Rating 30 Smart Home Devices, BEST and WORST!

I'm showing you everything in my smart home, and rating it rapid-fire from 1 to 10. Let's find my favorites... and LEAST favorites.

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0:00 Intro
0:23 Smart lock
0:49 Video doorbell
1:26 Security cameras
1:37 Smart garage
1:54 Weather station
2:15 Lutron dimmers
2:30 Kasa dimmers
3:03 Lutron motion lights
3:20 Inovelli Red
4:04 Smart bulbs
4:24 Smart light strips
4:40 Echo
5:04 HomePods
5:35 Google Nest Display
5:46 Rachio
6:05 Smart thermostat
6:28 BOND bridge
6:47 Dashboard
7:14 Frame TV
7:29 Apple TV
7:52 Ring alarm
8:11 Motion sensors
8:29 Contact sensor
8:49 Vibration sensors
9:08 Robot vacuum
9:16 Smart outlets
9:31 Server rack
9:44 Smart buttons
10:00 Smart shades
10:24 Tesla solar
10:55 Echo Show 15
11:05 Fingerprint locks
11:18 NFC tags
11:30 Hub
12:02 1/10 😬

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MUSIC
Digifunk by DivKid

Ending song is The End by EVA.

[SmartHomeSolver]

Let's hear it: what device is a 10/10 in your smart home?👇

[namannik]

I totally hear you on the Alexa advertisements. So annoying. I got tired of hearing "By the way...", so I created an Alexa routine that runs every day at midnight that tells Alexa "Stop by the way". Works perfectly. I haven't heard this in months.

[MatzeMaulwurf]

8:41 I’ve added an automation which is like a kids alarm. When my wife and I do some action in the bedroom and a door of one of the kids opens or the motion sensor of r their hallway detects a motion we get an alert with the smart lights in the bedroom. Very helpful:)

[ricky]

Lmao love the gaslighting "User error" etc for all the reviews 🤣🤣 my wife is also an Aly and we have similar conversations

[batukhan]

The wifes input was very useful to hear. We can get caught up in what we think is awesome, but others aren't so hot about it. 11/10

[tychay]

Ally makes a great point about Home Assistant. :D

Love mine, of course.

[KienTran]

Surprised you rated buttons so low! I find they are a great supplement to smart switches and more convenient than pulling out the phone for everything. My most used one is on the fridge to toggle kitchen scenes

[MarshallPeterson-wnqy]

I always look forward to the end of your videos! They’re always so funny! Keep doing it!

[alwaysright]

Zemismart blind driver is my favourite out of the 40 devices in my home, I never have to open and close the blinds as they run automatically 10/10. Also 10/10 for my Gimdow door lock and 10/10 for my Brilliant Elite smart home switches.

[Inovelli]

Thanks for the shout-out and the 10, Reed! It's an honor to be in your house :)

Eric

[cragonaut]

Ditch the Raspberry Pi and install HA on something SFF like a refurbished HP Elitedesk Mini. It's basically the same price and the performance increase is massive. Like me, you'll wish you'd done it way sooner.

[pjohnson]

this was fun and useful. and +1 for the contrasting viewpoints from Ally.

[gogades]

Regarding the Lutron motion lights - I did the same thing for my utility room, but I took it next level.

I don't have toddlers anymore so I removed the door latch and just replaced it with a magnetic latch/catch. When I come down with my hands full with laundry, a big Costco order or a bunch of tools, I just bump the door open and the Lutron motion light does its thing. Game changer !

The only problem I've had is that I also tried to open _other_ doors by bumping them, and they didn't use magnetic latches so crash. 😬

[Martin]

“You had to debug it for a solid 2 hours”

I know! Wasn’t that great?

“….”

—-

How that conversation would go with my wife 😅

[tonyvalenti]

Gotta say, for the devices we have in common I think you’re pretty much spot on. The only one I’ve consistently had poor experience with is Bond. We use it strictly for fans. Always been a pain to setup, if it even works with the fan. For me, solid 4 out of 10. Oh, and since you’re keeping score, I think Mollys’ got your number! 🤣

[privatename]

Maaaan! This guy is swimming in some serious tech toys. It's like a dream for most people. Wonder how many were sponsored vs. paid for? I guess with more than a half million subscribers he can afford to buy any kind of sheet he wants.

[luniticlizard]

Great video. I really enjoy the cuts to your wife's reason for rating something differently. My 10/10 is definitely my robot vacuum. It just works so well and helps me keep a cleaner home with less work.

[pawlos]

Since I live in Poland and dont get any advertisement from Amazon, except reminds to change filters or my packages I rate it 9/10. I actually agree with Ally's rates more than yours, but I love smart home anyway 😁

[granworks]

I had an EcoWitt all-in-one weather station just like the Tempest but got rid of it because those style of stations are wildly inaccurate here in AZ! The temperature was consistently 5deg (or more) too high whenever the sun comes up and the piezoelectric water sensor might as well give random numbers, it is so off. There are a lot of connected Tempest devices around me so I know that Tempest is giving the same very-wrong numbers. I replaced the all-in-one with a suite of separate devices which is much much more of a pain to setup (and more expensive) but at least I know I'm getting extremely accurate numbers (after double-checking with calibrated sensors). Still EcoWitt since those integrate with HA very easily.

[ypark]

I did an automation routine on Alexa. Each morning it turns off any by the way announcements from Amazon. Other than notifications for deliveries. Do not get one announcement on any echos or dots.