Smart Smart Home Handbook: Connect, control and secure your home the easy way

This book isn't very 'techy' but it certain fun for a technophile like myself. It reminded me of looking at the big WISH BOOK catalog that used to come in the mail before Christmas that my parents would hand me and tell me to pick some stuff out of that I might want. This goes through many smart devices - not all of which are voice activated. For instance, it showed a cat door that is smart chip enabled so that only one's own cats can come in if they have the chip in their collar. OK, I want that. Smart refrigerators. OK, I want that. Smart locks, smart pet toys, on and on.It does focus primarily on voice devices, but it's not a user guide for anything in particular. This book is more about exploring the possibilities and understanding the basics.I enjoyed it. It's an easy, easy read. You can just flip through it in a waiting room, or it makes a good bathroom book. My pocketbook is probably going to wish I'd never seen it though.

In the 1960's the government produced a film on the future of homes and what was basically a smart home. Many of the things in that have come to pass only still not as effortlessly implemented or accepted by users. This book does a nice job of showing what out there and the major players, but similar to technologies like Beta vs VHS, or HD vs Blu Ray, you just don't know which will become dominant and which will be obsolete. The book talks some on Beta testing, basically consumer lab rats trying software driven devices to see if it's popular or practical I think the real focus should have been what's practical today and where were going. Instead we have an overview which while it may educate, it doesn't really help us select what we need and don't need.The book has most of the smart technologies, but it would be nice to show what's practical. For instance a large family in a cramped house or apartment does not need a robotic vacuum cleaner or floor scrubber. A huge or very small lawn does not need a robotic mower. If your still using land lines and converter boxes for your old tube TV, than you hardly want a bunch of smart video devices. Likewise if you do not have a wired or wireless internet network in your home you won't need a smart device. Having everything linked together can be expensive and tiresome to maintain for the not technically oriented. The book is good on presenting what there is and how it works so you can make some of those decisions. The test for me is would I want to use that feature, then I might want the device, and the book helps explain what it does and more important some limits. The good news is although it's slow, in some ways we've not reached that 1960's ideal in the government film I mentioned, but the longer we wait the easier and more intuitive (idiot proof) things will become, till most everyone can use them in the future. Recommended, but could use some updates itself.

This book is a bit of a mixed bag and a mild disappointment. Less could have been much more.The production values are quite good. The illustrations are nicely to the point. Overall, the organization is quite loose and airy as befitting today’s short attention span readers.The book covers 12 main topics like Entertainment, Lighting and Kitchen. These are divided into 59 subtopics like Smart Light Apps, Doorbells and Locks, or How to Stop Hackers – All of it on 160 pages. The information is often quite cursory and thin. Together with the loose organization of the text, this leaves you often rather unsatisfied. You would like more details so you can choose with confidence.For instance, I give him high marks that he is not completely overawed and prejudiced by the wonders of wifi, Bluetooth, and other over-the-air gadgetry. At the end he discusses the obvious advantages of a wired network vs. a wifi network. That, however, poses a new problem for the reader who would like to decide what to build: All the earlier topics would now have to be discussed from the viewpoint of creating a cable-based system. Which could easily fill a book of its own.I also have the slight suspicion that the text is a bit outdated and does not include the newest developments despite the fact that it was published in 2018. One thing that suggests that is the fact that he mentions Cat-5 cables in several places and apparently sees these as the latest standard. Today Cat-6 cables are the de-facto standard and Cat-7 cables are common.

Our home is filled with voice activation. We have an Alexa device in every room, and we've got sprinklers, thermostat, and several other things connected to these devices. It's nice to just carry on our lives while having 'her' turn on the lights, music, etc. This book is a little speculative, which is always fun, but rarely accurate (Who knew in the 80s that we would all carry a device that worked far better than huge desktop computers for a fraction of the price we paid? And where are the jetpacks and real hoverboards?) Anyway, this is a great place to learn more and decide if this voice-activated world is for you.