I’m a New Homeowner, and Here’s How to BYO Smart Home

I was surprised how many smart home products were included. My builder gave us the option to install even more devices during the building process, which would’ve cost almost $2,000 for a handful of door sensors, two motion sensors, a siren, and two control panels. We opted out. I figured I could easily rig those up for less than half that price with a couple of Echo Hubs (8/10, WIRED Recommends).

I was pleasantly surprised to find out we got so much smart home gear included without any extra fees. Of course, our builder didn’t mention this, nor did he offer any devices that I wanted, like a smart doorbell. But while I like some of the gear that came with my home, I would’ve liked a chance to shop around or say no to some of the products they chose.

Garage Greatness

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

Photograph: Nena Farrell

If you have multiple users, one person will need to set up the MyQ and then invite other family members to it via an email. My husband was faster than me as we raced to finish the setup, so the MyQ is under 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 issues. The app shows us whether the garage is open or closed, and we can both control it from anywhere.

Front Door Woes

On the other side of my house, I have a gadget that I hate: a Kwikset smart lock. It has me missing my old Abode Smart Lock (8/10, WIRED Recommends) dearly.

My Kwikset smart lock has been a pain since the second we got the keys. It’s a Kwikset Smartkey, so it should be easy to rekey the door, but neither my husband nor I could get it to work. No matter, you should always get new locks and keys when you get a new home. We figured we’d ignore the key problem and just use the smart features in the meantime.