I'll let you know how the Z-Wave integration goes once we install the new alarm system. We got one from Frontpoint that should be coming in at the beginning of next week and I'm planning to use a Z-Wave IO controller to interface the alarm with a powered gate at the front of the property so that we can open and close remotely.

Thermostats are next on the list since there are three of them in the office and they are all totally different and it's a pain turning everything on and off and scheduling them. That's where I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I'm looking at EcoBee3, which is really nice and will do it all and will integrate with Homekit for Siri control along with our Smartlock, but there will be no integration with the alarm system.

Most devices are a tad wonky. We have to do a lot of crazy tweaking with our drivers to make everything behave.

ND, is that for home or work location?

Most of the new stuff is for work. At home we have Hue lights and a Nest thermostat. I have them both integrated with our Harmony remote system.

Cool. I am going to be making changes to my alarm and thermostat soon too so am taking notes.

We have a Nest thermostat and smoke detector hooked up to Alexa. I've thought about putting in a smartlock on the door, but most of them have pretty crappy reviews - ND, what do you like about yours?

I'm using the August. The big thing that appealed to me is that is works with your choice of deadbolt, so I was able to keep a high end Medco key lock as the manual security with a smart lock on the back end.

For the business is saves me from issuing keys. When an employee leaves, or a part timer no longer needs access, I simply remove them from the smart lock access. I have a much much smaller pool of keys out in the world. I can also easily see who unlocked the door, and when, and schedule access windows.

I'm finishing up the HomeKit connections, but once that's all squared away, it also means that I can check the lock status remotely, and even lock or unlock the office remotely.

I have a CT101 thermostat which Lowe's is essentially phasing out in favor of a less expensive and better one. Still, it works just fine, I set up a schedule on my phone and pretty much leave it alone. Other family members may bump the temp sometimes, but the schedule then brings it back in line when a temperature change is programmed in. I have a couple of connected smoke/CO2 detectors as well and a couple of connected power plugs and motion sensors. To be honest I don't really do much controlling of things and just schedule or let motion sensors trigger things.

Just some general notes. Zigbee devices are generally going to be more reliable than Z-Wave devices since the protocol is more robust and doesn't leave as many opportunities to get into a weird state. In either case, they are mesh network devices so strategic placement of line-powered devices (like switches and outlets) can make your network more reliable. Be careful with cheap WiFi devices that aren't part of a smart-home platform (like cheap Wi-Fi cameras). With Iris, Wi-Fi devices communicate with two-way TLS encryption and authentication, but a stand-alone device may not provide much in the way of security because it can be really complicated and makes the device more expensive.

The makerspace I'm a member of uses the August as well. It seems to be pretty good, and members can look online to see if the space is open. If it's not and you need it, the Lockmasters can open it for you remotely.

Mal's room is fully smart, but the DH made me return the Nest thermostats because of a study I did on hacking them.

That's great information Gud. I was looking at Zigbee. The main reason I'm on Z-Wave now is because that's what the alarm system had. Another small business owner that's a friend here in LA just installed the Frontpoint system and really like it, so I went that way. They also had a pretty good black Friday deal that made it a tipping point.

I'm really finding that my biggest complaint with all the home automation stuff is that there area a few big standards out there and it seems like none of them are really strong across all of the product categories. I wanted my alarm system to have cellular connection for monitoring, and cloud storage for all the camera feeds, as well as smart phone monitoring and control. Once I found the handful of systems that seemed to do that in a decent way it really limited my other options.