Paul’s Tech Makeover: Here’s to an Even Smarter 2019 (Premium)

It’s been a while since the last post in this series. So let’s check in, see where we’re at, and look ahead at what we’d like to accomplish in 2019.

I wrote a similar recap last January in Paul’s Tech Makeover: Here’s to an Even Smarter 2018 (Premium) that focused on what we had done to our home in 2017. As you may recall, we moved to Pennsylvania in August 2017 and needed to do a lot of work on the new house to bring it up to date So we resolved to add smart home functionality where it made sense as part of that updating.

Perhaps not unexpectedly, most of that work happened right up front. And perhaps even less unexpectedly, it almost bankrupted us: We ended spending many tens of thousands of dollars basically replacing the entire electrical system in the house after we discovered how badly done it was. But we also implemented a mesh home networking system, cut the cord using online services, moved to Google Home/Google Assistant for centralized control, consolidated the music services we use, set up Chromecast-based speakers for whole-house audio, and implemented smart lights in key areas of the house.

2018 was decidedly slower, which makes sense: Whatever money we walked away with from selling our house in Massachusetts was long gone, for starters. But we essentially lived with the changes we had made and adjusted as we went. The biggest news was our on-again, off-again, on-again cord-cutting experiment, in which we briefly returned to cable TV and that once again gave it up. Beyond that, we added more smart lights, and have stuck with Philips Hue despite the expense and some complexity.

Looking ahead to 2019, I see some areas for improvement and change. And, frankly, not a lot of need to change much of the work we’ve already done. But the most substantive work we do this year, I bet, will involve decluttering the metric ton of boxed photos, videos, and other memorabilia that we brought with us from Massachusetts, stacked in the basement, and haven’t touched since. Or, hadn’t. We finally just started going through that.

So let’s step through this.

Lighting and electric. Our biggest effort of 2017 is essentially finished: We consolidated and updated all of the switches and receptacles in the home, and while I would do more in an ideal world, we’re done. It is what it is.

Smart lights. We added several Philips Hue lights in 2018 and will continue adding more this year. We have a pair of Bloom accent lights in the sunroom that are literally on all the time, and will at least add a few more pairs---in the living room and front/dining room---most likely. Our experiment with the over-the-garage floodlights was mostly positive, despite some weird technical issues. So I could see adding more outdoor lights as well.

AC and heating. I have a GLAS smart thermostat, and I’d like to use it to replace the old-school round and analog thermostat downstairs. But my home has an interesting problem: The heat...