Home » Misc » Setting up smart home

Setting up smart home


Everything You Need to Know About the Smart Home: Ecosystems, Tips, and More

Gear

Use your voice to control the lights! Summon the vacuum with your phone! Here’s everything you need to know, from Wi-Fi tips to security advice.

Photograph: Neil Godwin/Getty Images

The Smart Home. It's a place that anticipates your needs and empowers you to fine-tune your environment. Well, that's the pitch at least. Putting it all together isn't a smooth ride, but the right setup and combination of devices can make your life easier and add real convenience.

With a myriad of ecosystems and standards to navigate, not to mention the diverse array of devices, the smart-home scene is daunting. We put together this smart-home guide to highlight your options, explain the jargon, and help you understand the consequences of the choices you make. A little planning goes a long way. 

If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more.

Table of Contents

First, Pick Your Ecosystem

Google's Nest Mini is the cheapest way to enter its ecosystem of smart-home devices, or you can just use your Android phone.

Photograph: Google

Before you start shopping for devices, decide which ecosystem works best for you. There are three main ones: Google Nest, Amazon Alexa, and Apple HomeKit. If your home is filled with iPhones, iPads, and Macs, the latter is the obvious choice, but if you have an Android phone, you may prefer Google's Nest platform. Third-party devices usually offer support for multiple standards, but things will run more smoothly if you pick one main ecosystem. Here's a quick breakdown of each:

Google Nest: Google Assistant, the voice assistant, is the main strength of the Nest ecosystem. It swiftly responds to voice commands, is smart enough for a conversational style of speaking, and understands complicated commands or follow-up requests that will confound Alexa or Siri. If you have an Android device, Google Assistant is baked in, and the Google Home offers up quick access to smart-home shortcuts. 

Amazon Alexa: With a head start in the smart-home arena, Amazon’s Alexa boasts the widest range of compatible products. You can ask it anything, though its answers aren't always as accurate as Google's. Alexa supports a wide choice of Skills (like smartphone apps) that have been developed by third parties, and its speakers and smart displays are the most affordable, especially if you wait for big sale events like Prime Day. If you want to control Alexa from your phone, you need to install the Alexa app, and it must be open before you can issue a voice command. 

Apple HomeKit: HomeKit is the most restrictive of the three, but it's still the best option for iPhone owners. Apple’s tighter control over third-party certification ensures smooth operation for supported devices. You won't find as many HomeKit-supported devices as with Alexa or Google Assistant, but the major smart-home brands are covered. Apple's Home app is elegant and easy to use, devices are easy to set up, and its platform is the most secure. Apple collects less data by default, and data is kept on the device whenever possible. If you want to control devices when you’re away from home, you need a HomeKit hub device, such as a HomePod Mini, Apple TV, or iPad. Siri is also the weakest of the three voice assistants, though it's getting better.

Most Popular

Google, Amazon, and even Apple, to a lesser degree, collect data on your usage habits. That includes voice recordings of your interactions with their assistants. These are reviewed by humans for accuracy, but backlash over transparency has led to better ways for you to control exactly how your data is handled. We have several guides on how you can keep your recordings private with all three of these platforms, how to delete stored voice recordings and activity, and how to make these smart speakers and smart displays as private as possible.

You'll Want a Hub

Amazon's Echo Show is a smart display. These hubs are especially great for controlling your smart-home devices if you have guests that aren't used to voice controls or don't have the right apps installed. 

Photograph: Amazon

You can control all your smart-home gadgets with your smartphone, whether it's by talking to a respective assistant or using an app. However, we recommend having a mix of smart speakers and smart displays throughout the home so your assistant can always hear you (you won't need to shout commands too loudly). These are our favorite smart speakers and smart displays. The latter are more versatile, as they offer simple touch controls anyone can use. It’s important to consider other people you live with and guests who may be unfamiliar with smart-home setups.

Take smart lighting, for example. You have to leave light switches in the on position if you want to control them with a voice assistant. But without a physical switch, you might confuse guests. Children also may not have access to controls through a phone or be comfortable with voice controls. People are likely to turn your switches off; years of muscle memory make it a tough habit to break. You can get around this by buying smart switches, but think carefully about whether you want to replace your original switches or have a second set side-by-side.

Most ecosystems now have a way for anyone in the home to create their own profile, and some assistants can even identify who in the household is speaking, for a more tailored experience.  Whatever solution you decide on, you should demonstrate how to use it, so that your family, roommates, and guests are comfortable with how it works.

The Importance of Wi-Fi

Almost all smart-home devices require a reliable Wi-Fi connection. What you need to know are the two most-used frequencies: 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz.

Most smart-home devices operate on the 2.4-GHz frequency, though that’s starting to change. It has a longer range, but the 5-GHz frequency offers faster speeds. A relatively new Wi-Fi protocol, named Wi-Fi 6E, supports 6-GHz, which is even faster. Wi-Fi 6E can handle more devices, uses less power, and is more secure, but all of your gadgets need to support Wi-Fi 6 or 6E, even your router. There are very few Wi-Fi 6E devices on the market, but it's something you'll want to consider for future-proofing, especially if you're investing in a new ecosystem from scratch.

Most Popular

Congestion, where Wi-Fi signals interfere with each other, can be an issue, particularly for people living in apartments. You can use an app to check how busy your Wi-Fi channels are and potentially switch to a different channel, though most routers should handle this automatically. Another consideration is router limitations. Most modern routers support up to 250 devices in theory, but performance can suffer long before you reach the limit.

Make sure that you choose a good spot for your router, and remember that there are many ways to make your Wi-Fi faster. If you have a basic router supplied by your internet service provider (ISP) or an older model, upgrading to a new router could bring major benefits.

Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or Smart Hubs?

Certain smart-home devices offer the option to connect via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or a special smart hub, like Philips Hue bulbs. Bluetooth is far slower and less reliable than Wi-Fi, and while Wi-Fi might seem like the easiest solution, a dedicated smart hub can help reduce congestion and offer more stability. The trade-off is that they need power and a free Ethernet port in your router to plug into.

Verify Smart-Home Support

Some devices, like the Sonos Beam, have built-in Google Assistant and Alexa, meaning you don't need a separate smart speaker.  

Photograph: Sonos 

To see if a smart-home product works with your ecosystem of choice, look for a logo on the box or webpage. At a minimum, you want to see one of these:

These logos ensure a basic level of support. It means you can connect it to the respective ecosystem and control the gadget with your voice. That said, support for an ecosystem doesn't mean the same thing for each product. One robot vacuum might simply have start and stop voice command support, while another can be told to clean a specific room or work until a certain time. Always check the full list of commands or user reviews to get a complete picture of what’s possible.

Most Popular

You'll also find third-party smart-home devices with built-in voice assistants. There’s a separate “Alexa built in” logo that means you can talk directly to Alexa through the device. The Google equivalent is simply a “Google Assistant” logo. The Sonos Beam soundbar is an example of a device that has both Google Assistant and Alexa inside, so you can talk directly to it like you would to a Nest or Echo speaker. Siri is only available in Apple-made devices, but it will soon come to third-party devices.

Understanding Smart-Home Standards

A lack of common standards has hindered the smart-home scene for years. Things are beginning to change, but it’s still confusing. Different wireless standards connect your smart-home devices behind the scenes. The two most popular examples are ZigBee (used by Philips Hue, Logitech, LG, and Samsung) and Z-Wave (used by Honeywell, GE, and also Samsung). 

Thread is a newer standard (used by Apple, Google, and Nanoleaf) that creates a mesh network without the need for a hub. Then there’s Bluetooth and Bluetooth LE (low energy). This is by no means an exhaustive list, as there are many other standards out there.

For the most part, these behind-the-scenes technologies don’t matter, as you can use a mix of them in your home. It's up to device manufacturers to choose which of the three main ecosystems they want to support (if not all), regardless of the underlying technology.

But that's where Matter comes in. It's a relatively new wireless interoperability standard. The aim is to have all smart-home devices work together securely, reliably, and seamlessly. More than 170 companies are on board, including Google, Amazon, Apple, Samsung, and the ZigBee Alliance. Details on how Matter will work are still emerging, but it should act as a middleman cutting across standards and ecosystems to enable everything to play nicely together. With Matter, a Google Nest Hub smart display could show the video feed from a Ring doorbell, for example. (They currently don't play nicely.)

While most new devices will likely support Matter, many older devices will also be updated to support the new standard. In smart lighting, both Philips Hue and Nanoleaf have confirmed that current and future devices will support the standard. Google also says Matter support is coming to Nest devices and Android phones, to make the setup of any Matter device a breeze through the Google Home app.

Setting Up Smart-Home Devices

Big smart-home brands offer easy compatibility with the major ecosystems. Philips Hue bulbs, for example, can be added directly from the Google Home or Apple Home apps. Unfortunately, this isn't common. Most devices will require you to use a third-party app for the initial setup at the very least, and possibly also for configuration and control.

The setup guide that comes with every smart-home device generally directs you to download the companion app as the first step. You may have to scan a QR code or enter a serial number, so make sure you run through this process before you mount anything in place or throw anything away, as these codes often appear on the back or underside of devices or the instruction booklet.

Most Popular

Linking to your chosen ecosystem might be a part of the setup process, but that's also not always the case. You may have to dig into your Apple Home or Google Home settings to manually link your account. With Alexa, you will likely have to install the relevant skill.

After setting up a device and linking it to your chosen ecosystem, you may not have to use the third-party app again, but this varies depending on the gadget. The Google Home, Apple Home, and Alexa apps tend to offer a simplified set of controls for most devices, so it might be good to keep the third-party app around just in case you need to access particular settings.

Find Good Spots and Pick Names Carefully

For any smart-home device, it’s important to find a suitable spot. They will likely need a power outlet and a decent Wi-Fi signal. You should also consider accessibility, especially if it’s a battery-powered device that’s going to require periodic charging. Never physically install anything like a security camera without testing the device in that spot first.

You may be tempted to choose silly names for your smart-home devices or not give it much thought, but it’s important to stick with a consistent naming convention. Voice commands have to be precise or they won’t work. We recommend naming devices according to the room they’re in, so you have “living room speaker” and “office light,” for example. When you have multiple devices in a single room, as you probably will with lights, you can number them or go by area. 

Whether you go for “kitchen light counter” and “kitchen table light”—or “kitchen light 1” and “kitchen light 2”—doesn’t matter, so long as everyone is clear on what the names are. It’s crucial to watch out for duplicate names, as they can cause issues for smart-home platforms and voice assistants.

Grouping, Automation, and Routines

You can schedule devices like robot vacuums to start at specific times of day, so you always have a clean home.

Photograph: Shark 

You can group devices or organize them into rooms in your chosen smart-home ecosystem's app. This is a vital step when you have multiple lights, for example, because you don’t want to be saying “Turn on living room light 1,” then “Turn on living room light 2.” If you organize all the lights into a group, you can simply say “Turn on living room lights.”

Most Popular

Depending on the platform you’re using, you can group rooms, create subsets of devices within rooms, or group devices across multiple rooms by creating custom groups, zones, or rooms. It’s worth taking some time to think about this, as it gives you much greater control and flexibility for voice commands and for setting up automation or routines.

One of the best parts about the smart home is that you can automate it. For example, your smart-home system might detect when you leave the house and turn everything off, or react to you coming home by turning on lights, cranking up the air conditioner, and playing your favorite playlist.  

You can schedule various actions, too. This might be handy for certain devices like robot vacuums to keep your house well maintained. Some tasks can be triggered with a specific, customizable word. Just by saying “Good morning” to Google Assistant, you can set it up to deliver a weather and news report, have it open your curtains, and turn on the coffee machine. Our guides on creating Google Home routines, Alexa routines, and setting up Siri Shortcuts will help you get started. 

If you have a range of devices or services that span different platforms, you can still create automated routines (or applets) if they support a third-party service called IFTTT (If This Then That). Routines with Google, Alexa, and Siri are limited in scope, but IFTTT offers complex chains of automation and links together disparate devices and software. You can have IFTTT turn on your Philips Hue front garden and porch lights when your video doorbell sees someone approaching, for example.

What to Do When You Move or Change Routers

The prospect of having to set up every device again after moving to a new house or changing your router can be dispiriting. Especially since you probably don’t have the box or instructions for every device on hand. You can take a lot of the pain out of this process by simply setting the same router name and password as before.

If someone is moving out of your home, read our guide on how to un-set up your smart home so they can't remotely control your gadgets.

A Word on Security

Smart-home devices might have microphones and cameras inside them, which can have implications for your privacy. There's always a risk for security breaches, which can expose personal information or recordings stored in the cloud. Always read the manufacturer’s privacy policy and make sure you’re comfortable with how they use your data. It’s also a good idea to do some research on smart-home device manufacturers to see if they've been a part of any recent hacks or issues.

Most smart speakers and smart displays have physical mute buttons, but you might forget to unmute them, which can also be a hassle if you're not nearby. One option is to consider plugging your speaker or display into a smart plug. That way, you can schedule times to turn them off when they're least used. 

Think very carefully before you buy a smart-home device with a camera inside, whether it's a robot vacuum or a smart display. Most aren't necessary unless you're buying a security camera. That said, if you have a smart display with a camera for video calls, you can buy webcam covers that can slide open when you need the camera.

Most Popular

Try to use devices that support multi-factor authentication (commonly called two-factor authentication) to reduce the risk of someone gaining access with stolen credentials. It'll require you to confirm your account with a text message or email (the latter is more secure). These features are not always on by default, so take the time to set them up.

Check out our digital security guide and our guide to personal data collection for more tips on keeping your digital life secure.

Troubleshooting Tips 

No matter how closely you follow instructions, things can—and frequently do—go wrong when you’re setting up smart-home devices. Here are a few tips we’ve learned the hard way.

Most Popular

Now that you have a good grasp of how the smart home works, check out our guides to the best smart light bulbs, smart speakers, smart plugs, security cameras, smart displays, and robot vacuums.

Special offer for Gear readers: Get a 1-Year Subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com and our print magazine (if you'd like). Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day.

More Great WIRED Stories

Simon Hill has been writing about tech for more than a decade. He is a regular contributor to WIRED, but you can also find his work at Business Insider, Reviewed, TechRadar, Android Authority, USA Today, Digital Trends, and many other places. Before writing, he worked in games development. He lives... Read more

Topicssmart homeAlexahow-toGoogleNest

More from WIRED

Smart home for beginners: How to lay a foundation you can build on

One way to build out a smart home is to buy lots of components—sensors, smart bulbs, security cameras, speakers, and whatnot—and connect them all to a hub that helps them communicate with each other and with you, via your smartphone. But let’s be real: That can involve spending a lot of money and investing a lot of time. And for some people, it’s just overkill. If your wants and needs are simpler, just a few relatively inexpensive products will deliver most of the conveniences a high-end smart home can deliver, and on a much more modest budget.

And if you make sure those smart home products are compatible with each other, you’ll build a solid foundation that you can expand over time. The key is knowing which smart home products don’t depend on a smart home hub to operate. While hubs offer advantages—the most important of which is having a single user interface to control everything—they’re not always essential. One thing you must have, however, is a good wireless router—ideally one that can reach all corners of your home.

Here some a few common ways you can build a hub-free smart home system.

Smart lighting

For most people interested in living in a smart home, lighting is the entry point. Many smart lighting systems work perfectly well without a central hub and are still capable of interacting with other smart home elements–including smart speakers and displays, such as the Amazon Echo and Google Nest. Smart bulbs from Cree, LIFX, and TP-Link, for example, communicate over Wi-Fi, while some others—including the newest Philips Hue bulbs—communicate via the Bluetooth radio in your smartphone.

The latest generation of Philips Hue smart bulbs can be controlled via Bluetooth, eliminating the need for a Philips Hue Bridge.

Some other smart bulbs rely on Zigbee or Z-Wave radios and therefore depend on a bridge to connect to your home network. You can control any of these smart bulbs with an app on your smartphone or tablet, which you can also use to program lighting scenes and schedules, but you’ll do so via the hub versus a direct connection to the bulbs.

Mentioned in this article

Philips Hue White and Color Ambiance A19 (Bluetooth + Zigbee)

If most of your home’s lighting is in the ceiling and controlled by a switch on the wall, you might be better served by replacing those dumb switches with smart switches and dimmers, instead. That’s because a smart bulb becomes dumb the instant you turn off the switch controlling it. Leviton, Lutron, TP-Link, Ecobee, and other manufacturers make smart light switches that operate on your Wi-Fi network and don’t require a central hub.

If you use lamps for most of your lighting, a smart plug such as the Lutron Caséta or Wemo Mini will enable you to turn the lamp on and off—and dim its dumb light bulb—with a smartphone app and according to a schedule.

Smart speakers and displays

What’s more convenient than pulling out your smartphone to dim the lights on movie night? Saying “dim the lights” and having a smart speaker linked to your smart lighting do it for you. The Amazon Echo series and Google Home series are the market leaders in this space. And while Amazon has held the lead for the past few years—it has a much larger installed base, has enjoyed much broader support, and had the only smart speakers with displays for a time—Google is coming on very strong.

The plant in this photo is right at the edge of the perimeter the Echo Show 10 needs to rotate its display nearly 360 degrees.

You’ll increasingly find the two companies’ digital assistants—Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant—in unique third-party products. Ecobee puts the guts of an Echo in its excellent Ecobee SmartThermostat with voice control, while Lenovo was first to market with Google Home devices outfitted with displays (the Lenovo Smart Display series).

Mentioned in this article

Lenovo Smart Display (10-inch model)

And because these smart speakers have been so widely embraced by other smart home device manufacturers, they have become de facto hubs in their own right, serving as a central interaction point for everything from smart lights to home security cameras, displaying video feeds from the latter on connected TVs or their own displays, if equipped.

Don’t count Apple out of the smart home game. The company becoming a contender in this space thanks to its HomeKit ecosystem, and the company’s HomePod mini smart speaker—powered by Siri—can act as a smart home hub. Apple touts its commitment to privacy in its smart home pitch.

Few smart home devices can match a smart thermostat’s ability to deliver both comfort and cost/energy savings. These devices go far beyond establishing a heating and cooling schedule based on when you anticipate being home to enjoy those benefits. They can detect when you’re home and when you’re away, so that your HVAC system operates only when it’s needed.

The latest trend on this front is to equip thermostats with sensors that you can put in the rooms you occupy most frequently, so that the thermostat operates on the basis of where you are in the house, instead of triggering heating and cooling cycles based on the thermostat’s location, which is typically in a hallway you only ever pass through.

The Ecobee SmartThermostat with voice control has a built-in Amazon Echo speaker and can respond to voice commands. It also has remote room sensors that help to eliminate hot and cold spots in your home. This high-end device can even serve as the hub for a broader smart-home or home-security system.

Nest also has some great thermostats, including the $129 Nest Thermostat, and Wyze Labs recently jumped into the market with a very inexpensive smart thermostat that deserves your consideration if those other models are outside your budget.

Left to right: Ecobee’s smart thermostat, room SmartSensor, smart camera, and door/window SmartSensor.

Home security cameras & video doorbells

A quality home security camera will enable you to keep a watchful eye on your home, especially while you’re away. Indoor models can help you monitor your children and pets, while outdoor models can catch prowlers in the act—and hopefully discourage them from coming around in the first place.

Some models—from Ring, Arlo, Netatmo, and Maximus—incorporate lights that can illuminate your way. Cameras incorporated into doorbells can monitor your porch and let you interact with visitors without needing to approach the door—or even be home at the time. The best models can discern between people and pets and recognize the presence of a package left at your door.

Ring Video Doorbell 4

Multi-room audio systems

Sophisticated multi-room speaker systems from the likes of Sonos, Yamaha (MusicCast), and Denon (HEOS) are largely self-contained, enabling you to drop speakers in multiple rooms in your home so you can stream music from your own collection or from online services such as Spotify to all of them in sync, or to send different tracks to each one. Amazon Echo and Google Nest smart speakers can pull off the same tricks.

Using the soundbar in front of your TV to control the lights in your home theater? It’s easy with a speaker like the Sonos Beam that has both Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Google Assistant onboard.

Several companies have soundbars in their collections, so you can improve your TV- and movie-watching experiences when you’re not listening to music. In each case, a smartphone or tablet is all you need to control everything. Some Sonos models even include Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant onboard, rendering them capable of controlling other smart home devices (although only one or the other can be activated—you can’t use both at the same time).

Smart smoke and carbon monoxide detectors

Conventional smoke and carbon monoxide detectors are inherently dumb devices. Their alarms might be loud, but if no one’s home to hear them, what good do they accomplish? A smart smoke detector will sound a local alarm, too, but it will also send an alert to your smartphone—and to anyone else you authorize as a contact—if danger is detected.

Nest Labs makes our favorite smart smoke and carbon monoxide detector. If you also have a Nest Smart Thermostat, the smoke detector can instruct the thermostat to shut down your HVAC system if there’s a fire, so smoke isn’t circulated to every room in your home.

Some smart smoke alarms, such as the Nest Protect, incorporate emergency lights that can help you find your way out of a smoke-filled home; others, such as the First Alert Onelink Safe & Sound, include advanced features such as an integrated smart speaker. If money is an issue, consider a semi-smart smoke and CO detector such as the X-Sense XP01-W. This device doesn’t connect to your Wi-Fi network, so it can’t send alerts to your smartphone, but each one you deploy interconnects to the rest, so that if an alarm sounds in one room, all the other sensors will also fire off to enhance your family’s safety.

Smart Irrigation

Water is our most precious resource. A smart irrigation system can help ensure your lawn and garden get enough moisture to be healthy and vibrant without wasting any of it. And of all the smart home subsystems you can invest in, this might be the one that will benefit the least from being incorporated into a hub. Smart irrigation systems can also be complex, so using a purpose-built app is usually better anyway. Rachio builds our favorite products in this category, but Wyze Labs recently jumped in with a budget-priced competitor. If you don’t have an in-ground irrigation system, the Orbit B-Hyve hose-tap timer is just the ticket for drip irrigation systems and other types of hose-based watering.

A word about IFTTT

IFTTT (If This Then That) is like having a smart home hub in the cloud. It can enable thousands of smart home devices to interact with thousands of other smart home devices.

One of the most powerful ways of making disparate smart home devices work together is to open an IFTTT account. The acronym stands for “If This Then That,” a service in which an action by one device (or service) can trigger an asction on one or more other devices or services.

IFTTT is very much like having a smart home hub in the cloud, and it’s widely supported—and not just by smart home products and services.

IFTTT was once a free service, but it is no longer—at least, not exactly. With a no-cost IFTTT Standard account, you can use as many pre-existing IFTTT applets as you’d like—and there are thousands to choose from.

One, for example, will trigger your Philips Hue smart bulbs to flash when a timer you set on an Amazon Echo runs out. Expressed as an applet, this would be “When the timer on my Amazon Echo runs out” (the if this half of the applet), then flash my Philips Hue smart bulbs (the then that half of the applet). 

A Standard account will, however, limit you to creating just three IFTTT applets from scratch. If you can’t find an applet that fits your needs, and you want to create more than three new ones, you’ll need to sign up for an IFTTT Pro account, which costs $5 per month. That allows you to create up to 20 applets, while a $10-per-month Pro+ expands that to an unlimited number of applets.

IFTTT is super simple to use: To create an applet, just go to the IFTTT website and then point and click on the service or device you wish to use as a trigger (the this in If This Then That), link them to your IFTTT account, and then point and click on the service or device you wish to act when that trigger is activated.

Are you ready to start?

We’ve listed smart home components roughly in the order we think most people will go about installing them, but there is no hard and fast rule. If you think installing a smart smoke detector is a higher priority than smart lighting, go for it!

If you think you might want to invest in a smart home hub that will pull all these components together under a single user interface, just make sure all the bits and pieces you buy will work with one of the most common hubs: Aeotec’s smart home hub is based on the Samsung SmartThings platform, one of the most diverse smart home ecosystems out there. Other powerful systems, such as Ring Alarm and Ring Alarm Pro (which has a built-in mesh router), are more focused on the security aspect of the smart home and have more limited third-party support. When in doubt, check the hub manufacturers’ websites to verify which devices each one works with.

Including such compatibility in your buying criteria today will maximize the value of your initial smart home investments down the road.

personal experience and recommendations from readers of Tinkoff Magazine

Alikhan Israpilov

thinking about buying Yandex Station

Author profile

Organizing a smart home is harder than it seems.

Readers of Tinkoff Magazine told how they do home automation - they chose their stories about life with Alice.

These are comments from Community readers. Collected into one material, carefully edited and formatted according to editorial standards.

Method No. 1

Set up Alice as a hub for a smart home

Artem Pavlenko
constantly increases the number of devices

Get used to smart home devices at work, where you have to deal with similar technologies, only on an industrial scale. As a result, as a hobby, I collected sockets and screwed them to Alice. Was satisfied.

Over time, I wanted the famous GyverLamp to also be controlled from Alice. I added several modes there, added an infrared LED to control the projector, connected it. Oh wow, it works! Comfortable.

It didn’t stop there: overgrown with climate sensors and a Xiaomi humidifier, bought a robot vacuum cleaner — gods, how did I live without it before? All this also works through Alice.

I recently assembled motorized roller blinds from all the junk found in the bins - controlled, of course, through the same assistant. And for some fine settings, like the length of the opening or individual curtains, I attached a web interface to them. Now there are plans to make an electric drive to the window in order to maintain +16...17 °C comfortable for me in the room during the cold season.

Once again convinced that laziness is the engine of progress if you approach the issue creatively :)


Yulia Karimova
is disappointed with the smart kettle system. There is also a smart kettle, a robot vacuum cleaner and air conditioners, which are also connected to Alice. My boyfriend and I are just lazy freaks who like to automate everything.

A smart kettle is not a very useful thing. You can turn it on while lying in bed, but you still have to go to the kitchen to drink from it. I pour a lot of water at once, but boiling it several times is not very useful. From the pleasant: it can heat water to a certain temperature - I don’t like to drink boiling water. And it also glows nicely at night. He also has an application with games for children - for me, so complete nonsense. It makes sense to buy because of the design - and if it costs not much more than usual.

/yandex-station2-review/

Yandex Station 2 review with Alice: so far the best speaker for smart home control


BeanShi
does not use all devices air, TVs, home lighting, air conditioners and a heater.

Household appliances are not included in the offer. The kettle is useless - I can click it myself. I didn’t turn on the grill either: anyway, you can’t pour dough for waffles in advance, you can’t put a steak - it makes no sense.


Nadezhda
assembled a set of smart gadgets

We have two "Yandex stations" - "mini" for commands and "max" for multimedia. A washing machine, a refrigerator, a kettle, a multi-baker and a heater are small household items that can be turned on without getting up from the sofa or while outside the apartment. Yandex Smart Remote for TV and Air Conditioner.

Two more smart bulbs in the hallway and in the bedroom - so far only there, but they need to be changed everywhere. Two sockets: one on the electric dryer in the bathroom so that I could set it to work for five hours, and the second in the bedroom for plants according to the schedule I need.

Next in line is a climate system from a station and a humidifier, smoke sensors, a camera at the door, motion sensors, door opening and leakage sensors. And a robot vacuum cleaner.

Method No. 2

Teach Alice to open and close curtains

Pavel Basistov
collected the minimum set A similar heated floor in a cat house. Everything can be controlled through Alice, if you wish. There is nothing else: I don’t see the point.


ce
plans to add a relay

At home there are "Yandex stations" - "max" and "mini", smart bulbs "Yandex", a robot vacuum cleaner, a temperature and humidity sensor, a kettle. I dream of automatically opening the curtains in the morning. It's easy to do, you just have to do it.

Method No. 3

Ask Alice to control the lighting

Dmitry Gladyshev
experimented with relays

I have Yandex Station and Sonoff relays. You can control lighting and other devices by voice or by schedule. I also assembled my own relays on ESP32 microcontrollers.


Sofya-Lana
manages the house through Alice

I have a Yandex-station mini, a smart socket - I plan to buy a few more, and also a smart remote control for controlling the TV and air conditioning, a smart light bulb in the chandelier in the kitchen . They took bulbs for the chandelier in the bedroom from Kojima: at the time of purchase, Yandex had not yet rolled out models with an E14 base. I plan to buy two more pieces in the corridor.

Everything is controlled by Alice: there are several different time scenarios and voice commands. I am very satisfied and plan to replenish the system with new devices.

/station-mini-review/

Who will need "Station Mini" and a TV set-top box with Alice: a review


Vyacheslav Mashkov
set up the light at home

"Yandex-station" is connected to the TV. Two sockets are connected to Alice - they act as light switches using voice commands from Yandex Station and a smartphone.

There are several scenarios with turning off lighting and backlight at night on automatic. There are certain light modes for various everyday situations like reading and the like. The plans include a robot vacuum cleaner, I also really want a humidifier.

From experience, I realized that saving on switches and sockets is better not worth it. Otherwise, one fine day, the "Station" will not be able to communicate with the device and will not turn it off or on. You will burn electricity.

Method No. 4

Set Alice to protect devices from short circuits

Innelda Ischer
thanks to Alice for good music "Yandex" for a wall blocked by machinery.

Satisfied with everything. Thanks to Alice, several new music groups were discovered for themselves, the child controls the TV with his voice, and the electric oven is protected from short circuits outside of work.

/list/alice-for-kids/

Fairy tales from Alice and help in the lessons: 8 useful functions of the smart Yandex column for children

Method number 5

Use Alice as a timer

Elena swears Alice

There is Alice. But for now, I just tell her to set a timer. It is very convenient when cooking or when I apply a balm, a mask on my hair. And yes, I had a fight with her at the very beginning: she thinks that I don’t know how to cook borscht. And it also always includes the same selection of music at the request of Chill and Acid jazz.


Smart home system control: how to connect and configure

instructions March 25, 2020 at 02:25 pm

2262

11273

We are used to the help of Siri, we joke with Alice, and we know the story of a family that has a smart light bulb in their bedroom. It turns on and off from hand clapping, so killing mosquitoes at night with a loud “clap” is not started in their house. But technology has gone much further than just “Hey voice assistant, how’s the weather today?” and applause for the lamp. With the help of a smartphone and programs, we can turn on the coffee machine, adjust the air conditioner and turn off the lights throughout the house. Moreover, do it at the same time and without touching the devices. This is where the smart home comes in handy. So let's see why he's so smart.

What does a smart home consist of

The smart home system consists of three parts:

  • The hub is the central controller in the entire smart home system. It receives and analyzes readings from sensors, gives commands to devices based on these readings, pre-written programs or human commands.

  • Sensors are locators that analyze the environment and transmit information to a controller or a person’s smartphone if something has changed in the environment. So, there are motion sensors, light sensors, water sensors, humidity sensors and others.

  • Instruments are anything that can be programmed to perform tasks. Smart light bulb, kettle, washing machine, robot vacuum cleaner, coffee machine, smart socket, TV

How to connect smart home

The principle of operation of a smart home is simple: a hub is connected to the network, sensors are placed in the right places, and connections between all three components are configured. Ready. Now the smart home will act either according to the scenarios that you pre-register for each device, or according to voice commands. But let's see how it still works.

The connection between all elements can be configured by wired or wireless. The first option is not the most convenient due to the large number of wires, but it is less prone to failures. The second option is easier to install and allows you to control your home remotely. For example, on the way home, give the command to turn on the kettle. The connection in this case occurs via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or other standards. For greater convenience and security, you can combine wired and wireless smart home communications.

The whole system can be centralized, that is, managed from one controller, or it can be decentralized. In the second case, it is divided into separate chains of devices and sensors, and may consist of single devices. This approach increases the security of the system, but limits it in creating complex scenarios. There is no correct answer which option is better. It's a matter of taste.

When the controller is connected to the network, the sensors are placed in the right places in the house, you need to download an application to your device to manage all this stuff. There are many such applications - different manufacturers offer their smart devices. So here the choice depends on what kind of smart home you have: from Apple, Xiaomi, Samsung or any other company. In the application, we connect all the elements and make the necessary settings. Victory.


Smart home problems

The main problem is that there is no single standard that would fit all smart devices on the market. If you have a security system from Xiaomi, video surveillance from Apple, and everything else from Aqara, you will have several applications on your smartphone. This is at best, because there is still an opportunity to somehow unite all devices through application synchronization. But there are gadgets with their own closed software, and synchronization will not help here.

Learn more