TOP 5 Smart Home Mistakes to Avoid!

[@DobuDobuDobuDot]

My house is filled with cheap Sonoff stuff flashed with ESPHome and it's been rock solid for years so no, cheap isn't always bad quality.

[@Leonvolt28]

Same here. The best thing about esphome for me is being able to implement home assistant service calls in the esphome config. This allows me to do all sorts of things with a long and short button press.

[@cooliipie]

Just bought some!

[@enriquelinares9218]

Hi! I bought a home and it already had a nest thermostat. Using homebridge I was able to integrated with HomeKit. It works perfectly fine. :)

[@1BSDjunkie]

Hi Carlo! Just sharing one of my worst mistakes. I turned off Home in settings, privacy, location services on both my iPhone and iPad (among other settings there to save battery power). It is maybe the cause of automations that use “Sunrise/Sunset” not working and I just haven’t been able to get those timings to work during automations to turn lights off and on.

[@davidamoritz]

Gosh darnit, When a company or person says they will do something and they do not do it- THEY ARE LYING. This attitude of just oh well is detrimental to all in every facet of our lives, stop it people! Company says we will have those features with a update and they do not, then they are LYING!!!! Great Video bro I am in the planning stages of a smart home with 3 devices already.

[@TechTechMoreTech]

You’re definitely right. I give the benefit of the doubt that they weren’t purposefully deceiving us, but it is still shitty.

[@davidamoritz]

@@TechTechMoreTech Sadly I do not give them that anymore they do it on purpose now- example washing machines today are made of dissimilar metals on purpose so they will fail after the smallest of anodes they have deteriorate. Pretty underhanded bro

[@Polkster13]

Aqara is inexpensive, but are rock solid. I have over 50 Aqara devices in my smart home and haven't had any issues with them.

[@makeitworktech]

You have every right to be salty about Ring! Haha great video! #4 is on point. I have 75+ Wifi and the network is ok, but pretty outages are bad. In the process of moving to Z-Wave where I can!

[@TechTechMoreTech]

Thank you! You must have a great WiFi setup to handle that many devices! To me the only thing that really needs WiFi are security cameras due to bandwidth. Everything else can be Zigbee/zwave/thread.

[@williamhigton8683]

I personally wouldn't recommend Z-Wave especially with CHIP planned ( www.connectedhomeip.com/ ) if you are someone deciding if you should be using Z-Wave/Zigbee or Wifi this guy puts it best kzbin.info/www/bejne/rGmQh4F_hrach6c

[@makeitworktech]

@@williamhigton8683 yeah I heard rumblings of that! I honestly like Zigbee the best so far

[@makeitworktech]

@@TechTechMoreTech Google WiFi!

[@ozzitor8]

This video was great. It made me think about design and logic before spending.

[@TechTechMoreTech]

Thanks man!

[@BeardedTinker]

Reallly nice overview of what to look for and what to avoid!

[@TechTechMoreTech]

Thanks! Hope it helps people!

[@MelanieDernoga]

So glad I didn't get a hub, and was sure I didn't need it. After watching this it feels good to know I went with my gut. As a Samsung and Google user, I already have google assistant and smart things etc, already "built" into my phone. And with so many smart home products' compatibility, I can practically save space on my phone without all those home apps taking up storage and so forth. Also not saying the hubs are bad, just at the end of day, it's whatever works for you.

[@ModernDayTech]

No.5 is huge. I'm so guilty of doing this. I don't have a closet of doom. I' have room of doom. At what point do you say you have enough and toss extra micro USB wires out?

[@TechTechMoreTech]

We can start a support club haha! I have managed to eliminate micro usb from my everyday life, now it’s just used by random devices but they’re all constantly plugged in so it’s not too bad.

[@KyeMacdonald]

A decent router will comfortably handle large numbers of wifi devices. Sure the crap ISP router likely won't, but I've got over 100 devices on my google wifi mesh with zero service degradation. I also use zigbee, especially for sensors, but I prefer wifi switches to zigbee ones.

[@modestmouse117]

Yaa, 2 of my cheap lights failed after a year & no such issues with hue.

[@TheBradLloyd]

Great advice Karlo! Totally agree that you shouldn’t buy something based on promised features. I definitely recommend buying #homekit compatible but I’m a little biased towards Apple! 🍎 Thanks for the vid!

[@TechTechMoreTech]

Thanks Brad! Nothing worse than the feeling that you wasted money

[@liakannan7051]

Thanks for sensible suggestions

[@NerdCyclist]

Not all future upgrades fail to happen, Flic promised Alexa routine compatibility and they delivered within a few months. Nothing wrong with cheap lights, Calex for example make really good lights and available from Tesco for under a tenner! I run mostly a WIFI SH so upgraded router to a mesh system and had no issues since and security really isn't an issue just make sure you have a really strong password on both the router and WIFI and change the name of the SSID to something that's not identifiable to you. WIFI devices are only vulnerable during setup for no more than 30 seconds so any hacker would need to know when your setting up a device!

[@TechTechMoreTech]

For sure these aren’t absolute rules, more so guidelines. Not all companies fail to deliver on promises, but I still think it’s worth waiting for the update to happen before purchasing, if it’s a very important feature to you. We have definitely come a long way in terms of price/quality, but it’s definitely worth the research ahead of time to make sure you are buying a good product

[@eduardosandoval8303]

The router provided by my ISP is a piece of trash so to solved that I bought an eero and problem solved. Now my HomeKit devises work much much better.

[@Bigglare]

I still have functional Z-wave devices that are 21 years old and working great that have been controlled by everything from hand held remotes, homeseer computer software, wink and finally Smartthings. But as controllers go defunct, the Zwave network and Ecosystem are going strong.

[@Leonvolt28]

7:38 Paul Hibbert will be proud 😂

[@TechTechMoreTech]

Haha I think so too

[@Gordidon]

Very informative video for those looking to start smart home. 💪💪

[@TechTechMoreTech]

Thanks! Happy to help 😃

[@frankreidy5881]

Great - articulate and smart - well done

[@TechTechMoreTech]

Thank you!

[@ShaiLysk]

Great content, great video and audio quality. Love the transitions. But your narration feels scripted and slooooow.

[@presse55]

Great channel Karlo! My mistake so far: As my first home automation adventure I bought several (15 or so) Wiz bulbs. I now know that just a couple of smart switches would have been a wiser and more economical choice, or maybe even motion sensors. Still, the learning is fun, and I can surely get to use those bulbs just the same. I do have a question with regards to this video. With respect to your suggestion to connect as few devices as possible to a home router, my question is this. I have HomeAssistant running on a Raspberrry Pi. All is working fine. Can I technically configure the RP to accept all those Wiz bulb connections, as opposed to the home router? After all, the RP is a WiFi device. Bear in mind, my knowledge base on routers, home networks and security is very weak. Thanks for your reply, and keep up the good work on your excellent channel! Ron Montreal

[@TechTechMoreTech]

Thanks for the kind words Ron! To answer your question, no, the Raspberry Pi cannot work as a WiFi connection. It’s WiFi radios do not work as access points so WiFi devices cannot connect to it. If your setup is working now, then that’s great! I would just be wary of adding a ton more devices, if you don’t have a more modern router. (most people can get away with something like an Eero or Eero Pro and be perfectly happy). Hope that helps!

[@justinw6448]

I've made all of these mistakes

[@Shaikailash1]

6:25 But would it still be possible to use Siri to control your Nest through a hub like Homey?

[@chrisrosenkreuz23]

hey there cheers for the content! quick question, how can you make your screen follow you from room to room? I mean if you had like a door sensor to make the main screen switch to the screen in the room you enter, waking it up and turning on the lights IFTTT maybe? but how

[@TechTechMoreTech]

Do you mean your phone screen? Or computer screen/monitor/tv?

[@chrisrosenkreuz23]

​@@TechTechMoreTech like if you had a chromecast(+screen+speakers) in each room and wanted to have any active media to also display on them respectively, when the door sensor to that room triggers? I basically need the movie/youtube to carry with me from my pc (which is set up as a google home device) when I go to another room

[@irvinggonzalez203]

thanks.! great video.! not sure why you don't have more views and likes.!

Hi Karlo, what's your opinion about Lightwave switches / plugs or in general, does it worth?

[@TechTechMoreTech]

It appears they are UK based, so I don’t have any experience with them. They also don’t have any technical details on their site which isn’t great.

@@TechTechMoreTech , many thanks for the reply. Is there any specific brand would you recommend?

[@TechTechMoreTech]

I’m less familiar with Uk/Eu products, but to my knowledge Sonoff makes some good stuff. You can also check out Everything Smart Home for advise, as they are UK based

[@caganseval]

one of those that hate ourself and want finer control over

[@addwithdiy422]

Bought Insteon ecosystem for complete home but has terrible integration

[@emmgeevideo]

I'm not sold on the risk of slowing down Netflix because you have "30 smart home devices". It's probably a crappy router to begin with, not the number of devices.

[@scottslade5884]

Biggest smart home tech fail? Buying 5 Lifx bulbs as everyone on youtube was raving about them, to then selling them on as they made my wifi speed as slow as dia-up from 2004.

[@TechTechMoreTech]

Yeah that can definitely be an issue with WiFi devices.

[@tomjones2860]

Liftmaster did the same homekit promise as Ring... And I'm still bitter about it too.

[@antonburdin9756]

MU-MIMO only works for WiFi 5 & 6. How many smart home devices support those standards?

[@TechTechMoreTech]

This was true when MU MIMO first came out however newer routers support it for 2.4GHz as well

[@antonburdin9756]

@@TechTechMoreTech This is true for WiFi 6 devices. However in order for MU-MIMO to work you need both devices to support the standard, and routers with support of 4 streams at 2.4 GHz (12 streams in total) are pricey. For now, mesh WiFi would be much better option, and since you can get WiFi 5 mesh there are plenty affordable ones. I would suggest WiFi 6 only for those who have access to speeds over 1Gb.

[@calebjpryor]

Are you related to Taran from LTT? Honestly

[@TechTechMoreTech]

No sir lol

[@davidamoritz]

Can you add a discord or email contact, I want to ask you a question but I have never had any of the social media so your contact info is kinda useless to me.

[@TechTechMoreTech]

You can email me at [e-mail]

[@davidamoritz]

@@TechTechMoreTech thank you sir! I will get with you soon with a few topics of interest like using free open source voice command programs instead of the big boys packages like mycroft.

[@Bigglare]

1. Wifi Products, avoid them at all costs, no really avoid them. I mean it, don't do it. Drive drunk and blindfolded all you want, just don't buy Wifi based IOT devices. I think you are confusing various Controllers and Ecosystems for the same things.