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The Ultimate Guide to the Smart Home October 3rd, 2018 Digital Back Issue Cover

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25 Articles

A basic introduction to the smart home

One way to build out a smart home is to buy lots of components—sensors, smart bulbs, security cameras, speakers, and whatnot—and connect them all to a hub that helps them communicate with each other and with you, via your smartphone. But let’s be real: That can involve spending a lot of money and investing a lot of time. And for some people, it’s just overkill. If your wants and needs are simpler, just a few relatively inexpensive products will deliver most of the conveniences a high-end smart home can deliver, and on a much more modest budget. And if you make sure those smart home products are compatible with each other, you’ll build a solid foundation that you can expand over time. The key is knowing which smart home products…

A basic introduction to the smart home

How to choose the right DIY smart home system

Before you start to build out a smart home, the first decision you need to make is whether convenience is more valuable than security. Many of the systems you’ll see when you go shopping will emphasize one or the other, even if they offer elements of both. If you’re more interested in the fun and convenience of a modern home technology—having lights turn on and off with voice commands, for example, or having a sprinkler system that operates in concert with the local weather—you’ll want a smart home system. But if you’re more concerned about being alerted to a break-in, or a disaster such as a fire or a burst water pipe, you’ll be happier with a home security system—perhaps one with a service that can dispatch first responders on…

How to choose the right DIY smart home system

How to choose the right DIY home security system

One of the first decisions you’ll make before building out your own smart home is weighing security features against convenience features. Most of the packages you’ll encounter will emphasize one or the other, even if they offer elements of both. If you’re mostly interested in being alerted to a break-in, or a disaster such as a fire or a burst water pipe, you’ll be happier with a home security system—perhaps one with a service that can dispatch first responders on your behalf. But if you’re more interested in the fun and convenience of a modern home technology—having lights turn on and off with voice commands, for example, or having a sprinkler system that operates in concert with the local weather—you’ll want a smart home system. We’ve produced two stories that…

How to choose the right DIY home security system

Installing a smart home system: Do it yourself, or hire a pro?

As you consider how to build out your smart home, you’ll be faced with four early decisions: Do you want a simple or a sophisticated system (see page 6)? Do you want a system that focuses on convenience (see page 12)? Or do you want one that emphasizes home security (see page 17)? The articles linked in the previous three questions will help you answer them. In this story, we’ll answer a fourth important question, along with a related one: Do you want to do the work yourself, or hire a professional? And if you take the DIY approach and include security features, do you want a professional to monitor it? Smart home equipment manufacturers have made it supremely easy to do the work yourself, even if you’re not an…

Installing a smart home system: Do it yourself, or hire a pro?

Best smart home systems for a connected domicile

From smart light bulbs and thermostats that think for themselves to Bluetooth door locks, wireless security cameras, and all manner of sensors, today’s home technology can sound awfully sophisticated while actually being a messy hodgepodge of gizmos and apps. Whether you call it home automation or the connected home, installing all this stuff in your house is one thing. Getting it to work together smoothly and with a single user interface can be something entirely different. There are essentially two types of smart home controllers that can tie a home's disparate smart components together into a cohesive system. There's the complete smart home system that can do it all: Controlling everything from your lights and HVAC system to smart entry locks and motorized window shades. These systems typically also provide…

Best smart home systems for a connected domicile

Best all-around smart home system: Samsung SmartThings Hub

SmartThings isn’t the earliest entrant to the DIY smart home market—it’s predated by companies such as HomeSeer (go.techhive.com/hmsr), Insteon (go.techhive.com/istn), and Vera (go.techhive.com/vera)—but its hub has gained the kind of mainstream market acceptance that has eluded its elders (all of which are still around). SmartThings has evolved considerably since it crowd-funded its way to a $1.2 million launch budget in 2012. Even after Samsung acquired the company in 2014, the SmartThings hub remained a scrappy product that eschewed the razzle dazzle of some of its competitors. The second-generation hub reviewed here, which arrived in 2015, was a mostly cosmetic update (apart from the welcome addition of battery backup and video-streaming support) accompanied by a spruced-up mobile app. Samsung recently announced a third-generation SmartThings hub (go.techhive.com/sthu), along with a mesh Wi-Fi…

Best all-around smart home system: Samsung SmartThings Hub

Best security-focused smart home system: Ring Alarm

Ring builds some of our favorite video doorbells and security camera/outdoor lighting mashups. Now the company—recently acquired by Amazon—is moving inside the home with a strong and inexpensive DIY home security system: Ring Alarm. It’s a fantastic product today, and Ring says it will only get better with time. Ring Alarm is positioned as a mainstream home security system, and while you won’t find a great deal of innovation here (there’s nothing like the Nest Detect sensor that comes with the much-more-expensive Nest Secure system (go.techhive.com/nscr), for example), it’s already equipped with everything it needs to grow into a comprehensive smart home system. Ring Alarm doesn’t support smart lighting controls, door locks, thermostats, garage-door openers, or other common smart home products today, and there’s a very short list of supported…

Best security-focused smart home system: Ring Alarm

Which smart speakers deliver the best combination of digital assistant and audio performance?

You don’t need to live in a smart home to benefit from a Wi-Fi-connected smart speaker. Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, Cortana, and other digital assistants can help you in dozens of ways, and you don’t have to lift a finger to summon them—just speak their names. But consider your decision carefully. In a perfect world, these devices would be interoperable, so you could buy one brand because it’s better for music, another brand because it’s the best for smart home control, and a third because it’s superior for retrieving general information from the internet. That’s not how it works in the real world. Once you commit to one platform, you’ll want to stick with it. On the upside, choosing one brand of smart speaker over another generally won’t tie you…

Which smart speakers deliver the best combination of digital assistant and audio performance?

Best bang-for-the-buck smart speaker: Amazon Echo Dot (2nd generation)

When I reviewed the very first Amazon Echo (go.techhive.com/1ech), I predicted that people would want one in every room. The Echo can control your home’s lighting, play music, estimate your commute time, operate a timer, answer trivia questions, read books and news bulletins to you, tell you which movies are at your local theater, and so much more. You can order a pizza from Dominoes, a ride from Uber, or virtually anything from Amazon. You’d want one in every room so you didn’t need to walk to the room it was in to use it, or yell “Alexa!” from across the house to get its attention. I’m sure Amazon loved my idea, but it was never going to happen on a broad scale at $180 a pop. So Amazon got…

Best bang-for-the-buck smart speaker: Amazon Echo Dot (2nd generation)

Best smart speaker for most people: Amazon Echo Spot

I’ll just come out and say it: Amazon’s newest Echo hits the sweet spot. The Echo Spot fills a hole in Amazon's Alexa lineup (go.techhive.com/axlu) that I didn’t even know was there. With no less than six smart speakers, plus a variety of tablets and apps, I thought Amazon had its bases more than covered. There are Alexa options to handle every room, budget, and situation in need of a smart speaker. And if you can't find something in Amazon's stable, you can choose from a bevy of third-party Alexa-compatible devices. But while the Spot isn't the first Echo device with a screen, it is the first seemingly designed to complement whatever room you put it in. It might not stand out like the Show, but it doesn't fade into…

Best smart speaker for most people: Amazon Echo Spot

Best smart speaker for playing music: Google Home Max

Getting a review unit late, as is the case with the Google Home Max, gives me the benefit of reading a lot of people’s opinions of a product before I formulate my own. And reviewing a lot of similar speakers before I evaluate the one at hand gives me a broad base of experience upon which to formulate mine. Based on those two fronts, the Google Home Max has been praised just a wee bit overenthusiastically. That said, the Google Home Max is the best smart speaker I’ve heard. Amazon certainly has nothing close to it in terms of audio performance, and neither do any of the manufacturers building Echo clones. Apple’s HomePod (go.techhive.com/hmpd) comes close, but compared to many other comparably sized, self-powered, dumb multi-room speakers—the second-generation Sonos Play:5…

Best smart speaker for playing music: Google Home Max

Best smart speaker with a large display: Lenovo Smart Display

The Lenovo Smart Display gives Google Assistant a face and, well, it’s kind of beautiful. As promised at CES (go.techhive.com/gsmd) and then again at Google I/O, Lenovo is finally rolling out the first Google Assistant device with a display, delivering a fresh new spin on the smart home speaker. While Amazon has been selling its Echo Show (go.techhive.com/ecsh) for more than a year (and the smaller Echo Spot (see page 58) for about half as long), Google has taken its time with building its visual Assistant. We’ve seen glimpses of it on our phones, cars, and TVs (using Chromecast for the last), but Google Assistant on the Lenovo Smart Display isn’t just a cobbling together of Assistant’s existing screen appearances. It’s an entirely new interface that adds a deep new…

Best smart speaker with a large display: Lenovo Smart Display

Best smart thermostat: Reviews and buying advice

The best smart thermostat will have an outsize impact not only how comfortable you are in your home, but also on your household budget. Heating and cooling your home accounts for nearly half of the average home’s utility bills, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. A programmable thermostat can help reduce those costs by turning your HVAC system on when you anticipate being home, and off when you don’t think you’ll need indoor climate control. A smart thermostat goes far beyond relying on a simple schedule. It will enable you to create more sophisticated schedules for every day of the week, and give you complete control over your HVAC system, even when you’re away from home. We continually test and evaluate smart thermostats and can help you find the…

Best smart thermostat: Reviews and buying advice

Best smart thermostat: Ecobee 4

The Ecobee3 (go.techhive.com/ecb3) was already our favorite smart thermostat, edging out the Nest Learning Thermostat (page 84) thanks to its remote sensors and overall functionality, but we weren’t sure what to expect from the follow-up. Apparently, the answer is Alexa. The Ecobee4 plays it safe when it comes to evolving the winning thermostat line. So safe, in fact, that there’s only one major difference between the 3 and 4: the integration of Amazon’s Alexa smart assistant. The Alexa difference If you were thinking of upgrading your home to an Ecobee, but waiting on the latest, that purchase decision relies entirely on your interest in being able to talk directly to your thermostat. While the 4 looks almost identical to the 3, if slightly larger, it’s now packed with a speaker…

Best smart thermostat: Ecobee 4

The most stylish smart thermostat: Nest Learning Thermostat

The Nest has been the smart thermostat of choice since it arrived on the scene in 2011. Google bought Nest Labs because its thermostat was so impressive, but the product hasn’t changed much over the years—it’s still a reliable and smart way to control your heating and cooling with minimal user effort. The Nest is ahead of the pack in many ways, but the competition is closing in fast. Installation and Set-up One area where the Nest unabashedly excels is in setup. Actual hardware installation is essentially the same across the board with smart thermostats—it alters depending on how many (and which) 24-volt wires your current system uses. The Nest supports the common C-wire, but doesn’t require it. The instructions are very detailed, making hardware installation an easy task. The…

The most stylish smart thermostat: Nest Learning Thermostat

Honeywell Lyric T5 smart thermostat: Not as advanced as some, less expensive than many

Honeywell’s Lyric T5 Wi-Fi Thermostat is the company’s budget-priced alternative to its higher-end Lyric Round (go.techhive.com/lyro). With a price tag that’s just $50 lower than the Round, however, some will find the T5 more appealing because of its style than its price tag. The T5 is square with a sleek black finish and a simple, but effective touchscreen interface. It’s a high-tech look that doesn't go over the top. The Lyric T5 requires the presence of the C wire coming from your HVAC system, but detailed instructions make for easy installation and setup. The Lyric T5 is compatible with a broad range of hardware, including single-and multi-stage heating and cooling systems, heat pumps with and without auxiliary heat, geothermal and hot-water heating, and 24-volt gas fireplaces. Unlike the Lyric Round,…

Honeywell Lyric T5 smart thermostat: Not as advanced as some, less expensive than many

Best home security camera: Keep an eye on the home front

Whether you rent or own your home, you want the best security camera system for keeping an eye on your home while you’re gone. That used to entail signing on with a professional—and pricey—security service like ADT. But a boom in consumer-level smart-home tech is putting indoor and outdoor home surveillance into our own hands. These close cousins of webcams require minimal installation and offer flexible setups and a range of security features. Indeed, the offerings vary widely by camera, and deciding what to buy gets more daunting as this category grows ever more crowded. But whether you’re looking for an easy way to check on your kids and pets, or a full-service sentinel to monitor for intruders, we’ll help find the right product for your needs. These are our…

Best home security camera: Keep an eye on the home front

Best indoor home security camera: Arlo Pro 2

Just a year after introducing the Arlo Pro, Arlo has refined the popular indoor/outdoor home security camera. The Arlo Pro 2 adds higher resolution, improved motion detection, and more flexible installation options to an already impressive list of features. The Arlo Pro 2 features Full HD 1080p resolution, up from 720p, putting it on a par with other Netgear security cameras including the indoor Arlo Q (go.techhive.com/arlq) and Arlo Baby (go.techhive.com/arlb) nursery monitor. It also now includes AC power support in addition to its 2440mAh rechargeable battery. The added power gained from plugging the camera in allows you to take advantage of video analytics-driven motion detection that offers greater range and is more accurate than the passive infrared (PIR) motion detection the camera uses on battery power. It also enables…

Best indoor home security camera: Arlo Pro 2

Best outdoor home security camera: Nest Cam IQ Outdoor

With the introduction of the Nest Cam IQ (go.techhive.com/nciq) last year, Nest began to evolve the Dropcam platform it had acquired several years earlier. That camera’s hardware and software upgrades appear to be the blueprint for Nest cameras going forward judging by the fact they’ve been ported wholesale to the new IQ Outdoor (go.techhive.com/ncod). Nest already offers an estimable outdoor camera in the Nest Cam Outdoor, and the all-new IQ Outdoor shares many traits with it, including a 130-degree field of view, up to 1080p video, and a similar sturdily built cup-style design. But in every other way, the IQ Outdoor is a leap forward thanks to features cribbed from the indoor IQ camera. The most impressive of these is “Supersight,” which leverages a 4K image sensor, High Dynamic Range…

Best outdoor home security camera: Nest Cam IQ Outdoor

Best outdoor security camera/floodlight combo: Maximus Camera Floodlight

Ring is the brand most people think of when it comes to floodlight cams, but Maximus (and its corporate ally Kuna, which provides the underlying technology) is trying harder to get noticed. The Maximus Camera Floodlight, first announced way back at CES 2017 (go.techhive.com/msms), is finally available—and it’s a compelling value. The Maximus doesn’t have an answer for every feature that you’ll find in the Ring Floodlight Cam, but it offers some features Ring doesn’t. The biggest difference is in the floodlight itself. Both companies build their floodlights with LEDs, but where the Ring’s are inside somewhat conventional cans, the Maximus’ lights are flat rectangular panels. The large passive-infrared motion sensor that hangs down and in between the two panels like a round proboscis imbues the Maximus with an insect-like…

Best outdoor security camera/floodlight combo: Maximus Camera Floodlight

Best budget home security camera: Xiaomi Mi Home

“Cheap” and “security” are generally two words no one wants to see side-by-side, particularly where their home is concerned. But Xiaomi’s Mi Home Security Camera makes that proposition a lot less scary. Equipped with a 130-degree ultra-wide-angle lens, 1080P video capture, night vision, intelligent motion detection, two-way talk, and more, the Mi is at least as good as some cameras three times the price, and it’s far better than any $40 cam ought to be. The Mi design harks back—way back—to the simplicity of the original Dropcam. The camera unit is set into a plastic faceplate that attaches to a round hinged stand. You just plop it on a table or shelf, point it at the area you want it to monitor, and tilt the camera forward or back on…

Best budget home security camera: Xiaomi Mi Home

Best video doorbell: It's Nest vs. Ring

Your front door is the gateway to your home, so it needs to be well protected. Whether you’re watching for trouble-makers, monitoring for parcel deliveries, waiting for friends to visit, or hiding from that weird neighbor who keeps asking to borrow your lawn mower, these dual-purpose video surveillance systems will help you keep an eye out. If your house has existing low-voltage doorbell wiring, take advantage of it for uninterrupted service. If it doesn’t, we can recommend a battery-powered solution that’s more flexible when it comes to location. And if you’re renting and can’t mount anything to the wall—or you'd just prefer not to—we can recommend a couple of alternatives. Most video doorbells come with motion detection, night vision, and smartphone alert features, so be sure to read our full…

Best video doorbell: It's Nest vs. Ring

Best wired video doorbell: Nest Hello

If you’re considering a video doorbell, the Nest Hello should be on your short list. It has great video quality, a solid app, and it operated flawlessly during my test. There’s slick integration with Google Home and Google Assistant, and a recently launched 5-day subscription plan for storing video in the cloud reduces one of the biggest hurdles to a Nest system: the ongoing running cost. It’s a worthy competitor to the Ring Video Doorbell 2, but the Nest Hello requires wiring so we still recommend the Ring if you need a battery-powered device. Nest Hello is a smart, good-looking doorbell that feels solid and well made. There’s a large button at the bottom and a matching clear plastic cover at the top in front of the camera. It needs…

Best wired video doorbell: Nest Hello

Best battery-powered video doorbell: Ring Video Doorbell 2

The Ring Video Doorbell 2 ($199 on Amazon [go.techhive.com/byd2]) is a relatively modest, incremental update to the original Ring Video Doorbell (go.techhive.com/rvd1). And, wow, some of its set-up procedure was seriously frustrating. But as a more-or-less satisfied owner of Ring’s first doorbell, I have to give Ring credit: Motion detection is better than ever, and once I got through some initial set-up hassles, Ring Video Doorbell 2 was actually easier to install than the first- generation product. Smart home gadgets are rarely as smart as we need them to be, and I’ve spent a lot of time on Ring tech support over the last two years, struggling to get the original doorbell working as advertised. But Ring has been tenacious, and through constant iteration the company has improved its core…

Best battery-powered video doorbell: Ring Video Doorbell 2

Brinno SHC1000 Peephole Camera: Combat porch pirates with this concealed camera

With the uptick in package theft, many residential users have turned to outdoor home security cameras and video doorbells to combat porch piracy. The Brinno SHC500 Peephole Camera (go.techhive.com/bri) is one of our favorite alternatives. It's a concealed camera that records video of package thieves, potential intruders, and unwelcome solicitors through your front door’s peephole. The only drawback was that, unless you purchased the separate Brinno KNS100 Knocking Sensor, video recording had to be manually activated. And even with the sensor, it wouldn’t record someone trying to deliver—or steal—a package. The Brinno SHC1000 fixes that shortcoming by including a built-in knocking sensor and a separate motion sensor. Setup and usage Like the its predecessor, the SHC1000 comes with an optical-grade-lens peephole that replaces the one currently in your door, and…

Brinno SHC1000 Peephole Camera: Combat porch pirates with this concealed camera

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