Several years ago, when the concept of a smart home was just coming into use, I already knew that as soon as I buy my own apartment, I would arrange it in this way. However, when it came to the arrangement, I realized that I don't need most of the smart gadgets. Smart cameras, motion and lighting sensors, open window sensors and other bells and whistles were really useless to me. So I opted for two ceiling lights (one for each room), a couple of light bulbs that I screwed into a chandelier in the kitchen, 6 spotlights for the hallway, and one smart socket just in case. I am telling about my impressions.
Xiaomi has great technique, but its intelligence is unlikely to make your life better
Let's start with the fact that I was very pleased with the prices for the products Xiaomi. Two smart lamps for rooms – Yeelight Ceiling Light – cost me a little more than 10 thousand rubles delivery. For about the same money, I could buy ceiling softboxes or chandeliers at Leroy Merlin, but I was already crazy about the ability to connect to Wi-Fi.
Xiaomi Yeelight – inexpensive and cool lamps
Spotlights Xiaomi Zhirui cost, it seems, in the region of 600 rubles / piece, and the light bulbs and the socket came out for about 1000 rubles. I didn't have to spend money on smart switches – ordinary Philips came up, so I won't count them. As a result, less than 20 thousand rubles were spent on everything about everything, which, I think, is quite acceptable.
Xiaomi Zhirui co-produced with Philips
How to connect a smart home Xiaomi
The lighting setting takes place in the Yeelight or Mi Home application – there is no difference, but the first one seemed more convenient to me, and it worked somehow faster. However, to get the light to work with Google Assistant, which was then my main voice assistant, I had to do a little magic.
Due to the fact that then Google Assistant in the Google Home column did not officially support the Russian language and was not intended at all for our region, when set in the settings of Russia, nothing worked. However, after I changed the region to India, things went well. True, it immediately turned out that Google Assistant handles the color temperature rather mediocre, and can only add and decrease brightness. So I had to switch to Alice.
How smart home works
The connection to Alice happened very quickly, and the Yandex assistant itself was very capable. The voice assistant could both adjust the color temperature and turn on the lighting modes I needed, like a night light, and it recognized much more language constructions in Russian, making the control easier. It only remained to adapt the outlet. But I, without hesitation, connected a TV through it.
At first I was very happy with my acquisitions. Still, I have not yet had the opportunity to interact with technique with a voice. But if I had no complaints about controlling the TV, because it was really convenient, then I practically stopped turning to lighting for the second week, because it was corny impractical and long.
After all, if I go to the kitchen at night, it is logical that my commands for light can wake up the household, and when entering home from the street, it is really quicker to press the switch, which we prudently placed right on the right hand of the doorframe during the repair. There is nothing to say about turning on the light when everyone is at home – it is much easier to reach for the switch than to build a language structure that addresses it to an assistant. Therefore, at some point, I gave up voice control of the light altogether and used only an outlet.
How to connect a TV to a phone
But here's the problem. After a while Samsung released an update for my TV and it got Alice's support. That is, in order to turn on and off, he no longer needed a smart socket – it was enough to add the TV itself to the Yandex branded application, and then just say the desired request and wait for the result.
As a result, the socket remained idle. Then I decided to connect an air conditioner through it, but since it did not make it smart, that is, it did not allow temperature control with its help, I dismissed this idea. After all, in fact, I first had to turn on the device with my voice, and then pick up the remote control and set the desired temperature. In general, only one inconvenience.
Today I do not use the smart functions of my devices from the word at all. I just turn on the lighting from the switch, and the socket generally lies somewhere with my parents since I tried to teach them how to use smart home appliances. It is rather strange that the whole pointlessness of this venture reached them much faster than me. Therefore, if you want to buy yourself something similar, think 10 times and figure out all the pros and cons.