Build Your Smart Home in 2023

As of 2023, smart home technology is still considered to be complex. For those who are interested in starting or expanding their smart homes, there are a few things that we should consider. The first thing to do is to pick a smart home platform. With the Matter standard rolling out, cross-platform products are becoming more common in the smart home. However, choosing a primary platform is still important for setting up control and automation of smart home devices.

For beginners who are interested in the offerings from big tech companies, such as Amazon and Apple, these platforms are the easiest to use. They both provide helpful hints in their apps and have dedicated sections for tips. Amazon even goes a step further by automatically setting up some smart home devices when they are plugged in. For those who are deep into the Google ecosystem, it makes sense to look at Google Home. Likewise, for those who have an Apple household, HomeKit is a good option. However, we should be cautious of lock-in and automations with all of these platforms. Third-party options like Homey or Home Assistant can be useful for avoiding lock-in.

After picking the platform, we can start buying devices for our smart home. The first device category to start with is lighting. We can control a single bulb, turning it on and off from our phone or with our voice. We can also control lights in multiple rooms at once, like holiday lights, and even change the color of our lights, creating beautiful lighting scenes to wake up and go to bed to. If we don't need full-color bulbs, we can at least get ones that can adjust their color temperature somewhat to avoid a lighting mismatch. Several companies make smart bulbs, including Philips Hue, Wyze, GE Sync, Govee, LifeX, and Nanoleaf.

In general, we should always try to make the bulb smart first. They are much easier to swap out and change, and they are also very renter-friendly. If we're renting a home or apartment, it is less complicated than trying to replace the light switch in the wall. However, for fixtures where we cannot make the bulb smart, we recommend getting a smart light switch.

The next category of device we recommend getting is the smart thermostat. We still suggest going with the Nest Learning thermostat if we like the idea of not having to set a schedule and just having the thermostat learn our patterns. Alternatively, we could go with something like the Ecobee or other smart thermostats that allow us to set a schedule in an app. If we find the idea of setting up our own smart home daunting or have a complicated installation, we can hire an integrator or consult services offered by some retailers like Best Buy and Google in the US, which are sometimes even free.

As we explore the world of smart homes, we cannot ignore the significance of smart speakers that have become one of the most convenient ways to control various devices in our homes. With smart speakers, we can perform actions such as turning off lights, controlling smart home devices, and even listening to music. Companies like Apple, Amazon, and Google have created their own smart speakers that we have reviewed and found to be great for controlling smart homes and for providing multi-room audio.

Multi-room audio is an excellent feature where we can play media on multiple speakers in different rooms simultaneously. After testing several smart speakers, we found Sonos to be the clear winner as they offer a vast range of speakers and soundbars and have an easy-to-use system. Additionally, many of their speakers now support both Amazon and Google Assistant. However, grouping speakers from different companies can be challenging as some speakers only work with Google Cast, while others only work with Apple's AirPlay 2. In contrast, some do not work with either. Therefore, when buying smart speakers, we should try to avoid lock-in as much as possible.

One feature we love about Sonos speakers is their internal speaker grouping mechanism. Moreover, they support Apple's AirPlay 2, enabling us to output sound from other devices such as Mac and Apple TV 4K. This feature is particularly helpful during events like the Super Bowl or Oscars watch parties. Besides, we can use devices like Amazon Fire Cube and Chromecast with Google TV to control our TV with smart assistants and even turn off the entire system using our voice.

Another crucial aspect of smart homes is safety and security. With smart homes, we can integrate security systems, including cameras, motion sensors, video doorbells, window sensors, and alarms, into our smart home platform. Additionally, we can place smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and leak detectors behind objects like hot water heaters or toilets and get notified as soon as a leak is detected.

We also can add appliances to our smart homes, including stoves, ovens, refrigerators, robotic vacuum cleaners, air purifiers, and even smart showers. Smart appliances offer convenience and control, allowing us to remotely turn off the oven, receive alerts when the fridge detects we've run out of something, automate the task of vacuuming, and provide precise temperature control and sauna steam automation with music speakers in showerheads with smart assistants built-in. For music in the shower, we recommend getting a smart speaker with Wi-Fi built-in and waterproof to avoid constantly connecting our phones over Bluetooth.

When it comes to automating your home, blinds and curtains are a big category of devices to consider. There are expensive options like smart wood blinds or roller shades from companies like Lutron. If you’re doing new construction or a remodel, you can even have an electrician wire power up to where you plan to have your blinds or shades installed. In addition, there are robots made by companies like Aqara and Switchbot that can open and close curtains. Switchbot also makes a nifty robot that can automate any device in your home that can be controlled by the press of a button. Finally, smart plugs can control any device plugged into your wall outlet, making them great for decorations, Christmas lights, fans, heaters, etc.

However, the ability to control and automate these devices is the real point of connecting them together. The big three smart home platforms have basic routine and automation functionality, and Homekit now even lets you create automations just by using your voice with Siri. If you want a platform that has more advanced automation features that can connect to more services, but is still easy to use, we recommend Homey in particular. We will be testing out their new Homey Pro device that you can use to run all of your automations locally once they ship out here in the US.

There are two main types of automations for the smart home: scheduled-based automations and trigger-based automations. Examples of scheduled-based automations include turning on your espresso machine every morning at 8:00am and setting your thermostat to 73 degrees at 9:00am. Trigger-based automations have a few subcategories as well. The first subcategory is voice commands, like saying “movie time” to your assistant and having your lights dim down and blinds close. The second subcategory is sensor-based triggers, like having your lights set to automatically turn off when your motion sensor detects no one is home. Finally, you can set up triggers based on other smart devices. For example, when you tell your smart assistant to turn off your TV, your lights slowly dim up.

The last thing to talk about is the new smart home Matter standard. Now that the standard has been finalized and is rolling out, our advice this year is to buy the smart home devices you need today, but make sure they either support Matter or will be updated to Matter at a later date. For a deeper dive into the Matter smart home standard, how it works, how it changes the smart home, and most importantly, what you actually need to know, we recommend doing some research on the topic.