I can make your home smarter
👋🏻 Hi, I'm Stan, a smart home enthusiast and software engineer. Let me help you make your house work for you, creating the maximum comfort you deserve.
💡It’s possible to control your lights, blinds, curtains, door locks and more with your phone. You can even have your living room lights turn on and curtains close automatically at sunset. Your lights can go off and your door can lock itself when you leave the house.
🔥 For a limited time, I'm offering a discounted service fee of $99 for smart lights or curtains setup.
⚡ Home hub
You will need a home hub with Apple Home, Google Home or Alexa. I can help you procure and set one up.
I recommend Apple Homepod Mini for Apple Home, Google Home Mini for Google Home and Amazon Echo Dot for Alexa.
All the above come with a mobile app that will let you control all your devices in one place. You can also use voice commands.
My personal favourite is Apple Home because of its sleek user interface and broad smart device support.
💡 Smart lights
LED bulbs, ceiling and pendant lights. They come in all shapes and forms from many companies. There are even outdoor lights.
I recommend Philips Hue bulbs or downlights because of their reliability and ease of use.
🪟 Smart curtains and blinds
You don’t need bulky expensive curtain drivers to automatically open your curtains anymore. You can install a small device that can open and close most curtains or blinds.
I recommend SwitchBot Curtain 3 or SwitchBot Blind Tilt because of their pull strength.
🔑 Smart locks
Would you like to open your door by just touching the lock with your Apple Watch or iPhone? Yes, please. Smart locks can also be unlocked via Android phones.
I recommend Aqara U50 because of Apple Home Key support and its responsiveness.
⚙️ Make your devices work for you
📡 Sensors
Your lights can come on automatically when it senses your presence in a room. You can also set different brightness levels depending on time of day. Lights will go off automatically when you leave the room. There are so many possibilities.
I recommend Eve Motion because of its reliability and responsiveness.
⏳ Time
Automations can run at a specific time which is useful to turn on the lights at sunset if someone is at home.
📍 Presence
You can choose to run some automations only if someone is at home or when everyone has left the house.
🔌 Advanced setup possible
You might already have or want to have smart devices that can’t connect to your home hub such as Apple Home. It might be possible to integrate them using extra networking equipment and setup. For example, I have air conditioning at home controlled by Airtouch 5 system which I connected to Apple Home using Homebridge hosted on Raspberry Pi.
⚡ Home hub
Here are some ballpark price estimates for different home hubs.
You can get them yourself or I can help with that.
| Item | Price |
|---|---|
| Apple Homepod Mini | $149 |
| Google Home Mini | $45 |
| Amazon Echo Pop | $79 |
🪟 Smart curtains and blinds
Here are some ballpark price estimates for drivers for curtains and blinds. You'll need one for each curtain or blind. If you have blackout and sheer curtains, they need to be on separate rails and require separate drivers.
You can get them yourself or I can help with that.
| Item | Price per driver | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| SwitchBot Curtain 3 | $160 | Rod, U-rail and I-rail variations |
| SwitchBot Blind Tilt | $110 |
* There are specific requirements for a curtain track to be compatible with these drivers that need to be checked.
Most smart devices require a bridge from that company to connect to your smart home hub.
| Item | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| SwitchBot Hub 2 | $110 | Temperature sensor as a bonus |
* SwitchBot 3 is the most powerful curtain driver I've tried. It's not available in Australia yet, but can be easily ordered from the US SwitchBot website. Buying in bulk is cheaper.
💡 Smart lights
Here are some ballpark price estimates for different smart lights.
You can get them yourself or I can help with that.
| Item | Price per bulb | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Philips Hue Garnea Downlight | $84 | Color option is available |
| Philips Hue 15W A67 E27 Smart Light Bulb | $84 | Color option is available |
Most smart devices require a bridge from that company to connect to your smart home hub.
| Item | Price |
|---|---|
| Philips Hue Bridge | $99 |
* Philips occasionally offers discounts for a pack of 4. There are also cheaper alternatives from other companies, but they are not as reliable as Philips.