Smart Home — Honest Reviews of What Actually Works in Real Houses
Voice assistants, lighting, locks, security, and whole-home control — covered from a 28-year residential AV installer's perspective. We tell you which gear ages gracefully, which gear is a liability, and how to wire it all together without locking yourself into a $200K processor.
Rick's 2026 hub reset: Matter + Thread quietly unified the field. Most homes already own a hub and don't know it. Got a recent Apple TV 4K? You have a Thread border router + Matter controller + streaming box — three jobs in one. Echo Dot Max / Echo Studio / Eero Pro 7 owners — same deal. The one rule for any new hub: it must support BOTH Matter and Thread. Pick the right hub for your ecosystem →
⚠ Feb 2026 Apple update: Apple killed iPad as a home hub — the old HomeKit architecture stopped working. If you were running HomeKit off an iPad, migrate to Apple TV 4K (Gen 3+) or a HomePod.
The Honest Take on Whole-Home Control
Why I wouldn't put Control4, Crestron, or Savant in my own house — and what I install instead. The 3-year wall, the 5-year ticking time bomb, the $1,500 service-call trap, and the modular best-in-class stack that does 95% of the job at 5-10% of the cost.
Read it →Smart home sections
Whole-Home Control
Control4, Crestron, Savant, AMX honestly reviewed — and the modular alternative.
⚡ FlagshipVoice Assistants
Alexa, Apple Home, Google Home / Gemini compared — which ecosystem to pick.
CoverageLighting
Lutron RA2 Select as Rick's Pick, plus Caseta, RadioRA3, Kasa, and Hue — what to use where.
⚡ LiveSmart Locks (coming soon)
Yale, Schlage Encode, August, Level — which ones actually hold up.
Coming soonHome Security (coming soon)
Ring, Ring Professional X-line, Nest, ADT alternatives.
Coming soonMotorized Shades (coming soon)
Lutron Sivoia, Hunter Douglas PowerView, IKEA FYRTUR.
Coming soonWhy we cover smart home
Most smart home coverage online is written by people who've never installed one. The advice reads like a press release: "this hub does Matter and Thread." Great — but does it still work in 5 years? Does the dealer go out of business? Does an OS update break your locks?
Rick has 28 years installing residential AV and smart home. Bear has 50 years in the cable and residential AV industries. The combined perspective is what you'd get if you sat down at the kitchen table with two industry veterans who'd tell you the truth even when it costs them an install job.