A cross-section illustration of a three-story smart home with a garage, showing various automated devices including smart lights, thermostats, security sensors, and appliances labeled with green icons.

My Example "Frankenstein" Smart Home System

Last Updated: 03/10/2026

Smart Home Network Topology (Example)

Parts of my smart home system came together very methodically over time, but some aspects appear to have been chosen rather haphazardly. The lighting control portion of the system was carefully selected to ensure that a wide variety of high-quality switches, sensors, and control devices were compatible. Other devices were chosen more for their individual capabilities than for the quality of their integrations. System components, such as Ecobee and Ring, were purchased early in their lifecycles and, at the time, were individually very featured and capable. Still, there were a few integrations between them and the rest of the network. As a result, many of these systems did not interoperate, and even when they did, the integrations were incomplete or unreliable.

Figure 1 attempts to pictorially distill the basic interconnectivity down to the major components. The major sections (green, pink, and purple) of Figure 1 are partitioned by protocol. Although this is a single multiprotocol network, it is helpful to discuss it in terms of the two sections shown in Figure 1. The left side shows the major Wi-Fi components. The middle-right summarizes the Z-Wave, Zigbee, and Thread protocols. On the very right side of the figure are a few smart home products that, so far, have not been integrated into the network, mostly due to cost trade-offs. Below, many of the components of this implementation are discussed.

Figure 1 Simplified View of a Messy Smart Home Network

Wi-Fi and Ethernet Smart Home Network

Parts of this smart home system (primarily the Wi-Fi devices) were assembled over time through individual decisions. The main Wi-Fi network includes around 15 commercial smart-home devices, such as thermostats, cameras, Echo devices, and a dozen color-changing bulbs. A goal has been to limit the number of Wi-Fi devices, especially those that don't require Wi-Fi bandwidth, unless they are functionally better than comparable Z-Wave or Zigbee devices. In Figure 1, the green area on the right shows a simple view of Wi-Fi network devices. Below are some thoughts on the Wi-Fi devices used.

Ecobee Thermostat - There are Z-Wave thermostats, but they have pretty minimal features and rely on programming the controller for smart features. Ecobee offers a nice display, very flexible programming, and optional external sensors to manage temperatures at multiple locations. Other than basic thermostat control, most other functions are handled via Ecobee's cloud services.
Ring Doorbell, Flood Lights - Ring products have several undesirable features. They are cloud-based, a subscription is nearly a requirement, and some of their privacy policies are controversial. However, the products and the Ring App are easy to use and very feature-rich. Ring also integrates with SmartThings and Echo products, although there is no compelling reason to integrate Ring.
Echo Shows and Dots - The main use case for Echoes in this smart home is for voice control of any switches in the house, but since everything is cloud-based, responses can be laggy. Echo devices integrate well with Ring devices primarily to show camera video.
Color Light Bulbs - Lifx, Csync, and Govee color bulbs and light strips connect directly to Wi-Fi and are intended to be used with their respective Apps, but also have cloud-based integration with SmartThings. From a network efficiency perspective, having many individual Wi-Fi devices on is not ideal, but putting them on the 2.5G band isolates their traffic. These are used for a dozen-ish colorful accent lights around and outside the house.
Legacy Ademco Vista 20P Alarm - This alarm system is very much not a "smart" system. It originally used a cryptic keypad for programming and status. This system has door sensors, window sensors, and a couple of motion sensors. Wouldn't it be great if these could be useful in the smart home system? For a while, it was possible. Purchasing an Envisalink made the system network accessible. For a while, the Envisalink could integrate with SmartThings to do interesting automations, but the integration no longer works.
Rain Machine - This smart sprinkler controller can do what's needed, stand-alone, and even though the company seems to have died, the device still works locally. It would have been nice to have an integration with SmartThings, but unless one invests in third-party soil moisture sensors, the stand-alone device's features were powerful, and the lack of integration is not a huge loss. If picking a similar smart sprinkler controller today, Rachio is probably the best-known and most respected.

As a side note, all of the above 6 major Wi-Fi smart home products have integrations with Home Assistant. Most of the integrations are local (no cloud services), except for Ring and Echo. It also appears that the HA integrations are more complete and robust than the SmartThings integrations.

At the bottom left of Figure 1 is a small section showing some of the more interesting missing smart devices. These are not part of the network; we assess that they are high-cost relative to their usefulness. Smart locks can typically cost around $150-$300, and we hardly ever enter through the front door. But there are a couple of generally interesting use cases that would be fun to address. Smart blinds/shades are also generally costly ($200-$400 per blind, and we have 14 on our main floor), and again, there are some useful automation scenarios, especially on the south side of the house. Smart appliances are even harder to justify unless an old one breaks and a new one is needed; only then might it make sense to get a replacement with smart features.

As messy as the Wi-Fi side of the network became with the disparate devices, the Zigbee/Z-Wave side is reasonably well interconnected.

Smart Device Network (Z-Wave, Zigbee, Thread)

Unlike the products purchased on the Wi-Fi network which were mostly based on individual features, the lighting and control portion of the network was assembled based on picking underlying protocols (Z-Wave, Zigbee, and more recently Thread) and a controller (SmartThings perhaps migrating to Home Assistant) which were highly interoperable, and thus enabled a wide range of hub, switches and sensors from multiple manufacturers to work (mostly) seamlessly. Even though Wi-Fi switches and sensors are available, many Z-Wave, Zigbee, and Thread-based devices are more feature-rich and lower-power than their Wi-Fi equivalents. Below is a brief list of most (but not all) types of switches and sensors used, including some of the specific vendors used in this smart house system.

Z-Wave/Zigbee Switches
1. Smart Switches and Dimmers (Innovelli, Zooz, GE/Jasco) - Typically an early smart home purchase, and by themselves enable remote control of lights but provide limited automations without sensors.
2. Remote Buttons, Scene Controllers (Aeotec, Aqara, Zooz) - Basically remote controls for "stuff." The basic convenience is having a button where you are, instead of walking to a switch.
3. Smart Plugs, Outlets (Zooz, Third Reality) - Like a smart switch, enabled remote control of things you plug into the wall.
Z-Wave/Zigbee Sensors
1. Power Sensors (Zooz, Third Reality) - Usually integrated into smart switches and plugs, and are very handy for automations based on whether an appliance or device is on or off. It can also be used to track device power.
2. Open/Close Sensors (Zooz, Aqara, Aeotec) - These can detect door or window open/close events. Door events are useful to know when someone (probably) enters or exits a room. On windows, open/close sensors are typically used for burglar detection.
3. Tilt Sensor (Ecolink, Third Reality) - A niche sensor, whose most obvious use is garage door open close detection. It may also be useful for mailbox open/close if the distance is not a problem.
4. Temperature and Humidity Sensors - Temperature sensors are (obviously) useful for thermostat control. Humidity sensors are typically used to trigger ventilation or fans, for example, in a bathroom.
5. Motion and Presence Sensors (Aqara, Zooz) - Motion sensors are good at detecting a person moving in a room, but not at detecting a person sitting still. More expensive presence sensors can readily detect a person sitting still. Both sensor types are good for triggering automations based on movement around the house or in specific rooms.

This is not a complete list of sensors and switches, most just ones I have used. Not included here, but useful are items such as water main valve switches, air quality sensors, and vibration sensors. As discussed in the earlier Wi-Fi network section, smart bulbs now have a few feature-rich Zigbee versions available and could be included in this section as well.

Some More General Thoughts

This topology was not strictly a top-down design; some of it evolved. Here is a brief list of this implementation's shortcomings and features.

SmartThings Hub:
- While relatively user-friendly, SmartThings is highly cloud-centric, leading to significant and variable latency.
- SmartThings has increasingly moved routines to execute locally, which has improved latency in some cases, but due to the low-performing CPU, local routines still exhibit inconsistent latency.
- The Apps routine creation GUI is very easy to use, but the GUI is missing some programming (e.g. if-elseif-else) syntax that would be useful for more complex routines. A third-party tool like the GUI based ShareTools, or using SmartThings JSON based Rules API need to be used for more complex routines.
SmartThings, Ring, Echo, and Ecobee integrations:
- The integrations enable cross-communication, but the SmartThings functionality is often limited. For example, access to Ecobee and Ring sensors is limited.
- SmartThings, Ring, Echo, and Ecobee integrations are cloud-based, which causes latency issues.
- The upside of the cloud-based Ecobee, Ring, Echo, and SmartThings services is that remote access through their respective apps is easy.
In the Alexa App (Like the SmartThings App), creating routines is relatively easy. The Alex App, in particular, appears to have fewer programming constructs available than SmartThings App.
Alexa voice control has improved over the years to the point where it is highly usable, but it has a couple of limitations not specific to the technology. First, for a home with over 80 devices, it can be difficult to remember the names of the devices. It is also important to have device names that are distinct so that Alexa knows which device is the intended target.
Many smart home enthusiasts are concerned about the lack of security and privacy with cloud-based systems.

As one can see, some weaknesses of the current system stem from its cloud-based implementation. Therefore, one future change to this smart home system is to move more of the automations and operations locally.