I’m a new homeowner, and here’s how to BYO a smart home

I was surprised at how many smart home products were included. My builder gave us the option to install even more devices during the construction process, which would have cost about $2,000 for a handful of door sensors, two motion sensors, a siren, and two control panels. We skipped that. I figured I could easily install these for less than half the price with a few Echo hubs (8/10, WIRED recommends,

I was pleasantly surprised to find that we got so many smart home devices at no extra charge. Of course, our builder didn’t mention it, nor did he offer any of the devices I wanted, such as A smart doorbellBut while I liked some of the appliances that came with my home, I had the urge to make a purchase or reject some of the products they chose.

Garage greatness

My favorite tool is simple: MyQ Smart Garage Door Opener ($289). The only reason I didn’t set it up day one was because I had to wait for my Eeros to turn on (my builder included a service to do this, but I should have done it myself). I needed a strong Wi-Fi signal in the garage. The MyQ is great because it doesn’t even need a hub, and it has a little QR code to direct you to download the app. It has a built-in camera you can use for security (though there’s also a subscription fee for video storage and better notifications).

If you have multiple users, one person will need to set up MyQ and then invite other family members via email. My husband was faster than me because we rushed to complete the setup, so MyQ is in his name, and he invited me within the app. Boom, it was ready. We were both able to easily control the garage without any further steps or problems. The app shows us whether the garage is open or closed, and we can both control it from anywhere.

front door problem

On the other side of my house, I have a gadget I hate: the Kwikset Smart Lock. It reminds me of my old Abode Smart Lock (8/10, WIRED recommends) With much love.

My Kwikset Smart Lock has been a problem ever since we got the keys to it. QuickSet SmartKeySo it should be easy to rekey the door, but neither my husband nor I were able to get it to work. Never mind, you should always get new locks and keys when you get a new home. We thought we would ignore the key problem and just use the smart features in the meantime.