10 Smart Home Devices I Actually Use Every Day

When you're building out a smart home, it's tough to know where to put your money. There are a lot of options and not all of them are worth it. So today I'm gonna share the devices that have made the biggest difference for me personally and which ones I would get first. Now, I'm gonna go through these starting with the devices I like and work my way up to the ones that are the most important to me. So stick around for the full list. I'll also give you a few different options for each type of device so you can find the one that fits your setup best. And a big thing for me is that all these work with Apple Home. That's my ecosystem and that's what matters to me. But everything I'm covering today also works with Amazon and Google. So regardless of what smart home platform you're on, you're covered. Now I'll put links to all these devices down in the description so you can go and check them out. As you're watching this, if there are some products or certain categories of smart devices that have made a big difference for you, share those in the comments. It's good for people to get some other ideas than just what I'm talking about. The first thing on this list, and I listed this first because I really like them, but I wouldn't necessarily put it as a high priority. For me, it is smart curtain openers, blind openers, and smart shades. One of my favorites I mentioned for years is my SwitchBot curtain opener that at 7.30 in the morning, it opens my curtains in my living room. And then a couple hours before sunset, it closes them. And I love that this is automated. For years now, this has been working in my home daily. And I highly recommend something like that, especially if you have a place where the sun sets and you get light coming in the window and cook in the room, these are perfect. Another option, if you're using Venetian blinds and they have like one of the twist rods on it, SwitchBot has a blind tilt opener that can do something similar. So you just automate it for certain times of day, opens and closes for you. I also like smart shades in the bedroom, especially where the direction my bedroom faces. I have smart shades set up, so at certain times they close, or if the temperature gets to a certain temperature, it'll close those shades for me. I recently did a video on the Brignox Smart Roller Shades, and you can check that out, I'll put that in the description. I would say these are definitely falling to the nice to have smart home category. And it doesn't have to be expensive if you go for the blind tilt or the curtain opener from SwitchBot. Both of those do need a hub though to work with your smart assistant. And if you get a Matterhub for SwitchBot stuff, you can work them into Apple Home. This video is sponsored by Ugreen. I attended their event where they announced new smart home devices. The big one is the new HomeAgent, which is a smart home hub with local AI built in, and is also a NAS to save your files and media. Just use your voice and it actually understands you. Say, hi, Yulia, open the curtains in the living room, and it'll do it. HomeAgent controls a wide range of Matter smart devices. You can use the local AI and say, hi, Yulia, let me know if the baby cries, and it'll alert you the moment it hears crying. Ugreen also announced their new indoor and outdoor cameras. On the outdoor camera, they demoed zone detection. Get too close and it triggers sirens and flashing lights to warn you off. Ugreen also announced the liquid-cooled MagFlow Pro, a magnetic power bank with a liquid-cooled window. It runs up to 18 degrees Fahrenheit, lower at peak charging compared to industry standards. Now, HomeAgents are up for pre-order with a discount if you grab it early. So check the link in the description, reserve one for $50 and save 50%. Next, an important one to me is motion sensors and presence sensors. I love motion sensors. In my office, I've been using a Philips Hue motion sensor for probably seven years now. So I walk in here, it turns on the lights, and they come on any time I come in. I love it. Presence sensors are great because they just take that to the next level. With motion sensors, if you write an automation that when motion stops, it may go off when you're in the room and you're sitting in a dark room. But with a presence sensor, like the one I'm using now in my dining room area, it is the FP300 from Aqara. With that, it knows if you're in the room, even if you're not moving at all. Like presence sensors with millimeter wave can detect your heartbeat and know you're still there. So even if you're sleeping, it can still leave some lights on. In my office, I use a motion sensor because I don't want the presence sensor to change from video lighting to regular lighting if I'm shooting a video. The motion sensor's blocked and won't change if I'm sitting at my desk. So the combination of motion sensors and presence sensors can really be great for the kind of hands-free lighting when you walk into a room. Plus you could tie other things into it, you know, turn on the AC or whatever else, get creative. Now, something that complements those nicely are smart buttons. And I use the Aqara ones, which I've, for like seven years now, six years, I don't know, since they came out, I've had an Aqara button back here that when I come in, motion turns the lights on. And then when I leave, I just hit the button, turns them off. And I have it set up so that I do a double tap, it brings up my normal office lighting. If I do a long press, it actually brings up some extra lighting behind me when I'm working at that desk. Great thing about buttons is it gives a physical way for the non-tech folks to be able to control things. So in my garage, which is a finished space to hang out, a single press turns off the lights in there. You do a double press, it brings up some like TV watching lighting. If you need more light, you just do a long press on it. And it's something my family's used to. So it controls the wired lights that are on a smart switch. It controls smart bulbs and it's seamless for everyone. I also have one at the base of my stairs. So you press it once, it turns off all the lights downstairs. Little double tap on it brings up lights in the living room. And then a long press, it makes sure the front door is locked all the lights are off downstairs and except for one in the hallway. This is a big one I love, smart switches. And often smart switches are a better choice than going with smart bulbs. Like in my kitchen, I have six bulbs in there. It's better off just to have a smart switch. It gives my family a physical way of controlling things, but then it gives me the option to automate things. Where had I put smart bulbs in there, you have to worry about keeping power onto those bulbs. And then you gotta use voice or you gotta add a button. Keep it simple for everyone in your family. And smart switches for a lot of places are the way to go. Like my kitchen, my hallways, my stairs, out in my garage, the overhead lighting, my laundry room, pretty much all throughout the house. And my favorite smart switches are Lutron Caseta. They're expensive, but they use Zigbee and need their Zigbee Hub. And I would say they are my most reliable devices in the house. I've never think about them because they just work. And something to think about though with these smart switches is even though they're expensive, think about how it's your house and you are gonna use these things daily. We are always gonna turn the kitchen lights on. So having a smart switch that turns them off so they don't get left on at night or after the kids go to school, it automatically turns the kitchen lights off. They're getting used daily and they're pretty much, unless we're on vacation, they're never not gonna be used. Now, one of the most affordable ways to get started with your smart home and very useful is smart plugs. It's a great way to get started. You can put a smart plug on your favorite lamps, all the lamps in your living room, lamps in the bedroom, put a fan on it, put heaters. I'm a little more reluctant to put those on it. But you can power on all different things. You can buy some LED strips that are cheap and not smart and just have them toggle on or off. And really anybody can do it. It's a great way to start playing around with your smart home if you're getting started. And right now, I don't have too many smart plugs in use. The two that I like, and I'm going back to a car, and the reason why I like these is they're Zigbee. Now, they are way too expensive for smart plugs. And I'm using them, one for my overhead light and one for my main light here. I got tired of some of the Wi-Fi ones falling offline. So I just, when they were on sale, I just bought them. Again, being Zigbee, they have been so consistent. Now, a more affordable option that I have a couple of in my wife's office are the SwitchBot smart plugs. And those work with Apple, Google, and Amazon. And what's nice with these smart plugs in motion sensors, present sensors, and buttons, they all play along nicely. I'm a big believer in having things happen for you automatically and having a physical control for those things too, to turn them off. I don't want to talk. I don't want to talk to my devices. I just want things to happen for me. Now, if you're finding this useful and you haven't yet, please consider subscribing. That way you can check out future videos. And again, share your ideas of devices that have worked well for you. Now, another must-have in my house at this point is a robot vacuum. I had put it off for a long time, thinking my dogs would attack it. And in the end, it was silly because I run my normal vacuum. The dogs walk, run away from it. Same thing happens with the robot vacuum. And the beauty of a robot vacuum is having it run daily. Now, with robot vacuums, I don't think they clean as well as something like my Dyson roller vacuum. But the thing is, I pull out that Dyson vacuum when I finally have to get to vacuuming and I notice a mess. With a robot vacuum, it can just clean daily so messes don't build up. I'm using one of the SwitchBot mini robot vacuums, the K11 Plus. And this thing runs at 8.30 in the morning every day. And it's able to keep up with my large dog's fur. It works great. I've been using, I think this is the third generation of SwitchBot mini vacuums I've used. I've been very happy with it. It is just nice that every morning it cleans. Now, if I want to mop, I've been using the Narwhal Freo. Now, this doesn't work with Apple Home, the version I have. But that's okay because on top of it, there's a display. So I can just flip up, unlock it, pick the mode I want and it does its thing. And with the Narwhal Freo, it'll go over spots and has a dirt detection. So if it hasn't been used in a while, I've seen it go like four times over an area. The reason that one doesn't get used as much is because there isn't a self-emptying bin for the vacuuming. And then I got to refill the water for the mopping. Now, if you go with something like the Roborock, that would be the brand I'd recommend that I don't have. You get that self-emptying bin and you get some good mopping and they're really one of the best ones out there. And one more thing with the SwitchBot vacuum, the K11 Plus and some of their other ones, they do support matter. So I'm able to work those into Apple Home, which is great. And that's something you should pay attention to if you're gonna get a robot vacuum is that check to see if it has matter support. And a lot of the Roborock ones do have that matter support. So you can use any assistant. Next is a smart lock. This has been one of the biggest game changers. I remember a long time ago, not having a smart lock and my family waiting at the door for me to walk up with the key to unlock it. Never, never again will that be the case because with a smart lock, you can set up a pin for the family. You can put fingerprint sensors for each family member. Having those options has been great because anyone in my family could just walk up and open the door. But my absolute favorite smart lock is the Aqara U400. And the reason why is that it has an ultra wide band chip built in. And with this, as you approach the door, it recognizes the ultra wide band chip in the Apple Watch or in the iPhone. It can tell distance really well. So once you get close enough, it'll unlock for you. So by the time you're going to open the door, it's already finished unlocking. But it won't accidentally unlock if you're about 10 feet away. You know, you could even pick the angle you approach the lock. So it ignores if you come from the right, but if you come from the left or straight on, it'll recognize you're there. And it's cool because if you have your family all within Apple Home, they can all take advantage of that feature. Now, if you don't wanna do a complete switch out of your lock, another option is to do a retrofit design. And I think one of the best looking retrofit locks I've used is the one from Nukey. I did make a video on that. It's kind of expensive. I think some of that is because it's an Austrian company and it's got the European security standards, plus it's made out of some good materials. It is a nice stainless steel lock. So I'll put that down there too. Retrofit locks are really easy to swap out. Now, number eight out of these 10 devices would be a good security camera. When it comes to cameras inside, some people want that, some people don't, but I think having a good camera outside is a must have. And right now, my favorite camera is the Aqara G5 Pro. It is a camera that does need power ran to it, which is a pain, but the response time is so much quicker than any battery powered cameras I've used. And I found the Aqara G5 Pro has good night vision. It's not your black and white night vision. It's got the color night vision. It works with Apple Home, so I can save my videos right into my iCloud account. And I found it's one of the quickest cameras to open up. Another nice thing is you could save your recordings locally. And that is a big one to me, is not having to pay for cloud storage in order to see your footage. If you don't wanna spend that kind of money on the G5 Pro, because it is expensive, another Aqara option I like is the G100, because that it's a $35 camera. It has a micro SD card slot on it. You could use it with Apple Home and save into your iCloud account. You could also hook it up to a NAS and save footage there. So no cloud fees. The worst thing about it is that it does need to have power run to it. And that's kept me from putting it in a couple of places. But again, being powered up all the time means I can do 24 seven recordings, which it's a trade-off. So at $35, it's a good option. Next on the list, this is the second most important device I think to have. And it's to bring some peace of mind and some security. It's having a video doorbell. My first smart device was a Ring video doorbell. And there's been a lot of improvements over time. And the Ring stuff, it works great. There's great options there. Problem is you gotta pay for cloud storage and it doesn't work with Apple Home. So the one I'm using now is the Aqara U410. The thing I like about it is that it's battery powered and it's hardwired. I can also take advantage of Apple HomeKit Secure Video, meaning that it'll save my video footage into iCloud. And since I use Apple TVs, I love that it just pops up in the corner of my TV. And I can always see when someone comes up. And I found hardwired video doorbells are definitely the way to go if you can, because you just get a quicker response out of them. With most of them, they are doing a little bit of buffering. So even with my Ring video doorbell, if somebody walked up, when the motion was activated, there would actually be five seconds before that was recording. On some of the videos with the fast UPS person, with that five second buffer, the video actually starts before they stepped out of the UPS van and brought the package up. Sometimes with the battery powered ones, you end up missing part of the action by the time it recognizes motion and starts recording. If you're looking for another brand that doesn't have cloud storage fees, look at Eufy. You just have to be careful with Eufy on which ones work with Apple Home, if you're an Apple Home user. Now, the most important device that I've used the longest has been smart bulbs. And actually the second smart device I got was a three-pack of the Filippu bulbs. And they were expensive, but they were the most popular brand out there. There was only Filippu and Nanoleaf in the beginning. And to this day, I am still using those same Filippu bulbs. Over eight years now, I've used the same Filippu bulbs. I've rotated through different bulbs, but I have kept all the Filippu stuff. And they're still going. So people will say Filippu is overpriced. I think they are a pretty balanced light. And you could get some bulbs that have good white light, like the Nanoleaf bulbs, but their color's not great. I found the Filippu bulbs are right in the middle there. They have good white light, and they have good color out of them. They are Zigbee, so they have their own hub. And I found my Hue stuff never falls offline. And what's nice now with the Hue bulbs, they have the Hue Essential bulbs. And those are their more affordable options. Their colors aren't quite as bright. Like, they're a little more limited than the regular Hue. You can get cheaper Aqara bulbs that have better white light and brightness out of them and have good color. Now, this bulb behind me is one of the Aqara white and color bulbs, and they have good white light out of them. So I'll put links to all these down below. These bulbs, I can do Thread or Zigbee. I go Zigbee. It's still the most reliable protocol at this point. When it comes to LED strips, I would stay away from Philips Hue. They are not good. They are overpriced. I would look at going with Govee instead. They have a few options. Definitely look at the Matterlite so that you could use them with any smart assistant. Philips Hue does have some new Essential strips. I haven't tried those out yet, but they are more affordable for longer lengths. There's the Flex option that is rubber coated and isn't gonna show LEDs like the regular strip. My living room has a bunch of smart bulbs and some LED strips. And what's great is that in the morning, they come on at a morning level. At 8.30, they shut off by themselves. In the evening, when the curtains close with an automation, the living room lights come on. And then at night, they turn off at 11 o'clock. And at this point in time, I don't think anybody in my family knows how to turn those lights on or off, because they just do their thing for years now without them thinking about it. If I said, I'll give you a million dollars if you could tell me within five seconds how to turn the living room lights on or off, they would lose. They would not get that million dollars. And that's a beautiful thing that the automation has worked that well, that long, that they don't even, no one thinks about it. Those are the devices that have made the biggest difference for me. Let me know in the comments section what devices have made the difference for you. If you made it this far, please consider subscribing, check out future videos. If you can, give this one a thumbs up, definitely helps the channel out. Next, here's some other videos, check them out. Thanks for watching, bye.