After 365 days, I’ve tested many smart home devices and after using them the entire year to make sure which works and which does not, how long the batteries last, and more. Here is finally my Ultimate Smart Home.
Now, if you missed my last year’s Smart Bedroom tour, be sure to check that out here. So, similar to that smart home tour, as much as all of these devices work with Amazon Echo and Google Home, I have specifically used my smart home devices with HomeKit. Why? Well, because I am in the Apple ecosystem.
Entrance
So, let’s start with this: the Aqara Wireless Smart Video Doorbell G4. So, this is the first-ever doorbell that works with HomeKit wirelessly, but it also can power it directly through wire. This is surely one of my biggest recommendations.
It has a 162° wide angle and view, it records in 1080p, and it gives you an alert on your phone if someone is at the door and records a playback of who is at the door. There’s also an Indoor Chime, which is, of course, placed inside the house.
Now, what’s interesting is that Aqara claims that you can get only about 4 months of battery life, but for me, I got close to a year, and I’ve also got that microSD card slotted inside the Chime so everything is recorded over there. So if someone tries to be a clown and tries to steal this, the culprit will be recorded, and there’s also face recognition and even home automation for that. But I personally did not create any sort of home automation since there is a grill in front of me.
Now, as soon as you open the grill, you can see there is a light turning on, and this is the Yeelight Smart Spotlight M2. This is because of the Aqara Window Sensor T1.
So, the automation is that when the grill is open, the light turns on, and when it’s closed, it will turn off. Now, this is to see the entrance of the house better, of course, and to be honest, this particular automation can be a hit or miss based on the time of the day, and that could be because these devices are literally outside of the house, but that mishap happens very rarely.
And other than that, every time when the grill is open or closed, there will be different sounds being played in the house on the Aqara camera to know someone has entered the house at any point in time.
Then right above, there is the Eufy Cam 2 Pro, which is a wireless camera, and to be honest, my original plan was to only have Aqara cameras throughout the house, but unfortunately, there are no wireless cameras from Aqara yet. And when that happens, I will be just replacing this. But to be honest, this works very well, and it’s also HomeKit compatible, and you can also view the camera feed directly on your HomeKit app.
Then over at the side, in the closet area where we put our shoes, is where we have the Yeelight Motion Sensor Closet Light. Now, this is a 60 cm version where it plugs via USB-C to charge since it is also wireless and is also magnetic too. You can even adjust the brightness as well, and this came in extremely clutch, especially at night. Now, it comes with 20, 40, and 60 cm, and this is the 60cm version. It lasts about 4 to 6 months depending on how much motion you get, and it has been extremely reliable.
Okay, just before entering, there is the Aqara Wireless Mini Switch. Now, this is to switch on the entrance light manually just in case when I’m cleaning or when I have any people coming over since the switch is literally inside the house. So, this comes in handy over here.
Then finally, at the entrance is my personal favorite, the extremely reliable Aqara Smart Door Lock D100 Zigbee. Now, this allows me to unlock the door in five ways: my fingerprint with high recognition rate, a password, an NFC device, my iPhone, and I always unlock my door using my Apple Watch, as the info on the iPhone and the Apple Watch is on the Apple Wallet app for easy access.
What’s also sweet is that once it’s open, if you are carrying something, you can literally just push open the door already, so you don’t need to latch it open, and it locks automatically as soon as it closes.
And if you leave it open for quite a while, then it will beep. Now, this is to let you know that the door is not closed for a while. And like all of the devices here, you can monitor it directly on the Aqara app or in the HomeKit app to see whether or not your door is locked or even see the battery status too.


Speaking of the battery, this has lasted me exactly a year as what Aqara claims.
This is built extremely solid. It has a metal unibody, and it also has a tamper alert. And if you want to open the door from the inside, just press the button over here, which is located inside for easy access or just use the inside latch. And in case the battery dies, you can plug in a power bank or even use the mechanical key included.
Inside
Alright, so welcome to the inside of my living area. Now, since this is a rental unit, I did not want to change all of the wall switches, and even if I wanted to, I couldn’t because for some strange reason, the switches in this particular unit or in every unit here in my condo area are rectangular, so it’s not square. So, I just got myself this: the Aqara Wireless Switch D1.
I have the double switch and also the single switch variant. Now, the double switch controls the Yeelight Smart Spotlight M2 in the living room and also the dining set on the left switch. And you see this whole Yeelight Spotlight throughout the whole entire house.
While there is another variant which is the Yeelight Downlight M2 Pro, I personally prefer how the spotlight version looks like.
Then this single switch over here controls my ceiling fan, and this is through an IR blaster on the Aqara M2 Hub, which I’ll go more on that later.
Then below the marble console is another Yeelight Motion Sensor Closet Light, which is also in 60cm, and this will come in handy for when I’m back at home very late when it’s very dark at night.
Then next, there is my favorite appliance of the year 2023: the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra. I did a full video review on this, so do check it out if you guys haven’t done so.
Now, without this fella over here, this house will never be kept as clean as you see. So, for up to 2,000 sq ft of space in the entire house, I fill the water tank once in 2 days, but the dirty water tank is being changed every single day just to prevent any nasty odor of sorts.
So yes, this is something that I totally love and highly recommend. And let’s see who takes the crown from the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra of being the next best robot vacuum, perhaps Airbot maybe?
Then on top, there is the 10th generation iPad which works as my so-called Smart Home Display where I can see every single thing, especially the whole entire HomeKit app and all the devices over here.
Okay, looking at the top of the cabinet first, there is the Aqara G2H Pro. Now, this is a Zigbee 3.0 Hub which doubles up as a 1080p camera, which has a 146° ultra-wide camera, infrared light vision, and voice calls too.
It also has the right alerts like sound detection, motion detection, and it also records locally via the microSD card. Now, like other cameras, there’s also the Privacy masking area, but that’s something which I don’t use since all the microSD card is recorded locally anyway.
Now, call me crazy, but I do love my first-generation Amazon Echo Dot, especially this one in white. Now, I do occasionally use Amazon Echo, especially since it works more consistently to execute smart home commands compared to the HomePod Mini; more on that later.
Then next, there is the Sonos Five, which of course, I’ve done a review on that. And here is where the Aqara Wireless Smart Video Doorbell G4 Chime is located. And as you can see, there is a microSD card slot which is placed at the back instead of it being outside.
Then there is the Sensibo Sky, the first generation too. So, this is not the HomeKit-compatible version, but it works with Siri shortcuts very well, so I can use Siri to turn on and turn off the aircon.
Then there is the Aqara TVOC Air Quality Monitor. Now, this started off being great, but sometimes it doesn’t read in real-time, so I would say that this product is just meh, something that I wouldn’t really recommend for you to go out and get, especially with this price factor. It also goes offline very often on HomeKit too. And yeah, I bought a lot of this in the whole entire house.
Then there is the Aqara M2 Hub. And not only that, this is an excellent IR blaster to control the IR ceiling fans as well as the aircon if I wanted to. But it also has a Zigbee 3.0 Hub that supports up to 128 child devices. It even has an Ethernet port at the back just in case you want a more stable connection. But thanks to me having FTTR, I don’t have to use that.
Now, here’s a little tip – if you’re planning to have a smart home setup like this, make sure to tell your ISP or your Internet Service Provider to have a separate 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi and a 5 GHz Wi-Fi to give you more levy on your regular devices and also your smart home devices to make it separate from the 2.4 GHz and the 5 GHz.
Other than that, what’s unique about this M2 Hub is the fact that there’s a built-in 10,000 mAh of battery inside so you can get up to 30 hours of backup of power. And finally, this can also act as a home security system as well.
Living Room
Stepping over to the living room first, there is the Sonos Sub Gen 3.
And next to it, there is this cute little fella over here, which is the Aqara Camera Hub G3. Now, this records up to 2K resolution. It has a pan and tilt movement, supports both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz as well. And as the name mentions, it is also a hub which has a Zigbee 3.0, which supports up to 128 child devices.
So, it comes with these cute little cat-like rubber ears, and I left it on not because I love my cat Luna, but because this has been set specifically for animal tracking to see what my naughty girl has been up to.
Then there are also unique gesture commands to trigger automation, for example, showing five fingers or four fingers to do an automation, which is something cool. But I personally have not been really taking advantage of this whole gesture movement, so hopefully, I will incorporate that into my daily life.
Then underneath, there is the Yeelight LED Lightstrip Pro as well. Then right on top is my Sonos Arc Soundbar. And speaking of Sonos, do check out my video of this entire Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 setup on a video that I’ve done.
Among all the TVs that I’ve ever reviewed this year, this has to be my favorite – this is the LG OLED evo G3 77”, and it is hands down the best TV ever. I did a YouTube shorts on why this is really awesome and why I also highly recommend this, check it out here: https://youtube.com/shorts/YAKZCVqRxzw?feature=share
And I’ve got my Apple TV connected to it since I use my HomeKit devices and I can see every notification over here. Then next to it is my PlayStation 5, and yes, I hardly play it. If you’re wondering, I’ve mounted this with my HIDEit Mount from the US. And I told myself that if I mounted it like this, I would play it more, but unfortunately, it hasn’t been happening during the whole entire year, so yeah…
Then below that is the Blueair HealthProtect 770i, the best air purifier out right now. Now, I did a review on that, so do check it out as well: https://youtu.be/y4fUJuiXDDY.
Then at the back over here, right now, it is very bright so you cannot see it, is an unbranded ambient light that I got. And I have it connected to the Meross Smart Plug, which is right down here, which turns on at 7:00 pm and turns off at 2:00 am.
So Meross is a brand that has their devices supported with HomeKit too. Not many items, but the items are great except for when you don’t use it for a while. For example, when I stopped using it with my Christmas lights after one year, I had to repair it again. So keep that in mind when it comes to this particular Meross product. But other than that, there are no issues at all.
And I have another Meross Smart Plug with my Blueair HealthProtect as well. So if anyone opens the balcony, the purifier turns off so the whole world won’t get free-filtered air. And of course, this works through the automation with the Aqara Door and Window Sensor T1, which is placed at the balcony door area.
So, what’s interesting is that I originally placed the Aqara Roller Shade E1 over here because my blinds were not really compatible. When it went up, it was fine, but when it was coming down, it was a bit more jittery than how I really wanted it to be. So, I ended up not using it.
But every time when I open the sliding door, it also came out from its overall mount itself. So, I ended up not using that. So yeah, that is a huge no-no for me, not because of Aqara but because of the fact that my blinds are not the best compatible ones. So, hopefully, I might be changing this and using the Aqara Shades instead.
On the side table of my sofa, there is a very interestingly new product that I’ve just got my hands on, which is the Aqara Cube T1 Pro.
Now, this is the new HomeKit-compatible version which recognizes it directly on the HomeKit app. You can configure each side of the automation where I’ve configured for:
- Number 1 to turn on the aircon
- Number 2 to trigger the fan
- Number 3 to turn off the living room lights
- Number 4 to turn on the living room lights
- Number 6 to turn off the aircon
- and Number 5 is to do nothing
And my favorite has to be “shake”, where it opens the door when I’m usually sitting on the sofa, which is something that I hardly do anyway, but just in case I do.
Then right towards the back, there is another Aqara Camera Hub G3. And this has no human or animal tracking, as this is specifically used to face towards this angle of the living room. Then there’s another Meross Smart Plug down here together with the ambient light fixture, where it turns on similar to the other ambient light, which is exactly at 7:00 pm. Then of course, there’s the Sonos Era 300, part of my Sonos Dolby setup on each side.
And of course, since it’s the Christmas season, I have the Christmas tree over here, which has the Meross Smart Plug over here as well to turn it on at 7:00 pm and turn it off at 1:00 am.
Dining
Okay, so walking over to the dining room first, there is the new Widetech 30L Air Dehumidifier. So I’ve been meaning to try to incorporate dehumidifiers at home because this is something that I recently got at the 12.12 sale. So I can’t say much about it yet, but I have to say one thing though, that this gives me not one but three different 30-liter tanks per day. Man, that’s a lot!
Then next to it, there’s the Sonos One SL. So this was my previous rear speakers before it was being replaced by the Sonos Era 300. We have placed it right at the back of the dining area to give me that very nice multi-room music listening. And I just love how it is placed right at the back of the table.
Then on the dining table over here, there is the Aqara Mini Wireless Switch, similar to what you saw at the entrance area. But this is for situations for me to control the fan or the lights when I’m turning on or turning off the dining lights. So in case I’m taking my food sitting down and I forget to turn on the lights at night, I can just use this instead. Yeah, first-world problems.
Oh, and the battery has lasted for me more than a year. And believe it or not, as of now, this battery is still at 100%. Then next to it, there’s another Sonos One SL and also the Blueair 3210 Air Purifier.
On the opposite end of the dining area, there is not one but two Dyson fans or the Tower fans. One is the Formaldehyde variant, and the one on the other side is the previous generation. And yes, Dyson products last the longest, man.
Then on top here, there is a signed Steven Gerrard Jersey. Yes, my favorite player and the ultimate best captain of Liverpool ever. And this was given by Abang Jake Abdullah. And yes, this is not a tech item, but it’s my house and my club, so I have to talk about it.
So over here, that is the Sonos Move Gen 1. The Move Gen 2 is in the studio. And next to it, there is the Yeelight Gateway Mesh Hub. And this is what brings all the crazy amount of Yeelights that you see in the house all into HomeKit and recognizes them in the app.
Otherwise, you can only see them in the Yeelight app. So yeah, this would come in super crucial because all of my Yeelight lighting in the house has been top-notch all the time.
Then next to it, there is the Eufy Security HomeBase 2. And of course, this is the hub for the camera that you saw at the entrance and also in Luna’s room as well. And yes, we will go there soon.
Kitchen
First, there is another Aqara Camera Hub G3. Now this is specifically set for human tracking, so it follows whoever passes by the camera. And then there’s also the Dyson Pure Cool Me fan since there’s no fan directly in the kitchen.
Then next to it, there is the Aqara Motion Sensor P1, which has the automation to turn on the lights at exactly 7:00 pm. as well and turn the lights off as soon as no motion for 5 minutes, only specifically for these kitchen lights.
And speaking of the kitchen light, there’s also a Smoke Sensor for obvious reasons when it comes to any situations where there’s an overload of smoke within the kitchen area.
Then next to it, there is the HomePod Mini, which I have a love-hate relationship with. Now this sometimes works and sometimes it does not. From a smart home perspective, it is a hit or miss, especially when it comes to my calendar entries. I want to come up with a calendar, I can do it on my phone, it’s fine. But when I try to do it on the HomePod Mini, it seems to tell me to check in my settings and adjust the permissions, which I always do and it still doesn’t do very well.
So yeah, as of now, I feel that if you really had to compare between the iPhone Siri and HomePod Siri, this is way much superior, even on my Apple Watch compared to this HomePod Mini.
So yeah, from a smart home perspective, I still would not really think that this is the best option. But from a sound quality perspective, it is really good since it has AirPlay 2, so it can group along with other Sonos speakers as well. And that’s the reason why I still love the HomePod Mini.
And speaking of Sonos speakers, this is the Sonos Era 100, I also did a review on this: https://youtu.be/0xz_xBL59CA
Then down here, there is the Townew T1S Smart Dustbin. And yes, as the name suggests, this is a smart dustbin. Now not only it has a sensor to bring it up and down when once it’s all filled up, just press and hold this button over here. And what happens is that a dustbin will lift up and seal the dustbin and will refill it back to a brand-new plastic bag.
So you need to buy something like this cartridge, which I think fills up about 30 bags or so. It has a 3kg bearing strength and a 15.5L capacity for this particular version.
Now besides the ceiling lights that you see on top at the side area or the LED strips, is using the Aqara Dual Relay Module. Then there’s also another Aqara Wireless Switch D1 to manually switch on and off the lights.
So the only other smart device that we have here in the kitchen is this – the LG PuriCare. Still love this and trust this a lot. It has been 5 years and it is my favorite water purifier to date with all the different functions on this as well, which I’ve done an in-depth review on this on all of the functions, check it out here: https://youtu.be/cQjpMNlnWYQ
Then over to the other side, there is the first-generation Amazon Echo Show. Now this was from my desk setup, but I’ve placed it over here. And speaking of my desk setup, I will be coming up with my desk setup video very soon alongside with my office tour. So yeah, stay tuned for that.
Then finally, another smart appliance in the kitchen is the Xiaomi Smart Air Fryer.
Laundry
Then walking towards the laundry and also Luna’s room area, there is this – the Xiaomi Smart Pet Water Dispenser.
Then over at this laundry area, there’s the Aqara Door and Window Sensor T1, so that whenever I open the laundry door, the Yeelight Spotlight M2 will turn on. And once it is closed, it will turn off. A very simple automation that I really appreciate.
Luna’s Toilet
Then as for Luna’s toilet, yes, my friends, my cat has her own toilet. From here, what I’ve done is that I’ve placed an Aqara Motion Sensor P1 slightly below. So as soon as you pass here to walk in to go to her litter box, the toilet Yeelight Smart Spotlight M2 lights will turn on. And then after 10 minutes, if there’s no motion, it turns off. And yes, the cat has a very great life. And yes, I love her like crazy.
Then outside of the toilet, there is another double Aqara Wireless Switch D1. One is to control the laundry lights and the other one is to control the toilet lights.
Luna’s Room
Then finally, let’s look here at Luna’s room. Now, thanks to my buddy Brandon Gomez, this is how it was whole entirely built by him. And speaking of Brandon Gomez, once again, all the additional wiring that you see in the house has been helped by him as well. So thank you, Brandon Gomez. I love you.
So over the top, there is one Yeelight Smart Spotlight M2 and the other one is the Yeelight Smart Downlight M2. Now, the reason why it is different is because this room was my test to see whether or not I needed to cut open the ceiling a bit more to fit a Yeelight downlight compared to the original downlight. So with this, I can go back to the original lights if I’m planning to move out or whenever I move out from the place.
Then there’s another Aqara Wireless Switch D1 over here to control the lights with a single switch.
And looking down below, there’s the Xiaomi Mi Smart Air Purifier 4 Compact, which is always getting issues with the Wi-Fi connection, which is pretty annoying. And I have a very high-speed FTTR connection, so I’m not sure why is it. I wouldn’t sure that I would really recommend this. Purification is fine, but when it comes to the smart functions, it’s probably not the best and something that I do not recommend fully as of now.
Then since we’re talking about cleaning, all my cleaning appliances are all over here. We have the Dyson V15 Detect Series, the Dyson V12s Detect Slim Submarine, which is the new wet and dry vacuum. And there’s also the Dyson Omni-glide here as well.
Then there’s another Sensible Sky over here, and the last Eufy Cam 2 Pro is over on top since it’s also wireless as well.
And last but not least at the bottom, there is the Roborock Dyad Pro Combo and the PETKIT AirSalon Max Pro Smart Pet Dryer for Luna, of course.
—
Finally, that is the conclusion of my smart home living area after 365 days. With this, I hope you found it helpful in choosing the right devices to maximize your smart home’s potential, especially if you’re planning it with the Apple HomeKit system.
A huge thanks goes out to Aqara and Yeelight and all of the other smart home-related brands for being part of this huge smart home project.
Stay tuned for my home office setup, together with my desk setup, coming very soon!
—
🛒 List of products mentioned and their latest links are available on my YouTube video’s description & pinned comment: https://youtu.be/AwCkqVjMyWs