Mike Havens

Mike’s Smart home recommendations

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I have been talking to some friends about getting started with home automation, and I keep listing more products that I recommend. Pretty soon it became too many to remember, so I am making a list here for easy reference.

Brain

Home Assistant
Home assistant is the ultimate controller for the smarthome. It talks to practically every device, and is designed with privacy at its core, unlike many other options. Home assistant is an open source program and can be run on many different platforms. I recommend the home assistant green for beginners, and honestly it’s a great option for most people. The green is designed to be plug and play, and gets you up and running quickly.

Home assistant can be found at: https://www.home-assistant.io/

The Green can be found at: https://www.home-assistant.io/green

Controls

Inovelli Light switches – https://inovelli.com/
Inovelli makes some of the best smart switches out there. You do pay a bit more from them, but they are really designed and built well. These are what I use myself.

Zooz Light Switches – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09698KJH6?th=1
That link is to a 3-way On/off switch. They make dimmers as well. The Zooz Switches are still a really good switch, and they are a lot cheaper than the Innovelli switches.

Honeywell T6 Thermostat – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HFL7R44
This thermostat is really nice, it supports both a local schedule, as well as remote controll over Z-wave.

Devices

Innr zigbee smart bulbs – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CHM7STMF
I have 4 of the color tempurature ajustable bulbs, and I have been really happy with them so far. They can dim really low, while also producing 1100 lumens at full brightness. They also can range from 2000K – 6500K for tempurature, so you should be able to get the light that you want out of them.

Sengled Smart Bulbs – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072M5RT6L
These Bulbs by sengled are also pretty good they are not quite as nice as the Innr bulbs above and don’t feature the adjustable color tempurature settings, but they are cheaper if you don’t need that feature.

Sonoff S31 Smart plugs – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9ZBCJMC
I use several of these smart plugs around my house to monitor power usage of devices. This helps me to understand how much power is used by differnet devices thoughout my house. I have one on my washer and dryer so I can tell if they are running or not.

For these plugs I actually flash a different firmware onto them when I get them, this is called Tasmota, and it just gives better control over the hardware, as well as I trust it a lot more to not phone home. https://tasmota.github.io/docs/

Sensors

Sonoff Tempurature sensor – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C27TLFV1
I have several of these tempurature sensors thoughout my house. They work well. I have been using my oldest ones for over a year now, and they still have the original battery. They sense tempurate and relative humidity.

Goveelife Fridge sensors – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CLB648RP
These bluetooth tempurature sensors have a seperate probe, so you can have the sensor inside the fridge, but keep the battery, screen and radio outside so they work better.

OUVOPO – Door / window sensors – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D5XSGYB4
These are just a simple zigbee magnetic contact sensor. They are cheap, and work well for me.

Aqara Tempurature sensor – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D37FKGY
This tempurate sensor is very small, and does not feature a screen so you need to get the data remotely.

Aqara Motion Sensor – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09QKVMMTB
This is a small little zigbee motion sensor I have one hiding under my bed so that my under bed lights turn on when it sees my feet as I get out of bed.

Others

Zooz Zwave USB Stick – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BW171KP3
This is what I am using for My Zwave radio on my home assistant server. It works well, and I have not had any problems with it.

Sonoff Zigbee Coordinator – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B6P22YJC
This is the coordinator that I am using for Zigbee.

All links

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