Hey,
It’s Pete Matheson with a new issue of Experiments in Progress.
I've been running a pretty heavily automated home for a while now.
And after years of buying, installing, resetting, and occasionally losing bits of hardware inside my own walls I've got a pretty clear picture of what's actually worth it.
🏠 3 Smart Home Products I'd Buy Again (And 3 I Wouldn't)
So here's my honest list.
✅ The 3 I'd Buy Again
🏠 Homey
If you're building a smart home and you want one hub that talks to basically everything — Homey is it.
It works across different protocols, it's not insanely expensive, and there's even a free version to get started.
(Full disclosure: I did have to reset mine recently and start from scratch, which was... not fun. But even after that, I set it back up again.)
The actual experience of leaving the house without keys (just using your phone or watch to unlock the door) is one of those things that sounds like a gimmick until you've done it for six months and then you genuinely can't go back.
If you're going to start somewhere with smart home, the front door is a great place.
Source: TechRadar
💡 Govee Lighting
OK, this one's a broad category but Govee covers a lot of ground.
Lamps, LED strips, light bulbs, uplights... we've got a bunch of it across different rooms.
Having smart lights with different colours throughout the house makes a bigger difference than you'd expect.
It changes the feel of a room completely depending on what you're doing — working, watching something, winding down.
Good value. Easy to set up. Recommend.
❌ The 3 I Wouldn't Touch Again
📡 Z-Wave Devices (Fibaro, etc.)
This is the one I'd most want to warn people about.
Z-Wave stuff (Fibaro relays, switches, that whole world) sounds great in theory.
But here's the problem:
if you ever have to reset your hub and re-pair everything, you need to physically find the devices. And if they've been installed inside walls or hidden away for years... good luck.
I've currently got lights, radiators, and fans I can't control because I genuinely don't know where the physical relays are anymore.
It's not a bad technology. It's just unforgiving when things go wrong.
💡 Philips Hue
I know this is the "safe" recommendation everyone makes.
But in my experience? Not very bright, not super reliable, and the whole system feels a bit clunky compared to what else is out there now.
Govee does more for less. That's just where I've landed.
🔊 Alexa / Smart Home Speakers (Google too)
I wanted these to be useful. They're just... not. At least not for me, long-term.
Alexa speakers feel like they've been left behind. And Google's smart displays update so slowly — you've got Gemini on your phone, and then you look at your Google Nest Hub and it feels like it's from a different decade.
My honest take: if you want music in a room, get a Sonos speaker and control it from your phone.
You don't need a "smart speaker" to do that job. A good speaker + the app on your phone is a better experience every time.
📊 Buy or Bin: The Short Version
📱 Enjoying this newsletter? Share it with a friend who’s as obsessed with tech as you are:
In this episode of Aspiring Creator, I get into something a lot of creators don't want to hear — two weeks of going all-in on Shorts actually doubled my subscriber count. But here's the thing — that's only half the story.
The other half? What it did to my long-form. And it's not what you'd hope.
What actually happened to my views and subs after 2 weeks of focusing on Shorts
Why subscriber growth doesn't always mean what you think it means
The difference between the audience Shorts brings in vs. the one your long-form needs
Paddy Galloway's best advice on building a creator business that actually lasts
How I used Claude to plan my entire video schedule through the end of 2026 (and why I'd do it again)
Why I'm considering a zero-edit second channel and what that says about where YouTube is going
🎧 New episodes every Wednesday
