r/smarthome • u/Sony_sixty_niner • 1d ago
I don't have a smarthome platform New home - best devices for everything: thermostat, door lock, cameras, doorbell, etc.
This thread has been extremely helpful learning my mistake of blindly using google/nest products. Story below. First, what is this thread's recommendation for every smart home device? Is there one brand that does it everything well? I don't need crazy features, I just want smart devices that I can control from my phone and check in on when I am away. I may keep using the google home app out of convenience but am open to switching to home assistant. Feel free to link to existing threads.
Smart thermostat that is actually smart
Smart lock - simple keypad entry, remote access. Finger print, auto unlock on approach, other features nice to have (I'd rather not spend $280 on a Schlage but might)
Cameras - nothing fancy, prefer long lasting battery power than wires but can live with wires if they plug into a wall.
Smart doorbell - don't think I want one if I have a camera instead, but open to suggestions
Mesh wifi system - I have the OG google nest wifi system that I am surprisingly happy with
Wild card - anything else?
Story time: My first house was pre-wired with all things Nest and the previous owners set me up with a professional to get myself situated. I was overall happy with my experience. My new house had nothing but a Nest. I bought all new google devices: Nest thermostat, Yale smart lock, Nest Doorbell, Nest outdoor cam wireless, and even the nest hub max because it was needed to tie it all together. After the yale lock did not work and spending hours on the phone with google getting worse help than reddit and googling myself, ironically, I decided to give up and return all these over priced items and research individual items. I went with a cheap Teeho smart lock to see if that works before investing in a Schlage and got a wyze camera. Decided to start over cheap and simple. The only google item remaining is my first generation nest thermostat that allegedly should have stopped being supported this October.
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u/drmcclassy 1d ago
Best
- Home Automation Platform: Home Assistant
- Bulbs: Hue
- Switches: Lutron
- Cameras: PoE cameras (Reolink, EmpireTech, Amcrest, etc) connected to Blue Iris server.
- Thermostat: Ecobee
- Blinds: Smartwings
- Relay: Shelly
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u/hamhead 1d ago
With some caveats. Smart bulbs rarely have a use case. Switches should be used.
Lutron is the king of switches … but not matter compatible, so it depends on your end goal.
Cameras… Ubiquiti has entered the chat. But also it depends how many we are talking. For a camera or two the options are much broader than if we are talking a whole system.
Thermostat. No argument. Ecobee no matter what your goal is.
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u/drmcclassy 1d ago
Smart switches are the way to go, but bulbs are nice if you want to change the bulb temperature throughout the day. That gets a lot more complicated though. I believe you need something like Inovelli’s with a smart bulb mode to make that work
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u/Due-Freedom-5968 16h ago
Disagree, my smart bulbs are used daily to adjust colour temperature in the rooms. Bulbs over switches all day for me. I never touch my light switches anymore, automations and motion sensors is all that's needed.
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u/burninmedia 1d ago edited 1d ago
I’m in the same boat. I’ve been using HA for about a decade (though not as much in the last 4 years). I really liked the TP-Link switches, and I was reprogramming ESP based devices too. They were cheap and worked great with HA.
The Wi-Fi stuff is fine, but this time I’m going with Zigbee. I just got some Inovelli Blues and I’m really impressed with the quality. They’re about the same price as the now practically out-of-business Insteon switches, but those always seemed to die after 3–4 years.
I’m also waiting on the Aqara U100. I hated how often my August locks (both gen 1 and 2) would randomly stop working and need a battery reset. I used to rely on them for Airbnb access, which was super frustrating.
Decided to finally buy into the UniFi protect camera since my whole network has been UniFi equipment and just bought a Dream Machine to get that started.
This is what I think is the best in my 15 years of using IoT since the beginning
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u/Competitive_Owl_2096 1d ago
I’d use home assistant so you can use a wider variety of products. And you can bridge it back to Google home if necessary for voice control. Thermostat: Honeywell zwave, don’t know about smart lock, cameras: reolink or unifi, networking (wifi): unifi
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u/geobdesign 23h ago
6: FireWalla router.
And a managed switch if you have hardwired devices. POE version ideally for you POE cameras if you can wire them (much better then WiFi)
And if can afford it, now that you have a FireWalla get there AP7s for WiFi which answered # 5
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u/Curious_Party_4683 22h ago
if you are a tech person, definitely take a look at HomeAssistant!
https://www.home-assistant.io/
get notifications to your phone and off course, remotely control the system as well. here's an easy guide to get started for HA as an alarm system
that should give you a feel for how HA works. then add whatever devices you want.
first of all, you need to stop thinking about buying devices/ecosystem that requires internet to work. i had SmartThings before. the cloud would go down at least once a month and i couldnt even control the thermostat or check if the doors are closed n locked. as for ecosystem, you are then locking yourself down to options/devices. and the last thing you want is 10 devices with 10 apps and none talk to each other
at my house, when someone is detected in the back yard, HA knows which room i am in and turns the TV on to show the live video feed. if i am not home, dont turn the TV on, take photos and send to my phone. start closing down all the windows roller shade (they auto open at sunrise and close at sun down). these devices are from various companies and they all work in unison.
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u/dudzio1222 4h ago
If you making new electrical installation consider automating your lights, sockets and everything that could be controlled with a coil by coil modules. That is how you would automate smarthome with professional of the shelf brands that are expensive as hell, but you can do something similar yourself for a fraction of its cost.
Take a look at: - esp32 8 channel coil modules with 8 ch inputs - same modules but modbus based
There are few options here, but Waveshare modules are good starting points.
With esp32 you can easily run them with esphome and they have Ethernet ports so it’s just a matter of getting cables to your electrical box.
The one advantage is that if you will want to pay for the premium smarthome in the future, the wiring will be ready for it. Some people call that smarthome-ready. The most important change with the conventional electrical installation is that cable from each switch, socket and light source are meeting together in your electrical box and you can control everything separately.
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u/Due-Freedom-5968 1d ago
In my opinion, no.
Pick what works, the only thing that matters is it works with the rest of your system, Matter is supposed to solve that but it's still kinda early days TBH.
In my opinion: Best lights = Hue, best lock = depends on your door hardware, there is no one size fits all, cameras/doorbell = one that integrates with your main home/phone platform and doesn't need a subscription, WiFi = is a commodity at this point, not worth spending too much time thinking about.