Consumer Home Automation 2019 Guide
Anything you do ironically will, in about a year, become part of your sincerely-held identity. - Avery Alder It's 2019, and time to think about how your home is automated these day. I am bought into the Apple HomeKit ecosystem as my choice. If you are an Android or Alexa ecosystem, the options are different for you. With HomeKit you need an AppleTV or HomePod as your home hub — in theory an old iPad, but don’t be silly. I also have devices that are not natively HomeKit, and I use a cool app called HomeBridge to connect them. HomeBridge will take you out of the consumer level into the hobbyist, but only just so. Smart Speaker - This is the trickiest one for me to recommend to others. I would LOVE for this to be an Apple HomePod, but I have Amazon Echo in my house and an Amazon Echo Tap in the hall that I use to take into the yard when we are outside. The main reason I use Echoes is that Alexa connects to my Prime Music, which I get "free" with Amazon Prime and that is ...