I recently managed to get my first mortgage on my own on a two bed apartment. I want to have the entire place set up with Google Home. What devices do I need to start out with and, though for essential initially, what would be good to add onto the set up in the near future?
Ideally I want to open the door and automate having specific lights turn on, and be able to enable Google Home in any room without needing to shout.
If you’re rocking an android phone you can use the ‘Hey Google’ assistant from anywhere in your house and it will function the same way. I’ve got 5 minis in my house and they’re notorious for picking up people in other rooms, so depending on how ‘open’ your floorplan is you may not need but a few. I’d definitely recommend 1 per bedroom (in case you want to use it with the door shut) and 1 in the main area and you’d be just fine. The nice thing is you can group them so if you’re playing music it will play across all the google homes you have.
You can choose the google home way to do all your automation but if you decide you want a more robust, customizeable system then Home Assistant is an excellent choice. For starters you’d need a central hub (like a computer, or a raspberry pi) to run HA on and do the stuff. Then you’d need your equipment like lights, switches, and such. Personally for me I like having MQTT since it doesn’t need any exchange externally on the internet. After that its just writing the automations to do what you want when you want.
I want to automate everything from lights, and in the future even close all doors in the house. I am starting with the Google Home and investing money and time over the next few years growing it to be a automated house. Just the little things of opening the door and the light comes on is a start as I know you are able to get bits for the doors.
