If you were to start a smart home from scratch, what Aqara products would you recommend for someone who is intermediate and knows a fair bit but wants to explore and get the most out of smart home?
What smart home e.g. Alexa, Siri, Google would be best suited?
Devices to link?
Accessories to buy?
Hi there and welcome to the forum.well first thing first you need to make an plan and have ideas like what exactly you want to do in order to get your smart home.first you need an stable internet and an good router then what phone are you using because that would be also your platform to chose.lets say you have an iPhone like me then you could go with aqara and Apple HomeKit for start but what exactly you need first?well an Aqara hub I personally have 5 hubs but the main hub is an M3.for Apple home app I have Apple TV 4K and 2 HomePods you can have one of this or all and start from there.then you need to ask yourself what you want to be smart on your home and start from there like door and window sensor ,temperature and humidity sensor, switches to control the lights or even light bulbs.no one can give you an exact recommendation because only you know what you need to be smart into your home.
Thank you very much for the reply and suggestions. Would having a mesh WiFi network benefit this? And would be better to have separate WiFi networks such a smart home WiFi or a separate 2.4ghz channel instead of combing them all?
Well it should benefit if you have an big house or an apartment that is bigger then 80/100 square meters as I have 80 and one Deco X50 router is just enough no need to add mesh.also I am using the smart WiFi I didn’t add an IoT network dedicated for 2.4Ghz band and it works perfectly but because on Deco app you can make each device to connect to the 2.4G band and also chose the devices that work on both bands what to use.now you can try and see how it goes on your end but make sure you have same network name and pass for both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands.
I recently switched from an unmanaged mesh Wi-Fi setup to a fully managed Omada network featuring 3 access points, 7 SSIDs, and 12 VLANs. Everything is running better now.
A used mini-PC hosts the Docker containers for the Omada controller, Home Assistant, and other services.
I plan to install a fourth access point for the outdoor area to cover the parking space as well; this will allow me to retrieve vehicle data.
That setup you have is great for those who have big house and that have already many smart devices around the house.i wouldn’t say that is good for someone who justa want to start with smart home for the first time.but is an great setup of your network.
I live in a flat with less than 100 m². Not really a big place.
I have about 80 devices, that is not very few.
I built this structure, because the old design was not really working anymore.
Why it wasn’t working? Honestly: I don’t know. But now it is running fine
Well I live on an flat apartment too same square meters and only use one Deco X50 as my main router and I have more the 50 devices that only 40 more or less are WiFi rest are zigbee and all works perfectly without any issue