The BEST Smart Home System money can buy!

[@SmartHomeSolver]

Hope this helped clear up any confusion on what I use! Another smart home tour coming soon, so make sure you're subscribed 👏

[@layol692k7]

I have been using the yolink system for almost 2 years with zero issues. Easy to setup and install has google assistant and alexa integrations as well. The components are very cost efficient down to it's hub. One big plus for me is it's super long range

[@notoryous2]

Loved this video! Its exactly the thought process I was looking for to implement in my new home. BTW, where can I get that t-shirt? 😍

[@hrowlands]

Great video, thanks. Please can you do a follow up on the ultimate system you build. What cameras do you use, thermostat, light bulbs (are they all hue!?) door sensors etc etc. But love the streamlined system.

[@chrislambe400]

Just realised I am not subbed. Hitting that button now. Happy Christmas to you and your family.

[@Ella1.0]

Which SSD do u using ? ,link please 😊🙏🏻

[@jstapjstapjstap]

Ok Reid, so the next obvious series from you is a deeper dive on starting from scratch to getting up and running on HomeKit and home assistant combo. Examples include one session on your raspberry pi hardware and getting HA up and running. Another part of the series would be importing into HomeKit. Another one would be on if you started again, which periphery devices would you choose for sensors. Something like that would build nicely on your 5 years worth of work to allow you to make this clear recommendation.

[@CaptMCFox]

Yes!!!! Me too, me too!!!

[@chrislambe400]

Pi hardware is rather expensive when you have to get a custom case with cooling and SATA SSD. An Fanless Intel i5 NUC is a much beter choice and uses about the same idle power and costs about the same. It has the advantage of being able to go full turbo when needed like compiling ESPHome YAML or using Jellyfin to tranascode some videos for local streaming or just running a bunch of Addons. I have a 8GB Pi4 in an Argon One case with 128B SATA. If I where starting fresh today I would go the NUC route.

[@sleepingwonder]

⁠@@chrislambe400why do you need custom cooling case for running home assistant btw a rpi 4 with case and ssd will cost you almost half of that of a intel NUC, technically you can run on intel nuc but that is going overboard unless you want to run face detection using tensor on your home assistant instance

[@shiPham0705]

second to this too !!!

[@TFPrsn]

You don't need HomeKit at all. Virtually every homekit device natively integrates with Home Assistant with minimal setup.

[@vjvj3576]

Been using HK and HA combo for 5 years. Slowly built up automations over the years to the point now everything is fully automated and I rarely have to flip switches or open the HK app. Best part of HK is that I can add family members and guests so they have access to the home. It is truly the ultimate setup and the possibilities are endless.

[@JamesTewAustralia]

This is the way I’m leaning. I’ve got a mixture so far and I’m pretty keen to start fresh and go HA -> HK as we’re an apple house.

[@---ey6hj]

For some reason I can’t help but think of the Emperor from Star Wars hip thrusting in a British accent yelling “Home Assistant! Home Assistant!” Thanks Paul Hibbert

[@jasonpupparo6418]

Paul would also be appalled by Google and Apple beating out "she that should not be named" love you Paul Hibbert!

[@rolandrohde]

Google never really did much with Google Home and their voice control Speakers seem to be getting dumber instead of more intelligent. Alexa works well for some things, especially media control, but it is so incredibly limited in what it allows you to do...and Amazon doesn't seem particularly interested in expanding on it. Apple Homekit...no clue, I use it within Home Assistant for some entities, but since I own only a single Apple Product it's not really that useful to me. At the end of the day...I use Home Assistant as the brains of my system and just plug any and every other system into it. It lets me seamlessly use Shelly, Switchbot, Ikea, Hue and so many other systems that would normally never talk to each other and thanks to HA I can choose the best components for my Setup from whichever manufacturer makes it instead of having to stick with one system.

[@iqbalhussain9791]

I’m on HomeKit and home assistant combo. Couldn’t be happier. I tried my best to avoid using home assistant. Then finally took the plunge. It’s a bit of a time sink initially. But after that. It’s the great

[@DaSTUD100]

I’ve been watching smart home videos from a lot of people over the last few years. This is exactly what I came up with too. Glad I made the right call. Now I just have a couple echo dots to replace with HomePod minis

[@Juandachu]

Completely agreed on the best of both worlds solution. I started using Home Assistant and ended up getting a bunch of Google Nest Minis to get some voice control around the house. A while after, I tried out an Echo device and saw that it was much much faster than Google at executing commands so I ended up switching the Nest Minis to Echo Dots. The caveat is that setting up the Amazon integration on a self-hosted instance is a bit of a pain, but it's a one-time thing.

[@clij5202]

The finish was cute 🥰. And same decision for me: HomeKit plus Home Assistent. Just installed for playing on a Pi4 but will go a bit bigger low-wattage NUC for it once we get our house

[@barygol]

Home assistant is king. There's just no doubt about it.

[@fpswillyy]

Thank you, I’ve been looking for someone to answer this for months! It’s so difficult to even know which system to start with. Great video, I’ve subscribed and looking forward to diving down this rabbit hole!

[@cooliipie]

Google assistant + Smarthings has been the most simple and intuitive for me. Especially since I already use Samsung devices. I don't feel I'm missing out on anything. Just got into Z-wave and I'm loving it!

[@FawziBreidi]

I have the same setup but I have yet to find zwave 800 hub compatible with smartthings

[@Valehass]

Smartthings removed scenes making geo location triggers impossible in other environments like Alexa.

[@jtrythall]

I don't know how long I've been watching your channel, but I LOVE the wife and kid cameos. We often see KZbinrs as heros, but you're just an average guy. I appreciate that about you! (Obviously, the hero's comment was sarcasm. lol)

[@ladonizer]

I made a similar combo with Home assistant and google. My integration is a little different. A added most devices both to HA and Google. I only expose those that can't be added to google from HA to google. So i can yell at google to do stuff when that something isn't handled automatically by HA. I also expose a number of input_booleans to google from HA to accomplish more complicated things. When google turns the boolean on or off it triggers automations in HA. Next to Google and HA I also kept my hue bridges (and use almost exclusively hue lights) and placed hue dimmer switches in all rooms. When HA is down and I have no internet (thus no GA) I can still control my lights manually.

[@leicaman]

Just ordered a Home Assistant Yellow, and this confirms that choice!

[@alex_ortiz]

That Time warp at the end was awesome! I think, I don't really spend that much time on it until I remember I've run HomeAssistant for 5 years and still have things to setup or fix or change. I have added things along the way and improved on the devices I had as I learned more, but it doesn't end haha. It is great though, because it is a hobby, but has been rock solid and reliable as a platform. I've upgraded hardware a couple of times due to failures.

[@BiXàiGì]

Amazing visuals and clear explanations, this is top-notch content! 8:20

[@edflavin8203]

I'm a Google Home + HA for about 2 years and love it. Have a few other hubs as you mentioned but, only use for certain protocols/connectivity. I agree that Apple will most likely support their devices longer but, I would have concerns that a future direction change could completely destroy your eco-system. Google seems to play nicer in the open source world vs. Apple (IMO). I got burned by the INSTEON debacle and don't want to go through that again. Always enjoy the content.

[@TransitAndTeslas]

I also got burned by Insteon! Lmao!

[@sdommiller]

I have an idea to use NFC tags to help me remember/complete tasks (with my ADHD). To-do lists and reminders are ineffective with me. So, I figure some creative solutions are needed. I just don't know how to go about it to make it a reality. The idea: I want to make life more like an RPG, with completed tasks gaining me experience points. Do the dishes, tap the tag, XP added to a leveling system. Any chore or activity I want to incentivize. I could assign different values to each tag, so I'm motivated to continue completing things. Then, I could come up with rewards for myself when I level up. Have any idea how to do this? Or as a thought experiment, how would you go about setting this up?

[@tannermorris8956]

Reid, this is the PERFECT video for me at the PERFECT time. I used to use Alexa’s in the past and started to get irritated at the ads. I researched and thought about HomeKit, but instead decided to dive into Home Assistant Yellow. I was bummed that I couldn’t use HomeKit with Home Assistant but I wanted to improved automation capabilities. I have seen in the past people that connect the 2 (HomeKit and HA) but was not sure how they did it! If you would be willing to, I’d be interested in a video about how you mix the two and what would the process look like for that! Great video!

[@SmartHomeSolver]

I'm glad it was helpful and I appreciate the suggestion for a video. I think that's a good idea!

[@tannermorris8956]

@@SmartHomeSolver sorry to ask another question about a week later! If you pair HomeKit with Home Assistant, does this give you the possibility to make it work with HomeKit remotely? I have not do anything to control my HA to work away from home yet but I can pair it with HomeKit, I won’t have to worry about. Is that correct?

[@Thedoctorjosh]

I love these videos as always. I'm moving in 2 years so i don't want to get involved with Home assistant just yet, but i plan to thanks to your videos! For now, I have smartthings running the back end of a lot of automations and Google on the front

[@Olson34]

love these types of videos to help new people when they get into smart homes. would love to see you revamp the video you did before about buying and setting up a new smart home

[@SmartHomeSolver]

Thanks for the suggestion! That could be a good video.

[@Dimmers]

I will say this as a former SmartThings user, I agree with a lot of what you said. However, I will say this about the Smartthing/Aeotec Zigbee devices. They are more expensive than others but they are a good balance of being feature-rich, responsive and reliable. For example, I still find their motion sensor very useful, and the compact form factor is great for tight spaces where you don't want it protruding or can't get power to it (like our stairwell). Also, I have yet to find a Zigbee contact sensor as robust as the Smartthings version (I'm happy to take suggestions).

[@SmartHomeSolver]

I agree SmartThings/Aeotec sensors are great. I still use them and they integrate really well into Home Assistant.

[@wagnerfamily4229]

Love that part on the end and I have been there plenty. I also started with Amazon then went to Home Assistant and now have added Apple. My Amazon devices have just became speakers or picture frames.

[@pjmnica]

😂 Love the ending. As an HA user, I can relate. 😂

[@user-0xastalavista]

Thanks for making and sharing this great video. I love the humor you put in especially the “Blink of an eye” joke at the end. 👏👏👏👍👍👍😊

[@rocketpants72]

I just liked how your were listening to the Ramones. Nice work!!!

[@Funkmaster007]

I'm starting to take my home automation seriously after moving into my new home and the question you posed here is exactly what I went through. I am sunsetting Alexa for all the reasons you listed but found that Alexa on older devices seems to be struggling too; whereas my old iPad works just as well as my new one ... besides we have apple devices, so homekit makes so much more sense and indeed; home assistant on a pi is great for the 'brains' ... good tip on the SSD, I'll get that next.

[@jig1056]

So what you described with using Home Assistant and HomeKit is my exact motive operation. I use Home Assistant for all of my automations, but I use the HomeKit dashboard on my phone when I want to control devices and not use Alexa. I really would like to put together a nice HomeKit dashboard but as you stated it takes so long and it's complicated to get what you want so it's been an ongoing project for two years now that really don't have a lot of urgency to complete because of the HomeKit dashboard.I'm in the process of redoing my Home Assistant set up, I'm going from the supervised version running on a standalone Debian, VM to the container version of Home Assistant, running on my Ubuntu VM, with the rest of my docker containers. I'm also totally dumping SmartThings and have picked up one of those Sonoff zigbee dongles. Right now I'm running in parallel between my all set up and the new set up as a POC. It's been going well and I have some time over the holidays and I'm going to definitely complete my transition. Thank you for all the great videos that you make. I learned so much from you and others in the home automation community.

[@davidangulomonroy949]

You should create and sell a course on the step by step to create a Smart Home with these two ecosystems. I’d buy it!

[@joshikus]

Here in the Netherlands, Alexa has always been a bit...limited. So the feature losses that everyone are complaining about doesn't really apply here. But! It is a great voice controller for Home Assistant with the Alexa Media Player add-on for Home Assistant. With the last Black Friday sale and Echo Dot 5th gen's being €25 a piece, I've been able to outfit every room of the house with Big Sister...ahem...Alexa. I try to automate everything in the house -- I don't like dashboards. It seems that defeats the purpose of a smarthome to have to physically interact with something. But using Alexa I can easily trigger a home assistant script for the things that aren't automated.

[@bazanime]

Same in UK. I use Alexa and HA which works fine.

[@nolanhitchens]

I do almost the same: Alexa as a dumb device to start Homey flows/routines. But recently Alexa seems to get hard of hearing: "Sorry, what device?" and fails to understand the exact same commands it used to do flawlessly. I wish Homey hadn't dropped their voice assistant... I don't want to rely on a voice assistant from A. the largest webshop, or B. the largest advertising company. Both can't be trusted.

[@xpsmax1]

If you just go with Crestron and a reputable dealer, who understands your wants and needs, you’ll have the best smart home ever. Everything that you show on your channel, I’m doing with one system. Dashboards, sensors, voice, activation, shades, and lighting control,it’s all there.

[@rrassoc]

Interesting. I started with a Lutron hub for shades and lighting, then added my Habitat Elevation hub, since it can integrate Alexa and Lutron with Z-wave, Zigbee and a number of WIFi smart devices. I don't use Alexa or Lutron for any automations anymore. Yes, they're much, much simpler but I find automating with multiple systems just serves to complicate things much worse than programming via the Hubitat, which really isn't all that bad.

[@scottibyte]

I like your recommendation to use two home automation systems. I use Hubitat and home assistant. I too was a smartthings user until webcore and echo speaks went away. I really only use home assistant for detailed statistics. I have been completely unsuccessful in creating dashboards with status that I can cast to my Chromecast or being able to have home assistant speak through Alexa. Honestly, voice is my primary interface. The reason is that although I have automations, I still need voice commands to play/pause video/music, display cameras and ask about various status. Home Assistant is powerful, but after hundreds of hours playing with it, Hubitat still controls my 200+ devices better.

[@JoshsSmartHome]

This is a great video. I've been struggling with some of the same problems and bought a HomeAssistant Green which was just delivered. I'm excited to move things over to a more unified setup which will actually be pretty similar to your setup. Thanks for sharing!

[@dage8949]

as an all android household, going with google and home assistant

[@Edgar_Alaniz0121]

Hey Reed, do you have a step step guide to set up a home assistant I new to this

[@jamesmonahan7872]

Great video Reed. I have noticed how alexa has gotten worse and will start switching out my echo's for homepods. As mentioned below - would love to see deeper dive into how you setup all of this. Hopefully a video for Reed's Smart Home. Happy Holidays!

[@SmartHomeSolver]

Thanks for the suggestion! I think that could make a great video.

[@felmare101]

i needed this video like 2 years ago

[@mattmess]

That combo stick is using hardware from 2018. It was really difficult to pair devices because of it. Unfortunately, I think the only path now is to have dedicated sticks, but it’s really not a big deal. The SONOFF zigbee dongle and the ZOOZ 800 series sticks work much much better.

[@melissah3772]

I have a homekit set up with homebridge on a raspberry pi. Would love to see more videos on how to use home assistant with my set up!!!

[@jjjonas70]

Great video, man. Love your humor.

[@BadgerBob]

You basically just built my smart home. This is exactly how I have been rolling for the last 3 years, although I also use Homebridge in a docker on my pi as a couple of plugins are better, plus Scrypted for my cameras. I hate Alexa, but Siri still sucks (I have a feeling that might start to change next year…) so they have basically become communication devices (intercom) for my family, and a couple of voice activated devices/routines will still use voice for.

[@roberthernandez7564]

Came to the same conclusions myself. Once I merged the two platforms a couple years ago, I freed up so much time for fine tuning the Home Assistant back end while letting Apple take care of the front end. Now, if only I could figure out how to make Siri recognize the voices of my family 100% of the time. :)

[@Adrianna-Weeks]

Love the ending. As an HA user, I can relate.

[@DannerBanks]

When I built out my system on Amazon, I liked it because the echo devices were cheap, had the most integrations, and ring pro monitoring was the cheapest option at $10/month (cheaper than simplisafe)! Now I am getting sick of it, but not for the reasons you mentioned - 1) if it is a noisy room, it is impossible for my devices to hear me. I need better automation triggering and I am guessing I will need to move to something like home assistant. 2) when I tell Alexa a command, it seems to NEVER have the correct device answer me. I'll be in the kitchen and ask my thermostat in the dining room something, and the upstairs echo will answer. Super frustrating. 3) the echos are so slow to respond and regularly get my command wrong. 4) a little unrelated but the fire tv cube 2 is so glitchy. I have to restart it at least once a week. We will probably move to Wyze or Roku when our cameras give out (since their pro monitoring is $10/month) but I am guessing it will be a while

[@GentlemanJamesWin]

I still don't get how they "work together". You add devises in HA then import them to HK. Can you do that for automations?

[@TheKBrosTech]

No, Home Assistant controls the automations and devices entirely. In this config, Homekit is only used for the easy and beautiful dashboards, and for voice assistant access with Siri. You can make custom dashboards in Home Assistant but it is a massive time suck and won't look as good as Apple's design.

[@prion2727]

Do you have any recommendations on plant sensors? I am growing all kinds of things and don't have a great thought or direction of what helps with watering vs temp, etc.

[@mikeraineri4018]

I'm only use HA, was an Smart Things and before that X10 user. Love the free part of HS but also by some stuff to help support upcoming projects.

[@mcomeslast]

This helped so much! Siri has been improving Siri’s responsiveness. I have an Alexa and your video helped shut the ads off. However, the drop in feature seldom works and the camera never works without drop in. My ring doorbell works and I pay $3 for that, monthly. In getting rid of the Alexa. The few automations I have only work on google as Alexa won’t recognize them, despite Amazon claiming it would. So that leaves Google or Apple HomePod. I need to review a few more of your videos to be sure but I may try a HomePod mini. I wouldn’t have the first clue what to do with the controller. When I last looked on Amazon, it appeared that I needed to buy parts?

[@JesusVillanueva]

As a long time SmartThings user that can't seem to get many of my routines to actually run offline, I am considering switching to Home Assistant. I would like to see a guide of the easiest way to migrate my devices and if possible routines, before making the switch. If for nothing else to get an idea of much time I would need to set aside.

[@volcolby]

It seems that the smart home spectrum in terms of users is very broad. It is awesome that there are smart home geniuses that can configure fairly complicated setups. I wonder what percentage of people buying smart home gadgets are willing or able to go beyond setting them up in their native apps? Thanks for the video.

[@dino0228]

New to this entire field. What kinds of things do you automate that are truly worth the set-up and that you don’t really to do yourself?

[@greenbubbleboy5673]

You could get an endurance sd card that's meant for constant writing. They are used in dash cams from home assistant pi

[@SmartHomeSolver]

I haven't tried those out myself but hey if it works well then awesome.

[@KirkandRA]

How cute was the ending?😍

[@brian1988]

What is the best smart home system to remotely monitor a vacation home in another country from my home in the USA? For example, I want to remotely monitor the thermostat, power outage indicator, wifi door lock, security cameras, etc. I bought a Nest-Yale wifi lock with the Connect hub in the USA and brought it to my condo in Panama. the lock installed fine, but when I went to register the lock and activated on the nest app, the required address would only allow registration for an address with a country and postal code in USA, Canada and Mexico. I chatted with Google support but got nowhere. it would be nice to know which smart home management system allows worldwide usage and does not block by country/IP address, and also does not require me to do some complex router or VPN settings.

[@TFPrsn]

As someone who was initially pretty intimidated by the complexity of using Home Assistant, I can say that my fears were over-exaggerated and the more that I've gotten into it, the more I've been able to slowly learn from channels like this one. The thing that really made my decision was that I'm extremely privacy conscious and I do NOT want to send my data to the cloud (i.e a computer on the internet owned by corporation(s) with extremely sketchy records on privacy and security, especially with all of the recent data breaches). The thought of putting an amazon echo in my home that listens to you 1984 style is incredibly disturbing and I encourage everyone I know to avoid the Big Tech companies especially when it comes to smart home products. It's easier to use them of course, but at the very cost of your privacy and control you have over those devices.

[@eberger02]

One thing you will need to consider if they sort it out is the Sonoff iHost. Once you include a power supply, case and Zigbee/matter dongle it’s only a bit more that Home Assistant even if you don’t buy the 8GB RP4 (ps. 8? WTF). I think the intention is to be 75% as functional as Home Assistant but 5% as much hassle, but currently it’s also 75% as much hassle. Can run Node Red, so all you automations would work. Plus unlike Home Assistant it’s going to be both a matter Hub and Bridge, rather than just a hub. That means my Zigbee plugs etc. appear on matter. Also has homebridge so that is a tie. But till January it is only a matter bridge and the onboarding process is rubbish. There’s so much it can do but only when you’ve had it ages do you realise. You’d be fine because you can do home assistant, but I think they’re trying to sell it to people who want a local solution but also want a life, sadly it fails currently, but by your next video like this it’ll need to be considered.

[@SnowyPe]

HA has saved me. I use Amazon speakers to do announcements only and Google Nest for the odd occasion I want to give a voice command.

[@dhp106]

I was a smartthings and webcore user since around 2015. I recently abandoned it altogether in favor of the homekit eco system with homebridge and staring for my nest products.

[@The-Friendly-Grizzly]

Homepods are fine if you like low volume. When I still was using Apple, I couldn't get enough volume out of the Homepod Mini for it to be useful. And, yes. Siri is not very good, but it sure is chatty!

[@Pallidus_Rider]

Would be interested in the energy consumption of a Smart Home, which is "always on".

[@jeraldgooch6438]

Question: what WiFi router or routers would you recommend for Apple HomeKit these days? Thanks!

[@TheDarker00]

In my home we are all iphone users. I thought on the homekit environment buty problem is that we are fully bilingual and basically we are a spanglish home. For this the amazon echo has work brilliantly. I also use Home Assistant for automations, but it’s so time consumming. If apple implement a bilingual echosystem like amazon, I would jump right away.

[@JonKaye]

Totally agree. I came to the same conclusion. Homekit+Hass! Thanks for the great videos.

[@AZ_Baggin]

Hi, can you elaborate on how you linked your backyard patio door to backyard patio lights as I am in the same situation you are as there is no switch close to the door. Would be interested in the sensor and lights used. Thanks

[@nmfireman]

I wish someone would come out with a video on how to convert from totally using Alexa to home assistant. Do you have any suggestions? Everything I have right now runs on Alexa.

[@boxcarkim24]

Can you list all the items you talked about with price and where to buy?

[@AbdullahKhaled-bs4xd]

Great content, I was wondering why didn't you go to docker installation of HA, while trying to make a user management features and add whatever you want to your home

[@rifleridgeranch2087]

I would really love to see how you would use Google Home with Home assistant for us android users.

[@blak238]

Can you do an in-depth video, from start to finish and show the details of setting up a smart home with a tablet and dashboards

[@dennisharris144]

Great video. I am not an apple fan but may try this. How do I decide between HA green and yellow? Maybe a new video hint hint.

[@alexbird2942]

This is a timely video. Just a month ago I transitioned all my Alexa devices to Apple and homebridge. I get that home assistant is great for complex automations, but homebridge was easier to use for me and HomeKit/Eve accomplish what I need in that category. This is a great video!

[@transatlant1c]

Good stuff! I do the exact same thing. My dream is still to have wall mounted panels in the main rooms, but until then Google home is the go between

[@ArcUk83]

Love the t-shirt you're wearing, where can I get it?

[@hxcde]

You are actually using the same setup right now I am using for years 😂 Home Assistant as backend, HomeKit as Frontend.

[@kevinball3967]

I'm moving into a 20 year old home soon and plan on doing a complete smarthome from the ground up. I've done SmartThings in my new home for the last 5 years and am so done with ST. I like your hybrid approach. If you didn't have any legacy constraints and were also moving into a 20 year old home (may not have neutral wires), what would you recommend for the smart hub (HA? or Homey?), still use Google for front-end/dashboard? and what about light switches (Lutron?), thermostat, cameras, etc? Appreciate y'alls input.

[@jacobherrera9]

My next thought is when are you going to create a video showing how to set this up from scratch and what products you recommend. I would love to see light switches, sensors, thermostat and power outlets. Would security cameras also work i seen it on the HA home page. A great video!!!

[@hunstar]

Been a long time watcher since you were into smartthings & other stuff. I like that, whoever is into smart homes, we all come to the same conclusion that HA is amazing! I took pretty much the same path as you except our house is a big G home + Home Assistant in the backend. Hopefully, as you subtly mentionned, google won't kill their smarthome stuff out of the blue like they do with so many of their products. Great video as always!

[@SmartHomeSolver]

Thanks for the support over the years! I've been talking to the Google Home team and they seem very invested in it so it's great to see.

[@DIYtechie]

Hahahah. So funny outtro 😂 And great video 👍🏻

[@SmartHomeSolver]

Glad you liked it!!

[@chrislambe400]

My current setup is Home Assistant, lots of WiFi Shellies some flashed with ESPHome and some stock and some some stock for the Bluetooth Proxy function. Lots of Xiaomi Bluetooth LE Temp/Humidity sensors. Some Sonoff Basic flashed with ESPHome. Some Sonoff ZBMINI as Zigbee routers. Lots of Aqara Zigbee buttons. Lastly a bunch of Echo Dots for voice and Amazon Music. This is the only connection to cloud but that might change next year.

[@olivercole1399]

Not related but where can I get that T-shirt?

[@KimmoJaskari]

For me,. not having my smart home in the cloud is an absolute requirement. Thus, Home Assistant. The stuff I have to put on Wifi I'm segregating into a separate VLAN that's behind a firewall - the stuff there can talk to my Home Assistant, and that's about it. Sure, this makes it a little tougher to do things because it requires some maintenance - but I'll sweat it out. I've been pretty lazy about getting started, and coming in now with Home Assistant seems pretty decent, it feels fairly mature to me. I may even dabble in the voice assistant stuff... eventually, the goal is to automate everything to the point where I rarely need to even push buttons.

[@steppedon]

I echo the Home Assistant and HomeKit combo. Rock solid.

[@designbuild7128]

In the same boat with many hubs like Reed, although not a tech reviewer or even a dev/networking person. I just started years ago and things change [like ST] and become untenable over time. Still divesting of all my dispersed hub reliance/automations (even two models of the same brand), but time is the biggest issue in cleaning up.

[@broxez100]

😂 you don't know how much I enjoy watching your videos bro,,, just a question, I want to buy home assistant yellow and I have no experience at all, what exactly should I buy with it to start the game. I really hope there is one package (yellow not green) and ready to go. Thanks man.

[@adamjj85]

That ending is so classic and perfectly describes Home Assistant! 😆

[@robinkang1900]

I would love to see how you set up (architecture) your home with HomeKit and HA. Also are you concerned that at some stage, Apple might disable Homebridge?

[@rikyroxx]

How, HOW do you remove/delete old routines on Amazon Alexa? I too have been using different hubs and systems for about the last 5 years. Alexa has ALL of the old routines still listed. I’ve gotten rid of my smartthings hubs and Alexa doesn’t update the routines even though I disabled the smartthings skill. I know I can remove them one by one, but is there an easy way to just remove ALL routines and start over? I’m switching to home assistant and Amazon is making things way to confusing!! Love your channel and thank you so much for all your help!!!

[@aaronhawkins9885]

Recommendations on how to get started with home assistant?

[@iammunemrahman]

Do you use home assistant on raspberry pi??

[@ebola1974]

I would love to use HA, but every time I watch a how-to video the steps are different from those I can see, plus the person doing the step-by-step normally misses a step or fails to actually describe what and why something happens. Start off small, like motion detected, turn on the lights

[@chohpper0779]

I need some help. I have my home up as an Airbnb. All main our main lights and our theater room is on a Vera Light which I am going to transfer over to my Samsung smart things. It is easy for us to use but not our guests and would like to build some pads that I wall mount and have my home automation system on it with a motion activated wake up screen. My problem is I am not very computer savvy and would like to hire someone to help get the pads set up. Willing to pay no problem there.

[@WalterRiggs]

All I need to know: How do you connect a kasa smart switch with HomeKit?

[@Winston0Boogie]

Thanks, Reed. Love your channel. I was thinking of home assistant but I'm still on the fence. I have Google on everything and Samsung Smart things. I also have and echo and echo dot but I don't use them all that much.

[@SheLeftMeUnsupervised]

smartthings integrates into home assistant quite well.

[@magnachisel6438]

OK HA - what thermostat do you recommend? Need to fix asap! What do I buy?

[@Techlifeandmore]

I completely broke my home bridge instance. Homebridge, separately, is actually a program that does not relate to home assistant. It allows integration of non-HomeKit compatible devices into HomeKit. Well… I broke it today. Big time. Can't even restore it from a home bridge back up, and it won't show up in my list of devices that can be paired to HomeKit. So if I can't fix that, I'll probably end up installing home assistant. I've needed an excuse, and I'm about to have one. I was putting it off because I was concerned that home assistant was going to be too technical for me, but it seems like Homebridge went over my head today. I really hope I can fix Homebridge, because it's a bit less complicated than home assistant. But nonetheless, home assistant is an option on the table.

[@CooperF]

4:06 I played this 4 times and couldn’t get through it without Siri stopping the video and activating.

[@vicentedelgado3001]

Would you install this combination (HA + HomeKit) for someone else? knowing that every time something fails in HA, you will get a call. Would you change your decision in that scenario?

[@Cybernetic_Systems]

I ran HA for years, but I got fed up with the frequent breaking changes. I just don’t need that kind of grief! I run Hubitat + Homekit now. Btw, the HA HomeKit integration is NOT free, it’s a monthly sub unless you have a degree in user hostile software systems. And I say that as a 48 year old IT professional who started his computing life using DOS 2.11 on an 8088 powered PC.

[@nvugteveen]

I think Homey is the most easy-to-use. Also best option for privacy (everything is local, including data).