Smart Home – without the headaches

I probably watched too many episodes of The Jetsons as a kid, but I have always loved the idea of home automation. I just thought it would be cool to come into the house and have it automatically make the environment exactly what I liked, without having to run all over the place changing the thermostat, lighting, blinds, TV, etc. Then again, if you don’t know what the Jetsons are, maybe you think it’s always been that way 🙂

In the beginning, it was very much a nerd’s hobby to build a full home automation system. I read articles of about custom systems in high-end homes. I even knew someone that built these systems. The truth was, though, I wasn’t prepared to spend $50K-$100K just to save a few steps and make the lights dim themselves. Like most tech, though, it’s become. alot more accessible. What once required multiple servers and full hard wiring is now much more accessible. The average person can build a decent home automation system without ripping out the walls and learning how to write code.

When I started working on Mintwood, I decided I wanted to add some of the cool stuff to my house, but I didn’t want to break the bank. I also didn’t want to employ a full-time tech support team just to watch a movie. We also wanted to be able to carry some of these learnings into our rental properties, which meant they had to be very reliable and easy to configure. I decided the requirements were pretty simple:

• Off the shelf components, widely accessible (via Amazon, Home Depot, Best Buy, etc.)
• Interoperable (not tied into a single brand)
• Single user interface (one app on my phone, and one voice assistant at home)
• No writing code, and no running my own servers
• Demonstrated reliability
• Reasonable price point

Obviously some of these criteria are subjective, and some might be willing to do more to get exactly what they want, but I wanted to keep it relatively simple. Despite having worked in high tech for 30 years, I wanted something that was consumer-friendly. Now that we’ve been living in Mintwood for a while, I feel like I can share the results of my research, so that readers can benefit from the successes and failures of our efforts. In many cases, I’ve run several different pieces of hardware in parallel just to see which was most reliable and easiest to use. Hopefully it’ll help you automate things in your own home, and bring you some laughs in the process.

{Disclosure: I’m providing links for these products. If, at the time of publication, the price was the same on Amazon and elsewhere, I linked to Amazon and I may get a couple of pennies in referral fees. But, Amazon doesn’t always play well with others- like they won’t list certain Google products, and they won’t show Sonos speakers that compete with Alexa. In those cases, I’m linking directly to the product page. I care a whole lot more about giving good advice than getting a couple of pennies from Seattle. Thx}

Rather than make this a crazy-long blog post, I’m splitting it into topics. Please read “Starting Point” first, and then after that, feel free to jump to the automation stuff that interests you.

• Starting Point (Networks, and Hubs)
• HVAC/ Thermostats
• Lighting (Wall Switches, smart plugs, strip lights, and LED bulbs)
• Doors and Locks
• Smart Appliances

Starting Point
I’m not going to try to write a primer on how home automation works. Although I actually understand a great deal of it, the whole point is to ahve a system that doesn’t require the user to know the underpinnings. If there are terms I use that aren’t familiar, let me know andI’ll explain them.

In home automation, the ecosystem and the brains are closely linked. You’ll usually see right on the box “Works with Alexa, Google Home, and Apple HomeKit” (meaning that device plays nicely with all three of the big ecosystem providers.)

Smart Hubs & Ecosystems

The first thing we needed to decide was which ecosystem we were going to use and which hub we would use. Since we weren’t going to have a big server in the house, that means using one of the major players and their ecosystem, and connecting a bunch of Internet of Things (IOT) devices through the cloud.

While I’m sure there are many others on the market, we wanted a well supported, consumer-grade solution. That meant our leading contenders were Google Home, Apple Homekit, and Amazon’s Alexa. After talking with some industry experts, I ruled out Amazon because I felt their security wasn’t up to snuff. No one wants the lights flickering late at night because some hacker decided to be a pest. Apple might seem like a logical choice, especially since we’re otherwise an Apple household (We have enough iPhones, iPads, and Macbooks to pave the front sidewalk.) However, Apple tends to be more restrictive than necessary. I wanted to be able to choose the best IOT devices, regardless of manufacturer. That left us with Google Home. They have reasonably good security, and yet they also have a broad ecosystem of devices they support. Google it is, then.

Google Home is how they refer to the ecosystem of smart home devices. Google Assistant is the speech-activated way you get Google Home to do something. In our house, we have a number of devices (called hubs) that have Google Assistant built in. We have the Nest Hub in our kitchen (There’s a larger version called the Nest Hub Max, which can be nice if you want a larger screen, better audio, and a camera built in). In rooms where we don’t need a display, we have the Nest Mini. It accesses the same Google functionality as the Nest Hub, but it doesn’t have a screen or camera. We also have some smart speakers from Sonos (Sonos One, and Sonos Move) that also have Google Assistant built in. They function just like a Nest Mini- all of the audio, but nothing else.

Google Assistant can do much more than just control IOT devices. It will read the news (from sources you can curate), tell jokes, and much more. It’s very convenient to just shout our, “Hey Google, set a timer for 5 minutes called ‘pasta'”. On our Net Hub, the on-screen display will show the timer, which is easier than asking “how much time is left?”. We also use the Nest Hub use to show family photos and our family calendar. The kitchen hub also is often used to manage a shared shopping list. I find myself calling out “Hey Google, add Eggs to the shopping list” as soon as I crack the last egg from the carton.

In order to make the Google Assistant work, you have to log into a Google account. This should generally be done by the most tech-savvy person in the house, or at least the one with the patience to set up all of the other devices. It will use your Google account for the bulk of it’s work. However, this also raises privacy implications. I don’t want just anyone within shouting distance to ask google about my upcoming doctor’s appointment. Google deals with this by recognizing voices. It can limit access based on whether it knows the voice. For example, we let anyone (guest or known household member) play music by saying “Hey Google, play Miles Davis”. However, only my wife and I can add items to the shopping list.

Google Assistant also has the notion of “routines” – that is, a cluster of commands. These can be shared, or unique to one user. I’ve trained our devices that when I say “Hey Google- Good Morning”, it will give me the weather, turn on the light in the bedroom, read the news, and then tell me what’s on my calendar. My wife also has a “Good Morning” routine, but Google knows her voice from mine and will do her list if she is the one speaking. For some actions (like managing a shared shopping list) you actually want to share. Here’s an article on how we set up our shared shopping list so that either of us can add items, then cross them off at the grocery store.

I bought a new truck back in April, and it came with Google Assistant built in. For a while, I could just push a button on the steering wheel and add grocery items or adjust the thermostat at home. However, in the end I didn’t get enough value from that to pay for the data access from my truck. (it uses a separate account at $15/ mo.)

Overall, though, I love the ability to just shout out a command and have Google take care of things for me. It’s a really nice convenience, and it’s cool enough that even my Mom (79 yrs old) has allowed me to set up a bit in her home. The best part is that it’s possible to just dip your toe in the water, and slowly add capabilities as you decide you like it. I’ve definitely changed my mind about things as I went. We tried some devices that just didn’t work as advertised, and so we threw them out and bought something different. (I have 4 different smart locks in my basement now). This list reflect my thinking as of the day I publish. As new capabilities come along, you can bet I’ll be out there trying them out.

Networking

I’m covering Networking in this article because there are a few things related to how our network is set up that are important. Again, our goal was to have something that was generally accessible by most folks. I used. tohave a small business setup at home (dedicated cisco routers, etc.) but this time around, I wanted off-the-shelf components that didn’t require specialized support.

How you get internet to your house really isn’t too important. We get broadband access from Comcast, but this all works the same if you have Charter, Cox, or another cable provider. It also works the same if you have Verizon Fios or another flavor.

The first clear piece of advice I’ll give in this section, though, is to separate your modem from your wifi. When the signal comes into your house, you need a modem to turn that into signals you can understand on a local network. You may know it as your Cable Modem, your Fios box, etc. Most of the broadband providers then also bundle the wifi router into the same device. The wifi router is what puts a wifi signal in your home for you to access. The thing to keep in mind though, is that these are separate functions. Connection to the outside internet is one job, and connecting all of the devices inside your house is a different task.

In our house, we actually separate these functions. We have a dedicated cable modem that connects to the Comcast coax cable. It is not the box supplied by Comcast. We bought it from Amazon for about $40. This saves us $6/ month on our cable bill because we aren’t renting their device. Getting your own cable modem may seem intimidating, esp if you’re worried the cable company won’t help if you have a problem. The reality is that they are required by law to tell you what devices are compatible with their network. (Here’s the link to Comcast). We then have a separate router within the house to provide wifi access.

Our house has a fairly small footprint (about 1000 sq ft) but there’s a huge brick wall in the middle of the building. As a result, the wifi signal from the front of the house doesn’t really reach the back of the house very well. There are two solutions to this problem. Since we were able to run physical wire, we opted to have a hard wire run from the router in the front of the house to a second router in the back of the house. If you’re not opening up walls, you could still do this by running a wire through an attic or in the basement. With a little bit of care, this can be disguised perfectly and no one will ever know. Our secondary router (known as an access point) talks to the primary router via a hard line. If you can’t have the hardline, though, you may want to consider a mesh network. In a mesh network, you have multiple access points that connect to one another wirelessly. They just need to be near enough that they can get at least a little bit of signal, and they relay the data from one unit to the next. Google, Apple, and others make mesh networks. No matter what you chose, I’d strongly advise a primary router and secondary access points from the same manufacturer. While it’s possible to mix brands, for most consumers it just isn’t worth the headache.

BTW, if you do happen to be opening all of the walls, you really can’t go wrong wiring the house with both ethernet and coax cable. It’s a very modest cost, and it provides a ton of flexibility later. We have a network drop in every room in the house. This allows us to connect high bandwidth devices (like TV sets) to a physical network cable, which helps minimize wifi congestion and other problems. Again, it’s not required- but if you’re opening up the walls, it is cheap insurance.

One really important note: Nearly all smart home devices work on the 2.4 GHz wifi band. Your home wifi router probably runs both the 2.4 GHz and the 5GHz band in parallel. It is important that when you’re trying to configure your smart devices, that you be on the 2.4 GHz network. If you are on the 5GHz network, you likely will not be able to “find” the smart device and connect it to the network. There are a couple of ways to solve this:

• Some routers have different SSID’s for the different networks. In that case, go into your phone settings and just force the connection over to the 2.4 Ghz network.
• If you don’t have separate SSID’s, you may want to temporarily turn off the 5 GHz network to set up your smart devices. This involves logging into your router as the administrator, and using the configuration screens to shut down the 5GHz band. Then, after you’ve completed the setup, turn it back on.
• If you’re a real geek and you’re playing with this all the time, you may want to have a specific device (an old tablet, for example), that is only on the 2.4GHz network.

No matter how you solve it, you need to be on that 2.4 GHz band to connect the IOT devices, or you’re going to run into some challenges.

Now, if you’re a tech nerd and you really want to geek out, I’m sharing what our physical setup is. We have this Arris cable modem. We use these TP-Link routers. There are a number of other manufacturers, and again, make sure your modem is compatible with your service provider, but this is what we chose to use. And of course be sure to change the default password on your devices when you buy them- it’s the most common attack vector for hackers!

Once you have internet access, and have chosen your first hub, it’s time to start connecting IOT devices and building your smart home! Our next several posts will walk you through that process.