Published May 1, 2026, 8:45 AM EDT
Adam has a degree in Engineering and has a life-long interest in technology. He has been writing for over a decade for various print and online publications, with a focus on consumer tech. He joined How-To Geek in 2024 while working at Pocket-lint.
As well as being a long-term fan of Apple products, he also has a strong interest in smart home tech, running a Home Assistant server at home to automate all his smart home devices. He believes that the ideal smart home should work with minimal interaction from the user, with automations running as if by magic rather than requiring you to push buttons on a control panel. You can find more of his work on Muck Rack.
If you're setting up a smart home, you might look online for tips and advice. Not every suggestion you find is worth following, however. Here are some common smart home tips that you'd be better off ignoring.
Buy smart bulbs for everything
You'll live to regret it
Credit: Bertel King / How-To Geek
A smart bulb was the first smart home device I ever owned. They're a great route into the world of smart home tech as they're relatively cheap and easy to set up. For some situations, such as lamps, they're a great choice.
Using them in your main lights can soon become a nightmare, however. Smart bulbs can't work without power, so as soon as the light switch is turned off, you can no longer control your smart bulbs. Smart switches are a better option for your main lights, as you can still control your lights manually with the switch without breaking all your automations.
Govee Smart Bulbs
Colors Multicolor
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For inexpensive but reliable color changing bulbs, it's tough to beat Govee. The bulbs are bright and colorful, and the Govee app has a ton of fun patterns for every mood and season.
Using voice control as the ultimate endgame
Shouting at a box isn't smart
Star Trek: The Next Generation has a lot to answer for. The show made it seem like saying "Computer" and then giving the computer instructions was how we'd all interact with technology in the future. The reality, however, doesn't quite match up.
Smart speakers let you control your smart home with your voice, but shouting commands at a smart speaker often just feels weird. There are plenty of occasions when using voice commands simply isn't suitable, such as when someone else is on the phone or it's late at night. Voice control is fine as a backup option, but it's far from ideal as the main way to control your smart home.
Using motion sensors to turn lights on and off automatically
You'll end up in the dark
Credit: Chris Hachey / How-To Geek
This is a simple smart home automation that gives instant results. You set up a motion sensor and make a routine or automation that turns on your smart bulb when you enter the room. For turning on lights, this should work just fine.
The problems come when you add more to your automation to make the light turn off again. A motion sensor can't tell the difference between an empty room and one in which everyone is sitting still. Once it stops detecting motion, your lights turn off, plunging you into darkness.
Motion sensors are often the wrong choice for these types of presence-based automations. Dedicated presence sensors, such as mmWave devices, are usually a much better option.
Related
Building a smart home dashboard you don't need
Virtual switches are still switches
Credit: u/lmbatman2 | Reddit
If you look on smart home forums, you'll often find a lot of posts from people showing off the impressive wall-mounted smart home dashboards that they've created. Even if your smart home system doesn't allow you to create your own dashboards, you may still have a wall-mounted tablet that displays the controls of your smart home app.
The idea of having a central hub that you can use to control your smart home seems like a good one, but wall-mounted smart home dashboards suffer from the same problem that physical switches do: you need to be standing next to them in order to use them. If you're sitting on the sofa, getting up, walking over to the dashboard, and tapping the relevant control to turn on your lights isn't smart. It's just a very expensive switch.
Dashboards can be useful for monitoring your smart home, but they're not ideal for control, and you can use your smart home perfectly well without one. It's better to aim for true automation, where your devices automatically react to data from sensors, such as motion sensors and presence sensors, rather than relying on manual control.
Sticking to one brand or ecosystem
Don't lock yourself in
Credit: Jacob Hudson / How-To Geek
You'll often see advice telling you to stick to one brand or ecosystem to get the best experience. For example, you might see advice to get Echo smart displays along with Ring doorbells and smart cameras, as these work well together.
The problem is that by tying yourself to a specific brand or system, you're relying on the whims of that company. If they discontinue products, drop support, or put features behind a paywall, your entire smart home can break.
It's better to aim for interoperability rather than brand loyalty. You could opt to choose a specific protocol, such as Zigbee, for the majority of your devices. You could also choose a system such as Home Assistant, which allows you to connect a wide range of devices regardless of brand or ecosystem.
Relying too much on Wi-Fi
There are better options
Credit: TP-Link
Wi-Fi smart home devices are a simple option because they're easy to set up. You don't need to worry about smart home hubs or mysterious protocols such as Zigbee or Matter; as long as you have a Wi-Fi network set up in your home, you can connect your devices.
The problem is that Wi-Fi isn't always a great choice for smart home tech. The more devices you have, the more congested your network becomes, slowing down performance. These devices also require a reasonable amount of power, so they usually need to be plugged in, severely limiting where you can place them.
Many Wi-Fi devices also rely on cloud services to work. If these cloud services go down or are discontinued, your device will stop working. Options such as Zigbee or Z-Wave are better options, while Matter over Thread is becoming a more viable alternative.
Too many notifications for things that don't matter
Notification fatigue is real
Credit: Adam Davidson/How-To Geek
This is a mistake I've been guilty of making. Having your smart home send notifications to your phone is a useful way to keep track of what's going on, but it can easily get out of hand. If you add notifications for every change in your smart home, you can soon become bombarded with an endless stream of them.
The problem is that if you get too many notifications, you start to ignore them all, including the ones that are actually important. It's far better to limit notifications to the things that are most important.
You don't need to follow every piece of advice
There are plenty of smart home tips online, and while some of them are genuinely useful, plenty are less helpful. The best course of action is to take on board the advice that works for you and ignore the parts that don't.