I started dabbling in home automation when I became a homeowner in early 2014. My first purchases were a MiCasaVerde VeraLite hub and Kwikset Z-Wave locks for all the doors. Soon after, I had a Honeywell Ademco Vista 20P alarm system which I integrated with the Vera and a Honeywell Z-Wave thermostat. Since then, every time I have some spare cash and some spare time, I install a new smart device.
In the few years since I’ve started integrating these gadgets into my home, I’ve had some general rules regarding what I would add to my smart home.
My first requirement is that any smart home device I buy just works. It should not be dependent on a third-party service, Internet connectivity, wireless network, or hub to just work. Granted, almost all of my smart home devices do rely on those things for advanced features, but if I lose Internet connectivity or a third-party service closes its doors, I can still walk over to the switch and turn my light on. In other words, I’m no worse off than if I had a regular “dumb” switch.
My second requirement is that the basic functionality should be easily accessible to average users. If there are guests staying at my house, they should be able to turn the lights on and off without needing a tutorial or a smartphone.
My final requirement is that anything that can be done, can be done on a schedule, remotely over the Internet, or in response to a trigger. This is what gives power to the smart home. There are plenty of devices out there that are marketed as “smart” when they’re really little more than remote controls. Without a way to integrate with the rest of your smart devices, it’s just another gadget.
From my initial setup, I’ve gradually built a smart home ecosystem. Over the years I’ve replaced almost every light switch in the house with a Z-Wave smart switch. Picking up what was on sale or special devices for special purposes, I have GE, Linear, Zooz, Aeotec, Enerwave, and 2Gig switches. I added additional security sensors to the garage door and wired it into my alarm panel’s relay so that I can check the status of the garage door and command it from anywhere in the world. A camera to keep an eye on the dog we adopted soon turned into two, then four along with a network video recorder. Eventually, I upgraded the VeraLite to a VeraPlus and added Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi for the additional features it offers. I have been able to integrate a Chromecast, a Roku 3 set-top box, and a Roku TV with our other smart devices. Two of my ceiling fans are controlled by a BOND WiFi to RF bridge, and now with the addition of a pair of Google Home Minis, I can control my home with just my voice. Just this past year, I bought a WiFi plugin module for our Christmas tree. Since we took the tree down I haven’t found another use for it, though.
I mounted a 7″ Kindle Fire tablet on the wall inside the front door. It runs a customized
version of ImperiHome, an Android app which gives us status and touch control over the whole house’s smart systems. Thanks to the Tasker app, when I plug in my cell phone next to the bed, all the doors lock, the garage closes, the TVs and lights turn off, and the alarm is armed to night mode. When I arrive home on my motorcycle, the garage door automatically opens without me having to take my hands off the handlebars. Our doorbell — just a standard built-in doorbell which is probably 40 years old — carries a secret. It actually triggers a relay, telling the Vera Hub to capture a picture from each of the outdoor cameras, send a text to my wife and me with the pictures, display live video from the front door on the Kindle Fire, and announce “Someone is at the door.”
If you’re familiar with these gadgets, you may have noticed that there are some exceptions to my rules above. In my smart home, there are a few items that rely on cloud services for functionality. Staying clear of third-party services is becoming increasingly difficult. My most obvious example is Google Home. It is completely reliant on an external connection and cloud services. In this case, I can justify the trade-off, since if the Google Assistant service goes away, or suddenly adds a prohibitive subscription fee, then I’ve lost the functionality of the smart speaker, but everything else in my smart ecosystem still works as it did before. However, the features it provides take my smart home to a whole new level. Using natural language voice commands and receiving voice responses is the ideal of science fiction and technological advancement. It makes a connected home user-friendly, and I think I’m even more hooked than I was before.
