[Music]
Hello everyone and Welcome to another
episode of Selling Greenville your
favorite real estate podcast here in
Greenville South Carolina I'm your host
as always Stan McCune realtor right here in
the Greenville area of South Carolina
you can find all of my contact
information as always in the show notes
if you need to reach out to me for any
of your real estate needs and please you
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you guys could do
that I'm going to try to avoid as much
background noise as possible
unfortunately there is directly above my
ceiling a television being played by my
father-in-law and unfortunately I can't
control my in-laws or the timing of
their visits but I need to record this
podcast otherwise I will not get this
podcast out so I apologize in advance if
you hear I believe it's the show
Heartland playing above me I've tried to
turn down the volume on my mic so it
won't be quite as sensitive but there
you go I'm I'm giving you that preface
in advance because I record this from
the my home office and sometimes
these these little things get picked
up in the background but today I want to
talk to you guys about smart home
systems specifically when it comes to
well what I've been doing with smart
home systems which specifically has to
do with the Apple home kit and home
app now there
are a lot of different smart home
systems this this is not something that
is new I mean there's been smart
thermostats and just all sorts of
things like that for a very long time at
this point I mean I'm now on my third
straight home that has a smart
thermostat that I've installed So Smart
Systems have been around for a while but
the techn ology behind them has really
Advanced quite a bit in recent years and
now we've got all of this voice control
voice control with Siri voice control
with Alexa voice control with I guess
Google has their own thing I don't think
anyone uses that really at the end of
the day Siri and Alexa dominate the
market and for the purposes of this
podcast I know it's technically apple
homekit as I've already said but I'm
just going to call it Siri that is is
a lot simpler than me just saying
homekit homekit or apple home you know
constantly and I'm sure that Amazon
calls it something different than Alexa
when it comes to their smart home
type of stuff but I'm just going to call
it Alexa okay guys don't don't kill me
for this those of you that are really
into this I'm I'm sorry I'm just going
to keep it simple Siri and Alexa now I
had to when I was deciding that I wanted
to do this so I I decided I moved the
past six months
and I decided you know what I want to
really start to get into this you know
basically making my entire Home
Smart from the standpoint of just having
all these different Smart Systems and
being able to do a lot more voice
control like that just seemed like an
interesting next step for me that was
something that I wanted to do and I had
to decide am I going to go the Alexa the
Amazon route or am I going to go the
Siri Apple route and there's a very
there are very clear pros and cons in
either direction when it comes to the
Amazon route first off we already had
those Echo and Echo dot little
speakers and my kids love them they're
very useful they can actually like
call friends that they're connected with
on there which they get a little kick
out of you know we can all hear it's
just a speaker phone type of thing they
can play music on there and so it
it's and we use I should clarify we
use Amazon music that's like our primary
music source that we've used over the
years and it obviously ties in very well
with the Amazon Echo and so we we're
already in with that but then almost
everything else we have is Apple what
well I say that there's one other key
Amazon thing for us and that is the
Amazon Fire stick that is what we have
on all of our TVs in you know in order
to keep our Smart TVs coherent so we
have the fire stick for them that's
Amazon we have the echo that's
Amazon but then beyond that and
there's reasons for that I'm I'm not a
big Apple TV F Fanboy I'm not into
that I've tried Apple TV I've tried Roku
I've tried fire stick trying to think if
I've tried anything else but there
was a reason why I went in the fire
stick Direction and overall I'm pretty
happy with it when I've done Apple TV
I've not been happy so some of you guys
are going to disagree with me on that
that's fine go Apple TV your life away I
do not care but for me the fire stick is
what has worked for
us so when it comes to Apple we have
all of our major devices on Apple iPhone
you know Max things of that nature
and so it was
and and you know
airpods all of those things we we've
got a lot of Apple devices floating
around here and so it was kind of a
tricky decision because our we are kind
of like split between these two
different
systems whether to go the route of
getting things that are Amazon Alexa
compatible or things that are more Siri
compatible and unfortunately there's not
a whole lot of overlap between the two
there are a few things that overlap like
for instance I believe that the ecobe
thermostat which is my thermostat of
choice I've tried the ecobe and I've
tried the nest I do not like the nest
for a time it was like oh this is cool
I've had them both and and originally
I had the ecobe my first house then I
went to the nest with my second house
and it just I just stopped liking it for
a variety of reasons it did not the the
whole learning aspect of it did not work
super well the the app was actually very
underwhelming I just wasn't thrilled
with it so with my current house I
went back to the EAB very happy about
that decision much more stable The Nest
was constantly it would have Wi-Fi
issues it would have connectivity issues
it would have power issues just all
sorts of different issues the ecobe it
just works and it does all of the things
that the nest does but does them better
it's does its own it has its own like
system of learning I don't even
understand how it works but it works
really really well and you can
obviously set it up on schedules and do
all these different things you know work
it remotely from your phone but
anyway I believe that if I'm not
mistaken that the ecoe thermostat Works
whether you're using Alexa whether
you're using Siri but a lot of the
other things you kind of have to pick
one versus the other and the the main
difference between the two at least and
I'm no expert on this this is just from
me figuring this out myself some of you
listening to this are probably smarter
than this than me and you can just skip
this episode if you want okay or you can
listen to it and then you know text
me and make fun of me for something that
I didn't know as well as you I'm totally
fine with that I will take any
engagement from the show that you'll
give me
but as far as the the main pros and
cons the Amazon compatible products are
it's a massive list huge list of
products that are compatible with Amazon
in terms of smart home systems whereas
with apple and Siri it's a much
smaller list however pretty much
everyone agrees that the Apple system
and their ecosystem and and just
everything about their the smart home
systems that are compatible with Siri
and with dare I say apple home Apple
home kit there we go I broke my rule I
went ahead and said it everyone
agrees that the SEC security element is
better with apple than it is with Amazon
now I don't know all of the the
backend tech details on that I'm just
having to take other people's word for
it in general Apple tends to be more
secure than other platforms anyway
and so it was kind of like okay variety
versus security right that was kind of
what it came down to and the other
aspect as well of course is the ability
to I've got you know Apple watch I've
got my iPhone and the ability to just
use Siri on one of those devices to be
able to control these different things
and I'm realizing now I'm thinking you
know what I need to set this device on
do not disturb I apologize for that I
don't want there to be interruptions
during this and I forgot to do
that but the the there's something to
be said for being able to just simply
use Siri without having to open any apps
or or do anything like that to be able
to control all these different smart
home things so in the end that and the
security angle that won me over to Apple
and their compatible Smart Home Products
versus Amazon's compatible Smart Home
Products and so here's what I did I kind
of approached it and and I'm still in
the process of doing this so this this
might be like a part one and we might do
like a part two like I don't know like
the end of this year like next year it's
not going to be for a while before we do
a part two but I first approached it
from okay what are kind of the the
pressure points what what are the the
most important places where like I
personally feel the need for having
smart home systems the most obvious one
is the Smart thermostats I cannot
recommend enough a good smart thermostat
don't get those ones that Duke Energy is
like trying to sell you for cheap don't
do that get a real one get I I would
say get an eae cuz again I'm not big on
the nest I don't feel like they're I I
don't feel like that's a a great
thermostat
personally and and so that's what I
did one of the first things I did after
we moved in I changed our thermostats
and went that direction and the EOB is
great it's it's so simple it's very
reliable it just does what it's supposed
to do and it does it better than any of
the others in my opinion so then it
was like okay what are some of the other
things I need to consider well if I want
to control my ecobe from from my
iPhone or from my Apple watch then it
needs to be Siri compatible well there's
a quirky thing about this with apple and
that is that you have to have an apple
homepod in order to be able to to do
this and I think that this is probably
the dumbest thing out of all but
basically they have the I believe it's
the homepod and then the homepod mini if
I'm not mistaken and it's basically
their version of the the Amazon Echo
and then you know the the main hod is
like a very premium version of it so I
had to go get one of those even though I
already had an echo and even though I
already had iPhones and mac and apple
watches all these things I had to go out
and get one of the Apple speak ERS I
got the Mini version
and I listen we don't use it very much
it the the S sound quality wow I don't
know what I just almost said there sound
sound quality the sound quality is
definitely better than the echo
absolutely better than the echo but
it just does not work very well when if
we're trying to stream from Amazon music
I mean it is not intuitive it all it's
definitely designed to be used with
podcast or like the Apple podcast app or
with iTunes or the music app anything
that's like native Apple it works great
anything that's not native Apple I I
will have all sorts of issues getting it
it'll play and then it'll stop playing
and you're probably like oh you don't
know what you're doing no actually I'm
pretty knowledgeable about this it's
just glitchy when it comes to it it just
doesn't want to play nice with non-apple
apps so it's a little bit frustrating
it we basically only use it just to have
our smart home systems connected to
Siri but that's fine it cost it was like
a 100 bucks for the speaker and you
know I thought maybe I could get like
get them for like 80 bucks on Black
Friday nope there were no discounts at
all on them and any well there were like
a few but they all sold out right away
so obviously apple is doing something
right but anyway B you basically have
to plan to pay 100 bucks for it so
there were a few other things that I was
thinking about okay so what do I want to
connect on my on my Smart Home systems
what I want to be able to operate from
my
phone my garage Overhead Door all of my
entry doors I already mentioned
thermostats and a security system now
I have a little bit of experience with
all of these things in different
capacities I have I've had this
schag I believe is how it's pronounced
locks where you have like codes and they
can be connected in different ways I
hate those things those I mean I think
they're very secure but like those
things are really annoying to install
if you lose like a certain code you like
can't like the the original entry code
then you can't like reprogram it that's
like really annoying it's like all sorts
of of problematic things for for the
schag locks really weird word I've
used the August smart home lock I got
that originally for my Airbnb property
because they have some cool Airbnb
functionality the only problem is
it's super duper glitchy and that
lock is fine otherwise like I
definitely would not rely on it for for
their Airbnb functionality now that I've
seen how glitchy that is but simply in
terms of of its every daytoday type of
type of functionality outside of the
fact that it disconnects from the Wi-Fi
more often than I would like it to it
works pretty well but I decided Well
the the August lock I'm pretty sure does
not work with Siri there's actually not
very many of these door locks that
actually work with Siri and so I went
with the one that has probably the
best reviews out of all of them and it
is called level now level is interesting
and and pretty much all of these locks
only work with a dead bolt so you just
have to be prepared for that level is
interesting because you don't actually
you actually keep the original lock
you're not replacing the entire lock set
you're just replacing the inside part of
your dead bolt and if that sounds
complicated for the most part it's
not like it's not technically
complicated the only thing that becomes
complicated is you don't realize all the
time when you're locking and unlock
talking if your deadbolt is like
scrubbing on the actual door
frame like if if you've ever had to lock
a deadbolt or unlock it and it just has
the slightest bit of friction it doesn't
just smoothly without hitting anything
without scrubbing anything just lock and
unlock guess what this system the level
system it does not have enough power to
be able to handle that there can be
basic ially no friction if there is any
friction it will not lock and unlock
correctly another problem I've had is
issues with just delays with Wi-Fi with
it that I'm still trying to figure
that out I do have a Wi-Fi extender I'm
probably going to look into I believe
they're called mesh systems to to try to
just kind of improve WiFi throughout my
my home that's been a problem the
level lock not not super thrilled with
it up to this point it's been okay
but my wife doesn't trust it I do trust
it for the most part but probably
about 20% of the time it doesn't operate
in the way that I would that I would
like it to so not super happy with
that but I'm hoping that if I improve
the Wi-Fi connectivity throughout my
house that that will fix the issue there
or at least improve it make that 20%
maybe go down to like 5% % something
like that with the garage overhead door
I have put in the I believe it's
pronounced meos meos miros probably
miros it's a smart door a smart
garage door opener and one thing that
you'll see with all of these if if
you're if you're looking for these types
of things if you're looking for
something that's compatible Siri it has
to say on it works with apple home or
works with apple home kit that's very
important and and again there's not a
whole lot of garage door openers that do
this was one of
them now installation for this thing was
not as simple as I wish it would have
been and there's this isn't necessarily
the fault of the miros as much as it is
that I have a Genie garage door opener
and the genie motor opener Genie is
like
the most incompatible with like
everything else I don't care if I ever
have another Genie garage door opener
it's frustrating I've had to be on
support with them multiple times now
thankfully their support's pretty good
shockingly so but I shouldn't have to
go on support for anything for for my
garage door opener like that's that's
such a a silly thing now this the
miros has worked pretty well it's
probably worked the best of just about
anything with one exception and that's
that it just like went down the other
week and just stopped working like it
was just showing that my garage door was
closed even when it wasn't wasn't
responding to Siri or anything else and
this was confusing to
me and I I've been busy I've been very
busy didn't have a chance to really look
into it well the other day I had to
reset my Wi-Fi for something and after I
reset it all of the sudden the garage
door opener the miros started
connecting again so there was something
weird with the Wi-Fi that it just wasn't
communicating with the the door opener
so anyway I'm glad that I didn't spend a
bunch more time trying to work on it
when all I need to do was reset the
Wi-Fi so note to self if any of these
systems stop working in the future start
with resetting the Wi-Fi anyway I've
been mostly happy with that I think I
would do the the miros again given the
choice now the security system was the
one that was kind of the most
interesting to me really the the best
option from what I understand if you're
trying to incorporate this with Siri is
the system that's called Abode now I've
I want to divert for a section and say
that I've used two other systems before
in addition to now the Abode system
I've used Simply Safe And I've used
Vivant I will say this Simply Safe
I had an earlier ver version than what's
available now I do not like Simply Safe
now I have not used them the most
recent version but the earlier version
very inconsistent very unreliable I
would not entrust my home security to
that system under any circumstances I am
not in favor of Simply Safe Vivant was
fantastic Vivant I have nothing bad to
say about them they're the the system
self was good reliable support
fantastic I mean there were times where
I couldn't figure something out and I
would talk to support and they'd be like
okay we're going to text you a link
you're going to click on that link and
that's going to allow you to share video
or photos or whatever with us and they
could just tell me in real time what
exactly it was the issue that I was
experiencing they replaced Parts free of
charge it was just it was a really good
really good system so I purchased the
Abode system for my house and I'll say
this for the most part it is a very good
system but there are a few quirks that
really really drive me crazy and the
main one is the doorbell cameras they
can't be just like wired in like a
normal doorbell camera like you can't
just place the doorbell camera where
your old door was and then connect the
wiring you can't do that it's
literally battery operated and the
battery has to be on on every doorbell
camera has to be recharged every several
days
and that just doesn't make sense I mean
it's great from the standpoint of just
being able to install it anywhere like
not having to worry about wiring or any
of that sort of thing but from every
other standpoint it's terrible like
right now I've got one of my doorbell
cameras just you know just charging
right now I'm I'm going to put it down
there later on tonight but like why why
should I have to do this now
originally I feel like I read somewhere
that it doesn't show video or it doesn't
function properly while it's charging
now maybe that's the doorbell
functionality but the camera
functionality definitely still works
while it's charging so I am seriously
considering basically drilling
through a part of my doorf frame
SL wall towards where my bracket is
for the doorbell cameras to allow to
to feed the USBC through there so I can
just keep them permanently charged I
really don't want to do that super
annoying but and of course I need to
explore whether that would mess up
anything but that is by far my most
frustrating thing with the Abode system
so far I am not happy with that
everything else I'm pretty happy with
now what's interesting is because it's a
security system it doesn't operate with
Siri in quite the same ways as these
other things that I've mentioned to so
these other things just out of the box
are very simple like when I set up my
EOB thermostat I set up a basement one I
set up a main floor one so I can just
say like right before I started this
podcast because if I had the heat
running down here cuz I'm in the
basement if I had the heat running you
guys that would pick up you know in the
background of this podcast so I simply
went to Siri and just said turn the heat
off in the basement and within a few
seconds the heat was off in the basement
so that's pretty cool with a security
system you have to create what Apple
calls a scene which is kind of funny
but you have to create a scene in
order to do these types of things so
what I had to do in order to arm or
disarm my security system was to create
a scene when I say A Certain phrase that
then it arms or
disarms and it that doesn't work with
the homepod so all of the other things
you can do on the homepod so for
instance if my daughter wanted to change
the heat in the house she could go to
the homepod and say probably my this is
probably going to trigger my watch we'll
see but she could say hey
Siri do this yeah
hold sorry exactly what I thought
happened did happen except it happened
on my computer and then it was in my in
my headphones you probably didn't hear
that I all of a sudden Siri was
communicating with me in my headphones
and I couldn't hear anything was
happening oh now it's communicating with
me on my phone all all the devices are
going haywire here but they can
control pretty much everything else with
the homepod but the homep Pod for
security reasons will not allow you to
to disarm the security system but I
can do that from my phone so that's kind
of cool can't do it from the homepod
that makes sense you wouldn't want
someone to break into the house and then
they speak to the homepod and disarm the
security system not cool not not exactly
what I what I want to see happen so
that makes sense so I did that and
that has worked pretty well now what I
haven't done yet which is kind of the
next phase in this is to create scenes
where it's like just when I arrive when
I arrive home I can just say something
like hey hey I'm home to you know
what
SI I don't want to keep triggering
her on my devices I don't know why
all the other times I was saying Siri
before nothing was happening and
nothing happened that time all right
maybe maybe we're maybe we're in the
clear here I want to be able to
just say the Siri you know I'm home and
when it when I say that the garage
overhead door opens the basement door
opens and the security system gets
disarmed something like that that might
not be exactly the the scene that I do
but like that's
a possible thing that I could have done
on the flip side when I'm leaving I
could have something that I I say just
as I'm leaving that ensures that
everything is locked and that ensures
that the security system goes on the
garage door is closed all of those
different things so I'm going to be
playing around with that that's kind of
phase two in this process but
that's something I'm very excited about
that's something I look forward to doing
and then then oh you probably hear my
dog in the background I apologize phase
three of this is to experiment with some
of these other things so I've not done
anything with smart light bulbs those
are are a big thing right now and so
I I want to play around with things like
that
I haven't up to this point because
it's just kind of like we have light
switches but one thing that could be
cool is the ability to turn on or
change colors or whatever for like a
couple of light bulbs versus all of
turning on all of the ress lights in one
room at one time I don't even exactly
know how that works so I'm kind of
speaking out of turn here but that is
part of all of this that that I'm
working towards so in the end am I
happy that I went with Siri versus Alexa
I think I am I think that you kind
of run into these quirks no matter what
you
do as I said before out of all these
the ones I have the strongest opinion on
is that the EOB thermostat I think is
the best thermostat out there and simply
safe is not a security system that I
would ever go back to those are my
strong opinions with regard to the
rest of these other things I'm not super
happy with the level lock but I am
hoping that some of the Wi-Fi issues
will will resolve if I've resolved
those Wi-Fi issues will help to make
things better I'm not happy with the
doorbell cameras with the Abode system
needing to be charged by the way the
one that is furthest from my Wi-Fi the
battery drains on that very quickly
which I'm assuming has to do with that
it's it's working extra hard to try to
find a feed and and send that feed you
know to people's devices that's
frustrating hopefully I'll be able to
resolve that in one way or
another but so far I think I I can see
the appeal for doing these smart home
devices for having them connected to
Siri I think I'm happy that I went the
Siri route I'm happy with a bode I
overall besides those doorbell cameras I
will say installation for the Abode
system was
fantastic fantastic installation I was
able to set up Security on my entire
house within like two hours and I was
able to organize it all and and just
make everything looks super clean the
way it works on the Apple devices is
super clean you can pull it on your
computer on your on your phone on
Apple carplay there's functionality in
if you have apple carplay that you can
control some of these things on there
like when I pull into my driveway it
pull it just automatically pulls up
whether I want to open the garage or not
right there on my display like it knows
that I'm close to it so there's some
really cool stuff with that that I
really like and so I'm happy that that I
went in this direction I don't think I
could have gone wrong I don't think had
i cho chose the Amazon system sorry
about that moved away turned away for a
second I don't think if I had had chosen
like the Amazon system and their
options that I would have been
disappointed either but it is nice to
know that there's a little bit extra
layer of security that Apple has that I
have been told that Apple has but that I
don't have the technological skill to
fully verify myself so you guys can look
that up yourself and verify or you
techie people can let me know what your
opinions are about that and the way you
can do that is by looking in the
description of the show the show notes
my contact information is in there
please again as I always ask you guys
please leave a rating a review subscribe
to the show thank you guys as always for
listening we will talk again next time
[Music]