Overview
First of all, what is a "Smart Home"? In my opinion, it's a set of technologies that allow you to automate things around your house and allow devices to communicate with each other and just make things easier. For example, do you manually turn on your front lights each night and turn them off in the morning? You can automate that. Do you set up timers when you go on vacation so lights are turned on and off when you aren't home? You can automate that. You get the idea.
In my case, I wanted to do all those things and more. My goals were: Automate as much as I could, have peace of mind when I was on vacation, learn about the technologies and of course, show it off when people come to visit.
Planning
I did my research before I started. Lots of great resources I found out there, especially on YouTube. Here's the steps I came up with:
- Implement better WiFi throughout the house and make it available on the front and back lawn/patio too (my existing Wifi was just, meh).
- Pick a voice assistant that everyone in the family would use and a high number of supported Smart Home devices and apps.
- Inventory all the types of Smart Home devices I would need: Smart bulbs and smart plugs were on that list.
- Once a voice assistant was selected, buy the first Smart plug and try it out (pilot program, if you will). I started with the indoor ones and then worked my way outside.
- Continue buying and configuring Smart plugs and bulbs until everything was in place.
Next: Part 2 - Better Wifi ...
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