Switching Back to Alexa - Every new Echo Product - Smart Home Tour!

Here's my updated smart home tour with new Amazon Alexa and Echo devices in my home. I'll show you how I built my smart home and have created a number of home automations based off of Amazon's voice assistant. We'll do a full smart home tour as I went back from Google Home over to Amazon Alexa in the last few months!
Here are all the products I'm currently using in my Smart Home
www.amazon.com/shop/hometechd... (Amazon affiliate link)
Please subscribe by clicking here: / @brandondoylemn
Want to showcase your property on the channel?
Fill out this form - forms.gle/K7fbK1wUqGjWwTCk9
Check out our other product recommendations - www.amazon.com/shop/hometechd...

[@richchapman5011]

Hi Brandon, really enjoyed the video, well present with just enough info on the better known products and slightly more on the more one of purchase product brands such as the vacuums etc.

[@ChrisOram]

Pacing was excellent! Can we see a full home theater tour soon? I'd love to learn more about your Control4 setup, Sony projector, etc.

[@BrandonDoyleMN]

For sure! It’s a control4 system with neeo remote, Sony 4k projector, 120inch screen, denon receiver, definitive speakers up front and I don’t recall what we put in ceiling but it’s 7.1 surround, the shades are from Power Shades, lighting is Lutron, and we mostly use Roku ultra for streaming with Xbox & Nintendo switch for gaming. The theater chairs are from a local company (not sure what brand) we did the snack ledge along the back so you can sit on stools and eat. We love the space and spend a lot of time in there

[@ajdebeer1322]

Very nice setup. I bought my first smart speaker echo show 8 for my kitchen for shopping list and its a real bummer google screw the shopping list up with there stuff. What i well can recommend for you is home assistant not to replace amazon but to run with it the automation is soooo much better you can hook all your stuff up even the inverter and run automation from that. There zones are also insane. The best thing for me to run home assistant aswell if something happens to the network everything still works bc everything runs local

[@BrandonDoyleMN]

I misspoke in a couple places, the Reolink is a dual lens camera, the shots the editor used are from two different cameras, in my office those are elgato key lights & my wife pointed out I pronounce Bartisan wrong. Lmk what you think of the pacing, I’m trying to improve these tours and appreciate your feedback. Big collaboration tour coming next week!! Link to all products I am currently using in the description if you’re interested.

[@justonbrazda3846]

You also misspoke about the show 8. It's neither new, nor 3rd gen.

[@BrandonDoyleMN]

yep, I acknowledged that previously. It's hard to keep them all straight sometimes, we had switched the whole house over to Google, then Homekit and back to Amazon all for testing. A couple years back I bought every single echo device including previous generations to do a massive comparison, and then shortly after publishing Amazon released all new devices, just goes to show how quickly things change. I am on the list to receive the new ones coming out here shortly, I'll be swapping out the Gen 2 for new Gen 3 in kitchen and installing the hub in our bedroom with PoE. Not too much has changed in our house since filming this, I've got a few devices here and there that I'm testing but it is a lot the same. I was most excited about the new paddle picos to match our claro & diva switches, so we have those now. What products are you using?

[@lasongablackwell6535]

I started out with Amazon alexa for my smart home i never left i love my alexa devices and smart home

[@speedracer9132]

Well this is awkward, I just found this from your “switched to google” video after searching specifically for “switch to Alexa” and this video didn’t even show in my search. Also, echo show 8 is not on gen3, yet. However, the show 5 is Gen 3. I wonder why you switched back to ecobee after going to nest? I DESPISE the new ecobee UI since literally anything you try to do requires minimum 2-3 extra taps & gestures, the old UI was just walk up to it and slide to the temperature you wanted (granted they could have adjusted the sensitivity better but otherwise it was nearly perfect). Is it because the room sensors detect occupancy where googles do not?

[@BrandonDoyleMN]

It’s a new video so it might not rank high in search for a little while.. good catch on the generations, it’s hard for even me to keep them straight, and I have owned them all at one point or another for testing, videos and articles. (I’m also a writer for realtor magazine) I switched back to ecobee because of the occupancy sensors and room averaging for only the specific rooms during specific times along with follow me mode. I don’t mind the new UI as we don’t really walk up to it much. The majority of control is done through automations, if I wanted to adjust it I’d probably pull out my phone or have one of our voice assistants adjust it. We do actually have all 3 systems running still, we just find Alexa to be the most responsive. I really thought I’d like Google more than we did

[@brianchandler8727]

The light switch do they have the common wire needed, if not which one are you using

[@BrandonDoyleMN]

No neutral wire required for Lutron Caseta

[@brianchandler8727]

I do have the Hubitat hub, I been trying to get everything working for some time with Alexa .

[@theattorney6072]

Hello, philips hue has now released official matter update'. Any video coming about it? I have high hopes about it, as regards the alexa limitation with one hue bridge. Will matter solve this ? Muliple hue bridges is now possible with alexa with matter update ? Thx

[@BrandonDoyleMN]

I’m sure we will see plenty of videos on the topic here on KZbin, I just have the one hub, 5 bulbs and a lamp. I haven’t updated the hub yet either. I will be testing the new echo devices and have gotten the MyQ video garage door open, a couple new roborocks, some locks and a bunch of kitchen gadgets.

[@user-yj7op6cf1t]

Are those shades in the living room Lutron shades? I have Lutron light switches but I can't get the wife to sign off on the Lutron shades. Any other smart shades you recommend?

[@BrandonDoyleMN]

They are and we absolutely love them, totally worth the cost

[@dnoland77]

Prior to mid 2020 amazon could do no wrong. Since then they have done most things wrong. If I were to start over I would probable opt for Homekit. Still mulling over going to Hubitat. Problem is I'm neck deep in echo stuff. Your biggest mistage here (and I'm guilty too) is buying any show device. They never matured to their potential and have been twisted into an advertising billboard for skills, products and paid videos. I have kept the show8 in my kitchen only for grocery lists, recipes, and the ring doorbell but looking to switch to the Eufy doorbell. I replaced my other shows with google hubs. If you have zigbee stuff you still will need the echo hub. If you want complete simplicity you still need the echos. But there is no longer a perfect smart home ecosystem among the big 3. I use all 3 to make it all work and still keep my sanity. Last note, you pointed out that whole house music is important. You should look into the echo link. With a wired connection you can play any local media and cast to any/all your echos.

[@BrandonDoyleMN]

Hubitat is great! I like HomeKit for the quick shortcuts on my iPhone but that's about it. I didn't like the ads on the Echo Shows which is why we switched to Google for awhile but found that to be slow to respond and the Alexa app is just better for building routines. We have all the shows set to show photo albums which we like a lot. I think the hybrid approach really is the best, they all have their strengths and weaknesses. The tour next week will feature a home with an insane amount of HomeKit products I'll have to look into echo link, we mostly have been using pandora and amazon music

[@pluvse]

What made you decide to switch back to the Amazon Ecosystem?

[@misottovoce]

I am just amazed at the dependence ever more on 'smart homes' in the USA. I wonder what you would do with an electrical and internet fail. Nobody would know or be able to manually deal with the outages? Greetings from Switzerland. Entertaining and informative video...thank you.

[@BrandonDoyleMN]

It’d be a struggle that’s for sure, we do have solar and most of our smart home products work locally or at least would continue to function as if it were dumb but we love our connectivity

[@misottovoce]

@@BrandonDoyleMN Good point about solar panels. I have solar panels too, but at the moment the batteries to store the energy are much too expensive. So I am enjoying the use of the panels during the day, but am waiting for the prices for the batteries to come down.

[@misottovoce]

@@BrandonDoyleMN By the way, I wanted to comment that I enjoy your presentation and pace. Easy to follow and learn (I'm 73). I have an Echo Dot in my bedroom) since last year and wonder how I did without it. Also have Hue bulbs in my garden and love not having to go downstairs in the dark to turn them off. So far my two 'Smart home' objects and I really can't see where in my home I would be benefitted by other things. I was considering an Echo Show until someone mentioned they put adverts on it. Also, I wonder: with all this automation, including locks etc...my goodness, what happens when you lose the smart phone!!!

[@teslabot5650]

5:50 lol

[@BrandonDoyleMN]

We really should've muted that, I wonder how many people's lights have been turned off by watching this video. Whoops

[@brianchandler8727]

Are using a hub? If so which one

[@BrandonDoyleMN]

Hubitat runs some automations in the background but wouldn’t be required for most things

[@ModernDayTech]

Sweet stuff. I had never seen that two-group pico remote.

[@BrandonDoyleMN]

Thanks, we have one that does lights and shades and another that’s just two sets of lights. We also have a few scene controller style as seen in my “fun with picos” video. You can actually get them custom printed for $100/each and also control any device through hubitat integration

[@JaizuGz]

Hi, your videos are pretty neat but I wish you could get something better to record them, it's a bit surprising that the video quality feels off when you have so much cool technology around you,

[@BrandonDoyleMN]

They’re recorded on a Sony a7 III

[@justonbrazda3846]

0:33 not sure what you are talking about. The gen 3 show 8 was just released in sept of 2023, 2 months after this video and you can't even get it yet. Get 2 was released in 2021, 2 years before this video. So how is the either a new, or a 3rd gen show 8? It's either a 2 year old get 2, or you are from the future.

[@BrandonDoyleMN]

it was the newest version at the time but you're correct I misspoke, that is a Gen 2. I should have the new Gen 3 soon for testing, I get many products in advance of the releases since I'm a writer for Realtor Magazine

[@rocraider163]

PLEASE mute the word Alexa in your videos…

[@dnoland77]

And "echo" too.

[@BrandonDoyleMN]

sorry about that, this one was actually filmed and edited by a new person. When I went back and re-watched it, it actually triggered my lights too. Whoops!

[@amazonfire-hn6br]

I wish Alexa could learn our voices so that the wake word Alexa won't get triggered by just anyone saying it. I like to watch Amazon commercials on TV but unfortunately it kept triggering my Alexa device.

[@shadowopal]

I couldn't watch your video because you don't mute the wake words for Siri or Alexa.

[@BrandonDoyleMN]

Thanks for the feedback, it has been shared with editor

[@shkach]

Please stop saying "Alexa" in your videos. My alexa keeps trying to run your commands at my house.

[@BrandonDoyleMN]

Thanks for the feedback, it has been shared with editor