T3’s homely tech chappie gives you more super-smart advice

Sadly the property-based puppet show wasn't a hit

ILLUSTRATIONS: STEPHEN KELLY

Q How can I make my whole house smart?

KERRY ERICSSON, LONDON

A Guru has long bounced off the whole smart home thing, despite acting as smart home correspondent for a number of reputable publications in the past, but a light has turned itself on within him: that stuff you’re doing with Alexa and Wi-Fi? It’s not smart home. It’s smart Barbie Dreamhouse. It’s dumb home. It is simply the cloying cream on top of a delicious bottle of smart milk. To do smart home right, you need to roll up your sleeves.

This means, unfortunately for you, a period of learning, during which you will need to absorb the icky jargon and hideous interface of Home Assistant, ideally installed on a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B (from £35). Home Assistant is, despite everything it might do to tell you otherwise, absolutely brilliant. You’ll also need a suitable Z-Wave Plus controller (a £42 Aeotec Z-Stick Gen5, perhaps) ready to interconnect as much smart kit as you can cram in to your home. And there is a lot of Z-Wave kit out there to choose from.

To do smart home right, you need to roll up your sleeves. This means, unfortunately for you, a period of learning

Guru is not about to suggest the Z-Wave market is not a minefield of unknown brands and myriad possibilities, given that the major brands have thus far focused on easier-to-integrate smart kit. There’s probably going to be some electrical work to do that may be the domain of a professional. But choose wisely and your smart home can reach all the way from light switches to motion sensors to the overall power draw of your whole home – and your rules can go far beyond the possibilities offered by Alexa, HomeKit, et al.