[camaroz1985]

My wife thinks I went a little overboard with the smart home stuff, and looking at it all together, she might be right.



Not pictured are 7 more Hue colored bulbs, 3 smart switches, a Honeywell thermostat, and 4 outlet mounts for the Home Minis.

I originally started buying stuff that worked with Home Kit, but when I bought my wife the Home Hub for use with baking (she saw through that and knew it was just another gadget for me), I found Google Home integration to be much more reliable, and the Home Minis are much more reasonably priced way to have sound and microphones spread around the house (Yes I realize that sounds scary and I was against it first, but I have since given in). I now make sure everything I buy works with both Home Kit and Google Home (which most things do if they work with Home Kit).

What Apple does well:

I like Apple's Home app interface more, and the ability to group things more intuitively and see a quick glance of what is on, etc. Google could improve on their app and be able to group things into smaller subgroups instead of just rooms (for instance a fan that has 4 lights shows up as 4 separate lights in Google Home, but you can group them into a single item in Apple's Home app. I have found work arounds to make it a little better, but still not as nice as Apple does things.)

What Google does better:

Using voice commands, Google Home is much more reliable and faster, and the Home Hub is something Apple should look into making a competitor for. My original plan was to mount an iPad mini in the kitchen as a hub, but this is much cheaper, and works great for what we use it for (music, youtube videos, recipes, occasionally watching a game while cooking, etc.) I also hope that Apple does a better job with Home Kit. Maybe if I had a Home Pod it would be faster and less quirky, but I don't want to spend $350 for something that I can get from Google for $50 (or less. I took advantage of the Spotify's offer and having multiple email addresses, paid $14.99 each for two of them, and $0.99 each for the rest). I know the Home Pod has superior audio quality and all that, but the Home Mini is acceptable for us, and I can easily blanket my entire house with sound from the little speakers.

I think I am about done now. Just need some door locks, outdoor lights, maybe a couple cameras, and....

Ok so maybe I DO have a problem.

[Annie_8plus]

Love this!!! Thanks for sharing so much good information... especially about "What Apple does well" and "What Google does better"!

[bamf-hacker]

Nope I dont see a problem at all... I have just about the same in my home.

[Blackcash]

I don't see a problem either. I'm not quite there yet, but working on it.

[iwoodland]

I have the same in my home but connected to Siri and Alexa - The extra i have is my heating is connected to Alexa and my roomba VACUUM. It’s brilliant. I say Alexa, tell Roomba to start cleaning and the vacuum starts cleaning the house!!!

I also have Phillips hue sensors in the bathrooms etc.

[Lee_Bo]

As soon as Amazon starts working on "Alexa, wipe my hiney" then I'm permanently going off the grid.

[camaroz1985]

One other nice thing is we have 3 year olds who can't quite reach light switches, but they can tell google to turn on the lights. It's cool to see them have some independence that way. Also when we all had the flu a couple months ago none of us were touching the light switches and spreading the germs around.

There was a funny instance a couple days ago where I heard "Hey Google, make Evan help me clean up." Her response was something to the effect of "I don't know how to help you with that yet." That alone may have been worth buying everything.