10 MUST KNOW Tips To Plan a Smart Home

Just sharing on my experience as I am starting on my smart home renovation journey. I have been following your videos throughout my journey and it has been helpful to me. I found the most important is to decide on what is your comfortable budget first before deciding on what extend of automation is needed. Any appliances with the word smart comes with an additional cost (~20% to 30% extra). i do agree that it is important to plan before hand and the most fundamental step is to determine on what is the platform that the entire eco system will need to house as most appliances have their own apps and if integration is need, additional steps are required. one suggestion is by building the automation by milestones instead of a big bang upgrade. Prioritize the wants and need

Your points are all valid. I couldn't stress these points out any further..

Thanks so much Alex I'm buying my first home next year and I really want it to be smart. This is so helpful.

If you are going with smart lights instead of switches, a lot of IDs and electricians will give you a perplexed look when you want an always on ceiling smart light that can only be turned off on the switch board / remote control. Just persist and ask them to label the switch board so you know which to flick if you ever need to change light bulbs.

Good pointers! Planning is super important c especially for swtiches and powerpoint

Thanks.. this is a great channel for us SG home..

Wow thanks for the tips! At least now i know where to tell the electricians to pull the neutral wires from and if i needed to move my smart switches nearer to those points to save me a buck on renovation! Im going to become a new homeowner soon and building a smart home feels so complex to me now... So im going to start simple with smart switches on dumb lights and ceiling fans first.

omg i cant wait for u to do a video on switchbot vacuum and dreame x30 master!

Thank you so much Alex! If I’m understanding correctly, there’s no need to buy a smart aqara switch (Z1 pro) with my smart Yeelights in living room for ambient light? Thank you so much!

Very helpful mate, thanks! What are you using for the smart water heater? We're doing our (hdb) reno shortly and that's still on my list.

Anyone find any issue using the power socket netural line for the switch ? Will it trip the breaker ?

Usually those salesperson have 0 clue what I'm asking them lol, things like controls/entities that can be exposed etc, just wanted to integrate them into HA via z2m (not a fan of a single manufacturer's ecosystem), it's better to just google and hopefully someone is kind enough to share the information on the same devices. Btw, great tips for people who are planning a smart home system!

Can I check If the smart Daikin aircon has some of the features like on/off, temp control like you mentioned on HomeKit?

Hi Alex! Do you know if there is a compatible switchbot blind for making the blinds smart? I'm referring to the blinds where you pull one side to go up, and the other side to go down.

Good tips that are coming from someone who's experienced with how a smart home should function. How does connecting a smart light to L work though? Will the switch be powered by L1 and if someone presses the L1 switch will it cut power to the whole switch? Thanks!

Hi Alex, do you recommend Aqara's dimmer switches? They have the H1 Wireless Knob and Z1 Pro now. Also for home reno, do you recommend to do smart switches and a tri-tone dumb light? Cos seems overkill to have both smart switch and smart bulbs. Thanks

Very useful tips. Where and how can I learn more about Home Assistant? I have someone install for me for my home and now I am stuck with this system.

I'm currently using somfy motorized blinds and curtains (remnant from when i previously used homeagenius) but most of the rest of my smarthome is on tuya. For my next smarthome upgrade should i change my curtains/blinds to tuya compatible ones and have my whole house on tuya or would it make more sense to upgrade to home assistant to integrate everything together and give me more options for other upgrades (e.g. its frustrating that i cant seem to find good tuya light switches that also act as zigbee repeaters and i have to use usb repeaters throughout the house)

hey Alex, how does adding neutral wire to a smart switch extend the Zigbee network?

Thanks for sharing! Any motorized smart blinds with HomeKit support recommendations for SG?