Sonos Beam and Sonos's subwoofer, best sounding speakers I've ever heard, at least in my own house, and they also do work with Google Assistant, which is a nice bonus.

Sonos Beam and Sonos's subwoofer, best sounding speakers I've ever heard, at least in my own house, and they also do work with Google Assistant, which is a nice bonus.

And then here's the last somewhat interesting piece of hardware. It's a smart plug. So I had to look this up 'cause I'd had this for so long, but this is the Kasa Smart wifi plug. Pretty simple plug. Basically you set it up once. It's got its own app, and then it shows up in the Google Home app, and then it's a smart wifi plug. So if you wanna turn a normal lamp into a smart lamp, like I've done, easy. Or if you want to turn the Christmas tree on and off automatically for the month of December, it's perfect for that, and it's cheap.

But anyway, tying it all together, you gotta have internet around the place for it to be smart home. So I was previously using Google Assistant. So they have these little pods that double actually as assistant. They have a microphone in them, and you can just ask them anything anywhere. I was using that before, but with the walls of this house and the way it's laid out, I was not getting the speeds I wanted. So I did some research and read a lot of reviews, and eventually that's how I found these monstrosities here. These things are NETGEAR's wifi mesh system. The link is below. Now these are a lot bigger and a lot less friendly looking. So hopefully have somewhere to hide them. But the average speeds I have now across my house have literally tripled. So I see why the reviews are so good, and I'm definitely keeping them.

Now, smart lights, as far as those, I have two in the basement here, and these are Philips Hue's lamps. These are on the pricey side, but I got them because, so there's only one light in the middle of this room. So when I'm at the computer and the webcam's pointing at me, I'm basically backlit by this one light. So I have one pointed at the wall over here just to brighten up on my face, which is nice. And then the other one's over here pointing at the wall to brighten up the rest of the room. So instead of getting more lights installed, I just got them pointed at the wall.

And then the last thing on the outside, you can get a smart lock installed on pretty much any door you want. So I chose this Yale smart lock, which is as simple as it looks. It's an internet-connected passcode lock, and it's awesome that you're able to know that the door is locked from wherever you are, and you can lock it if it's not locked, if you're ever not sure. So that's a peace-of-mind win for me.

But I cover all the other points of entry here with Google cameras. So indoor camera and outdoor camera with floodlights. Nothing too special about these other than they are, of course, working in the Google Home app. They're basically versions of the Nest doorbell without the doorbell (laughs). So they're high-quality cameras, smart alerts, will recognize a set of faces, and, again, they let you draw smart zones for where to notify you of certain movements.

But I cover all the other points of entry here with Google cameras. So indoor camera and outdoor camera with floodlights. Nothing too special about these other than they are, of course, working in the Google Home app. They're basically versions of the Nest doorbell without the doorbell (laughs). So they're high-quality cameras, smart alerts, will recognize a set of faces, and, again, they let you draw smart zones for where to notify you of certain movements.

But then next up, I also have a smart doorbell. This one's more new to me. So this is a Google Nest doorbell battery. It's super handy. It's got good camera quality, a wide enough angle that you can see the ground. So anytime there's packages, it gives me an alert for those, and it talks to the app and the Nest Hub Max, no problem. So if a delivery person's at the door, and I'm not home, I can just tell them through the microphone to leave the package. I've done that a few times. And then it lets you specifically set your zones for where it should look to send you notifications so you don't get tons of unnecessary ones from cars driving by or things like that. All the classic features you'd want from a smart doorbell.

Then, the first big thing that this talks to that I have is Nest thermostats. These are already like the most popular things ever. You've probably most likely already heard of them. They learn your habits. They let you set schedules so it saves energy by not running things as much when you're away and then cooling down or heating up the house for you as you get home. I have this working hand in hand with my solar and battery setup. It is super handy, but also, Nest isn't just a good looking smart home thermostat. It also has Nest Renew, which looks at the cleanliness of the power coming into your home. It helps optimize for pulling the cleanest power anytime you actually do pull from the grid, which for me with solar is a little more rare.

So most of the tech lives actually down here in this little basement studio, and that's where I have the hub over here, which is the Google Nest Hub Max. So just like the Home app on my phone, this is where I control, you know, all the lights, ask assistant for things, view the doorbell camera when somebody rings it, et cetera. I've had this guy for a few years, and it's been rock solid.