Ultimate Smart Apartment Tour

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:07]Leaving so soon? My circuits already miss you. Have a fantastic day.

[00:00:12]I've made pretty much everything in my apartment smart.

[00:00:15]>> [music] >> Except for one of the thermostats. I can't touch it. I'm renting, sue me.

[00:00:19]From this tablet, we can control everything. From the lights and the cameras [music] to our robot vacuum and 3D printer.

[00:00:27]This connects directly to my home assistant dashboard, which [music] is the software that powers everything.

[00:00:31]This means that everything can be controlled from just one place on my home network and not in the [music] cloud anywhere. And that also means I don't have to deal with 20 different apps for each different device.

[00:00:41]It's running as a virtual machine on [music] this mini PC along with things like an iMessage server, a Minecraft server, and low energy mining [music] projects.

[00:00:49]Everything is automated, like turning off the lights and switches when we leave, >> [music] >> and unlocking the door, opening the garage, and turning the lights on when we come home. [music] The curtains open automatically when we wake up, and when we go to bed, they close and the sound machine turns on.

[00:01:06]The curtain motor even has a quiet [music] drift mode that slowly and silently lets in light and naturally wake you up.

[00:01:13]The air purifier will turn on by itself if the air quality ever gets too low, >> [music] >> and thermometers and hygrometers monitor the temperature and humidity of the apartment.

[00:01:22]Door sensors trigger lights to turn on immediately entering a room, >> [music] >> and you never have to remember to turn them back off.

[00:01:29]We get dynamic alerts for when [music] anything has low battery, if we lose internet, if the cat's litter box needs to be [music] cleaned, or if a plant needs to be watered.

[00:01:39]Hi Layton, your phone battery is at 26%.

[00:01:42]You should probably charge it soon.

[00:01:44][music] Many of these automations are powered by NFC tags. So, for example, simply scanning this tag with my phone [music] updates the last cleaning time, and it runs an API call to an LLM to give me a different motivational message every single time I do it.

[00:01:56]>> Murphy's royal throne is spotless.

[00:01:58]You're a litter box legend. Murphy's [music] royal toilet is pristine. You're a hero.

[00:02:02]>> Then a couple days later, if I haven't cleaned the litter box yet, my apartment will not let me forget.

[00:02:06]>> Hi there. [music] Just a friendly reminder. Murphy's litter box hasn't been cleaned in a while. Time to scoop and refresh for your happy cat. [music] The majority of the devices run over a Zigbee mesh network, which means that they work just fine without any internet access. [music] This also means that the more devices I add, the stronger the network gets.

[00:02:23]Devices that connect via Bluetooth connect to this little ESP32 [music] Bluetooth proxy. This low-power device keeps the connections between the devices rock solid.

[00:02:32]I 3D printed [music] a little case for it, as well.

[00:02:36]Which brings me to my 3D printer, which is also fully integrated into Home [music] Assistant using an old smartphone that runs a local OctoPrint server.

[00:02:45]This lets me control the printer [music] remotely, stream the print progress, and stop the print immediately if the print ever starts [music] to fail.

[00:02:52]There's also several Raspberry Pis scattered throughout that serve as [music] network file storage, computer performance monitoring, and media centers.

[00:03:01]Home Assistant even lets me monitor my energy usage. [music] And even with all these devices running, a single load of laundry or just an hour of AC in the Texas heat dwarfs all of their energy usage.

[00:03:12]There's more I didn't [music] cover, but that's definitely the gist of it. Was any of this really necessary? No.

[00:03:18]But am I proud of it? Absolutely.

[00:03:30]Goodbye. Don't forget your Well, whatever you usually forget. Have a fantastic day.