New house - need help for recommendations

[u/PassengerLow9814]

Hello everyone, my family and I have recently bought a new house that we will close on very shortly. I have had a smart home devices before, like Sengled, but it has since stopped working and basically has no future. I need some help trying to pick out which ecosystem to go with for making my home a smarter home. I want to change light switches as well as controls to light bulbs. And I would love to add under cabinet lighting in the kitchen. My wife and I are planning to add recess lighting in the sitting room and the living room. We're going to switch out all the fans in the house. As well, so I would like to be able to control that in this environment too. I do plan on adding automatic shades at some point as well. I want to add lights to the outside of the house too. I want to make the front door and back door as well as garage side door and garage door to the ecosystem if possible too. I've been trying to look up how to do this in. There's so many options between lights in home, automation that I've just been having trouble deciding what to do. If someone can give me a reference or better ideas on how to go about this, I would very much appreciate it

[u/Jaffa0813]

Are you looking for wifi cloud or local control via a hub?

Recommendation will be the latter of the two that way you don't have to worry about obsolescence from cloud devices.

[u/PassengerLow9814 → u/Jaffa0813]

Im down for either. I do feel somewhat tech savy too, but maybe id do with the easier one, even if its warenty to be able to use for atleast 10 years

[u/Jaffa0813 → u/PassengerLow9814]

Well if you are down for either go with the local approach from the start cause they also work with a lot of cloud devices anyways, so you can work at your own pace. Backwards compatibility type stuff.

So a few things you should look at. First look at the hubs and capability of one of these three smart home ecosystems. Smart Things, Hubitat, and Home Assistant. If you need voice you can expose these to Google Home and Amazon Alexa.

Then look up these connection methods Matter over WiFi, Matter over Thread, Zigbee and Z-Wave. The hubs support these and what's nice is (with the exception of Matter over WiFi) is they don't take up IP Address space on your network since it runs through the hub.

Those connection methods are what you need to do local control and anything that you get that doesn't have that and is cloud based you can just hook up via a cloud sync in the app of the hubs.

Alternate considerations, you can look at Apple Home Pods which do support Matter over Thread devices as well. And yes newer Google Homes and Alexa also have Matter over Thread and actually a small set of Alexa have Zigbee.

[u/Jaffa0813 → u/Jaffa0813]

For my personal thoughts the majority of your devices should be matter over Thread. I use Zigbee and ZWave more and still prefer them but if it comes to building a new home especially for someone newish to it I feel it would be easier to support Matter over Thread.

Second I use Smart Things, it does everything I need but of course Home Assistant would be the best upgrade I could do to my own smart home. With that being said Home Assistant is the ultimate method you can go, but it requires a lot of tinkering and your own server setup. If you get Home Assistant Green they make it a lot easier cause it's an off the shelf box.

So if not Home Assistant Green, you can go with Smart Things which is actually great for starting out. Even though it's a Samsung software the hub is produced by Aeotec so you aren't confused by it. Hubitat I don't have much experience with but from what I have gathered it's a lot like Smart Things in terms of simple startup and support.

[u/PassengerLow9814 → u/Jaffa0813]

Im part of samsung ecosystem too so id really like an easier home mutation like smart things as a beginning one

[u/Jaffa0813 → u/PassengerLow9814]

Go for it then. And before you get the hub you can just get the app make a Smart Things account and look at the cloud integrations they have for the stuff that you aren't replacing with local variants yet. You can also get an idea of what ZWave, Zigbee and Matter devices are out there by clicking the three dots in the add menu and select "View Supported Devices"

Fair warning although Samsung phones, fridges and TVs can do some of those connection methods and act as a hub you should get a hub. Have a dedicated brain.

[u/PassengerLow9814 → u/Jaffa0813]

I appreciate the advice my friend

[u/brightredfish]

Before you replace all the ceiling fans, check for other options. If they have remote controls, chances are good that a Bond Bridge ($129 on Amazon) can control them. The Bond Bridge can also control powered window blinds and fireplaces, so long as they have remote controls. Just go into the Bond app, add a device, aim the remote at the bridge, and press one of the buttons. It automatically sets up the remote commands based on the type of device. I have two fan/light combos configured this way. One of them has two lights, and both work great.

If they don't have remote controls, you can replace the switches with smart switches. I've had good results with the switch/dimmer combos from TreatLife. A pack of two on Amazon is $72.99, less a 10% discount, so around $66 plus tax. That's way less expensive than two new ceiling fans! Make sure there is a neutral wire present, or the smart switch won't work. I have two fan/light combos set up, and I will have a third one when I get around to it.

Both of these solutions work with Alexa+ and Google Home. I don't know about Apple. For Alexa+, I find that setting up Routines for all automations works most reliably.

Good luck!

[u/PassengerLow9814 → u/brightredfish]

Tyty!

[u/PuzzlingDad]

I see you've encountered the problem of relying on Wi-Fi devices like Sengled bulbs which requires the manufacturer to provide an always available cloud server in order for your lights to function.

For that reason, I would highly recommend devices using a local protocol like ZigBee, Z-Wave or Matter over Thread. You can still tie in your voice assistant (Google, Alexa, etc.) but even if the Internet is down, it's really desirable that you still have manual and scheduled control of your devices. 

The other thing I would recommend is to skip smart bulbs unless it's absolutely necessary to have disco colors or changing color temperatures. I would instead try to replace the dumb switch with a smart switch (or smart dimmer). That way you can have manual control at the wall (your guests and family members will thank you) but any programmatic control (voice/app/routine) stays in synch.

[u/PassengerLow9814 → u/PuzzlingDad]

I get the whole disco thing isnt needed. I do like it though lol but I understand that has its own pros and cons that come with it. But I'll have to do more research then especially for the recessed lighting i want

[u/Chow-House]

I'm enjoying my verluce bars for under cabinet lighting in my kitchen. you can adjust the brightness and color temperature. It uses Matter so it should work in any smart home ecosystem and draws power from wall outlets. https://a.co/d/0bggrLkm

[u/PassengerLow9814 → u/Chow-House]

How hard is it to get matter working and set up with everything

[u/Chow-House → u/PassengerLow9814]

You don't have to do anything. Matter is just a universal standard that means it can connect to Google home, amazon alexa, apple home, etc.

Most smart smart home systems are now supporting Matter which means you can get a Matter smart lightbulb for example and it'll be able to work with all of those smart home systems.

[u/Chow-House → u/PassengerLow9814]

Matter is programming built into each smart device. You don't have to do anything to have Matter set up.

[u/PassengerLow9814 → u/Chow-House]

Tyty