I Ditched the Cloud and Upgraded My Smart Home

Until recently, my smart home setup was in chaos. After years of testing, buying, and upgrading to the latest smart home gadgets in an attempt to make my life easier, it became a bloated mess that was actually making it more complicated.

My Alexa, Google Home, and Apple Home apps were awash with dead devices, duplicates, and automations that simply didn’t work. My Hue Bridge, trying desperately to tie it all together, was creaking at the seams. And the more advanced platforms I hadn't quite committed to, such as Homey and SmartThings, were fighting each other for bandwidth on an already congested network.

I was basically employed as full-time tech support in my own house, just to stop the kids moaning that their lights weren’t working … again. It was time for a reset—a chance to embark on a total rethink of what a comprehensive smart home ...