
Hi Terry. Great video. What did you gain by replacing the Logitech doorbell with Nest? I’ve had the opinion that adding one more hub is a layer of complexity and risk of failure. Indeed, I have two Sterling home hubs but have to tweak the setup frequently after software updates by Sterling. So I have started to replace my nest products for native HomeKit.
Hi, thanks. The main tings gained with the Nest Wired 2 Doorbell over the Logitech:
1. Reliability. The Logitech would go offline if it got too hot.
2. Nest instantly chimes and displays the video feed on my Google hubs.
3. Choice of chimes. Like Halloween themed.
4. 24/7 recording. Event based cameras always miss things.
5. Perfect Apple Home integration via Starling hub.
With that said the face recognition feature is complete crap. It thinks everyone is the UPS driver or my neighbor or my cousin.
Also I will likely swap this doorbell out for the Unifi G4 Pro as it would be the only Google camera I have left and therefore not worth the subscription price at that point. The Unifi doesn’t have as many features but it would be 24/7 video stored locally with no subscription. That’s where my head is at right now.
Thanks for the video, Terry! Do you happen to know (maybe you have tested) if the IR blaster in the SwitchBot Hub 2 works in Apple's Home scenes? For example, you have a "dumb TV" and you want your goodnight scene to include turning off that TV. I think somebody said that it can't be controlled via Home scenes, but I can't seem to find a definitive answer.
Sadly it doesn’t appear to be exposed to HomeKit
@@TerryLeeWhite oh well.... Thank you!
Great video tour, sir...thanks for all of the recommendations...you've gained a new subscriber..I just wish I'd come across your channel a few years ago before I started moving forward into smart home devices, especially since I recognize the house layout; I believe we've got the same floor plan (probably from the same builder), so may I ask if you keep your network gear in the closet under the stairs or elsewhere, and did you wire the house with ethernet ports prior to putting up the sheetrock or did that come later?
Thank! Under the stairs and before the Sheetrock was up.
Got it…thank you!
Can you make a recommendation of the best Lutron products to use in bathrooms? Our bathrooms have the light switch next to the exhaust fan switch, so I'd like to have a sensor to turn on the light and stay on until the bathroom is unoccupied while also being able to separately control the fan. I hope that makes sense and appreciate any guidance you can offer. Thanks.
You can put a Lutron Caseta Claro switch on the light (and fan if you want) and then add the Lutron occupancy sensor to turn them on/off based on entering and leaving the bathroom. That’s my solution in all my bathroom s the sensor turns the light on each time and turns off the light (and fan if it was left on) when there is no occupancy. amzn.to/3LeMDJH
Got it...thank you!@@TerryLeeWhite
Very nice setup. I would love to integrate more automation in my home, but since Flipper is on the market,I became more affraid of automation. Is there a defense possibility for this development and thread?
Terry, if you didn’t mention Apple, I was loggin off!! Lol I’m moving soon and I plan to make my home smarter than me 😂
Lol
Great Video! Wish you could set up my house...LOL....Quick question....Looking to get the Ring Security System....Do you recommend the Gen 2 system or the new Ring Alarm Pro?
Thanks, I don’t see any reason to go with Ring Pro unless you’re an Eero user for your WiFi. Gen 2 works great.
Very insightful thanks. I'm assuming you have an Apple TV (or more than one) for your Thread border router? I have similar issues with HomePods I think, but don't currently have the latest Apple TV with thread. Would you say that's an investment worth making from a reliability point of view? I'd like to run two for redundancy.
Yep. Latest ATV serves as my home hub/Thread border router. I also have other ATVs with Thread around the house but not in Home. I find that a single Home hub is the most problem free.
Maybe I missed it but I don’t remember seeing what you’re using for your apple home hubs. Are you only using Apple TV for your home hubs for Apple?
Yup two current gen Apple TVs connected via Ethernet are my home Hubs. I banished all HomePods because as hubs for a Home my size they were nothing but problems.
Do you have any hue lights on your Lutron switches? Curious to see how those work if so.
no because killing the power to a Hue bulb (which would happen if the switch is turned off) renders it useless until the power is back on. I do have the Lutron Aurora for Hue switch that gives it manual control and dimming without turning the power off. This way if someone hits the switch the lights go off, but the power is still on. They can then be turned on remotely via the app, HomeKit, a scene or automation, and of course the Aurora switch on the wall.
@@TerryLeeWhite Awesome! I was wondering if there was a work around.
@@RKGHomeImprovements amzn.to/44jpgXa
Sold all my homepods too
What was your issue?
@@TerryLeeWhite so many, but siri just being unable to reliably perform basic requests for home control, it working one day and not the next is what put us over the edge. They obviously don't invest the required testing into their firmware releases and again siri is just awful in general... Also stereo pairing never worked on the minis... I'm rambling... Got a mix of sonos devices and Google home stuff and we're much happier
Wow that is awesome. It might cost a fortune to get a smart home
Best thing is that you can do as little or as much as you want over time.
So what speakers did you decide to rock with
speakers - still using my Bose Soundtouch. Smart Speakers, Echo Show 10 and Google Hub Max.
@@TerryLeeWhite interesting (no Sonos) lol gonna check out the Bose
@@daathhaus4399 No don’t check out Bose. I’m using it because it still works great, but if I were buying new it would be Sonos.
UniFi is awesome. Lutron Caseta, however, is overpriced. Their dimmer is not compatible with some LED bulbs. And they are not easy to wire for 3-way switch. I have found Kasa light switches better and cheaper, as long as you have good WiFi coverage throughout the house. For motion sensor, temperature sensor, mini remote switch, and other stuff, Aqara makes the best lineup.
You get what you pay for. I would never want 30+ switches on WiFi. Bulb compatibility isn’t an issue for me as I simply got compatible bulbs. 3 away was a breeze with Pico remotes. The batteries have lasted over 7 years and still going. Lutron is the most trouble free thing I have and that has value to me. Enjoy your Kasa, etc.
UniFi can handle 30+ WiFi switches like nothing. Put them on an IoT VLAN and you have 200+ IP addresses that won't cross with your main network traffic.
Lutron Caseta switch is $60 each and rarely on sale. Kasa is $25, and can easily be found at $15. For 30 switches, that's a saving of more than $1,000. In fact, I have 10 Lutron Caseta and 30 Kasa smart switches installed in my house, and they work just equally well.
@@greenfrog42 I’m that you like your Kasas. I’m completely happy with my Lutron Caseta and never have to think about it. I avoid putting things on wifi that don’t need to be on wifi.
Let me buy your HomePods from you !!!
Really interesting video, but is it that dangerous to live in the US that you need all that video footage and security? If I had remote controlled light s and blinds I’d have to do meaningless steps around the garden to keep my fit bit happy 😂
Glad you found the video interesting! And to answer your question, not all of us in the US are in the Witness Protection Program, we just love our tech! But hey, if automated blinds can reduce my 'curtain-closing' step count, I'm all in. Maybe we can program Apple Watches to count eye-rolls instead? I'd hit my daily target by noon! 😄
Christ man are all these your actual devices? How large is your house
Yep they’re all mine.
everything is wrong , A smart home should cook for you, clean utensils,clear garden,serve you your things,clean your home.