---
title: '30+ Smart Home Questions Answered! (Rapid Fire)'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=t8QuoJ_yx6k'
video_id: 't8QuoJ_yx6k'
date: 2026-08-06
duration_sec: 1291
---

# 30+ Smart Home Questions Answered! (Rapid Fire)

> Source: [30+ Smart Home Questions Answered! (Rapid Fire)](https://youtube.com/watch?v=t8QuoJ_yx6k)

## Summary

In this Q&A video, the creator answers over 30 questions from viewers about smart home technology, covering topics such as USB extenders for Zigbee/Z-Wave dongles, preventing automation overlaps, smart switch recommendations, Home Assistant themes and YAML usage, device counts, moving with a smart home, solar savings, and various product evaluations. The video provides practical advice and personal insights based on the creator's extensive experience.

### Key Points

- **USB Extender for Zigbee/Z-Wave Dongle** [00:15] — The creator uses a USB extender about 3 feet away from the hub to improve signal reliability. Initially, plugging the dongle directly into the Raspberry Pi didn't work, but using an extender helped. The rule of thumb is to keep wireless devices as far away as possible without looking ugly.
- **Preventing Automation Overlaps** [00:54] — To avoid automations interfering with each other, add conditions to automations. For example, a lighting automation that turns on at sunset should check if the TV is on and skip if so. This prevents conflicts and can be adjusted when family members complain.
- **Desk Lamp with Sonos Speaker** [02:03] — The lamp on the desk is an IKEA lamp with a built-in Sonos speaker, but IKEA discontinued that style. The creator regrets this because they really like it. They also mention a discontinued rainbow cloud light from earlier videos.
- **Large Dogs and Motion Sensors** [02:46] — Concerns about large dogs triggering millimeter wave sensors can be mitigated with conditions in automations. For example, if you're in bed, you can set a condition to not turn on lights when the dog walks down the hall at night.
- **Lutron Dimmer Switch Choice** [03:42] — The creator uses older Lutron dimmer switches because their family is familiar with the arrow buttons, making it intuitive for even a three-year-old. If starting fresh, they would choose newer versions, but they stick with what works for their family.
- **Z-Wave Switch Recommendations** [04:56] — For Z-Wave switches, the creator recommends Inovelli and Zooz. They personally prefer Zooz for reliability and availability, having used them for about a year without issues.
- **YAML Editing in Home Assistant** [05:37] — The creator often edits YAML files for speed, but emphasizes that most tasks can be done through the UI. Beginners shouldn't be scared of YAML; it's not required for using Home Assistant.
- **Home Assistant Themes and HACS** [06:17] — Themes like 'liquid glass' are free and can be installed via HACS (Home Assistant Community Store). HACS is a free add-on that provides access to many themes and integrations, making it easy to customize the dashboard.
- **Network and Device Count** [07:03] — The creator has around 200 devices on their network, using UniFi equipment. They acknowledge it's overkill for most but appreciate the fine-tuning capabilities for adding many smart home devices.
- **Home Assistant Hardware Setup** [07:28] — The creator uses both a Home Assistant Green (for testing in the shop) and a mini PC as their main setup. They sometimes show the Green in videos because it's easier to film and avoids confusion about what they're using.
- **Garage Door Opener Options** [08:35] — RatGDO is a good option for smart garage door control, but it doesn't work with all openers like Security+ 3.0. The Third Reality garage door opener presses the physical remote, making it compatible with most openers.
- **Beware of Free Smart Home Services** [09:30] — Free services like MyQ can be enticing but may later require expensive subscriptions or lock you in. It's important to be cautious and consider alternatives.
- **External Keypad Solution** [10:10] — The creator hasn't found a reliable external keypad solution for garage doors and is open to suggestions from viewers.
- **Matter Devices** [10:24] — The creator has a love-hate relationship with Matter. They prefer Zigbee and Z-Wave for long-term reliability, but appreciate Matter when it's the only integration option.
- **Smart Home Tour Influence** [11:08] — The creator has rebuilt their smart home from scratch in the new house, incorporating lessons from smart home tours, such as making it 'grandma proof' and easy to use.
- **Solar Savings and Value** [12:05] — The creator saved on electricity bills with solar but notes it's hard to quantify the added home value. They plan to get solar again in the new house, especially due to high AC costs in Arizona.
- **Moving with a Smart Home** [13:13] — When moving, you can leave the smart home, take it down before listing, or bring it with you. The creator chose to take down devices before listing to avoid confusion, spending about 3 days doing so.
- **Migrating Smart Home to New House** [14:55] — Moving a smart home is like unplugging and plugging it back in; devices don't need reprogramming. The creator brought most devices to save time on setup.
- **Reason for Moving** [15:24] — The creator moved to a house with a detached shop, providing a quiet space to work and film videos, away from noisy kids during summer break.
- **Business Expense Question** [16:04] — The creator jokes about writing off the mortgage as a business expense for YouTube, but it's not a straightforward write-off.
- **Accara Thermostat Evaluation** [16:31] — The creator has been testing an Accara thermostat and likes it, especially after updates that allow averaging temperature sensors. However, it lacks the ability to adjust temperature swing, which they prefer with Ecobee.
- **Third Reality Voice Assistant** [17:24] — The creator tested the Third Reality voice assistant dev edition and was not impressed. The speaker quality was poor and the button didn't work reliably for stopping voice prompts.
- **Two YouTube Channels** [18:06] — The second channel, Reed Smart Home, allows the creator to cover different topics and styles without deviating from the main channel's expectations. It's a lower-pressure space for experimentation.
- **Home Assistant Voice** [19:02] — The creator uses Home Assistant voice for yes/no questions rather than controlling lights, relying more on automations and dashboards. It's not as good as Echo or Google for general voice commands.
- **Room Presence Detection** [19:26] — The creator uses Bluetooth microcontrollers in each room to detect their phone/smartwatch, enabling room-specific automations like showing relevant dashboard controls or announcing messages only in the room they're in.
- **Multi-tool and Home Assistant** [20:21] — The multi-tool shown in a previous video does not connect to Home Assistant, which the creator finds unfortunate but not a dealbreaker.

### Conclusion

The video offers a comprehensive Q&A covering practical smart home tips, product recommendations, and personal experiences. The creator emphasizes the importance of conditions in automations, the ease of using Home Assistant without YAML, and the value of room presence detection for personalized automations.

## Transcript

questions and it's been about 5 years since my last Q&A. So, yeah, I think it's time for an update. I gathered about 30 questions you've asked on videos lately and let's get into it. All right, first question. You mentioned in
your video to use a USB extender. This is talking about like a Ziggb or Z-Wave USB dongle that you plug into the hub. How long and where did you actually extend it to? So, mine is about 3 ft away from the hub and it's working
great. I originally when I first tried this out years ago, I had it plugged straight into the Raspberry Pi, no extender, and it didn't work. So, using some kind of extender is going to help. The rule of thumb for any wireless
better. You're never going to have a perfect signal, so try to just keep it as far away as possible without it looking ugly. All right, next one. How do you make sure automations don't
overlap? Say you had 80 automations and 30 of those were lighting. How do you interfere with each other? You'll definitely run into this if you're setting up automations in your smartome. You're going to have automations that
For example, I have some lighting automations in our living room that I showed recently. The lights will turn on to a dim setting when it's sunset and they'll also turn off when the TV is on. Now, they could definitely interfere.
So, I have a condition on that automation when the sun is setting to turn on the lights, checks to see if the TV is on, and if it is, it just skips the automation altogether, all the actions. So, that's how you do it. You
set up a condition, it skips the action. They don't interfere with each other. You can sometimes figure this out when you're setting up the automation, but a lot of the times your family will start complaining that they're running when
like, "Oh no, why is that happening?" You'll quickly add a condition and it'll be solved. So, nothing to worry about. And uh yeah, it's just part of the smart home experience. What is that lamp that you have on your desk, the one with the
blue top? I get asked about this all the time. It's an IKEA lamp that they discontinued that style a while ago, which is frustrating because I really like the lamp. It has a Sonos speaker built into it. I don't know why IKEA
good one. Yeah, it reminds me of this old rainbow cloud light that we had in the back of a lot of our videos way long ago. People would always want to buy that little rainbow cloud light and I think they discontinued that one as
think they discontinued that one as well. So, yeah. Sorry. Okay. I recently covered a millimeter wave sensor and there was a lot of questions if dogs like a big dog would set it off. Now, I don't know for sure because I don't have
a big dog to test it out on, but I think that this whole issue could be completely avoided with conditions on your automations. So, say like you don't middle of the night if your dog walks down the hall. Well, you could set up a
condition on that automation that if you're in bed, don't turn on the lights if your dog's walking down the hall. So, a lot of uh those potential issues with like a large dog being triggered by a motion sensor or millimeter wave sensor
could be fixed with conditions. Oh, no. What kind of animal presses a switch to turn the lights off? Pretty sick animal, that's who. I agree. I try not to touch
the light switches. I just rely on the automations, but you know, sometimes family members, especially kids, they like to press the button to change the lights. So, I know it's barbaric. Okay. Question on your smart light switch
choice. I see that you're using the old Lutron dimmer switches. You had reviewed little while ago as they were nearly perfect smart switch. Did you actively issue, or was it just that you had already gone all in on the older
version, transfer from the old house to the new house? First of all, thanks for tell from your question that you've seen a lot. So, I really appreciate that. The main reason that we're using the older Lutron dimmer is because my family is
used to using them. They see those little arrow buttons and it's super intuitive. like my three-year-old can dim and change the lights super easy. And so that's why now I don't even really use the dimmer switches, like the
physical buttons that much. So, it's not really that big of an issue to me. If I had to start fresh, like I had a brand new family, I was starting to buy smart home equipment, I wouldn't start with those. I would get the newer version.
But since I already had a bunch, my family's used to them, I'm just sticking about light switches. Do you have a recommendation for Z-Wave light would like to use Z-Wave switches everywhere, but haven't found any that I
like. Zwave is a great choice. If you're not going with Lutron, I would definitely recommend Z-Wave light switches. The big two players are Inovi and Zeus. Inov is a great option. They
have a lot of little bells and whistles, extra LED lights, but they can be difficult to buy. Sometimes they're not always available and sometimes a little more expensive than Zeus. I personally would choose Zeus. I bought some about a
year or so ago and they've been perfect. So, that's what I would go with. You very reliable. Okay, this question is about Home Assistant. How often do you find yourself editing a YAML file to get something done? Now, this is kind of
tricky because the majority of the things I do in Home Assistant, I don't have to edit a YAML file for. I can just do it in the UI, but I choose to edit the YAML file to just make things go faster. Since I come from a developer
background, I used to write a lot of code. Doesn't scare me. So, I can do stuff in YAML. But if you're thinking about using Home Assistant, you don't have to worry. You can do pretty much everything in the UI. You don't have to
write YAML, so don't let it scare you. So, some more questions about Home Assistant. Are themes in Home Assistant free or do you have to pay for them? Super noob question. And another one is, how do you make or get the liquid glass
style cards on your dashboard? That is also a theme. And I got that in hacks, which is Home Assistant Community Store. or it's an add-on or an app that you add
to Home Assistant and it opens the doors to tons of themes and integrations that you can add to Home Assistant. It's all free, which is awesome, and it's super easy to do. You just select a theme, download it, apply it to Home Assistant,
refresh your browser, and then all of a sudden your Home Assistant dashboard looks amazing. All right, next question. Your router/n network seems excessive. Yeah. How many devices do you have? So, before we moved, I had about 200 devices
or more. I know that's not as many devices as other houses have, but uh yeah, they they start adding up quickly. I'm using UniFi. I know it's overkill
for most people, but I do like to be able to fine-tune it and have it work extremely well for when I want to add as many smart home devices as I want. So, it's not for everyone, but I like it. Okay, there's some questions about what
I'm using for Home Assistant, if I'm using the mini PC that I've shown or the Home Assistant green that I was showing footage of in the video. So, I can see why it would be a little confusing talking about my setup and I'm showing
the Home Assistant green. So, technically I'm using both. Using the Home Assistant Green out here in the shop to test devices, run beta versions of Home Assistant, but my main setup is using a mini PC in the house. And
there's a couple of reasons why I showed the Home Assistant Green. One, it's easier to film the Home Assistant Green out here. It's better lighting than that like little server rack room I have in there. And the other reason is if I'm
showing a mini PC and I'm talking about Home Assistant, people are like, "What is that? Why are you showing me this little like computer or little box?" So that's why sometimes I show Home Assistant green when I'm talking about
Home Assistant. It's not necessarily my main setup, but it's easier to film. I'll try to make that more clear in the future. All right, another similar future. All right, another similar question. Someone asked, "No rat GDIO."
So, I showed a third reality garage door opener recently, and Rat GDIO is also another option to make your garage door controller smart. It works really well. I've shown it before, and I'm still using it, but it doesn't work good for
everything like Security Plus 3.0, which is why I showed this third reality option, which is a cool little device. It presses the garage door remote, and so it'll work with pretty much any garage door opener. I just find it funny
that people always I always see this pop up. People get mad when I don't mention up. People get mad when I don't mention Rat GDO, even though yes, there are other good options out there. And to show how silly and frustrating this can
be to make YouTube videos on the Rat GDO video, someone also asked, "My Q is GDIO? Well, you got to watch out if you're
using something that's free or really easy to use. Sometimes those companies easy to use. Sometimes those companies like MyQ or Evil Corp will try to trap you and get you sucked in and then when you want to integrate it into your
smartome or your car or whatever, they'll have expensive subscriptions that there's no alternative ways around it. So, you just got to watch out. It can be like enticing at first because it seems really easy, but they'll get you.
garage doors. Have you developed an external keypad solution for opening the door? I find the evil corpse solutions to not be reliable. I haven't yet. Uh I
need something actually. And so if you guys have any suggestions of what's down in the comments. I would love to try them out because I'm looking for a solution myself. All right, quick question. Why didn't you use Matter
devices? So, I have a lovehate relationship with Matter. If I really want a smart home device and the only way to integrate it into my Smartome is with Matter, then I love Matter, but sometimes I need to download that
company's app to set up the device and then I can add it to my smart home with Matter. I don't really fully understand that. That's why I like ZigGB and Z-Wave. I know for sure I'll be able to use those long into the future no matter
use those long into the future no matter what happens. So, yeah, matters great, but it could be better. Are you really that lazy? Yes. All right. This question is from the Joel Smartome Tour that I did
recently. There was a lot of I definitely do this. Have you come back to this video with the new location and rebuild from scratch? The answer is yes, I have. I showed in a video recently that I have some smart home rules for
myself and one of those is based from that tour that I visited Joel where you know making it grandma proof and really easy to use. So all the smart home tours easy to use. So all the smart home tours I've learned so much. I take little bits
and pieces every time I set up an automation or an idea and I remember the things that I learned from those tours and I try to incorporate them in my own smart home. And so yeah, if you've never watched that tour series, I highly
recommend it. There's tons of great ideas and I definitely try to take those right, so there's some questions about solar with our previous house and if we're going to get it in our new house. So with the previous house, they're
asking how much did you actually save? You know, it takes a while, years to save on electricity bills to make it worth it from buying those solar panels and power walls. And the answer is it's very difficult to know when you sell
very difficult to know when you sell your house value adds. It definitely adds value and there were people interested in our house because we had interested in our house because we had solar and no electricity bills. But how
much, you know, with us saving on it, how much value added? I honestly, no one could ever really figure that out because it's kind of subjective. >> Nobody knows. >> Do we regret getting solar in the first
place? And the answer is no. Me and Ally really liked it and we plan on getting it again in this house. It's very expensive to run the AC here in Arizona. 500 bucks this month and we're trying to conserve on how often we're running the
AC. So it's expensive. Having solar means lower electricity bills and you don't have to feel guilty about running the AC all the time. So there were lots of questions about moving from our previous house with our smart home over
there. You have really three options when moving. You [clears throat] can just leave your smart home up and just give it to the next people who buy your house. You can leave your smartome up when they take pictures of your house
and list it, but you make a long list of the things that you're going to bring the things that you're going to bring with you, or you can take it down before you list your house, and that way there's no confusion. We have option
number three. I spent about 3 days taking down all the smart home devices that were mounted on walls, like cameras, smart light switches, thermostats. That way there was no confusion from the buyer of what was
coming with the house and what wasn't. So that's what I prefer. It's just really easy to communicate that. I didn't leave any kind of smart home manual or anything. There were also a lot of questions about why didn't I just
leave a lot of that smart home tech in the previous house because it might not translate into this new house. Like there might not be a spot for it. and then you can just have an excuse to buy new smart home tech, which is also a
completely valid option. The main reason that we brought most of it with us is to just save on time. It takes a lot of time to set up new smartome tech, whether that's just actually setting it up, naming it, adding it to your smart
home, adding it to the automations and all of that. That's why I wanted to do it this way, but some other people might want to just start fresh and that works is related. When moving, how do you migrate the Wi-Fi, ZigG or Matter
signals, like the IP addresses and all of that. So, it feels like this big change moving houses for the people that are moving, but for your smart home, you're basically unplugging it and plugging it back in. It's just like
working just like I was at the other house. It It doesn't know the difference. Yeah, there's not like a lot of reprogramming or anything. It just works. H Why did you move? Your old home was better. Uh this house is older than
our previous one. I miss the old house. Yeah, we do miss our old house and this house is older, but this also has a detached shop and that's why we moved. I wouldn't be able to make this video right now if we didn't live in this
house because my kids are in the house right now being loud and noisy. They're home from summer break and there's no way I could film a YouTube video with them around right now. So, it's nice to have a quiet place to work, test out
smart home tech and all of that. So, we really like this house and sixcar really like this house and sixcar garage. No, I wish it's threecar. The doors are just a little bit wider, which is great for some extra room, but uh no.
Sixcar garage. Yeah, that that'd be crazy. If your house is part of a smart home upgrade project, is the whole mortgage considered a business expense for your YouTube channel? That would be nice. I wish, you know, just just write
>> They just write it off. >> Since you mentioned Eco, I saw someone praising the Accara thermostat, especially after recent updates. still planning to stick with EcoB or have you already evaluated others like Accara?
So, if you look over my shoulder right here, there is an Accara thermostat that I've been using for the last couple months or so and I really like it. It uses matter, integrates really well with my smartome. And yes, they did make some
updates so that the temperature sensors can be averaged together, very similar to Eco. So, that's great to see. The only thing that I see missing that I have with my EcoB is to be able to change the temperature swing. So, I kind
of like a larger temperature swing in our house so that the AC is not running as often. But, that's just my personal preference. Right now, I don't see any massive benefits the Accara thermostat has over the EcoB thermostat. So, I
don't have a reason to swap them all out in our house, but I might look into it more and make a video on it in the future. Have you tried the third reality voice and music assistant dev edition? What do you think about it? I did about
What do you think about it? I did about a month ago and I wasn't that impressed. You know, it's like a little bit bigger than the voice preview edition. So, I was hoping it would sound similar to like a nice Echo Dot, but it didn't. It
like the voice preview edition. The speaker wasn't that great, or at least to my ears, it wasn't. And the button on top didn't work for me for like starting and stopping a voice prompt which I think is kind of crucial if you know
just want to stop it. >> Platforms I'd be happy to provide >> So yeah, I didn't have really that great of experience with it. Maybe they'll make some updates but we'll see. Do you plan to always keep two channels? I find
it confusing a bit. I follow both so no big deal. Just curious what your long-term plans are for each channel. Well, thank you for following both channels. The second channel is called Reed Smartome, and I started that a
couple of years ago. And the reason for that second channel is so I can cover different topics that I normally wouldn't cover here on this main channel because when people subscribe to this channel, there's uh certain format
topics that they're kind of expecting going forward in the future. And I wanted to be able to veer off that path a little bit, whether it's stuff that I'm covering, how I film the videos, like more like a vlog style. So, yeah, I
try different things out and it's less pressure, so I'll probably keep it around. Are you planning to use something like a home assistant voice? there and a couple in the house that I'm using and it's not as good as like an
Echo or something from Google, but I don't really use it to turn the lights on and off. I'm relying more on automations and a smart home dashboard automations and a smart home dashboard to do that. What I really like it for is
it can ask me a question if something should happen or not, like a yes or no question. And then if I say yes, it happens or no and it doesn't. And that way I don't have to memorize any voice commands. So there's a question about
room presence detection. Got to ask, why would anyone want this outside of worker tracking in hospitals? So, I set up all these little microcontrollers in each room of the house, and they can detect the Bluetooth signal from my phone or my
smartwatch, and that way my smart home knows if I'm in a room or not. And I just added all of them back to this new house, and I love it. It's one of my favorite things in my smartome. And I can do some really cool stuff, like
changing my smartome dashboard to only show me the controls for the room that I'm standing in. I can also do some other cool things like instead of having my smart home blast on all the smart speakers if it needs to tell me
something, it can just announce it on the smart speaker in the room that I'm standing in because my smartome knows which room I'm in. So, you can really fine-tune your automations based on what room you're in. So, I definitely think
right, last question. Does the multi-tool connect to Home Assistant? >> I showed this in my last video and said it was nearly perfect and I wouldn't but I guess I didn't consider it
connecting to Home Assistant. Back to the drawing board. No, I don't think any multi-tool connects to Home Assistant. That would be awesome, but uh yeah, this this one's great. I know the smart home space can be confusing and not all the
questions can be answered in regular videos. So, if you found this type of Q&A video helpful, then let me know down in the comments and I can make it a in the comments and I can make it a regular thing. Thanks for watching.
follow you? >> Yeah. Uh, no. >> Yes. Do not have them not follow you? >> No. Wait. Yes. What are you asking?
>> No. >> You don't mind? So, you want the lights to follow you? >> Yes. Fine. Have them follow me. Roger that. >> See, smart homes make life so easy.