Yeah relying on Apple’s automations to maintain a complex smart home is basically impossible at this point. But rest assured if you already spend several hours by now, you will spend even more time with the amount of flexibility and tinkering available in home assistant. I moved to my place 4 months ago and still didn’t finish setting up everything I want on the software.
I was going to recommend home assistant also because I know you can expose enties from home assistant to the other assistants and still have everything work from home assistant plus you get a dashboard that works and 1 single place to pair things to and it will let you know when things are acting up and I know with Google cast devices like Google tv and Google home you can cast your dashboard or cameras to the display I don't know If you can do that with apple devices or Amazon devices since I don't own them
I really enjoyed this video. I started my smart home as a google home with all nest everything, but as an apple centric person I slowly switched everything over to HomeKit and it has been so much better. I feel like the thing most people don’t understand about smart homes is hubs make all the difference. WiFi is too flaky and inconsistent but a good hub based system (Lutron, Phillips Hue) will change your mind on the whole concept. My setup includes multiple hubs including 16 HomeKit devices (4 Apple TVs and multiple HomePods) and I also use Aquara and Meross devices and everything works great (for me). Good luck with your setup.
Don’t slide the alarm setting button in HomeKit. When you want to change it to away or off just touch those buttons. I’ve got the same set up and it works every time without having to fight it to change the state of the ring alarm.
Lutron switches and meross smart plugs have been solid for me. I also have the Logitech doorbell it’s works great. Does overheat in direct sun but that hasn’t been an issue for me. Overall keeping it simple is the best approach imo
The smart things app of your sensors through Home Kit on the Home app is generally glitchy due to iOS that is compressed some of these programs won’t exactly adjust very fast because of the iOS glitching. You have a beautiful home John, it’s great to see you.
@@jon4lakers are you concerned that technology/remote hacking to unlock? It may become a thing if not easier than physical key lock picking If someone smart enough to run a script to do it in seconds. I want to do digital locks from my house but I have yet to pull the trigger for that reason
Hey John, go with Eufy Smart door locks. I've been using 2 for the last year with no issues what so ever, only had to charge the battery once. Also, the keys are very secure, not the standard type of key neither.
Also why do you only have just over 1.6 million subscribers. Next to MKBHD your Technobuffalo channels was all i used to watch years back. Sad to see that you're not up there with your subscribers like the other newcomers. Need you back up there with the credit you deserve. One of the greatest Tech RUclipsrs 🙌
Jon, I suggest for the IP camera set it to a daily or every two day restart at sometime. Keep it fresh and not having issue with connection. Pretty sure you can have an aqara automation but jot sure if it allows camera restart
If you want a good smart home assistant. Home Assistant which is self hosted, and make everything wired. The fewer things connected wirelessly, the more reliable it will be. You won’t need to worry about being a cable mess if you use PoE devices so the network cable will also carry power.
At 16:40 for the issue with setting the alarm to home where it jumps to away. That interface doesn't work like a slider. Instead press the home like a button. that should solve that problem
Great video Jon. Really frustrating that things just don’t work the way they are supposed to, given it must have been pretty expensive to set all this up. Curious what the cost was of all of it including all those Lutron switches. Curious why you chose HomeKit when there are so many more compatible devices with Google and Amazon.
Yes Logi camera goes offline regularly 1-2 times every 2-3 months. I now put a smart plug on it and turn the smart plug on and off to reset the camera. Beuty is both devices can be controlled in the camera view in home it by exposing the accessories in that room.
Are you relying on that single wifi homepod as your homekit controller? If so that may be the root of a lot of your issues. I've found that AppleTV 4K with a wired ethernet connection makes for a much more stable homekit experience.
i am running my setup with Home bridge running on a raspberry pi 4 with Tuya device from Ali express and it seems to be working sometimes its does take a few sec because the Tuya plugin i am using on Home bridge is an online one so it needs to go through the internet and back to my house for the action to take place.
Its good to see that no matter what ecosystem your choose, there are always going to be problems. Here's to another year of devices that disconnect when you actually need them.
I came from a Google Home/Hue setup, and tried moving everything to HomeKit when we bought our new house a few years back. I have been experiencing so many of the same annoyances you detailed. The entire family misses our old setup. I'm slowly swapping everything out and moving away from Logitec and HomeKit.
Honestly as an "Apple just works" guy, HomeKit is the most un-Apple experience imaginable, you'll have a FAR better time with Home Assistant at the expense of some prettiness
You don't really need to do "at the expense", as Home Assistant has HomeKit bridge, and can export all devices via HomeKit protocol so they are accessible with "Home" app in macOS/iPhone/iPad ;) And you can find iOS-like themes out there for Home Assistant too!
@@hessulipoika13 You don`t need to code to setup home assistant, lol I just installed mine and I chose to do it in a home server, but you can do it in like 30 minutes with a raspberry pi and a external ssd / sd card
@@hessulipoika13you really don’t need to be able to code to have far superior automations in HomeAssistant than you could using Apple Home. Almost everything is accessible via the UI.
Have you used any wifi scanner device (or app) to see if you're running into channel congestion in the 2.4G band? That can cause a lot of intermittent connection issues.
I’m not sure if you mentioned it or not but I’m assuming the locks go off a trigger when the door is shut can’t you just also set it as a back up like most of them where it’ll just lock regardless after a certain timeframe like safe for example the 10 seconds after you shut the door they should’ve locked, but they don’t couldn’t you just have like the default locking mechanism set for like a minute Just in case?
Some tricks I have found which helps the most with flaky 2.4g cameras has been plugging them into smart switches. For whatever reason the switches almost never have an issue so when a camera goes offline I just toggle the switch off and on and within a few seconds I’m back up. Most of my issues has certainly been a connection or power issue but there are still issues. You might try out some of the eve products as I have had the best ‘luck’ with them.
you are likelly at the limit of connections that your router can handle...the next most evident troubleshooting would be signal quality in some areas of your house in which case you'll need mesh/repeaters etc
Could the issue with the locks be signal/interference related (the homehub being too far away?) Edit: just to clarify I do believe that it needs to either be a homepod or apple tv. The camera hub only should work if connected with the aqara app
Hoobs use to work great, now mine is basically a brick and none of the things I had working work anymore. Just reading on their subreddit sounds like I’m not alone either
@@whatsbraddoingnow57 I’m sure you’re right, but I don’t know what any of that means. 😂 I’m sure it’s great if you’re younger and tech savvy. That leaves me out, I have enough trouble with my 3 TV/DCR/SOUND BAR remotes. 😬
Try the TP-Link - Tapo C125. I have 4 of them now and they have never went offline. Looking at getting a 5th. I also retired that same Logitech circle. After a year it became completely useless.
Are Tapos HKSV compatible? My whole thing is that I want devices that don’t require additional subs, and the options I have are limited to Logitech (I also have stability issues at times), Eve (good but requires a sconce), and Eufy (I don’t think their acknowledgment of their security issues was sufficient).
Are Tapos HKSV compatible? My whole thing is that I want devices that don’t require additional subs, and the options I have are limited to Logitech (I also have stability issues at times), Eve (good but requires a sconce), and Eufy (I don’t think their acknowledgment of their security issues was sufficient).
@@LoopyChew Yes that specific model I named is supported by HKSV. You do not have to use their sub service if you don't want to. I think you can skip their app completely and setup directly in HomeKit but I also think the trade off is lack of firmware updates . Beware that certain tapo models do not support HomeKit at all.
Have you tried using home assistant? You may be able to unlock more features using home assistant rather than HomeKit, and if you have devices that are not using HomeKit compatible hardware, you could use something like scrypted to make it homekit compatible.
I love your content, but honestly, some of the stuff just frustrates me. I wouldn’t even bother with HomeKit. The only reason I really wanted it was to get video notifications on my television, which ended up not being that big of a deal since I have so many Alexis screens around my house that would just show me the doorbell if somebody rang it or if I got motion at a certain camera outside at a certain hour Late at night so that solved itself but honestly, the Alexa ones just work so much better I never have this issue with my door locks while they are smart by default. They just lock. I think I have mindset to every 30 seconds and it never fails for that kind of money to spend on both of those locks I would definitely invest in something different because they shouldn’t be doing thatthat would be really frustrating
That's a lot of headaches, I have a nest and eufy camera and door lock and I don't have any problems. Even my cheap smart lights are connected to my Google home and vacuum everything works 99.9 percent of the time. The only times it doesn't work is because my dogs knock down the power to my router. Everything is connected to my Google home and has never had an issue. My wife would have taken everything out if it didn't work for her, she is not techy
If the two locks only lock 80% of the time. I'm curious why you choose to actively go keyless? Seems like it can be a pain for the 20% you needing to come back and confirm they are locked.
OMG, I am having such a hard time with my Ecobee and Switchbot Hub 2 / Lock Pro. They were fine for a while, and now just don't talk to HomeKit anymore!!!! WTF!!!!!!!!!
The only suggestion I can make from experience is the nest hub max and you might want more than one. I would also suggest the nest doorbell to go with the hub max because Google doesn't seem to play nice with any doorbell but their own.
Homekit is so bad. if it wasn't for Google, I wouldn't be able to use my smart devices most of the time. I carry a Pixel 9 as a 2nd device to my iPhone 16 Pro to make my stuff work. Logitech circleview is Terrible. I had to buy a remote plug so I can remote cut power and reboot the circleview.... crazy
@@marklabonte2925yup it's straight 🗑️ this days. I've even upgraded to the newer cameras and door bell and it's gotten worse. Ever since they merged with nest it's been 🗑️.
@@jon4lakers A thief is going to use the most convenient way to get it. Bust out the glass next to your door and unlock the locks manually by hand. Or just go through a window. Door locks keep honest people out. That is all they do. A determined thief will always get around a lock.
![[#2024MAMA] ROSÉ (로제), Bruno Mars - APT. | Mnet 241122 방송](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/dgGqD28J6aQ/mqdefault.jpg)
I saw all the comments, excited to try Home Assistant. I'll film an update video.
You'll be happy you switched once you get the system up and running
Yeah relying on Apple’s automations to maintain a complex smart home is basically impossible at this point. But rest assured if you already spend several hours by now, you will spend even more time with the amount of flexibility and tinkering available in home assistant. I moved to my place 4 months ago and still didn’t finish setting up everything I want on the software.
Was just about to comment this... You can even bridge into homekit if you prefer that as your frontend!
Easiest entry to home assistant is home assistant green, welcome to the club
Yes please. Use home assistant for the love of god. Once you learn how to use it, you'll love it.
Home assistant is the answer! It can be as detailed or simple as you want to make it.
I was going to recommend home assistant also because I know you can expose enties from home assistant to the other assistants and still have everything work from home assistant plus you get a dashboard that works and 1 single place to pair things to and it will let you know when things are acting up and I know with Google cast devices like Google tv and Google home you can cast your dashboard or cameras to the display
I don't know If you can do that with apple devices or Amazon devices since I don't own them
Seeing this recommended a ton here. Going to try it.
Agree! You can even use Home Assistant with SenseCAP Watcher, adding the power of tinyML and LLM to make smarter homes.
I really enjoyed this video. I started my smart home as a google home with all nest everything, but as an apple centric person I slowly switched everything over to HomeKit and it has been so much better.
I feel like the thing most people don’t understand about smart homes is hubs make all the difference. WiFi is too flaky and inconsistent but a good hub based system (Lutron, Phillips Hue) will change your mind on the whole concept.
My setup includes multiple hubs including 16 HomeKit devices (4 Apple TVs and multiple HomePods) and I also use Aquara and Meross devices and everything works great (for me).
Good luck with your setup.
Probably a solid idea
Don’t slide the alarm setting button in HomeKit. When you want to change it to away or off just touch those buttons.
I’ve got the same set up and it works every time without having to fight it to change the state of the ring alarm.
Great video Jon. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Home assistant>*
Honestly is! There's really no restrictions to the types of automations you can create.
Lutron switches and meross smart plugs have been solid for me. I also have the Logitech doorbell it’s works great. Does overheat in direct sun but that hasn’t been an issue for me. Overall keeping it simple is the best approach imo
The smart things app of your sensors through Home Kit on the Home app is generally glitchy due to iOS that is compressed some of these programs won’t exactly adjust very fast because of the iOS glitching.
You have a beautiful home John, it’s great to see you.
Home Assistant all the way
If the battery dies why wouldn't you want a backup key?
Keys can get bumped. There’s a port on the bottom I can use if power ever goes out. But I get alters as battery goes down
@@jon4lakers thanks! Looks neat!
@@jon4lakers are you concerned that technology/remote hacking to unlock? It may become a thing if not easier than physical key lock picking If someone smart enough to run a script to do it in seconds. I want to do digital locks from my house but I have yet to pull the trigger for that reason
Hey John, go with Eufy Smart door locks. I've been using 2 for the last year with no issues what so ever, only had to charge the battery once. Also, the keys are very secure, not the standard type of key neither.
Also why do you only have just over 1.6 million subscribers. Next to MKBHD your Technobuffalo channels was all i used to watch years back. Sad to see that you're not up there with your subscribers like the other newcomers. Need you back up there with the credit you deserve. One of the greatest Tech RUclipsrs 🙌
Garage Door opener - use either Tailwind or RATGDO
HOOBS is an acronym for HomeBridge Out Of the Box.
Jon, I suggest for the IP camera set it to a daily or every two day restart at sometime. Keep it fresh and not having issue with connection. Pretty sure you can have an aqara automation but jot sure if it allows camera restart
If you want a good smart home assistant. Home Assistant which is self hosted, and make everything wired. The fewer things connected wirelessly, the more reliable it will be. You won’t need to worry about being a cable mess if you use PoE devices so the network cable will also carry power.
At 16:40 for the issue with setting the alarm to home where it jumps to away. That interface doesn't work like a slider. Instead press the home like a button. that should solve that problem
i think you might be right actually.
Great video Jon. Really frustrating that things just don’t work the way they are supposed to, given it must have been pretty expensive to set all this up. Curious what the cost was of all of it including all those Lutron switches. Curious why you chose HomeKit when there are so many more compatible devices with Google and Amazon.
Yes Logi camera goes offline regularly 1-2 times every 2-3 months.
I now put a smart plug on it and turn the smart plug on and off to reset the camera. Beuty is both devices can be controlled in the camera view in home it by exposing the accessories in that room.
That’s an interesting workaround.
Are you relying on that single wifi homepod as your homekit controller? If so that may be the root of a lot of your issues. I've found that AppleTV 4K with a wired ethernet connection makes for a much more stable homekit experience.
i am running my setup with Home bridge running on a raspberry pi 4 with Tuya device from Ali express and it seems to be working sometimes its does take a few sec because the Tuya plugin i am using on Home bridge is an online one so it needs to go through the internet and back to my house for the action to take place.
Its good to see that no matter what ecosystem your choose, there are always going to be problems. Here's to another year of devices that disconnect when you actually need them.
I came from a Google Home/Hue setup, and tried moving everything to HomeKit when we bought our new house a few years back. I have been experiencing so many of the same annoyances you detailed. The entire family misses our old setup. I'm slowly swapping everything out and moving away from Logitec and HomeKit.
In my ~3 years running HomeKit using an Apple TV as the primary hub, no problems. We do have items from Aqara, and those play well.
The ring systems are rock solid, as a HomeKit user I wish companies making other alarms would take notes
With the aqara locks you can setup and automaton when you unlock one of the locks the other Auto Unlock’s
good idea!
Honestly as an "Apple just works" guy, HomeKit is the most un-Apple experience imaginable, you'll have a FAR better time with Home Assistant at the expense of some prettiness
You don't really need to do "at the expense", as Home Assistant has HomeKit bridge, and can export all devices via HomeKit protocol so they are accessible with "Home" app in macOS/iPhone/iPad ;)
And you can find iOS-like themes out there for Home Assistant too!
You forgot to mention, expense of few weeks of learning to code
@@hessulipoika13 I’ve never needed to code anything on HA - whenever I’ve wanted to do something complex chatGPT has nailed it every single time
@@hessulipoika13 You don`t need to code to setup home assistant, lol
I just installed mine and I chose to do it in a home server, but you can do it in like 30 minutes with a raspberry pi and a external ssd / sd card
@@hessulipoika13you really don’t need to be able to code to have far superior automations in HomeAssistant than you could using Apple Home.
Almost everything is accessible via the UI.
Have you used any wifi scanner device (or app) to see if you're running into channel congestion in the 2.4G band? That can cause a lot of intermittent connection issues.
I ran a dedicated 2.4 for a while
Great walk-through, been wondering about some of these things
🙏
I’m not sure if you mentioned it or not but I’m assuming the locks go off a trigger when the door is shut can’t you just also set it as a back up like most of them where it’ll just lock regardless after a certain timeframe like safe for example the 10 seconds after you shut the door they should’ve locked, but they don’t couldn’t you just have like the default locking mechanism set for like a minute Just in case?
Some tricks I have found which helps the most with flaky 2.4g cameras has been plugging them into smart switches. For whatever reason the switches almost never have an issue so when a camera goes offline I just toggle the switch off and on and within a few seconds I’m back up. Most of my issues has certainly been a connection or power issue but there are still issues. You might try out some of the eve products as I have had the best ‘luck’ with them.
Homekit NEEDS to be better.
Ohh I have that same problem sometimes with my Govee light strips. Sometimes they don't connect and turn off
you are likelly at the limit of connections that your router can handle...the next most evident troubleshooting would be signal quality in some areas of your house in which case you'll need mesh/repeaters etc
Have you verified the network on the locks?
From the looks of it simply missing signals
Awesome tour, I took a few ideas from you😊
Could the issue with the locks be signal/interference related (the homehub being too far away?)
Edit: just to clarify I do believe that it needs to either be a homepod or apple tv. The camera hub only should work if connected with the aqara app
the Hoobs is just a raspberry pi, you can buy the raspberry pi and run Home bridge on it for last cost
Nice video Jon, do many of your tech items have well built standalone apps outside of the HomeKit connection?
Some. The aqara app is solid.
Hoobs use to work great, now mine is basically a brick and none of the things I had working work anymore. Just reading on their subreddit sounds like I’m not alone either
Nice house! For myself a smart house wouldn't fit me, i kinda like a more "simple" old school way of living for myself i think.
totally reasonable
Home Assistant 100%
A smart house sounds like a nightmare. It’s enough to maintain analog homes.
It is, but as long as you choose the right smart home devices, you can get things to work like a dumb home if everything breaks down.
thats what happens when you rely on wifi devices. a true smart home is full of zigbee or zwave devices with proper hubs
@@whatsbraddoingnow57 I’m sure you’re right, but I don’t know what any of that means. 😂
I’m sure it’s great if you’re younger and tech savvy. That leaves me out, I have enough trouble with my 3 TV/DCR/SOUND BAR remotes. 😬
Home assistant if you like to code your own controls
beautiful house. i’m a bit envious
Is it secure having those large door windows near the locks? I mean, couldn't they just break it and enter their arms to open from the inside?
Thats what the glass break sensors on the alarm are for.
With your Aqara door locks, you can setup an automation in the Aqara app so if your door sensors are closed for 3 minutes to lock your doors
I talked about that in the video.
Try the TP-Link - Tapo C125. I have 4 of them now and they have never went offline. Looking at getting a 5th. I also retired that same Logitech circle. After a year it became completely useless.
Are Tapos HKSV compatible? My whole thing is that I want devices that don’t require additional subs, and the options I have are limited to Logitech (I also have stability issues at times), Eve (good but requires a sconce), and Eufy (I don’t think their acknowledgment of their security issues was sufficient).
Are Tapos HKSV compatible? My whole thing is that I want devices that don’t require additional subs, and the options I have are limited to Logitech (I also have stability issues at times), Eve (good but requires a sconce), and Eufy (I don’t think their acknowledgment of their security issues was sufficient).
@@LoopyChew Yes that specific model I named is supported by HKSV. You do not have to use their sub service if you don't want to. I think you can skip their app completely and setup directly in HomeKit but I also think the trade off is lack of firmware updates . Beware that certain tapo models do not support HomeKit at all.
Always wonder why front doors have such large pieces of glass next to the locks.
For outdoor camera i got ring floodlights watching my front and back house, theyre actually amazing.
What kind of couch is that
Lovesac
Have you tried using home assistant? You may be able to unlock more features using home assistant rather than HomeKit, and if you have devices that are not using HomeKit compatible hardware, you could use something like scrypted to make it homekit compatible.
HOoOoOME ASSISTANT!!!!!!!🕺
Not yet but seeing it recommended a ton in the comments so, I'll try
I love your content, but honestly, some of the stuff just frustrates me. I wouldn’t even bother with HomeKit. The only reason I really wanted it was to get video notifications on my television, which ended up not being that big of a deal since I have so many Alexis screens around my house that would just show me the doorbell if somebody rang it or if I got motion at a certain camera outside at a certain hour Late at night so that solved itself but honestly, the Alexa ones just work so much better I never have this issue with my door locks while they are smart by default. They just lock. I think I have mindset to every 30 seconds and it never fails for that kind of money to spend on both of those locks I would definitely invest in something different because they shouldn’t be doing thatthat would be really frustrating
That's a lot of headaches, I have a nest and eufy camera and door lock and I don't have any problems. Even my cheap smart lights are connected to my Google home and vacuum everything works 99.9 percent of the time. The only times it doesn't work is because my dogs knock down the power to my router. Everything is connected to my Google home and has never had an issue. My wife would have taken everything out if it didn't work for her, she is not techy
Lutron never failed
I’m laughing my butt off. Because? We all got the same or similar problems. 😂
hahaha. What did you do to solve?
@@jon4lakers factory reset and or new wifi password one by one. It’s a good excuse to purchase newer versions not including Tesla🙈 she’ll get 🤬
Do you find yourself creating custom solutions and “bending” HomeKit to fit your needs a lot?
💯
No chapters
Aqara has a outdoor camera coming
I was always wondering what smart home tech you tech youtubers had.
If the two locks only lock 80% of the time. I'm curious why you choose to actively go keyless? Seems like it can be a pain for the 20% you needing to come back and confirm they are locked.
They work to unlock 💯 of the time. The connectivity part is where I had my issues.
@@jon4lakers ahhhh ok makes more sense.
@@blackjays13 no prob. I probably should have been more clear in the video. Appreciate you asking.
OMG, I am having such a hard time with my Ecobee and Switchbot Hub 2 / Lock Pro. They were fine for a while, and now just don't talk to HomeKit anymore!!!! WTF!!!!!!!!!
Notice how nothing works but the Google Nest thermostat
I thought this was a home assistant video at first, now I'm disappointed. Definitely need home assistant.
Try a professional home automation system like Control4
The only suggestion I can make from experience is the nest hub max and you might want more than one. I would also suggest the nest doorbell to go with the hub max because Google doesn't seem to play nice with any doorbell but their own.
My Logitech camera and doorbell are flawless after a year plus.
Homekit is so bad. if it wasn't for Google, I wouldn't be able to use my smart devices most of the time. I carry a Pixel 9 as a 2nd device to my iPhone 16 Pro to make my stuff work. Logitech circleview is Terrible. I had to buy a remote plug so I can remote cut power and reboot the circleview.... crazy
Why not just make everything Google Nest?
Myq closed their API so no way to make it work to HomeKit
Nooooo
This video is pretty frustrating as a Home Assistant user. It's way more flexible and powerful.
RatGDO for your garage
Homekit. Lulz. Victim.
What kind of psychopath keeps their thermostat at 78!?
Why is this such a nightmare in this day and age? Has no one company solved the smart home problem yet?
Agreed.
The major players don't want to play nice with each other
From 2019-2021, my Nest home ecosystem was PERFECT.
It’s gone to hell in a hand basket ever since..
Companies like Crestron and Control 4 have solved it
@@marklabonte2925yup it's straight 🗑️ this days. I've even upgraded to the newer cameras and door bell and it's gotten worse. Ever since they merged with nest it's been 🗑️.
Why the hell would you super glue the key holes that are covered lmao
So they can’t be bumped or picked.
@@jon4lakers A thief is going to use the most convenient way to get it. Bust out the glass next to your door and unlock the locks manually by hand. Or just go through a window. Door locks keep honest people out. That is all they do. A determined thief will always get around a lock.
This video validates one reason Android ecosystem > Apple ecosystem
Don’t do that.
@@jon4lakers haha, would be an interesting comparison
Too many different gadgets communicating through out the same WIFI May Collide with each other??!!!
I'm concerned about the CCP accessing my house.
Honestly homekit it’s 🤢🤮 if you wanna better experience and do por complex automation used home assistant
Google home ecosystem is better.
1 emp and ur house is emptied
Muhahhahhahaa
Electronics becoming worse and worse, day by day... nothing works as it supposed to. Maybe we should go back to simple analog life!
Move to home assistant and save yourself the trouble
You got too many photos brotha.........
Not enough
Hubitat...
@@jefferysmith5921 eww