I was doing some research into home automation when I ran across an article with a title claiming I could make my house a smart home for less than the price of a good dinner. I was intrigued. I was also let down. I don’t know if the title was meant to be clickbait or just suffered from poor writing. Either way, it was definitely misleading.
I do not doubt that I can build my own smart home system from the ground up. I know people who have done it. But it is not going to be as cheap as a good dinner. In fact, I could easily spend more on a smart home system than I would taking my wife to the most expensive 5-star restaurant in town. There just is no cheap way to do it.
Maybe You Can Learn for Less
Getting back to the article, I discovered that it was really just an advertisement for a self-paced learning program. For just $29.95, I could get a program that would teach me how to build a home automation system using a Raspberry Pi single board computer.
In fairness, this is a 10-course bundle that normally sells for $250. So $29.95 represents a steal. In addition, that 5-star meal I talked about earlier could easily cost three times as much as the course. But the course itself does nothing but teach me how to build a smart home system. I still need to build it, and that costs money.
The starting point for a Raspberry Pi is about $50 for a bare bones model. If I want to start adding bells and whistles, the price goes up. The software I need to run the computer is free and open source, so that is not a problem. But then I need to invest in smart home devices. I cannot go pick them for free from a smart home tree out in my yard.
It All Adds Up
Once I had my Raspberry Pi up and running, I would probably start with some smart light bulbs and fixtures. Based on the total number of bulbs I currently have in my home I would spend well over $100 to replace them all with smart alternatives. After that, I would want a smart thermostat and a smart lock for the front door. That is an additional $100-$200.
I wouldn’t want to go to all of this trouble and not include a smart speaker for voice control along with an array of video cameras for security purposes. And while I am at it, I might just as well get window and door sensors along with smart smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.
Where does that leave me in terms of price? I have no idea. All I know is that it all adds up to a lot more than a good dinner. I can buy a lot of good dinners for the same amount of money. They wouldn’t be as smart, but they would be delicious.
Another Way to Go
There is another way for me to go: buy out-of-the-box home automation from a company like Vivint Smart Home. I save myself the hassle by letting them install and monitor it. Easy peasy. The only downside is that I wouldn’t get the enjoyment that comes from playing with computers – which is something I really like to do.
No, I can’t build my own smart home system for less than a good dinner. But Santa Claus isn’t real, either. No big deal. I’ll roll with it.