– So, we're here – 1.6 million views later. I'm sure that all of you guys have seen when
we were invited around to Tom Syndicate's house to overhaul his home's network. If you didn't manage to catch that one, we'll
leave the video linked right below that like button but for now, on to this video. What's the crack and what's it got to do with
Syndicate? So, this is my house. Welcome. And inside, a fairly smart network of things
going on. A smart home means a lot of things to a lot
of different people but for me it's lights, music and security mainly. You can add things like heating and so on
and so forth. The reason that I mentioned Syndicate at the
start is because I'm actually going to go in to his house and rip out his current home
system because some company installed it and put Android tablets on the walls and it's
just all fallen to pieces and doesn't work anymore.
With my system, it's modular, it can always
be updated and it's smart, very, very smart. Oh, and here's the best bit, everybody can
do it at home. Let's start with security. So, the Nest doorbell – the number one item
you need for security or any sort of security doorbell. You need a doorbell that is smart, that can
tell you when people are at the front door. Honestly, this is something that you need,
need, need, need. The amount of parcels that haven't gone back to the depot because of that thing is absolutely amazing.
Push notifications right through to your phone
as soon as somebody taps the doorbell. And also, you need cameras – lots and lots
of cameras. As you guys can see, I've got one right there. So, I use the Nest doorbell. I like it because it recognises people's faces. It will actually tell you who is at the front
door, so, for example; Alex is at the front door. Alex is my name – hello if this is the first
time that I'm on your screen. Please click that subscribe button – welcome
to the channel. This is a smart lock – it's really, really
cool for a few reasons. A perfect example of this is this morning. I actually took my car to the garage to get
a service and I gave them my entire key set – I didn't have to take off my front door
key – and that's because I actually don't have a front door key.
I can open this lock with my phone. Now, we do have a dedicated video on this
lock, so check it out, right below that like button, but simply, I can tap to unlock on
my phone and then tap the lock to wake it up and then when this lock finds my phone,
and it knows it's me, green light, and I'm straight in and then you lock the door by
simply just lifting up the handle and walking off. So essentially, all of this smart tech boils
down to security and making things easier to use.
It shouldn't be a hassle, all of this. It shouldn't be "more trouble than it's worth"
which are words that came out of Tom's mouth the other week when I was with him. I'm currently looking at all of my cameras
right now and I can see that everything is absolutely fine – there's no one currently
trying to break in. This is an awesome system from Ubiquiti (we've
also done a dedicated video on this) and I can see all of my security cameras anywhere
I am in the world on my phone too.
So guys, everything that we've looked at so
far like the lock and the security system are super easy to install – DIY if you like,
if you're sort of a little bit competent with tech and DIY sort of things. But there's one thing that everybody overlooks
and that's the home network. All of this stuff like the Ring doorbell,
the security cameras and smart connected lights, all use a network of some type. So you need to make sure that you have a strong
WiFi signal everywhere that you want to put smart devices and that you have a fast internet
connection coming to your house or you will find, and trust me, that devices will fail
– you'll go and load your cameras and it won't work because your network isn't strong enough. So, get yourself a nice router and a couple
of access points around your house and you should be good to go.
Now, you need something to base your smart
system off. For me, Google Home. So, this is the Google Home display. Now, it's the basis of my entire smart
home. I can do everything on this display like view
all of the cameras, have two way communication with my doorbell so that if somebody is there
I can see them and speak to them and hear the response and I also use this Google display
a lot differently to a lot of other Google products. A lot of people talk to them and use the catchphrase
"Hey Google." Sorry for setting off your Google assistants. I use mine in a different way, called "routines." You click on here and then I've set up all
of these different routines that literally do whatever I want, like kitchen lights relaxed
mode, kitchen lights on, kitchen lights off. I can turn on the cinema room lights – this
is how I use my smart home. It's like having a tablet on the wall but
this actually works, like, 100% of the time.
Oh, and here's the kicker: If I do want to
use my voice, I can activate any one of these scenes via my voice in any of the rooms because
I've got Google Home minis in the cinema room and in my bedroom and there's actually a Google
Home Max on the floor in my office, so literally anywhere that I am, I can control my house.
So every bulb in my house has been replaced
with a smart one of some kind. So I'm currently in my bedroom and I've got
GU10s in the roof, so I can say: Okay Google, set the lights to red. – [Google Assistant] Okay, changing six lights
to red. – And as you guys can see, they've changed
to red. It's pretty simple. You can also have them to pretty much any
colour you want and then you can also set up groups of lights, so by me saying "Okay
Google," turn on the bed side lights… – Okay, turning on two lights. -…Two lights come on. The bed side lights – exactly what I asked
for when I want it. And then with these lights, or any smart lights,
you can set up things called scenes which were available, like I showed you guys earlier,
on the main Google Home downstairs and you can also control it with your voice. Really, really simple and I do that in every
single room. Right, smart home hack time.
So, as well as inside, I wanted outside doing. I wanted all the lights in my garden to be
on some sort of smart circuit so that I can turn them on and off from my phone. As well as it just being convenient, it's
also really good for security and peace of mind and to make sure that the lights don't
stay on all night and waste energy and there's a really, really awesome hack that I and a
friend sort of made up, that you can put entire lights on a smart circuit and control them
from your phone or Google devices or your Alexas or whatever, and that's this. So, this is a standard smart plug right here. It's one from TP Link, one of the more expensive
ones on the market.
You can get cheaper Chinese models. I have this one and some cheaper ones linked
in the description. Essentially, in this is a plug which I can
toggle on and off from my phone or from my assistants in the house. I have named this "back garden light" and
as you can see, this yellow-orange cable goes in to what's called a fused spur. Now, to legally do this the proper way, you
need a fused spur to convert lights to a plug socket. So now we have this fused spur – if anything
goes wrong, it can then fuse here and not up here. That way, when this is toggled, my outside
lights come on and off. Very, very simple smart home trick. And you may have noticed, below that fused
spur, on a shelf is a Sonos connect amplifier.
That moves us from light to music. So, we are currently outside in my garden
listening to a bit of Disarm by Allta, one of my favourite songs, and I'm playing it
off of my phone to that Sonos player which is then piping it out to these speakers. I've got multiple rooms on my Sonos app like
"Garden", which is this zone, and then I've got "In There", which uses my Kef speakers,
and I can literally join all of these rooms together and play music in all rooms at the
same time, like, sort of party mode, or you can have a different song in each room. Sonos is absolutely huge. It's big for a reason – because it works and
it works well. You can control it with things like Alexas
and Google Homes. I really recommend Sonos – that's what I mainly
use for music. So, there's a couple of last things that I
need to cover and a couple more things that I need to show you.
Okay Google, blinds down please. Whilst that's happening, let's sit here and
have a chat. So, the one thing that I don't do in this
house is smart, sort of multi-room, TV. To do multi-room TV and have sort of a HDMI
going to every single room, and you can have, let's say whatever you want on in every single
room, TV, a games console, in any room, the bedroom, the kitchen, you need something called
an HDMI matrix.
Number one, these things are really, really
expensive and number two, if you're like a quality freak like me and you like 4K, and
1080p just doesn't cut it for you, then a 4K HDMI matrix system is even more expensive
than a 1080p one and essentially, the HDMI matrix takes an input, so let's say an Xbox,
and then it can throw it out on any TV or all of the TV's at the same time around the
house. It can be implemented with Google Home and
Alexas and different things like that, so you could say: Show me the Xbox on the kitchen
TV; the HDMI matrix will switch to that input and put it on that TV.
But I just don't mess around with that – it's
expensive and it's hassle and apparently, they break quite a lot. Well, Tom's do, so I'm going to be taking
his out. But that is my smart home. Everything seems to work really, really well
and I hope you guys have enjoyed this video. If you've got any questions, put them down
there in the comments. A like rating would be awesome and I'll see
you guys in the next one..
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