[CaptainCrunch]

Since I work from home, and Covid has made me spend a lot more time at home, I decided to do the whole Google Smart thing. I decided on Google because I don't really use amazon all that much and it caused a major pain in my a$$ when my account was stolen.

So I decided to do as much as I can, right now even though I've seen smart shades I haven't done those because they're cost prohibative, nor any of the security stuff, which I might do at some point down the road.

My first step was doing the lights. I ended up using a combination of Phillips, Sengled and Lifx. Now these bulbs aren't cheap at all, On average a wifi enabled smart bulb sits around $20 to $25.00. However there are some benefits. They're extremely power efficient for the most part, and they have a extremely long life. So I might die before they burn out. I do like the color aspects of it. So for example I can set up different light schemes in different rooms, or go with a softer light scheme late at night.

Original my plan was to just simply replace the light switches and continue to use normal bulbs. But decided on the bulbs for the potential costs savings. So I replaced 13 bulbs. 4 in my kitchen, two in my bedroom, two lamps in the family room, 2 bulbs in my office, 2 hall way lights and 3 in my bathroom. So I probably spent around $250 bucks on bulbs.

The next thing was setting up google hubs. I went with a couple of different ones. I went with the Hub Smart Max for the bedroom and the Kitchen. I picked them because they have large screens and very good speakers. They are also fully functional. Each of those is about $299.00. For the family room and office I went with the regular google nest which has a smaller screen and maybe not as powerful of a speaker, each of those is $129.00, I also mounted a Nest mini in my hallway so it could hear me from my bathroom for example or when I walk in. that was about $35.00

I also decided to replace my thermos stat, again I wanted to be as efficient as possible. I picked up a google nest smart thermostat for about $180.00.

Installing this stuff was pretty straight forward. Obviously screwing in the lightbulbs, plugging in the hubs and installing the thermostats.

Where it can get a little tricky is in terms of the lightbulbs. Each brand requires you to install their app and then link it into the Google Home assistant on my phone. That can take a little bit of time. With the Litfx I ran into a problem with them continually losing my wifi. So I had to go into my Shaw router control panel and disable my airtime fairness setting. After that everything worked well.

Setting up the hubs is simple. You basically turn them on and go through the settings to connect them to your wifi. Make sure if you have duel networks that you use the 5G one.

Once you have that all set up, you have to go into your google home assistant app. Basically you can see all of your devices, bulbs, hubs etc, you need to assign them to your home, and then setup rooms and put the devices in each room. Once you have that, you can then set up your routines. right now I have routines for getting up in the morning with a sunset feature that slowly turns on the lights in the bed room and family room for example. I have a routine for leaving where I say "I'm leaving" and all lights that are on are shut off, and I have one for "I'm home" that turns on my hall and family room lights. These commands also effect my thermostat, turning down or turning up the temperatures.

Last weekend I picked up the google TV Chromecast. I had the choice between the simple Chromecast and the google tv version which was about 30 bucks more at about 50 bucks.

I plugged it into my TV and followed the set up. Then I linked it into my google account and set up my different streaming services like Netflix and Disney and downloaded some of the free ones that are available for movies. Super easy, barely an inconvienience. It was easy to set up in my google home assistant, then I added my TV's to my roomes and voila, voice command TV with easy access to streaming.

The biggest downfall for me right now is that Shaw's bluecurve app isn't available as an app in google chrome. If I want to do that I have to do a cast from my phone. Its the same for example with the WWE network. theres no native app in the chrome cast.

Overall its cool to have that star trek type voice command on everything. I even added some small smart gardens for some veggies.

There are some drawbacks and maybe I can't figure it out. But in terms of I can make phone calls through my hubs which is really nice. However I can't see a way to get incoming calls through my hub. Also the video conferencing side of things isn't great. It would be nice to have a native zoom app or something like that. In terms of things like youtube. I find it easier to go to sleep with some noise of a video. A crackling fireplace or space sounds with video or whatever but the youtube app is limited, I can't bookmark my favorite ones or save them for later.

The spotify link is great, and I love that I can cast to different speaker sets throughout the house. But it would be nice to more easily bookmark where you stop playing music without having to go to your spotify app. to do those changes.

But other then that, I might look at some of the smart locks and a camera for my front door, though I've never been broken into. Smart shades would be really cool to have but they're expensive.

Once you get everything set up the way you like it, there's a certain coolness in operating lights, TV and temperature through your voice. Or to be able to change things from the road through your phone (Though you can't do it through Android auto just let in case you leave the iron on).


PS the bulb change has made about a 5% or more difference to my average electricity bill and reduced my footprint so that's a plus as well.