Rating 30 Smart Home Devices, BEST and WORST! 

Let's hear it: what device is a 10/10 in your smart home?👇

I totally hear you on the Alexa advertisements. So annoying. I got tired of hearing "By the way...", so I created an Alexa routine that runs every day at midnight that tells Alexa "Stop by the way". Works perfectly. I haven't heard this in months.

Ally makes a great point about Home Assistant. :D Love mine, of course.

Lmao love the gaslighting "User error" etc for all the reviews 🤣🤣 my wife is also an Aly and we have similar conversations

Surprised you rated buttons so low! I find they are a great supplement to smart switches and more convenient than pulling out the phone for everything. My most used one is on the fridge to toggle kitchen scenes

Thanks for the shout-out and the 10, Reed! It's an honor to be in your house :) Eric

I put smart door locks on all my doors. Front, back, and garage entry. The garage was the most pertinent, because my better half refused to lock it. 9/10 usefulness.

I rate this video a 10!

Zemismart blind driver is my favourite out of the 40 devices in my home, I never have to open and close the blinds as they run automatically 10/10. Also 10/10 for my Gimdow door lock and 10/10 for my Brilliant Elite smart home switches.

Regarding the Lutron motion lights - I did the same thing for my utility room, but I took it next level. I don't have toddlers anymore so I removed the door latch and just replaced it with a magnetic latch/catch. When I come down with my hands full with laundry, a big Costco order or a bunch of tools, I just bump the door open and the Lutron motion light does its thing. Game changer ! The only problem I've had is that I also tried to open _other_ doors by bumping them, and they didn't use magnetic latches so ..... crash. 😬

“You had to debug it for a solid 2 hours” I know! Wasn’t that great? “….” -- How that conversation would go with my wife 😅

Since I live in Poland and dont get any advertisement from Amazon, except reminds to change filters or my packages I rate it 9/10. I actually agree with Ally's rates more than yours, but I love smart home anyway 😁

8:41 I’ve added an automation which is like a kids alarm. When my wife and I do some action in the bedroom and a door of one of the kids opens or the motion sensor of r their hallway detects a motion we get an alert with the smart lights in the bedroom. Very helpful:)

I always look forward to the end of your videos! They’re always so funny! Keep doing it!

Living in Austin TX with brutal summers. We did the 3 Tesla Powerwalls as well. Gotta go 10/10 because we had an 8-hour outage in August and never even knew it until I checked my Tesla notifications late in the day. And we had a multi-DAY outage due to the crazy freeze here last year and while we couldn't run everything, we eked out 6 days of lights and network etc. out of them. The day will come when you need them - and you'll join the 10/10 club 🙂

I had an EcoWitt all-in-one weather station just like the Tempest but got rid of it because those style of stations are wildly inaccurate here in AZ! The temperature was consistently 5deg (or more) too high whenever the sun comes up and the piezoelectric water sensor might as well give random numbers, it is so off. There are a lot of connected Tempest devices around me so I know that Tempest is giving the same very-wrong numbers. I replaced the all-in-one with a suite of separate devices which is much much more of a pain to setup (and more expensive) but at least I know I'm getting extremely accurate numbers (after double-checking with calibrated sensors). Still EcoWitt since those integrate with HA very easily.

this was fun and useful. and +1 for the contrasting viewpoints from Ally.

Ditch the Raspberry Pi and install HA on something SFF like a refurbished HP Elitedesk Mini. It's basically the same price and the performance increase is massive. Like me, you'll wish you'd done it way sooner.

What finally really started to get my wife on board was when I put a Shelly 1 on the garage door opener so she could hit it from her phone or CarPlay screen. Lights were kinda whatever to her. But being able to open the garage when she wasn’t in her normal car with the regular opener, that was the trick

Gotta say, for the devices we have in common I think you’re pretty much spot on. The only one I’ve consistently had poor experience with is Bond. We use it strictly for fans. Always been a pain to setup, if it even works with the fan. For me, solid 4 out of 10. Oh, and since you’re keeping score, I think Mollys’ got your number! 🤣

Great video Reed. It’s always great to see the blitz of a variety of products.

if there was a simple HA touchscreen all loaded ready to go straight out of the box? I'd give that a 10/10 ! Same for local voice control!

3:23 what was the light switch on the left? It looked pretty cool with the metallic ring in the middle and looks like it has tons of controls. where can I buy it?

Great and fun look at the smart stuff. I do think what's really interesting is the fine line between convenience and added work when it comes to gadgets. As someone who has quite a bit less smart stuff in the home that you, I find that I am regularly having to adjust and work on things. It's like a second job. Or third. Or something. The one thing that I have never had to work on is the Ring security system. So, that's my 10/10. I love smart doorbells, but I've yet to try one that I would rate 10/10.

For the devices we have in common, I agree. Roborock, ecobees (I have 3), etc. In process of swapping out our outdoor wyze cameras new house thick brick wifi just not cutting it. I liked where Ally weighed in - the WAF is critical. One of the reasons for the camera upgrade wifey uses them all the time - so need better and faster. Tapos.

There was a cinema in my town that started selling ice-cream with toppings ... we quickly realised we could buy one scoop of ice-cream and fill up the tub with toppings 😎

Amazing video, and funny as well. My wife is the same, hate when I’m spending hours on home assistant setups and debugs. Also she doesn’t use her phone for most features. Fun fact is the most used feature by wife is a button that will track and play a tune to find her phone. She never knows where is her phone, so that might explain why not using it hehe

We are newbie Snowbirds and the Schlage smart locks are pure platinum. Remote access control FTW! (along with many cameras!)

Love this video idea, Reed! I also have the Tempest but I’ve never had it go offline due to lack of charge. Surprised it’s happening to you in Arizona. Maybe try a different placement?

Great Video Reed. I agree with you on most. I have been on the fence about the tempest and think I will pass after seeing your take as I also live in AZ. Would love to see more on the Unifi network. Any chance you can do a video on walking through the setup (or if you have can you post the link)?

I did an automation routine on Alexa. Each morning it turns off any by the way announcements from Amazon. Other than notifications for deliveries. Do not get one announcement on any echos or dots.

Love the difference of opinion in your house. We should probably have that sort of conversation in our smart home. I tend to just do stuff and think it's brilliant. I have little to no idea what others in the house actually think 😂. ps. smart buttons are brilliant, especially if you keep them mobile and don't stick them down 👍.

My 10/10 is my Aqualisa shower. I can say "Alexa, it's shower time!" and the shower starts, the bathroom mood lighting comes on (bright!) the heated mirror comes on and the music on my Echo show starts playing at volume 6. After a minute, the Bathroom Echo announces that the shower is ready. The shower is plugged in to an energy monitoring socket so however it's turned on (e.g.: manually.. what?!!) the extractor fan kicks in. It also means that when the shower is over ("Alexa, turn off shower", or hand controls..) the music volume is automatically reduced so it's not too loud now that the bathroom is a bit quieter. 10/10! I have other 10's, like my thermal cameras to tell me there's a cat at the front door, or when I've left my oven on, or when my beans are ready and Alexa tells me I need to put on the toast, but the shower is the greatest!!

Me and my mom are coming up with wacky ideas for zwave scene controllers outside the scope of scenes, one being to know that the mail hasnt been checked yet, pressing it dismisses that reminder, another reminds us if any doors are left open, pressing it tells us which ones (replaces the nest guard reminder)

Hi I like your video on the smart home solution and have started my home assistant journey. I would like to check if you have any advices on the automation for washroom as I have no issue triggering the power but if you are seating on the toilet bowl my motion sensor sometime doesn’t register presence.

Great video. I really enjoy the cuts to your wife's reason for rating something differently. My 10/10 is definitely my robot vacuum. It just works so well and helps me keep a cleaner home with less work.

The wifes input was very useful to hear. We can get caught up in what we think is awesome, but others aren't so hot about it. 11/10

Loved the video! My 10/10 device in my home is my Kasa light bulbs. They are wifi but they have been flawless. Do you use hue with the bridge or just paired them directly to zigbee?

Awesome video- what tablet are you using for Home Assistant? Looked like an Ipad

I use a Geeni garage door opener. No issues and is a low cost option. Even sends me a messagebif it is left open or if my Internet goes down. I think I paid around $30. Easy to install.

Super fun video! Love watching your stuff

Hey Reed, great vid as always. Curious about the Ring alarm, do you use ring sensors with that or have it and a variety of sensors tied back to home assistant?

5:04 - For the HomePods, do you know if there’s any way to have them accept arbitrary voice commands that then call Home Assistant functions? (That’s one of the things that I kinda like my Echos for.)

lutron caseta is my 10/10. we have these on many of our lights as well as the bedroom fan and they're pretty handy to control from wall switches or voice with google assistant. i've even added some of the pico remotes to easily put a wall switch next to the vanity for example so i can turn that light on from in front of the sink without the noise of talking to google about it when i'm up for work before my wife. the one i use next most is probably the garage door which is a genie with the smartness built in. i get notifications on my phone when the garage door opens or closes, so i dismiss the closed ones and check on it if the open stays active too long without being replaced with a closed notification. sometimes it misses the closed notification, so i either go look or if i'm not home i check the driveway camera to verify it's actually closed. it won't let me open or close with voice for security reasons and insists on beeping and flashing the light for 5 seconds before opening or closing from the app so i mostly just use the open/close notifications from it . . . which honestly i could get from a window/door sensor. my most disappointing smart device has been the kitchen faucet from kohler. while we use the motion sensor to turn it on and off and love that, we had hoped the kids would be able to voice control it when they were too short to reach the sensor but the voice control has been spotty at best, leading me to create a phrase that would turn it on for X seconds because it often wouldn't respond to a second command to turn it off. it only worked at all for a few months until neither voice control or the app will do anything at all besides tell me the faucet is offline. haven't really tried it in possibly a year or so though, so maybe it's better now. also maybe they put all their effort into ios and don't care if their android app works properly. the other frustrating smart devices have been shades with somfy motors that communicate through an ezlo 100 dongle. we didn't put these in bedrooms but the living room, kitchen, and stairs are on a schedule to more or less open in the morning and close at night so we don't touch them. when it works. it frequently loses its wifi connection (can still follow the schedule without) and doesn't integrate with home assistant. plus the app has been buggy like forgetting part of the routine if i make an edit and originally having inaccurate sunrise / sunset timing. pretty sure they're z-wave and i could swap something in for the dongle that's better supported (maybe something that can plug in with ethernet) and use a different app with a better experience but i'm having trouble finding the information i need to know what's going to work before buying something and trying it out. would love to put them with the lutron smart dimmers but failed to pair there and then found a post saying the lutron bridge doesn't do z-wave

I was hoping that this would be more of a "function/value for price/cost based upon real world usage" rather than a mostly personal preference based more upon aesthetics than function exploration. Less emotionalism, more of a "fit for purpose" evaluation. I do completely understand how the best item(s) for the task(s) may not be the best personal choice as one's personal preferences & style does dictate choices at some level & one does need to enjoy the things that are introduced into one's life on a more permanent/semi-permanent basis. I am just not at a level to be able to afford considerations too far beyond function & longevity outside of a rather strict frugality. An enjoyable video nonetheless. It is good to see reasonings as to why changes have been made over time. And not only because little ones can now tap away your settings due to the previously low placement of your dashboard ( 7:00 )

Hey Reed, You are using the Ring Alarm Keypad. Can you also use this with HomeAssitant if you want to use it for automation? Do you generally have to take out a subscription for the Ring keypad, or can you just do that? I'm looking for a keypad that I can use with HomeAssistant without having to take out a subscription with Ring or have other products from this company. Does this keypad work completely without a cloud connection to Ring in HA? Thank you.

Hey Nice video! The ESP32 on your Garage using an Adapter for Wire connection? Where can i get them? Thanks :)

Which motorized shades do you have for the patio? I am in Phoenix area, any recommendations for an installer and ballpark price? Thanks !

6:42 What is the make/model of those back patio shades that you control with the BOND bridge?

In this video, The Big Takeaway is your wife’s perspective. Highlights that many smart devices are perceived as useful or not. I put in some smart dimmer switches in some of the rooms… never use them. I just thought I would at the time of getting them.

Love the tv cabinet, could you please give more details on those ?

@SmartHomeSolver Kasa is going to matter, and cutting data from energy monitoring devices (kp125m) to home assistant. have you heard something about it? is better to change to sonoff? how to fixit?

Don't you know? 1-10 scale is out. The cool kids all use Tiers. True story though, your channel is awesome. Planning so many things for my home that's currently being contructed.

Nice video Reed! By the way I got to cite you in my University assignment about smart home technology.

Hey, can you help me out, I have an echo show 2nd gen 5 device, and I want to get a philips hue sync box and a hue bluetooth light strip and bulb, but I don't want the hub so can I use my echo show 5 as a hub?

Love our light switch dimmers!! 10/10

By the siri is getting massive update to make it 1000 time better with AI like chatgpt !🎉

Its a GOOD thing that you don't " use" your security cameras that often. It means they're doing their job as a deterrence to theieves.

Is there a way to automatically have the Frame booth with the apple tv the moment I switch from the artwork to wanting to watch tv?

Thanks. I learned a lot. I think I’m going to adopt the video ambush technique on my wife to try and get quicker answers to questions I ask. No chance this strategy blows up in my face.

I'd love an updated video comparing Google home and the echo devices! I'm curious how they have changed over time. I recently got an echo after being a Google home family for years and I'm curious your thoughts

Have you made a video about your server rack, with the Ubiquity Unify Dream Machine Pro ?

How far can the Bond Bridge go? Thinking about multiple rooms and floors.

4/10 for NFC tags because you forgot where you put it? Seems like an user error to me 😂

What motion sensor are you using in your garage that is attached to your storage rack?

Any issues with the invovelli switches? How do they stack up to Lutron?

I am rebuilding my Smart home as I just moved and I’m mainly trying to find matter devices so they can be brand diagnostic but as far as the connectivity method, I’m having trouble finding a lot of thread based devices and I’m worried about getting too many Wi-Fi devices has this been a problem for you having most of your devices connected via Wi-Fi?

Debugging home assistant 😂. She got us there

Sorry tried to read thru the messages but if this was said good. If not yay. The tempest had an issue the charging. Call the customer service line and they should be able to troubleshoot and assist. Mine is working great now.

I have been a Weatherflow user since their Kickstarter, and when the unit goes dead quickly it is usually a failing battery. Which is my one complaint that the user cannot change the battery, though they do give a healthy discount to replace it with a new unit if you contact their customer service.

Hunter Hydrawise irrigation control 10/10 Lutron RadioRa2 9/10 Lutron Caseta 9/10. (For different reasons 😊) Lutron shades 10/10 Ecobee 10/10 Yale Smart Locks 7/10 (new models will not allow me to use my Zigbee modules, had to add Zwave to my system just for the locks) Hubitat C8 9/10 Elk M1 Gold 10/10 Broadlink IR/RF hub 10/10 Amazon Echo 4 to 8/10 depending on what I want to do with them. Newer models start to get lower ratings for things like white power cords with black devices, poor Zigbee hubs, loss of the 3.5mm output, ads on Show devices...I use them mostly for radio listening and announcements - dedicated whole home audio system pending for music. Wiim Pro Plus 10/10 Husqvarna Robot mower...pending

I have looked everywhere and can't find the link for the smart shades on the back porch area. Please help TIA

So I am just now starting to build out my Unifi network. You mentioned you use Unifi and Reolink security cameras. My question is, are you able to record the Reolink cameras on your Ubiquiti Dream Machine Pro?

How have you integrated your reolink cameras? Different system than Ubiquiti?

Hey reed!! Have you heard about Google home deleting integrations and refusing to reconnect? I’m trying to troubleshoot this now, I have about 30 devices on my local smarthome instance that have been kicked out of Google home for no reason. My roborock vacuum was also kicked and I can’t even add it back!

What is the name of your back patio shade?

Can you do a going off grid for 24 hours challenge?

Beard coming in 🔥🔥

Why is Michael Keaton doing smart device ratings?

Ive noticed almost all women absolutely love the frame TV, yet all men prefer quality and funtionality of a standard one. We have a frame 55" in living room and a 85" samsung neo in basement bonus room. My wife and daughter would rather watch that stupid frame all day instead of the gloriousness downstairs. Works out well for me.

What do you think about Eufy products ?

Love the Bond Bridge. It occasionally will fail to control a device though. The local API is fucking awesome.

My issue with the Kasa dimmers is that sometimes they randomly desync between the indicator leds and the actual light state. For example, sometimes when I hit the switch the indicators will start coming on to show the state of the light, but the light itself will never actually turn on. Needs to be turned off and on again to resync.

Hello Reed, I have been following for over 6 years, although your video are not coming out on weekly bases. Please can you give the excel documentation on smart home link you share in one of your video i think some time last year. please! Please !! reply

I thought you used Aqara FP2 sensors, are they any good?

What type of robot vacuum do you use?

Hmm, I have constant issues with Ring disconnecting from Home Assistant. Also, spending 2 hours debugging things in Home Assistant *probably* isn't home assistant's fault (although I did have my HA botch an OS update and that took several hours to repair).

Wait what device are you using for your smart home dashboard?

TIL we learned that SHS is a baller with Tesla solar and 3x power walls.

Do you using Homey Pro anymore?

I need the link for smart buttons!!

Love to see a video on your 3 hours it took to get home assistant working the other night your wife was talking about. Was it during an update or did something quit working?

What's the "dashboard" thingy?

I was waiting for you to rate the aqara fp2 presence sensor but you never did, I’m sure you have it, can you rate it now?

Thanks Reed.

too bad the frame tv sucks that much. As your wife said aesthetically is super cool ! thank you for your super helpful review

Woah I want to hear more about the smart drip system thing

“Debug home assistant for 2 hours” - what movie? 😂

I love smart home but can’t afford to make it big do you have a budget version?

I'm 100% with ally on all of em