The Vergecast - Extreme smart home makeover

Starting point is 00:00:01 Welcome to the Virgcast, the flagship podcast of neutral grounded wires. I'm your friend David Pierce, and I am in the backyard of my new house. I was going to do this inside, but there's some people working on the floors. I'm actually here to do a stain test, which is a thing I didn't know existed until today. These are the things you learn when you're owning a home. And I'm like standing here filming this and I'm just looking and I can see all these leaves behind me that I have to rake. I broke a rake yesterday trying to rake these leaves and I'm still not done. This is what I'm in for trying to own a house.

Starting point is 00:00:31 it's going to be a disaster. And actually, that is what we're here to do on this episode. So this is the second of our two-part series with Jen Toey about the smart home. And today, Jen is going to smarten up my house, literally my home. We're going to go room by room through this empty house, and she's going to help me figure out not only what I should do to make my house a little smarter and a little more useful, but even just what's possible. This whole thing requires a lot of imagination. And Jen's going to help me make sense of what's good and what's worth the money. and more importantly, what isn't. All that's coming up in just a sec.

Starting point is 00:01:03 But first, real quick, I just want to tell you, we are shooting the next series of version history episodes next week. And the big thing we want for this next round of episodes is your input. So two of the episodes, I just want to tell you about two of the episodes that we're doing. You can see the whole list on our website. But two that we're doing are the game Flappy Bird and AOL and Sue Messenger, AIM. So if you have thoughts or questions or you want to share a memory of either of those two things, call the VergecastHathexH1-1 or send us an email,

Starting point is 00:01:31 Vergecast to the verge.com. Again, Flappy Bird and Aim. I want to hear all of your thoughts, all of your memories, all of the tweets you sent about how much you hated Flappy Bird. If you remember your high score, I want to know what it was, send us everything. They're all going to be in the episodes. It's going to be super fun.

Starting point is 00:01:45 We have tons of fun stuff coming up for you on that feed over the next several weeks. But that's enough for that. Let's get to the show. I just realized I need to go home because the internet is not yet turned on here. So I'm going to go home. I'm going to get back in the studio. We're going to call Jen. We're going to get to it. This is the Vergecast. We'll be right back.

Starting point is 00:02:01 Support for the show comes from Retool. Too many companies run critical operations on duct taped spreadsheets, Slack workflows, and whatever else they could cobble together. Not because they want to, but because building internal tools means weeks of waiting on someone else's backlog. That's where Retool comes in. Build custom internal tools just by describing what you need. Proms something like,

Starting point is 00:02:24 build me a revenue dashboard on our Salesforce data. And Retool actually builds it on your company's data and your cloud with Enterprise Security built in. Go to Retool.com slash Verchcast. We all need to retool how we build software. All right. We're back. I am back. I have Internet.

Starting point is 00:02:46 This is still my house for now. This is maybe the last time this will look nice. But here we are. Jen Toohey is here. Hi, Jen. Hi, David. How is the new house? I feel like I should apologize to you.

Starting point is 00:02:58 Just right up front here. Like I realized we planned what we wanted to do in this episode. And then I had this moment just before we started recording where I was like, this is me just like ruthlessly using my colleague for my own games. And it's like part of it is like, yeah, I think this is like an interesting exercise to do for lots of people. But also this is just like I just sent you a list of things to do for me. And I'm going to make you do them all. And I'm very sorry that we're doing that. I hear it a lot.

Starting point is 00:03:23 Don't worry. But I do think this is like a, I am at a. rare moment where I think I'm going through what like we hear from a lot of people that they're going through and we hopefully can just do a bunch of it in real time all at once. You're going to just design me a smart home and I'm very excited about it. Okay, so we're going to go room by room. I gave you six rooms to design and some constraints for each room. So we're going to go room by room. But right at the top, I gave you a bunch of sort of overall rules. And I'm going to, I'm going to just say what they are and you can a ask questions or clarify.

Starting point is 00:03:58 or whatever, but also I just want to like frame all of the stuff that we're about to talk about. So rule number one, and this is actually, I would say the only non-negotiable rule is no cameras allowed in the house. This is a thing I like, I kind of feel this, but my wife is like absolutely 100% no cameras in the house. She like tolerates my technology obsessions, but will not put a camera in the house. So the end, not happening. I have an iPhone. She has an Android phone. So everything that we do has to be compatible with that setup, I'm willing to buy into any assistant ecosystem that you want. I know we talked about this last week. A lot of life includes doing a couple of different things in a couple of different places. I will use any of

Starting point is 00:04:45 them, but I will only use up to two of them because I think more than that, you're just inviting outrageous chaos into your life. I don't want to pay a professional to come do things in my house. like if there's a little tiny bit of like electrical work to do, fine. That's that's the maximum. But I'm talking about like if you're like, oh, just rip out this wall. No, you've lost me. Do you know what I mean? Yes.

Starting point is 00:05:10 Okay. So and then remodeling. Right. No remodeling. That's a perfect way to put it. And then I'm like, I'm sort of what I would call like YouTube handy, if that makes sense. Like I can, with a screwdriver and a YouTube video, I can get a fair amount of stuff done.

Starting point is 00:05:24 So I have high confidence in my ability to do some of this stuff, but not everything. And then somewhat in reality, but also somewhat just for the purposes of our experiment here, money is no object. I think I'm going to push back pretty hard if you try to sell me on really expensive solutions to problems here. But I don't want you to rule anything out because of what it will cost. Does that make sense? Yes, that does. Okay. And I do like the expensive stuff.

Starting point is 00:05:53 So I'm a woman of a certain age. I just mostly what I wanted to do is leave you room to try to convince me to buy a thermomix at some point during this episode. But can I start with a couple umbrella questions? Yes, please. Because this is, I get asked this type of question a lot. Like, what should I do in my smart home? And the great thing about the smart home is there's so many. any wonderful, weird gadgets for every problem you might have in your home or for every

Starting point is 00:06:28 enhancement you might want to bring to your home. And so generally, to kind of help narrow things down, I have like a few questions, like off the bat. The first would be, do you have any smart gadgets already that you plan to use? Because that normally gives you sort of a starting point. So is it anything you're planning on bringing or you know you want to buy? that is smart or connected? I have a couple of hue lights and a bridge. I think it's an old bridge. I bought these lights a while ago,

Starting point is 00:07:01 so I'm not sure it's even still the bridge, but I have a thing plugged into my router that does hue lights. Interesting. Okay, so no smart speakers, no speakers, like Wi-Fi speakers. Oh, I guess I have a couple of Sonos speakers that I use. Okay, great. So Sonos and Hugh, there's no point of reinventing the wheel if you've already got some products you like.

Starting point is 00:07:20 The other big question I would always ask is what operations? and system do you use, Anne, you're a dual household, which always presents challenges, but that's fun. I'm excited about that. But what type of phone, is it Samsung, pixel? Let's see. Anna has a pixel 9, I think. And I have an iPhone 16.

Starting point is 00:07:43 Okay. And then the other sort of overarching question is about the home. So is there anything in particular about the home that you know you want to make smart? are you thinking about having a security system? Do you know that you want to have a smart thermostat? Like is there sort of anything sort of more structural about the home, integral to the home, that you know you want connected or that you're going to install? So security system would be one because that's always a good starting point.

Starting point is 00:08:13 Then we mentioned lighting, but things like climate control, you know, controlling your HVAC system, that type of thing, anything there. So I think my answer to this question is actually even like one tick more vague than that. So to just answer a question directly, like not really. I think I would like to have a security system, but I need a security system that fails all the way back down to putting a key in the lock in the door. That is like, again, the uphill battle here is my wife in particular is just deeply uninterested in any of this. So I can build on top of things, but I cannot change. her behavior in any kind of required way.

Starting point is 00:08:56 Okay. Which I think is like a perfectly fair constraint on top of all of this. But for me, I would say my goals are, I would love to save some money, right? So any of the things that I can do that make my house more efficient or more thoughtful about how it uses energy, stuff like that, very into that, very willing to spend money against that. Lighting feels useful and valuable. I have two little kids who are like perpetually running around.

Starting point is 00:09:21 Everybody is everywhere all the time. having just some sort of like I can sit in bed and turn off all the lights at the end of the night is like that that brings me joy. And then I have a dog who this is actually very fresh on my mind. So my dog just recently, my parents just bought a new house and we were there and we put the dog in their new backyard and we went out to a brewery for lunch. And I got to call like 30 minutes into our lunch at the brewery saying, hi, I just found your dog out in the street trying to get back into the backyard. So now I'm like, oh, I'm about to have a backyard for the first time, which I'm incredibly excited about. And maybe I need some kind of way to know what happened to my dog if this is a thing that happens again. Yes.

Starting point is 00:10:06 So like my kids are too small to run away for now, but my dog is apparently the correct agent size to run away. Okay, great. And then one final question. Sure. Do you want voice control? Yes. Okay. 100% of voice control.

Starting point is 00:10:22 I am willing to stand up and walk over to things when required. Most of the time I would love to shout at my living room and have things. Okay. No, that's good. Well, because, yeah, you've got to factor in smart speakers there. And then, so whilst, you know, we're going to want something that ties everything together, right? You want that automation. And do you have any leaning towards a system like Apple Home, Amazon,

Starting point is 00:10:52 Alexa, Google Home, Home Assistant. Is there anything that you're like, hmm, I'm interested in that one? Or that you already use? I'm willing to be talked into any of them. Okay. But I would say if you were just, if you made me pick to start this, I would probably pick Alexa. Because I think it is, I've used it enough that I kind of know how Alexa works. I'm actually bullish on Alexa Plus.

Starting point is 00:11:18 And maybe more importantly, Amazon's ongoing commitment to this. space more so than I am Google or Apple's ongoing commitment to this space. Yeah. Okay. And do you have a fire TV then you say? I mean, Jen, I have all this. Okay. Which one do you use the most? Like, which one? I use the Google TV streamer a lot. I use the Apple TV some. And both of my TVs that I use are built-in Roku TVs. But one of the things that we're going to do in this process is buy a new living room television, which can or cannot be part of the conversation we're having here. Okay. So I think Amazon has, I'm happy for that to be a fire TV. They have some nice ones coming out like this month, I think. So. Oh, good. There we go.

Starting point is 00:12:02 Great. Oh, we're going to get to spend David's money. Well, this is great because we're also doing this ahead of Black Friday. So I'm like, we're doing this now so that when all this stuff goes on sale, I can just, I can just go out and spend all the money I don't have because we just bought a house and just go deep into debt doing smart things. That's what I'm here for. Put David in debt. I appreciate it. All right, let's start with the kitchen.

Starting point is 00:12:25 And so the only salient fact I will offer you about the kitchen is I definitely need a new fridge. Again, this can or cannot factor into what we're talking about here. If you're going to say buy one of those Samsung fridges with the hute, I'm hanging up on you and we're not doing this anymore. You could tell that was coming, right? Yeah, I could. All the other appliances are good to go and I'm not interested in like a smart oven, truthfully. But we have much more counter space than we've ever had before. So I am very interested in new kitchen gadgets in my life.

Starting point is 00:12:56 Yay. Okay. We'll start on the high end here. One question. What appliances do you have? What brand? I don't know what brand they are, but I know for sure they are not connected in any meaningful way. Okay.

Starting point is 00:13:07 Okay. To anything. All right. So the fridge is an interesting one. There are, I mean, I know we're not going to go down the Samsung route. But Samsung does have an interesting take here in that it uses the fridge to be the hub of the home. And having a screen in your kitchen is valuable. So I would say for you, if we're going to head towards, and I think looking at the other rooms,

Starting point is 00:13:34 I do think echo speakers are going to be the ones that we're going to want to use for voice control. So I would advise a Echo Show 8 or 11. There's been two new ones that are coming out. I would advise one of those in the kitchen. One of the great things about the new Alexa Plus is being able to use your Echo Show device for cooking. It is such a good experience. It's my favorite experience so far that I've used with Alexa Plus. One of the downsides of the Echo Shows, as we've discussed and written about recently, is these new ads.

Starting point is 00:14:14 So we may want to put a slight pin on that one, but just talking about the screen, I do think there is a lot of value in a screen in the kitchen. Can I tell you, by the way, I am fine with the ads. I hate what Amazon did. Yeah. And the principle of it drives me crazy. But I would be buying this thing knowing full water is going to be ads on it. And that would not deter me. I'm actually fine with it.

Starting point is 00:14:37 The only downside is there is a camera in the Echo Show. Mm. So, okay. But you asked about a fridge. But it's not like an always-on kid. No. That's like an activated when you need it. Yes.

Starting point is 00:14:50 That I think I could talk Anna into that. And you can use it to video call. If we can get away with the camera here, I would go with an Echo Show in the kitchen because it does. It helps with adding things to the shopping list. It helps with cooking. It's also nice because you can kind of, You can use it for entertainment while you're in the kitchen cooking.

Starting point is 00:15:09 If we don't want a camera, then I would go with an echo.max. You can do a lot of the recipe stuff over voice. So you can sort of say, oh, hey, hey, tell me how many cups of flour do I need in this recipe and it will talk you through it. And that's, I find that really good. It's much better than holding your phone with grubby hands. And we're both big bring the iPad into the kitchen to watch a show while you cook people. So I think the Echo Show would actually do nicely on that front.

Starting point is 00:15:34 But sorry, you talked about fridges. I went from fridges to screens, but I do think the fridge should be connected. I don't think you need to get a Samsung one, but I would definitely recommend getting one from either Bosch or Thermidor. And that's the, they're the first big appliance brand to embrace matter. And you mentioned up and earlier on in the conversation that you were interested in energy management. And we're not really there yet with the smart home and energy management. But when you move into a home is the time to start thinking about adding devices to your home that you're going to be able to monitor their energy use so that when we do get to the point

Starting point is 00:16:14 that a lot of these smart home systems can monitor and manage your energy for you and save you money, you'll be prepared, you'll be ready to go. So the Bosch 100 series was the first matter-enabled fridge line that they launched. And they're really nice. And Bosch, unlike Samsung, has a really good reputation for appliances. It's one of the higher-end brands, but it's not like crazy high-end. You're not spending like $5,000 or $6,000. I think they start around $2,500.

Starting point is 00:16:46 So I would recommend a Bosch. They use... Oh, and this still looks like a fridge. It does look like a fridge. What a concept. It's just a fridge. It is just a fridge. Okay.

Starting point is 00:16:55 But it works with the... I do like the idea of like a sort of future-proofing the connectivity piece of this, because there's nothing about any of these things that I find compelling. Like compelling from a connectivity standpoint now. But if there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon for some of the energy management stuff with a fridge, that seems potentially worth investing. And it is one of the larger appliance drawers in your home. So if you're going to future-proof something like that, it is a fridge is one I would consider. And we hear this all the time, why do I need a smart fridge?

Starting point is 00:17:26 Why do I need smart appliances? My number one response to that is for energy management. And that is going to be a key part of the smart home in the future and to save you money. So yes, I would recommend that. It also uses, they use the Home Connect app, which is Bosch's and Fermador's app. So if you did have any other appliances from them, they all work together. And it has a kind of a neat little shopping list feature. It will send you reminders when you, if you use the shopping list feature, it will send you

Starting point is 00:17:54 reminders when your food's expiring, which is really helpful for like food. waste. And then, you know, it's also got remote diagnostics. So if your fridge starts, your ice maker stops working, the app can help you figure it all out. And that's another feature I really like about connected appliances, rather than having to spend a fortune on a repairman coming or a repair person coming, you can get a lot out of the app itself. So I think that would be my recommendation. I think Bosch is really innovative and doing a lot of interesting work in connectivity. compared to other brands, which are maybe just kind of sticking a Wi-Fi chip in it

Starting point is 00:18:33 and seeing what happens. Okay. All right. Yeah, I'm in on that. That's a good one. And then do you like Nugget Ice? I mean, who doesn't? If I'm feeling fancy, who doesn't?

Starting point is 00:18:47 Because I do love the GE Profile Nugget Ice Maker if you have counterspace for it. I reviewed that and it's so much fun for like summer. I mean, you live in almost the south. You know, the nice, what are the mint julep in the, in August. Rock some sweet tea. Yeah, come on, I'm ready for this. The nugget ice is just, mm-hmm.

Starting point is 00:19:10 So if you've got the space, and that is GE, and they are, it is connected, but, I mean, you don't really need to use the smarts. But I'm, it's, I just think it's a delightful sort of fun piece of equipment in, in your kitchen, especially with kids, too. For me, I found it made my kids drink a lot more water. Just because the nugget ice is so fun. Actually, I kind of get that. But that's just a slight aside. What about coffee? Do you have a coffee maker?

Starting point is 00:19:38 I do. And this is actually a thing I was going to ask you about. So I have, I'm a very fussy coffee person. And my routine is ever changing. And one of the things I have forever been compelled by is the huge coffee machines that are a mix of like grinder and coffee maker all in and like milk frother and whatever all in one. This would probably be the single biggest uphill battle in my house because my wife is not a coffee drinker.

Starting point is 00:20:08 She likes tea and she likes tea made in insane ways by like heating things in the microwave. It's very upsetting. But she is not amenable to my coffee needs and that is very frustrating. But I was going to ask you at this because there's a lot of like right now I just have like is it oxo or OXO or whatever that brand is. I have just a very simple coffee maker and I have a grinder next to it and I just grind the coffee and put it in and make the coffee. It's like I like the idea of, I used to really like the like ceremony and routine of making coffee. And then I had kids and I'm like, I need coffee now, please.

Starting point is 00:20:43 Yes, yes. Okay. So the idea of making this automated is very excited. Okay, I'm going to talk to something very expensive. Is that okay? Okay. So we're back to Bosch because I'm, again, again, Again, in the kitchen, we've not got a lot of great interoperability.

Starting point is 00:20:59 But this Bosch coffee machine is one of the first to work with A voice commands, Amazon's A voice commands, although, as I've written about, Alexa Plus struggles a little bit to get it to work. But I've managed to make it work. It is called the Bosch, well, it's the Bosch Coffee Maker 800 series. It's going to set you back about $1,600. Okay. But it does hot water. and hot chocolate, so it could work for the family too.

Starting point is 00:21:28 You can do the milk froth. How selfless of me? How selfless. What a guy I am doing this for my family. But it is, it's a great machine. It has like the little screen on the top and you can scroll through and you can make, you can choose from hundreds of different recipes for coffee. Apparently there are hundreds.

Starting point is 00:21:45 And you can also use the app to download and make your own kind of recipes for coffee. It has something called. How big is this thing? It's large. Okay. Are we talking like Starbucks espresso machine size? No. No. We're talking like about this big. Like kind of twice the size of a normal coffee maker is sort of what you're doing with your hands. It's about as wide as the oxo that you have, but a lot deeper. I see. Okay. And it grinds the beans and then there's a milk frotha on the side and then it has the touchscreen control panel. And what I love about it is it's super easy to clean because a lot of these big appliances that you count. to top appliances you buy. And that's something I should mention about the Nugget Ice Maker.

Starting point is 00:22:28 You do have to clean quite regularly. And they can be a real pain. And this one is all very automated. And it's a great, it's a great coffee machine. I highly recommend it. And it's the like, come downstairs, press the button and you've got coffee or ask your voice assistant while you're in bed, make me a coffee and come down and it's ready for you. So it's the ultimate sort of, this is sort of maybe the thing to put on your Christmas list. Maybe not buy your. yourself. Maybe for like a few Christmases. For a few Christmases. I think there are less expensive versions where you take away like the milk frother you can, it costs a bit less. But the bells and whistles version, I want to say

Starting point is 00:23:07 is about $1,600. Speaking of $1,600, the thermomix, you should definitely get one of these, even though it doesn't work with anyone else. It doesn't have any interoperability. It has no voice control. It is just an awesome gadget. But are you a big cook? Do you do a lot of your own cooking? Between us, we cook most work. Yeah. So this is like the ultimate sous chef.

Starting point is 00:23:33 It is a blender that can cook at its most basic explanation. But it can be a slow cooker. It can be a rice cooker. It can be a blender. It can be a steamer. It can make dough. So like a breadmaker. I mean, it does.

Starting point is 00:23:52 It does basically everything you would want a kitchen appliance to do, except for if you want to bake, you have to use your oven. But everything else it does. And I find, I mean, I use mine every day for every meal that I cook. Wow. You can do, like, this morning I made oatmeal in it, and you just throw the oatmeal in 15 minutes later, it's ready. I make smoothies for my kids in it.

Starting point is 00:24:16 I steamed fish for dinner in it last night. It's just, it's a great gadget. There is a one caveat right now, though, is that the TM6, which is the one I have, has been discontinued, and they have just launched the TM7, which is all Whizbang fancy with lots of new features, but I have not tried it yet. So we might have to put a pin in this one, but I highly recommend the thermomix to anyone that likes to cook. In all the time I've known you, there are very few things I've seen you as excited about as the thermomics. And so I have a lot of faith in this recommendation. Yes. And it means, it has like a little Android tab. screen and it does have a subscription, which is a bit of an issue. But you will find with recipes

Starting point is 00:24:57 online, any recipe device or machine or recipe service, often you do have to pay for recipes there. We are getting to that point. And they have a lot. I mean, there's like 20,000 or something. There's a lot. But the subscription is a bit onerous. You can use the device without the subscription. However, it's the guided cooking process that it takes you through is really good. So that, you know, I've never had a meal that I've used the thermomix to cook come out badly. So that is worth a lot, I think. Yeah, I agree. I did want to put a plug in for a smart air friar called the Typhur. I think I'm pronouncing that right. It's one of those things. That sounds fancy. It is fancy.

Starting point is 00:25:44 Okay. It is a large draw-like one. And you had mentioned that you were thinking about a drawer oven, draw air friar. And it's a dome air fryer. It's quite big, which is a bit of a downside. But again, you said you had counterspace, so I'm filling it out for you. But it is one of the benefits of air friars, I mean, you know that air frying is essentially just convection cooking, correct. But the difference is in a smaller space.

Starting point is 00:26:13 So some of these convection, some of these air fries out there that are larger, they don't cook as well. This has it all very compressed. So it's actually quite a small, small vertical space, but a much bigger wide horizontal space. So you can fit like a whole pizza in it. Or you can do fries and nuggets, which is probably a mainstay meal in your life. And it works with an app for, again, for sending all the settings. And there's not, again, a huge benefit to the connectivity other than recipes. So it has some guided recipes so that you know you're getting the right settings.

Starting point is 00:26:52 So it's just a really well thought out machine. It works. I've tested a number of airfries and I find that this is one of the most, it does the best, like, really crispy without using lots of oil. And that's really what you use the air fry for, right? You want all the bad, unhealthy food to be slightly healthier. Yeah, agreed. All right. We've spent like $5,000 of my money in the kitchen.

Starting point is 00:27:17 Any other last kitchen plugs before we switch rooms? Is there anything else you want in the kitchen? Is there anything about kitchen lights that you have found compelling? Like if doing smart lights all over the kitchen, anything you like there? So under cabinet lighting, have you got that situation? Do you have? I mean, we have it. Is it there already?

Starting point is 00:27:40 I believe it's there. So it would be a pretty high lift to take it out. I wouldn't replace it. If you were going to be putting it in, I would definitely have some suggestions. Is it can lighting? Yes. And is it dimmable right now? You know, I don't know.

Starting point is 00:27:54 So dimable. Dimmable is smart, though. That's worth doing. I think that's worth doing almost everything. Yeah. And we can get on, I mean, I don't know when you want to discuss lighting, but whatever we end up with on lighting is going to really go across your whole home. And if you, you know, dimable lighting in the kitchen is great.

Starting point is 00:28:10 because you want it really nice and bright when you're cooking, but then maybe when you're sitting at the counter for eat dinner, you may want to dim, be a bit more relaxed and casual. So I find smart lighting in the kitchen very important. But you kind of want to work with what you have. So maybe we should go on to lighting because that is something you've said you want to do. And I think I marked lighting to do in the living room. So let's move to the living room because this is actually,

Starting point is 00:28:38 the way the living room is set up. It's this sort of long, skinny room, and there's a fireplace on one side, and there's a wall on the other side, and there's like, it's not quite track lighting, but it's like ceiling lighting. And there are basically like six sort of inset bulbs in the ceiling. Oh, but they are bulbs.

Starting point is 00:28:57 They are bulbs. Great. And so I can do, there's actually kind of a lot of available space to do whatever I want with those bulbs. But I also feel like this is the room we're going to spend time in. This is where, A, if I'm going to invest in smart lighting, this is the first place to do it.

Starting point is 00:29:11 And B, it's going to be the thing that sort of hubs everything else. So let's talk about lighting from here. I'm in the living here. Okay. So do you have neutral wires? Yes. So do you want color changing lighting? Sure.

Starting point is 00:29:30 I mean, the answer is I don't care. Okay. Right. Like I think the thing that I do like is having warm to cool lighting. And so when we've had the white lights being able to do warm versus cool lighting, being able to like make the room red to match the movie we're watching is like a neat idea that I have never once experienced in reality. Yeah. Okay. So the thing here, so to get the circadian, the natural adaptive lighting feature, you do need smart bulbs. because if all you want to do is dim, then smart switches are fine. But for making the lights slowly change from warm to cool, you need smart bulbs. I don't need it to happen automatically.

Starting point is 00:30:12 I just want to be able to do it myself. Automatically would be nice, but I'm even fine with like it's a setting I can change. Yeah. It would be fine. So you've already got hue and I do think this is a place where you could use hue bulbs in your track lighting. I'm assuming we don't want to rip out the track lighting. and put something new in. No, that goes beyond the rules of who is coming to my house.

Starting point is 00:30:36 Okay. So, yes. And the nice thing we talked about this on the last episode, but Hugh now has much less expensive line of thread matter bulbs. But you do already have a bridge, and Hugh does support its old bridges. So they will still work with the bridge, although I would give a bit of a plug for potentially upgrading to the new Hugh Bridge Pro. Because that adds the new motion sense feature that would turn your lights into motion sensors where you would be able to. So you wouldn't necessarily need to use little motion sensors around the house. I do like that.

Starting point is 00:31:13 Especially right there because the living room, you kind of, you hit the living room sort of as soon as you get in the front door. So it would be a useful place to have a motion detecting light for a bunch of reasons. Yeah. So I'm into that. So I think, and I think you would want, but you would want to do a smart switch because there's, problem with smart bulbs and switches in an analog house is that when someone flips the switch, your smart bulbs are no longer going to work. What kind of switches do you have?

Starting point is 00:31:41 Are they just toggle? They're just simple, beautiful. You flip them up and they turn the damn light on. I've been assuming that I'm going to buy a bunch of Luzron Caseta stuff and kind of put it all over the house. Is that the right answer here? So not if you want to use smart bulbs. Oh, God. So yes, you have two options.

Starting point is 00:32:03 All right, you can either go with Lutro and Cassetta, and then you will be able to dim and turn on and off your lights using smart home controls, voice control, motion sensors. No problem. But you will not be able to use smart bulbs because smart switches generally don't work with smart bulbs, except for in a few cases. And so I'm going to suggest if you do want the warm and the cool to get Phillips Hughes smart bulbs, and by Inevelli smart switches. They're about the same cost as Lutron,

Starting point is 00:32:36 but they have something called smart bulb mode, where they will pair directly with the bulbs, and you can, when you turn the switch off, they will turn the lights off, but it will not cut the connectivity. So you'd still be able to use voice control and motion sensing then. I was going to say,

Starting point is 00:32:54 because the single, the most important thing here is that when you flip the switch, the lights change. And it turns out that is not a guarantee with a lot of these systems. And this is like, I actually, we literally had this experience where I rigged up a bunch of stuff in our living room. I had smart lights and all this stuff. And then we got, you know, that the sort of, I had used a voice assistant to turn it on, but then flipped it off of the switch. And so then when you flipped on the switch, it's like, it just, the things got backwards. And Anna was just like, take that thing out. I'm done. Like it doesn't, the light doesn't turn on when I flip the switch.

Starting point is 00:33:24 What are we doing? Yeah. And I have to say I agree with that. So, but this, this, this, as a failsafe makes a lot. It does. And the Innevelli switches do look like regular switches. They're not unusual looking. And I love Caseta. I think they're great, especially they have two great advantages. If you don't have neutral wires, they still work. So that's why I have them all over my house, because I don't have neutral wires. And they are rock solid. But you need your own bridge and they are not matter compatible. And we have talked about this on the last episode that really, I fully recommend choosing matter devices at this stage when you can or local control. Lutron Kusata is local, so they do have that benefit. But in your case, I think you will find that

Starting point is 00:34:12 Ineveli switches are going to add that extra. You can be able to have that cool and warm while still maintaining voice control and smart home control on your lights. And they're going to cost you about the same as the Lutron ones will. Do you want to sell me on anything else in the living room before we keep moving? I think the biggest thing about the living room is going to be control. Like you just mentioned not wanting to have to run into the other room to talk to a voice assistant. You've got the remote. But I think you may also want a button.

Starting point is 00:34:46 A button for controlling everything in the room when you don't want to use voice commands. Because in the living room especially, I think, is a place where you find you don't always want to be shouting. you don't necessarily want to pull your phone out either because if you want to get ready for movie time, you don't want to be distracted by your phone. So a smart button is a great addition to your smart home. There are a lot of good options here, mainly because Matter has brought this. So you don't used to really always have to use an ecosystem button that worked with your ecosystem. But we're starting to see more options. And actually just last week, IKEA announced a whole new line of matter over thread smart home devices, including the neatest buttons I've ever seen so excited about these buttons.

Starting point is 00:35:38 And it is, it has a little dial so you can dim and brighten. And then two buttons to control things like turn on, turn off. The thing that's really neat about this button is because it's matter over thread, you compare it to any. smart home platform that supports buttons in matter. Currently, that is not Amazon Alexa. They don't support buttons, but I think we're going to talk a little bit later about potentially adding home assistant into your sphere here. And that would give you the ability to add this device to your home. And I think having a physical controller really helps make the smart home a bit more democratic. You don't have to know what voice commands to use. You don't have to have a phone.

Starting point is 00:36:29 So, you know, your kids can turn the lights on and off when they're sitting on the couch rather than having to get up and go and hit the flip, flip the switch. Big, big fan of buttons. Big fan of buttons. And these buttons, do you want to, do you want to take a guess at how much they cost? This is a matter over $45. More like four. What? Oh, I'm going to buy a hundred of these. They come in like a three-pack for a bit more than that. They haven't, they didn't give exact pricing yet.

Starting point is 00:36:58 They gave UK pricing, but the remote control buttons start at three pounds, which is about $4. I mean, isn't that crazy? So we're putting these everywhere in every room of my house. This is great. Yes. So I don't know exactly how it's going to work in your smart home. We're going to have to work that out once they come out. But you don't have to have the Derogier Hub, which is IKEA's hub, because it's matter over thread, it will pair with any.

Starting point is 00:37:23 matter controller. So these are fun and I think yeah you could use these in in every room in the house and I think that's their buttons just make the smart home sing. A hundred percent. I totally agree. Shades. Do you want shades? No. Okay. I'm okay pulling shades up and down. Like every every experience I've had with smart shades leaves them halfway down and broken and too expensive and it's just, I don't know, on the list of things that I don't need in my life. Do you have a lot of windows? That's one of the ways I'm happy to save money in this process. We do have a lot of windows. Well, if you change your mind, I'm just going to say, check out smart wings. That's probably,

Starting point is 00:38:02 they're really not that expensive compared to what smart blinds used to be, which they've always been. And I think, and they're also matter over thread. So you would have, you know, more thread, more matter, stronger your mesh network. will be, although they're battery powered. But yeah, smart blinds are the type of thing you don't realize you're going to love until you actually have them. But no, I'm not talking to it. All I hear is, David, you're going to have to charge your shades and you've lost me.

Starting point is 00:38:31 Yeah, that is. That is the downside. Unless you can get them hardwired. Sure. That'll go over super well. Okay. Let's run a bunch of cables to the shades. We had a whole conversation about getting a new front door.

Starting point is 00:38:47 And there was a moment where it was like, are we? going to get a smart front door. And then as soon as she found that we were going to have to plug it in, that immediately went away. You looked into a smart front door? We did. Very briefly. Honestly, I don't even remember because we didn't get far as soon as she was like, we have to charge our door. She was out. And I think she was right. Do you, are you going to do, do you want to do smart lock or doorbell? Video doorbell? No. I'm going to say no. I don't. Let's come back to that at the very end because I think we'll fold that into backyard because I would like to be talked into it. But I don't think I'm going to.

Starting point is 00:39:27 But first, we need to take a break. And then we're going to come back. We're going to go upstairs. Sounds good. We'll be right back. Support for the show comes from Framer. Framer is an enterprise grade, no code website builder used by teams at companies like Perplexity and Murrow to move faster. With real-time collaboration and a robust.

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Starting point is 00:40:51 And we talked about smart lights, so I think that's a pretty easy solve here. I would like to hear your ceiling fan pitch. And then the other one I want to know is basically I need something on my bedside table to wake me up slash put me to sleep slash charge my things, whatever. Curious if you have any recommendations there. But start with a ceiling fan because I get the sense you want to pitch me on a ceiling fan. Well, this might be a bit overkill for a bedroom, though. This would be more for the living room. But so the big-ass fans are awesome, especially if you don't, if you want to save money and you don't be running your air conditioning all the time, these fans, they're very, they are expensive, but they do work with matter and they have a light built in and they are like the Rolls Royce of fans.

Starting point is 00:41:42 And they do, I have one in my living room and even in the height of summer, I can have it running and not need my AC. see most of the time. I'm, I mean, I do live in South Carolina. I was going to say, that's the highest bar I can imagine. But if I'm there on my own and it has a motion sensor, so it will turn on once you sit down underneath it, rather than running when there's no one there, because fans don't, ceiling fans do not call rooms. They call people. There's no point just running your ceiling fan if you're not in there, because it's not doing any good. So, and I just, they, there are a lot of smart fans out there. It's become more of a popular thing. But none of the have been, my experience with them has not been great. But my experience with the big ass fans is they are fairly flawless. I highly recommend if you have a room that you want a fan in, I would go for big ass. I think it's a good note. I think just thinking about my own life, we don't spend that much time in our bedrooms. We're very much like we are a living room family. Yeah. And so I think like this is making me realize, like,

Starting point is 00:42:50 I'm inclined to almost do as little as possible in the bedroom. In our bedroom. Yeah. So just for that reason, it's like we're there to sleep. And I would like to make sleep comfortable. Yeah. But the idea of like really kidding out our room to like work beautifully feels like overkill for my own purposes. So two main recommendations for the bedroom then. I have an indoor air purifier.

Starting point is 00:43:15 You would definitely want an air purifier that will help with sleeping. And it would be good. to have an indoor air quality monitor so that you can kind of, if you aren't sleeping well, you can adjust and get alerts like the air quality's gone down. You can, you should open a window. So Amazon actually has a really neat little indoor air quality monitor that you can set up and pair with an indoor air purifier. Sorry, just an air purifier. You don't normally use those outdoors. This is the type of thing you really want to be interoperable. And there are some devices you don't necessarily, but this will, if you can connect it to an air quality monitor or to a temperature

Starting point is 00:43:53 sensor or to a fan. Yeah, this is something I don't ever want to think about. I want to install it and then never touch it or think about it again. Automatically for you. So, yes, air quality big in the bedrooms. You might want to do the same thing in the kids' rooms as well. But for your bedside table, I'm going to suggest something incredibly expensive that I highly recommend you buy.

Starting point is 00:44:15 Weird, that hasn't happened at all yet. Okay. This is the Hugh Twilight lamp. It is awesome. It's expensive. It's $310. What's crazy is, based on this conversation so far, you say that.

Starting point is 00:44:31 And I'm like, oh, that's not that much. This is the thing about the smart home. Oh, it is nice looking though. It is. It's got a little bit of like the Pixar lamp kind of vibe to it in a way that I find very charming. And this is the problem with sleep wake lamps that, There are a lot of them out there. They're all quite expensive, and they're generally fairly ugly.

Starting point is 00:44:52 Some of them are the ones that there's like the, I think it's a hatch one that just kind of looks like the sun. I don't like that. No, this is more practical because you can also use it as a bedside table lamp. And I feel that bedside table space is a premium. I don't like a lot of clutter on my bedside table. I actually use one of these and I do not need an alarm. And I cannot recommend not waking up. to an alarm better.

Starting point is 00:45:19 It is a great experience not to be woken up to blah, blah, blah. Instead, it gradually brightens enough that it actually, like, as long as I'm facing the right way, which I do because I always sleep on one side, it is bright enough to just wake me up naturally over a period of about 20 minutes. If you need longer, you need to make sure you're going to be up. You can start it a bit sooner. You said all of this in the Hugh app. but you can also just do it on the device itself

Starting point is 00:45:49 if you don't want to have to use the HUE app. You do need the bridge for many features, but it can work without the bridge as well. But you already have a bridge, so that's fine. I do. And you can do his and hers, one on each side. They come in black and white, and they really look nice,

Starting point is 00:46:07 and you can move the head so you can use it for task lighting, like if you like to read in bed. And then it doesn't have any blue light in the nighttime scenes so it can slowly help you wind down. And then in the morning scenes are much brighter and they'll help you wake up. And I honestly, I was able to get rid of my alarm clock once I started using this. But if you do need to get up on time, for sure, I would recommend, I've got two options

Starting point is 00:46:35 for you for a smart alarm. One would be to get the Belkin boost charge pro, which I think is the cutest little smart charging device that Belkin sells for your iPhone. It also charges your Apple Watch. It's nice and small and compact and comes in different colors, so it doesn't look too techy, and then use your iPhone in standby mode. I think it's a great solution for an alarm.

Starting point is 00:47:01 I do like standby mode. I've done a fair amount of that. If you don't mind having your phone in your bedroom, I know some people do the phone outside the bedroom, but putting it in standby mode takes away a lot of the distraction elements, I think. For sure. No, I'm all in on this twilight. You don't need to sell me on anything else. I'm like, this is the first thing that I am just immediately like, I'm going to buy this thing today.

Starting point is 00:47:23 This is, it's great looking. It is exactly the thing that I need it to be. It looks like you can put it anywhere. You can buy it in multiple colors. I'm going to use the hell out of this. It is. It's a real bummer that it is $300. It's very expensive. I know all of Hughes prices went up quite recently in the U.S. for obvious reasons. unfortunately, but it is, it's a great device. And, you know, we've talked about having Hugh pretty much throughout the house. So you will have everything working if you want in one app.

Starting point is 00:47:54 But obviously, Hugh works with all the other systems too, with Matter and with Alexa. So you can use your voice to control it. Yeah, it's a good solution. But don't put this in your kids room. No. Goodness, no. Although speaking of, the kids' room, I think, is, it'll get some of the same stuff, right? I think the like, we'll do the smart lighting that kind of carries everywhere. But I'm curious if there's anything for like older kids especially, like our kids are going to kind of grow up into this room. So we're out of the like, what kind of like newborn baby year stuff do we need? And there's a lot of smart stuff there. And all that is messy and complicated. But in terms of like, I want it, I want stuff that we're going to use for, you know, the next 10 years of

Starting point is 00:48:38 my kids lives. Are there, are there things you would put in a kid's room? that you wouldn't put in like our bedroom? Oh yeah, there's lots of great stuff for the kids' rooms. I've used a lot of smart devices in my kids' rooms. One would be a robot vacuum. Oh, interesting. A little robot vacuum. Switchbot has a tiny little robot vacuum,

Starting point is 00:48:59 and it's great for getting under the bed. It's the Switchbot K-11. And kids love robot vacuums. So it's like a toy while it's cleaning. Our oldest cannot decide if he loves our vacuum, or is terrified of it? Okay. Okay.

Starting point is 00:49:14 It just depends on the day. The dog hates it. That we know for sure. Okay. That's always a challenge. Yes. But the kids' room is compelling. But I think he'll grow up into liking robot vacuum.

Starting point is 00:49:27 Yeah. So I like this idea. But so we talked, we had mentioned earlier that, to me, not on the show, that you wanted a communication system. Yes. So I would highly recommend an echo dot in. their room. And the great thing about the echo dots is they have the kid versions. They're very tightly locked down. They also have a lot of great educational content. And they have dinosaurs and owls and cute dragons. So is this the sort of thing that you would trust to put unsupervised

Starting point is 00:50:03 into a pretty young kid's room? Because this is like that, that's a pretty high bar for me. Yeah, so the kids setting on the Alexa devices, Echo devices, is really locked down. It's very, it's very guardrailed. And you can't control smart home devices with it. You can't. Yeah, I think they've done a really good job. Amazon's a really good job with the kids stuff. They also have it with the tablets as well, the Kindlefire tablets, the Kids mode.

Starting point is 00:50:32 And there's a lot of really good content for kids on the Echo Dot. I would do the dot, not the screened version. I have a solution for the wake up too. This is what you want, right? You want to keep the child in bed. So people swear by the thing where they're like, everybody's like, oh, well, we tell them they can only come out when the blue light turns on. And I'm like, my kid just wakes up and starts banging on the door. Like, I don't, I'm unconvinced that this will work.

Starting point is 00:50:57 But talk me into it. I'm so willing to try. So, yeah, this came out right when my daughter was like seven or eight. So she was a little old for it, but it did sort of work. So the Echo Glow, there is a product called the Echo Glow. It's not projector, which also had the same name. That was just Amazon's Glow. This is the Echo Glow.

Starting point is 00:51:21 It looks just like a dot. And every time I think I know all of the Echo Products, by the way, like I pay attention to this stuff for a living and you've named like four Echo products I've never heard of. No, this one, this is a light. It's a little globe light. It looks just like an echo dot, but it's just a light. It doesn't have a speaker or a microphone. So the nice thing is if you have an echo dot in the room, you can control it. But you can set it to turn.

Starting point is 00:51:49 There's routines that you can set in the Alexa app that will turn it on, you know, green for go. So it won't, it will stay, it'll turn on red right around the time they maybe start to wake up. And then when it's time that they can get out of bed and come and see you, it will turn to green. So, yeah, this is the idea. Green for go, red means stay in bed. But it sounds like perhaps you've tried this and it's not being successful. No, we haven't tried it. I just don't have a lot of faith that it's going to work.

Starting point is 00:52:18 But I'm willing to try. I mean, I think they'll probably find it really fun at first as well. And they can change the colors themselves. They could talk to the Alexa and say, you know, change my life to pink. And it's a fun, interactive toy as well as being a guide for them. Okay, when this turns green, you can get out of bed and come and see Mommy and Daddy. But when it's red, stay in bed. When it's red, stay in bed.

Starting point is 00:52:46 Like, if that's good. I could even remember that. Okay. This is good. That's good stuff. Let's take one more break because we're about to get to, I think, the most important room in the house. More complicated rooms.

Starting point is 00:53:01 and also the only one that I frankly actually care about. We're going to come right back and we're going to do basement and we're going to do backyard. We'll be right back. Support for the show comes from LinkedIn. If you're a small business owner, you know that every hire counts, but time and resources are limited. Finding, connecting with, and screening the right candidates takes up valuable time you could be giving to your customers.

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Starting point is 00:54:16 Get started by posting your job for free at LinkedIn.com slash track. Terms and conditions apply. All right. We're back. We have two more rooms to go, Jen. I have spent. I can't even. Untold thousands of dollars. but I'm having a great time.

Starting point is 00:54:37 Let's do, let's stay inside. Let's do one more room in the house. And this is the basement. And let me just describe this basement to you. It has one source of light, which is one teeny tiny, like one foot by two feet window. Otherwise, it is a cave. And that is where I will be spending all of my time. And this room is going to serve two purposes.

Starting point is 00:55:03 This is actually, I think, why this room is tricky. It is going to be both my office. So it's going to be like a desk and all of my recording setup. And this is where I will do all of this from now until the day I die. And then it's also going to be like a downstairs basement TV. And we have a big sectional couch that my parents are giving us. We're going to put a TV there. It's going to be like a sort of like in a case of emergency.

Starting point is 00:55:33 guest room, but mostly just like a place to hang out and watch movies. So all of that said, I don't know that I have any like specific desires for the thing. I'm having trouble even figuring out what is like possible in a space like this. Lighting seems very important, but we've talked to much about lighting. Do you have any other good ideas for me? So, well, lighting, I think you can have specific use case in this space for lighting that we don't, that doesn't really, I would potentially suggest a different system down here, just because it does sound dreary.

Starting point is 00:56:12 Oh, it's so dreary. It's like, it's very helpful in a sense of like, I do a lot of things where I'm like sitting in front of a camera and we can control the lighting now, but then otherwise I'm just going to be sitting in a dark cave all day. Yeah. So I actually right behind me, I have the nano leaf blocks. And I think something like this on the wall, I don't know, maybe. Maybe you, they have these kind of LED wall panels sort of definitely have a kind of YouTube a gamer vibe.

Starting point is 00:56:40 But you can style them, tailor them to be a little bit more interior design focused. And something like a larger sort of panel of these could really, you could turn to like warm, bright light and would sort of cast a nice sort of almost feel like you could almost make like a little window of them. So, you know, so you've kind of got an artificial window. Like the ones they put on the inside of cruise ships where it's like a, it's like a, it's a fake window to the outside. Yeah. And in fact, there are such things as fake skylights. That's true. Yeah. And I actually at my other door here, if you're watching the video, you can see really bright light. That's because I have the nano leaf skylights in my hallway.

Starting point is 00:57:26 And that was a cave like room because there's no windows. and that type of thing on a ceiling could really create without looking like a fake window, because I really don't think you want it to look like a fake window, because it's going to look like a fake window. You can't make a skylight look like a skylight if it's not. But lighting that can mimic the daylight, and Nanoleaf has the same adaptable, adaptive lighting feature where it will automatically, it can change the lights throughout the day.

Starting point is 00:57:58 You also have lots of scenes, so you can have different. colors, if you like. It is, you know, LED, color changing lighting. We talked about it earlier. It wasn't something you necessarily found a need for. But I think in this space, especially, you mentioned it also could be used for children as a children's room. It could be fun. You have dance parties. Like, it feels like this space could be one that you could bring that type of lighting into. Did you say you were going to have a TV down here? Yes. So the other thing you could do, and this is something you could do in the living room with Phillips Hugh, or you could do down here with Nanoleaf is one of the TV syncing light systems. So you have your lights in the room sync with what you're watching on TV. And that's one of the best uses for colour-changing lighting that I've found

Starting point is 00:58:47 is having that immersive sort of ambient TV lighting is really fun. Is it, okay. Is it actually, though? I grant that it's a very cool demo. and it's a cool thing to, like, see a picture of. You know what I mean? Like, it works on the Amazon listings, but, like, you've installed all these things in your house.

Starting point is 00:59:09 Like, is it actually a cool enough thing to be worth setting up in your house? I think in a room like this, yes. I don't find, I don't love doing it in my main living room because it does, yeah, I don't use it that much. But in a den, in a kids playroom or in a space you're going to be using for more kind of fun stuff. I think it's a great addition. It's definitely not a necessity. But if you're going to have like nanoleaf lights in that space, you could also tie in this sort of TV lighting and then you could have a real fun experience in that space. I think that could be a fun use of it.

Starting point is 00:59:52 Also because you get the two uses. You get the one where it feels dark and dreary in here. You know, it's December at 4 p.m. And you can. can just set the skylights or the wall panels to warm bright light. And that could kind of just help you feel better. It really does make a difference. We talked about buttons. So if you did end up with multiple nanolive panels in your office, you could use a device like this on your desk to easily change everything when you'll say recording versus watching TV or when you know, You want more, you want light that's going to energize you versus calm down in the evening. So something to have that interoperability that you can control from your desk with a button because we love buttons.

Starting point is 01:00:43 I think these things are great. This is not too expensive. I want to say the blocks start about $200, which for lighting in. a lighting fixture, not just a light bulb. I mean, you've probably, are you buying new light fixtures for your home or did they, are they all sold with it? Because they're expensive. A mix.

Starting point is 01:01:08 Yeah, we've done a bunch of like chandelier shopping because the chandelier in our house is very 1980s in a way that I do not mean as a compliment. The 80s hasn't come back yet. No, sure hasn't. And so anything else for me in the basement before we get to the last base? So does it have any existing lighting in it? There is, I believe, no current lighting in the basement at all. Oh, it's going to be like lamps.

Starting point is 01:01:36 Okay, so there's no. Oh, no, that's not true. There is one track of like very straightforward lights that I intend to not use very much. Okay. So you could stick some smart bulbs into those then. I would also consider, and both Nanoleef and Hugh has this, some like, floor lamp. Thank you. The floor lamps.

Starting point is 01:01:58 Like you can put them in a corner, just sort of not directional lighting, not task lighting, but just ambient lighting. I think a couple of those would help sort of make the room feel warmer and more inviting. Is that, so here's a question. Do you buy, in that case, it's just like any lamp plus a smart bulb? Or is there like a whole? No, there's a whole line of like Nano Leaf and Phillips, Hugh and like Govy and all of the lighting brands. smart home lighting grounds now have. What's the advantage to buying the lamp as opposed to just sticking the bulb in some other lens?

Starting point is 01:02:30 So these will be like LED lights. So it wouldn't just be a bulb on the top of a lamp. It would be like a strip that casts indirect light onto the wall or, you know, so you put it in the corner of the room and it would sort of light out the corner to give that indirect lighting. Because indirect lighting is... That's how you get the gamer lights that you see in every Twitch show. Yes. But you can...

Starting point is 01:02:51 You don't have to go with RGB. You can go. I'm cool with camera lights. Don't get me wrong. I'm going to make everything like purple and it's going to be sick. I can't wait. Oh, I meant, I did, sorry. I meant to ask, do you have a door? I mean, we do have a door. We have doors in our house. Smart lock. Do you want to keep the kids out when you're recording? Oh, interesting. That was going to be my other suggestion. And then you could also have like a little echo glow lamp on the door outside and you could have it turn red when you're recording so that they're known not to come in.

Starting point is 01:03:21 Yeah, that would that wouldn't. No. Okay. He's two. That's not going to go anywhere for me. Okay, but here, I hadn't even thought about this. So here's our actual dilemma is the door is at the top of the stairs, and the door is right next to the kitchen and just opens onto stairs. And that is nerve-wracking with small children, obviously for lots of reasons.

Starting point is 01:03:41 But there's no, like, if you lock the door from the basement, you cause a bunch of potential problems, right? And if you lock the door from the kitchen side, you run the risk of locking somebody in the basement. Oh. So I'm thinking that actually this is maybe the perfect use case for a smart lock. Yeah. Where I can lock the door but be able to unlock that door from anywhere. Yes. That's definitely.

Starting point is 01:04:05 Yes. Smart lock. I mean, you can have internal, like you don't have to have like a big old hulking external smart lock there are. Well, and if I'm just sticking it on the other side of the basement door, like who cares? Nobody's going to see that anyway. That's a really good idea. Yeah. So then you can unlock it easily without having to, you know, yes.

Starting point is 01:04:22 I think a smart lock would be a very good option. There are, so there are lever lock. So you can't use a traditional deadbolt smart lock on an indoor, an interior door. So I assume it's just a regular door, right? It's not an exterior door. So you would need to. It has one of those locks that, like, you can pop by sticking a toothpick in the little circle thing. Yes, so it's a lever.

Starting point is 01:04:44 Yeah. Or a, or it's either a lever or a knob. It's a knob. It's a knob. But the same concept. It just has a little. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:04:51 So you need a little. leave a lock for that. And so I think both Yale and Akara, so I've tested the Akara one. It has a fingerprint reader, which is kind of nice, so that you can just unlock it. If it is locked, you can unlock it with your fingerprint. It also uses home key so you could unlock it with your phone or your Apple watch. And then it also has a keypad. So, yeah. So that I think a smart lever lock for an office slash basement is a good upgrade for sure. I'm realizing that I think we're going to have to do, like, I'm going to go do a bunch of this. And then we're going to have to, like, in six months, we're going to have to report back.

Starting point is 01:05:29 And I'm going to tell you all the stuff that I like and all the stuff that I hate and all the new stuff I thought of. And we're going to, we're just going to, you're going to spend me into the poor house just episode by episode. All right. So let's go outside. I'm in the basement. I walk through a door because there's a door. This is apparently important to you where there's doors. So there's a door. And I walk outside. And we, and we walk outside. And we, we have this like patch of green space and then behind it a row of mulch and in that mulch there's a bunch of like hydrangeas and a couple of like pretty big trees and then off to the right we have a little paved patio that's like big enough for a sort of dining room table sized patio table.

Starting point is 01:06:09 That's our outdoor space and it's kind of a U shape around the edges where all the plants and stuff are. I am desperately afraid I'm going to immediately kill all of these plants. That's like truthfully, like my big existential crisis about this house is these are like many decade old plants that I am going to just viciously murder by not caring for them. And I also think I'd like to have some like nice little lighting Edison light set up around the table outside. But like mostly I want you to help me not kill the plants. You've come to the wrong place. I am the plant killer. But I did do a teeny bit of research before once you mentioned that you like to kill plants.

Starting point is 01:06:55 I love killing. And so someone sort of carefully nurtured this garden over the years, have they? The people who sold us this house lived there for 45 years. And they talk about these plants as if they are members of the family. Like I cannot overstate the responsibility that I feel to not screw this up. One, you said you were happy to have two smart home systems. So I think we've talked about using Alexa, which is a great base. But I think you're going to want to do more than Alexa can let you do.

Starting point is 01:07:22 And I think we're going to want to move you to have, also to have home assistant to help bring everything together. I figured I would end up here at something. We'd get to home assistant and eventually. I think we'll start out with Alexa. But I think you could definitely graduate relatively quickly once you start having a lot of fun with this stuff and wanting to do more. And one area that I found some really good solutions for plants is plant moisture sensors that work with Home Assistant.

Starting point is 01:07:50 Because this is not a category you really find for HomeKit or Alexa or Google because it's fairly niche. And most of the standalone solutions are going to require their own app. And then you're going to have to monitor the app and you're going to have to check it and make sure, you know, that's almost as much work as just monitoring the plant yourself. But if you could tie an automation system into looking after these plants, so you get alerts or you get, I mean, there are, the biggest thing about plants from what I understand is don't overwater them. So this is what you need is you need moisture sensors that will keep track of the, how the soil is doing. And there is one called PLT1, Apollo Automation Product, but it's a multi-sensor that measures soil moisture, air temperature, humidity and UV, like to make sure that a plant is getting the right nutrients from the air and the light and such like.

Starting point is 01:08:55 And it has a little buzzer and LED on it that will alert you when it's in trouble. And it's exactly I need a thing that is like go outside and water this now. That's it. Yes. That's the only piece of information I require. But this is an indoor sensor, but I know, often these things will work fine outside. So we'll just see how it goes.

Starting point is 01:09:19 They're not very expensive. I'll do some research on now. And you can connect this into Home Assistant. It's based on like an ESP home system, which is like an open source system that lets you turn microcontrollers into smart home devices. And so it's sort of like a hobby project that someone created. But it seems like a good solution for you here. I haven't really seen other good solutions. The most obvious solutions for smart gardens are smart sprinklers,

Starting point is 01:09:45 which you don't really need if you just have a small space. Yeah, it's one of the things that like if we had one, I'd be psyched about it. But I think it's probably more money and hassle than it's worth when like I could stand there with the hose and turn and hit the hole. Okay, so this is what you need then. You need the Eve Aqua. This is a smart hose timer. Ooh, okay. Now we're talking.

Starting point is 01:10:10 Yes. And this, I think, I don't know if you might also be able to set up a little irrigation system from the Eve Aqua into the plants as well. This could get quite fancy and quite complicated. And I would love, I would love to, you to sort of tinker with this and see if you could find a way to make it all work together. But yeah, if you could pair the moisture sensors with the Eve Aqua. so that it would trigger the aqua to run and water the plants. That would be quite advanced. And then lights.

Starting point is 01:10:40 You are so in luck when it comes to patio lights because everyone in their uncle has released really nice, smart, outdoor patio lights recently. Oh, good, okay. So Hugh just came out with some. So these were launched at EFA this last September. And you talked about wanting nice Edison lights. And these are really, I really like these because they have that kind of Edison bulb look. NanoLeaf also has a really nice line of patio lights, and so does LIFX, which is a brand we haven't talked about, but they also have some really good lighting solutions.

Starting point is 01:11:12 This is one of the great things about matter and about what we're doing in your home is that you can mix and match this stuff. I mean, we've focused on Phillips Hu, because that's where you started, but it doesn't, you're not limited to Hugh. You can mix and match bulbs. Just keep in mind that whether it works with either Alexa or Home Assistant or it's going to work with your. app. So if you're going to use, if you want, whichever app you start, you decide you're going to use to control your home. But yeah, it's it, you've got options. And that's where the smart home has got a lot more interesting now. You don't feel like ecosystem lock-in is really as much of an issue as it used to be. So that's, that's good for you. It is. It is. And I think you have successfully

Starting point is 01:11:57 convinced me that the only thing you need to go all in on right now is matter. And that as long as you do that, it kind of solves itself. I look forward to coming back to you in 12 months when Matter has made no progress. And I'm going to be very upset with you. But until then, it feels like the right answer. So my big question is we've now been through kind of all the main spaces I'm thinking about. Is there any like connective tissue stuff we haven't talked about, kind of things that make the whole thing work that we haven't yet touched on? Yeah.

Starting point is 01:12:25 So, well, there's connective tissue and also more basic. because we talked briefly about security at the start, and it sounds like you're not quite sure whether you want security system or not, but I do think motion sensors, contact sensors, leak sensors, like all the sensors are important. And this is actually where Home Assistant would come in because sensors and Alexa do not work that well together. There are options because Alexa has ZigB and thread,

Starting point is 01:12:56 but traditionally I've not found that platform, great for motion sensors. My lights just turned off on me, and that was a Alexer motion sensor. Whereas Home Assistant excels at this. And it because, so what we would want to do is get you set up with a Home Assistant green, which is the kind of basic package, unless you happen to have a Raspberry pie line around, and you can build your own.

Starting point is 01:13:22 Honestly, I'm sure that I do. But yeah, this is the kind of like smart home in a box that they sell from Home Assistant. and this would get you set the basics to set up once. So what you would want to do is set everything up first and then add home assistant. And then home assistant will pull it all in. It does a really good job of that. And then you could add a thread Zigby dongle or a Z wave dongle. Both of these protocols, so either thread or Zigby or Z wave,

Starting point is 01:13:54 are really the best solution for sensors. Motion sensors, contact sensors. leak detectors, we're going to want to put leak detectors all around your house. That's like the most, well, obviously where there is potentially water. Not just everywhere in your house. But, you know, the laundry room, the kitchen, this is the type of thing the smart home does really well. Invisible, small devices that you stick somewhere and never have to worry about again until they come to your rescue. Yeah, I'm very excited about like sticking a sensor to, you know, underneath.

Starting point is 01:14:29 every sink in the house and then having that all connected via home assistant. Like that's a product I'm very excited about. Yes. And there are lots of good solutions here. Third Reality and zoos have a lot of good small sensors. IKEA just came out with a whole load of new sensors here. So they now have a new... IKEA really timed this correctly.

Starting point is 01:14:51 Although I should warn you, I don't think most of their new stuff's coming out until January. But that's like two months away. So yeah, I got plenty to do here. I will not be done with this project by G&U. So yeah, they just came out of the new leak sensor and then the contact sensors and the motion sensors. Motion sensors, great for lights. Contact sensors also is a good solution for lights,

Starting point is 01:15:13 especially in things like closets. So this is one of my favorite uses for smart lighting is to have a contact sensor and say like if you have a pantry or a closet that you don't leave the door open all the time. Whenever you open the door, light turns on with the contact sensor and then when you close the door the light turns off. It's a great, easy solution.

Starting point is 01:15:34 As you're building your smart home, you will probably come across scenarios where you're like, actually, I have this thing and I want it to be connected. I don't want to buy a new device. And that's something I meant to sort of say up front is that you should, there are definitely things you want to bring in right away,

Starting point is 01:15:49 like lighting. But a lot of a smart home is building based on need, like when you hit the sort of a wall or a solution that you need for something like your kids wake up light. But I would definitely start with sensors, leak sensors, definitely important. And then in terms of smart plugs, whenever you get a smart plug, just go with an energy monitoring one. They're getting so much less expensive than they used to be. And then that way you're building that foundation that we talked about at the beginning to eventually be able to tap into energy management. Eve Energy is a great solution there

Starting point is 01:16:26 and then also IKEA's news, smart plug that they've just come out with which is Matter Over Thread, has energy monitoring. So, yes, smart plugs worth investing in and just to bring it back to that connective tissue and the energy monitoring and this is something that Home Assistant will be really useful for

Starting point is 01:16:44 because it actually has a built-in energy management like dashboard. This is something you'll learn. Dashboards are something you'll learn about as you dive into Home Assistant. The idea that it's dashboard, plural, just fills me with dread. I know. I did debate Home Assistant here for you because I feel like you're a little bit more like me

Starting point is 01:17:04 in this respect than perhaps Nili and his Tamaguchi under the stairs. Yeah, there's like, for whatever reason, this is just not a thing I derive joy from playing with. Like, when I make fun of the light switches, like, I'm serious. Like, it, nothing makes me crazier than flipping a switch and the light not turning out. Like, it's, that is just not the kind of thing that, like, interests me as a problem to solve. It's just a thing I don't want to devote brain cycles to. Yeah. But I'm willing to do the work of making home assistant work because I do think there is a version of the home assistant experience that is actually very set and forget.

Starting point is 01:17:41 Yeah. It's just a little more technical work up front. And I'm happy to do that work up front. I just don't want to have to, like, spend 20 minutes doing Linux. things on my home assistant every day in order for my house to work. Oh, no, don't make that face it at me. Really? That's not what I was hoping for.

Starting point is 01:18:00 It's getting better. And I think for you, I think you're right that having the goal rather than just, oh, I'm going to make everything smart, but I want to water my plants or I want to make sure my leak detectors will alert me when something happens or I want my lights to turn on when I walk into a room. Like when you have these situations, want to find solutions for, you will find that home assistant offers them in a much more reliable, not as easy to use, but once you get it set up, more reliable system than, say,

Starting point is 01:18:31 using something like Alexa, I think what we want to do, the ultimate goal here is going to be to have your home automated, not based on controlling it yourself, right? You want it to just react to what you're doing rather than you having to pull out the app to, or even, you. have to use voice. I mean, you want to use voice for exceptions, like when it's doing, you know, when you've changed your mind and you want something different, like I need the lights on, even though I said I wanted them off at night, at nine o'clock every night. So, you know, that's what voice is great for. But ultimately, you want the home to just run smoothly. And I, that's, I think Home Assistant is your better option there because it's all local. That's the

Starting point is 01:19:11 big difference from using something like Google Home or Amazon Alexa, which does have local elements, but Home Assistant can be entirely local, and that's much faster and more reliable. So, yes. And as we've seen, you are forever one AWS outage from your whole house falling apart. And that's a real thing I'm thinking about. I'm excited for you to dive into Home Assistant here. But I think let's start. We don't necessarily have to start there.

Starting point is 01:19:38 You can graduate after a couple of months. Let's get the lighting and everything set up, the air quality monitoring, get you a fridge. And I'm excited for you to bring this all together. Me too. It's, it's, it's, you've given me more project than I even expected. But I think this is going to be fun. And I am, I'm, uh, I have to figure out kind of in what order to do this. And I was thinking I would do it sort of room by room.

Starting point is 01:20:05 But now I'm thinking like, maybe the move is like, I'm just going to try and do lights first. Yeah, I think that's an important one. Like the, the echo show is going to go in the kitchen. The lights are going to go everywhere. And then I'm going to sort of. from there. It feels like the right sort of sequence of events. Yeah. All right. This has been fabulously helpful. Thank you for all of the stuff that you did. Thank you for the just unbelievable

Starting point is 01:20:28 amount of money of mine that you have spent here. I'm going to go take out a second mortgage in my house in order to pay for the smart home stuff in my house. But this has been great. I hope other anyone else gets anything out of this, but I have gotten a tremendous amount out of this. So thank you for doing this. You're welcome. Such such fun to do it. I would love to do this. every week. We're just being on a different Verge star for every week. I'm telling you,

Starting point is 01:20:51 there's a Jen Toui HGTV show just waiting to happen here and one of these days we're going to make it happen. But until then, thank you, Jen. Appreciate it.

Starting point is 01:20:59 You're welcome. All right, that's it for the show. Thank you again to Jen for doing that with me. And thank you, as always, for watching and listening. If you want the full list

Starting point is 01:21:07 of all of the products Jen recommended, go to the verge.com and find the post about this episode. I'm going to do my best to take out every product she mentions

Starting point is 01:21:15 and put them in that post. We're going to put a bunch of stuff in the show notes. We'll have links to a lot of Jen's coverage of this stuff too, but if you just want the hundreds of thousands of dollars of shopping lists that Jen provided, I'm going to do my best to put all of that on the verge.com. So go and check there. If you have thoughts or additions or things you think I should put in my smart house or other ways to please, please, please help me from killing all of these plants,

Starting point is 01:21:41 we want to hear from you. You can call the hotline 866 version 1.1. You can send us an email at Vergecast at the Burge. We're not doing another one of these smart home episodes, or at least we're not planning to, but like all anybody has the smart home questions, it seems. So keep them coming. We're going to keep talking to Jen about smart home stuff because it's going to be CES soon where there's a ton of smart home stuff.

Starting point is 01:21:59 So we've got a lot of this left to do. Keep all of our questions coming. In the meantime, we're going to get out of here. This show is produced by Eric Gomez, Brandon Kiefer, and Travis Larchuk. The Vergecast is a Verge production and part of the Fox Media Podcast Network. I'll be back with Neely on Friday to talk about all of the news because somehow, It's November, and there's still tech news. We've got some big AI stuff going on.

Starting point is 01:22:19 We've got some interesting policy stuff going on. We've got a lot to talk about. We'll be back. We'll see you then. Rock about it. Support for this show comes from the Home Depot. This holiday season, take advantage of savings on the wide selection of top smart home security products at the Home Depot. The Home Depot has everything you need to make your home smarter with the latest technology and products that let you control and automate your home.

Starting point is 01:22:45 And with brands you trust like Ring, Blink, Google, and more, available in-store and online, often available with same-day or next-day shipping. So you can protect your peace of mind, whether you're away or at home this season. The Home Depot. Smart homes start here.

The Vergecast - Extreme smart home makeover

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