Help me start my smart home

[Bernadine]

I think I'm ready to do it. H and I are not tech-y. Where should we start? Echo? Echo Plus? Google Home? What do you love?

[Deleted]

What do you want to be able to do with it? That'll help me make some suggestions.

[icedcoffee]

Smart thermostat is one of the best upgrades we've ever done. We have this one by Honeywell and we love it:

www.homedepot.com/p/Honeywell-Wi-Fi-7-Day-Programmable-Thermostat-Free-App-RTH6580WF/203556922

It's cheap and works well. You could also get a Nest, but honestly this does what we need it to do for like a third of the price.

[lobster]

We have an Echo and a Dot. We also have a smart thermostat, and quite a few light bulbs and plugs. We use it daily to turn lights on/off. I like being in bed and then using the Dot to turn off my bedroom light. The switch is by the door and before I'd almost inevitably trip over the dog. I've really enjoyed the "routines" now that it is so dark in the morning. I can set my bedside lamp to slowly fade on in the morning so I'm not waking up in the pitch black. Oh and we also have the Ring doorbell. And a Roomba. My house is smarter than I remembered 😂
If you don't like the thought of the Echo/Dot always listening, you can just skip that part and use the routines or your phone to turn them on or off. You just wouldn't have the voice recognition.

The first things we got we were an Echo, the wink hub (you have to have a hub to do the lights or other devices) and a couple bulbs. Found all of them on super sale on black Friday 2 or 3 years ago. Then we have just added things 1 or 2 at a time since then.

[litskispeciality]

Nov 19, 2018 15:50:50 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

Smart thermostat is one of the best upgrades we've ever done. We have this one by Honeywell and we love it:

www.homedepot.com/p/Honeywell-Wi-Fi-7-Day-Programmable-Thermostat-Free-App-RTH6580WF/203556922

It's cheap and works well. You could also get a Nest, but honestly this does what we need it to do for like a third of the price.

I'm going to look into this. We've stayed away from the Nest because we keep the heat so low, but it would be nice to turn it up about an hour before getting home, or an hour before I get up etc. 

[juliachild]

My home is less than smart, but you can get an Echo dot right now for $1.

kinjadeals.theinventory.com/get-an-echo-dot-for-1-when-you-sign-up-for-an-amazon-m-1830360752

[Bernadine]

Nov 19, 2018 15:39:53 GMT -5 @princessbubbleyum said:

What do you want to be able to do with it? That'll help me make some suggestions.

Idk. Lol.

There's a lamp I'd probably connect it to. I like the idea of asking for a traffic report before I leave for work, or yelling to order cat food, and it does.  I'd probably use it for making lists.

I feel like there are things I could do that I don't even know about.

[donutsmakemegonuts]

We have an Echo, Dot and Spot lol. We use them to turn lights on and the fan in our bedroom on so we don't have to get out of bed. My husband programmed the Spot (in our bedroom) to respond to "good morning" by turning on the light, turning off the fan and giving us the weather report for the day. We also just got the plug in for Fire Tv so we can talk into the remote and it will search for shows automatically.

I also use Alexa to play music and make my shopping lists for me. That has been life changing.

[glitzy07]

Nov 19, 2018 16:33:16 GMT -5 juliachild said:

My home is less than smart, but you can get an Echo dot right now for $1.

kinjadeals.theinventory.com/get-an-echo-dot-for-1-when-you-sign-up-for-an-amazon-m-1830360752

Thank you for sharing this! I was going to wait until Black Friday to buy another Dot, so this is awesome!

[TheSeaward]

I love my smart garage door openers. inexpensive, easy to program and install.

[Deleted]

Nov 19, 2018 17:03:12 GMT -5 TheSeaward said:

I love my smart garage door openers. inexpensive, easy to program and install.

Me too! I love that I have a program that says that if they stay open for more than five minutes after 8 am during the week, it automatically closes. It's saved more than a few trips back home to see if we closed the door. It's also great when we're traveling to have friends check on the house. We can open the garage door and disarm the alarm without ever having to make sure we have an extra key. 

We have two nest thermostats (have 2 AC units), nest cameras and the nest doorbell. I like that they all work together and that we can adjust our HVAC by talking to Alex. 

I have a few Alexa-controlled smart plugs that allow me to program my kids' lamps they use at night to automatically shut off.