TP-Link's Casa devices offer a reasonable price, clean aesthetic, and straightforward setup. Offering outlet switches, light bulbs, and more with control for everything from brightness to color temperature and even RGB control on select bulbs. The initial setup is simple, just follow the guided setup in the Casa app on your phone to get the switches, outlets, and light bulbs connected to your Wi-Fi network.

From there, bringing those devices into Hoops is as simple as installing the TP-Link Smart Home plug-in. The Casa devices on your network are automatically found and brought into your Accessories. It's as simple as that. And now, moving on to my favorite two smart home devices - Nest Doorbell and Thermostat options ever.

Leave the house for a trip and forget to turn off the AC well not anymore, not at home for package delivery no problem once again. Initial setup of Nest products needs to be done in the Nest app and it guides you through the setup. You'll then install the Nest plugin within the Hoops interface. The standard Nest plugin brings in your Thermostat and your Smart Locks while the Nest Cam plugin brings in your Doorbell.

Opening the configuration page, you'll have to link your account so click "Link Account" and log into the same Google account that you used within the Nest app. Copy the provided code and paste it in the next step to finish connecting them. Now, the final smart home devices I'll talk about today are Cameras. The setup is a bit more complicated and the functionality somewhat limited.

Personally, I use Blink cameras; they do enough for me, but the plugin is definitely still a work in progress. After setting up the camera within the Blink app, you install the Blink for Home plugin on Hoops from there. You'll have to enter your login credentials. You'll see an example of the formatting on the plugin's home page but you have to type that all in yourself unlike with the other plugins.

After you hit save, you should get a two-factor authentication code sent to either your phone number or your email. You'll need to put the two-factor authentication code in for the PIN and you're good to go. There are lots of other options for cameras; you can add standard IP Cameras using the FFmpeg plugin. You can add Wise Cameras by running a custom firmware on them, but that's a bit too complicated for today.

Now, if you follow along up to this point, all your smart home devices should be showing up in Hoops. But you still need to get them connected to HomeKit and the Home App at this point. Bringing the devices over follows the same process as a native HomeKit device in the Hoops interface. Navigate to the Bridges tab and select the desired bridge.

Then, within the Home App on your iPhone or iPad, select the plus and choose Add Accessory. You can then scan the QR code for the bridge to bring in those devices. You can choose to change the name icon and assign the devices to a specific room.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enapple's home kit is incredibly convenient having access to all your smart home devices in one place is basically a necessity to have a good smart home experience but plenty of smart home devices lack any sort of support now the upcoming matter standard promises to unify them the support from apple google amazon samsung and more but until then we can bring all our unsupported devices into apple's home kit using this single board computer i'm derek and welcome to 95 mac in order to bring all these devices into homekit we're using something called a home bridge these connect to your network basically act as a communication interface between apple software and the software on your smart home devices there are some manufacturer specific bridges but open source software makes setting up your home bridge for various devices regardless the manufacturer pretty easy you can run home bridge on almost any computer be it a windows or linux pc a mac or even in a docker container on something like a network-attached storage device but today i'll be using the raspberry pi and hoobs software hoobs builds on top of the standard home bridge to integrate improvements to the user experience you can pick up a hoobs all-in-one box on amazon to get everything you need to get started or you can save a few bucks and pick up a standard raspberry pi if you can find one in stock and install the software yourself which is what i'll be doing if you opt to install it yourself you'll need the raspberry pi single board computer a micro sd card a usb power supply an ethernet cable and i'd recommend getting a case to keep the raspberry pi safe i'll link to all the items i talk about down in the video description you can download the software image over on the hoobs website if you'd like to you can make a donation to support the team but you don't have to from there you'll need to flash the image to the microsd card make sure the sd card is clear because flashing the image will totally erase anything already on it i use the program belina etcher to flash the card so just select the downloaded.xz file and ensure the correct sd card is selected then hit flash once done you can plug the micro sd card into your raspberry pi connect it to your network with the ethernet cable and then power on your pi by just plugging it in it's possible to set up hoobs over wi-fi but it's more complicated and less reliable so i would always recommend using a direct wired connection for these always-on applications you won't need any sort of keyboard or display connected to your raspberry pi to set it up as all of that is done from your browser on another computer on the network to connect to your new hoops device open up a web browser and type in hoobs.local you'll be presented with a first time setup page where you can create your account on the main page you'll have a few different tabs on the left hand side the main one you'll use during setup is the plugins tab you'll install the plugins specific to your various smart home devices everything from ring doorbells to nest thermostats smart plugs lights and more today i'll cover a few of these but if i don't mention the device you have don't fret because there's very likely support for it to start off perhaps one of the most ubiquitous smart home devices the smart plug many of the low-cost plugs available on amazon have support for the smart life app and the 2 yes standard and all of those devices can be brought into hooves with the 2yo web plugin and they're really low cost too you can get a pack of 4 smart plugs for a bit over 20 i use these for various lamps and have used them for christmas lights but there are plenty of creative uses from space heater control to automatically turning off other appliances to set it up just search for the tuya web plugin and install it there's another plugin called to you platform but i found it to be far more tedious to get working while to your web just did its job once you install it you can enter the configuration page from there you put in the username and password for your smart life account enter your country code one for the us and select smart life under platform from there your smart plugs will be added to your list of devices under the accessories tab all the other smart devices follow a similarly simple setup process tp-link's casa devices offer a reasonable price clean aesthetic and straightforward setup offering outlet switches light bulbs and more with control for everything from brightness to color temperature and even rgb control on select bulbs the initial setup is simple just follow the guided setup in the casa app on your phone to get the switches outlets and light bulbs connected to your wi-fi network from there bringing those devices into hooves is as simple as installing the tp-link smart home plug-in the casa devices on your network are automatically found and brought into your accessories it's as simple as that and now moving on to my favorite two smart home devices nests doorbell and thermostat options ever leave the house for a trip and forget to turn off the ac well not anymore not at home for package delivery no problem once again initial setup of nest products needs to be done in the nest app and it guides you through the setup you'll then install the nest plugin within the hoops interface the standard nest plugin brings in your thermostat and your smart locks while the nest cam plugin brings in your doorbells opening the configuration page you'll have to link your account so click link account and log into the same google account that you used within the nest app copy the provided code and paste it in the next step to finish connecting them now the final smart home devices i'll talk about today are cameras as the setup is a bit more complicated and the functionality somewhat limited personally i use blink cameras they do enough for me but the plugin is definitely still a work in progress after setting up the camera within the blink app you install the blink for home plugin on hooves from there you'll have to enter your login credentials you'll see an example of the formatting on the plugins home page but you have to type that all in yourself unlike with the other plugins after you hit save you should get a two-factor authentication code sent to either your phone number or your email you'll need to put the two-factor authentication code in for the pin and you're good to go there are lots of other options for cameras you can add standard ip cameras using the ffmpeg plugin you can add wise cameras by running a custom firmware on them but that's a bit too complicated for today now if you follow along up to this point all your smart home devices should be showing up in hooves but you still need to get them connected to homekit and the home app at this point bringing the devices over follows the same process as a native homekit device in the hoops interface navigate to the bridges tab and select the desired bridge then within the home app on your iphone or ipad select the plus and choose add accessory you can then scan the qr code for the bridge to bring in those devices you can choose to change the name icon and assign the devices to a specific room and finally let's talk about home hubs while hoobs acts as the bridge it can only communicate between an apple device and the other smart home devices on your local network this is fine for controlling devices when you're within your home but if you want to control them while you're away you need a home hub an ipad homepod or apple tv will do if you already have a homepod or apple tv on the same network that's connected with the same apple id then you're in luck there's nothing else you have to do it'll run as a home hub automatically if you want to use an ipad as your home hub the setup is simple just go to settings then home and enable use this device as a home hub so long as one of these devices is online on your home network it doesn't matter where you are so long as you're connected to the internet you can control your smart home from anywhere in the world now before i go i think it's important to note a few of the downsides of using bridged devices over native ones using hubs is a bit more complicated than the dead simple homekit device setup and you'll also have another point of failure between the command you sent from your phone and the device taking the action though i haven't had any issues and my setup has been running non-stop since last year additionally there are some security considerations with the tui devices for instance you're connecting to an outside service that controls the smart plugs rather than relying on communication directly within your home network is that a big deal for most people no but it's definitely worth being aware of this has just been a general guide to get you up and running with your own home kit setup but the open source community has created tons of different software that can bring even more advanced features including homekit secure video if you're interested in learning more about the possibilities with hoobs or you have your own homebridge solution set up let me know in the comments down below youapple's home kit is incredibly convenient having access to all your smart home devices in one place is basically a necessity to have a good smart home experience but plenty of smart home devices lack any sort of support now the upcoming matter standard promises to unify them the support from apple google amazon samsung and more but until then we can bring all our unsupported devices into apple's home kit using this single board computer i'm derek and welcome to 95 mac in order to bring all these devices into homekit we're using something called a home bridge these connect to your network basically act as a communication interface between apple software and the software on your smart home devices there are some manufacturer specific bridges but open source software makes setting up your home bridge for various devices regardless the manufacturer pretty easy you can run home bridge on almost any computer be it a windows or linux pc a mac or even in a docker container on something like a network-attached storage device but today i'll be using the raspberry pi and hoobs software hoobs builds on top of the standard home bridge to integrate improvements to the user experience you can pick up a hoobs all-in-one box on amazon to get everything you need to get started or you can save a few bucks and pick up a standard raspberry pi if you can find one in stock and install the software yourself which is what i'll be doing if you opt to install it yourself you'll need the raspberry pi single board computer a micro sd card a usb power supply an ethernet cable and i'd recommend getting a case to keep the raspberry pi safe i'll link to all the items i talk about down in the video description you can download the software image over on the hoobs website if you'd like to you can make a donation to support the team but you don't have to from there you'll need to flash the image to the microsd card make sure the sd card is clear because flashing the image will totally erase anything already on it i use the program belina etcher to flash the card so just select the downloaded.xz file and ensure the correct sd card is selected then hit flash once done you can plug the micro sd card into your raspberry pi connect it to your network with the ethernet cable and then power on your pi by just plugging it in it's possible to set up hoobs over wi-fi but it's more complicated and less reliable so i would always recommend using a direct wired connection for these always-on applications you won't need any sort of keyboard or display connected to your raspberry pi to set it up as all of that is done from your browser on another computer on the network to connect to your new hoops device open up a web browser and type in hoobs.local you'll be presented with a first time setup page where you can create your account on the main page you'll have a few different tabs on the left hand side the main one you'll use during setup is the plugins tab you'll install the plugins specific to your various smart home devices everything from ring doorbells to nest thermostats smart plugs lights and more today i'll cover a few of these but if i don't mention the device you have don't fret because there's very likely support for it to start off perhaps one of the most ubiquitous smart home devices the smart plug many of the low-cost plugs available on amazon have support for the smart life app and the 2 yes standard and all of those devices can be brought into hooves with the 2yo web plugin and they're really low cost too you can get a pack of 4 smart plugs for a bit over 20 i use these for various lamps and have used them for christmas lights but there are plenty of creative uses from space heater control to automatically turning off other appliances to set it up just search for the tuya web plugin and install it there's another plugin called to you platform but i found it to be far more tedious to get working while to your web just did its job once you install it you can enter the configuration page from there you put in the username and password for your smart life account enter your country code one for the us and select smart life under platform from there your smart plugs will be added to your list of devices under the accessories tab all the other smart devices follow a similarly simple setup process tp-link's casa devices offer a reasonable price clean aesthetic and straightforward setup offering outlet switches light bulbs and more with control for everything from brightness to color temperature and even rgb control on select bulbs the initial setup is simple just follow the guided setup in the casa app on your phone to get the switches outlets and light bulbs connected to your wi-fi network from there bringing those devices into hooves is as simple as installing the tp-link smart home plug-in the casa devices on your network are automatically found and brought into your accessories it's as simple as that and now moving on to my favorite two smart home devices nests doorbell and thermostat options ever leave the house for a trip and forget to turn off the ac well not anymore not at home for package delivery no problem once again initial setup of nest products needs to be done in the nest app and it guides you through the setup you'll then install the nest plugin within the hoops interface the standard nest plugin brings in your thermostat and your smart locks while the nest cam plugin brings in your doorbells opening the configuration page you'll have to link your account so click link account and log into the same google account that you used within the nest app copy the provided code and paste it in the next step to finish connecting them now the final smart home devices i'll talk about today are cameras as the setup is a bit more complicated and the functionality somewhat limited personally i use blink cameras they do enough for me but the plugin is definitely still a work in progress after setting up the camera within the blink app you install the blink for home plugin on hooves from there you'll have to enter your login credentials you'll see an example of the formatting on the plugins home page but you have to type that all in yourself unlike with the other plugins after you hit save you should get a two-factor authentication code sent to either your phone number or your email you'll need to put the two-factor authentication code in for the pin and you're good to go there are lots of other options for cameras you can add standard ip cameras using the ffmpeg plugin you can add wise cameras by running a custom firmware on them but that's a bit too complicated for today now if you follow along up to this point all your smart home devices should be showing up in hooves but you still need to get them connected to homekit and the home app at this point bringing the devices over follows the same process as a native homekit device in the hoops interface navigate to the bridges tab and select the desired bridge then within the home app on your iphone or ipad select the plus and choose add accessory you can then scan the qr code for the bridge to bring in those devices you can choose to change the name icon and assign the devices to a specific room and finally let's talk about home hubs while hoobs acts as the bridge it can only communicate between an apple device and the other smart home devices on your local network this is fine for controlling devices when you're within your home but if you want to control them while you're away you need a home hub an ipad homepod or apple tv will do if you already have a homepod or apple tv on the same network that's connected with the same apple id then you're in luck there's nothing else you have to do it'll run as a home hub automatically if you want to use an ipad as your home hub the setup is simple just go to settings then home and enable use this device as a home hub so long as one of these devices is online on your home network it doesn't matter where you are so long as you're connected to the internet you can control your smart home from anywhere in the world now before i go i think it's important to note a few of the downsides of using bridged devices over native ones using hubs is a bit more complicated than the dead simple homekit device setup and you'll also have another point of failure between the command you sent from your phone and the device taking the action though i haven't had any issues and my setup has been running non-stop since last year additionally there are some security considerations with the tui devices for instance you're connecting to an outside service that controls the smart plugs rather than relying on communication directly within your home network is that a big deal for most people no but it's definitely worth being aware of this has just been a general guide to get you up and running with your own home kit setup but the open source community has created tons of different software that can bring even more advanced features including homekit secure video if you're interested in learning more about the possibilities with hoobs or you have your own homebridge solution set up let me know in the comments down below you\n"