The Technical Difficulties Podcast
A podcast all about the latest trends, devices and topics related to smart homes and home automation.
The Technical Difficulties Podcast
Shane Whatley shares his smart home secrets
Guest @ShaneCreates
In this episode of the Technical Difficulties Smart Home Podcast we interview Shane Watley, a prominent YouTube creator in the smart home space. Shane shares his journey into smart home technology, his experiences building a community through live streams, and his insights on the future of smart home ecosystems, particularly Apple Home and the Matter protocol. The conversation also touches on Shane's creative process, his favorite smart home devices, and the challenges of working with brands. Shane emphasizes the importance of having fun with smart home technology and offers valuable advice for beginners.
Thank you to Zooz for sponsoring this podcast! For the best deals on Z-Wave smart home products you'll love:
https://www.thesmartesthouse.com
Follow Shane Whatley:
https://youtube.com/@ShaneCreates
https://instagram.com/shanecreates
https://shanewhatley.com
Brandon's YouTube:
@BrandonDoyleMN
00:00 Introduction and Guest Introduction
04:35 Shane Watley's Journey into Smart Home Technology
07:27 The Evolution of Shane's YouTube Channel
10:19 Engagement and Community Building through Live Streams
13:14 Exploring Smart Home Ecosystems: Apple vs Others
16:22 The Future of Apple Home and Smart Home Solutions
19:00 Matter and Its Impact on Smart Home Devices
22:04 Reflections on CES and Smart Lock Innovations
24:16 Working with Brands and Audience Engagement
27:14 Passions in Smart Home Automation
30:12 Favorite Devices and Automations in Shane's Home
32:00 Smart Home Aesthetics and Lighting Innovations
33:06 Navigating Apple Home Automations
37:31 Creative Projects and Video Production Insights
52:59 Starting Your Smart Home Journey
55:32 Smart Home Fails and Lessons Learned
Thank you to Zooz for supporting the podcast
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Welcome to season three, episode seven of the Technical Difficulties Smart Home Podcast. We're continuing our series today of interviews with other smart home YouTube creators and our guests just keep getting bigger and bigger. not physically actually, guest today, Shane Watley. He's actually quite physically fit, but he has a very big following both on YouTube and in his own community that he's built on Discord. He has a very unique perspective on smart homes and we had a very engaging conversation about his beginnings, about where he's going from here. And I think you're really gonna love hearing from him, maybe even more than you love listening to me read this promo from our sponsor, Zeus. Zeus makes quality smart home devices you can depend on. They are pioneers in the Z-Wave industry that you can always turn to for the latest Z-Wave tech. Zeus always puts the customer first with excellent support and user-friendly documentation. Zeus offers almost every type of smart home device you can imagine, including sensors, switches, smart plugs, button controllers, smart relays, water valves, and even their own smart hub, the Zeus Z-Box Hub. And if you like deals, don't forget to check the smartesthouse.com every week for their deal of the week. This week they are offering the Zeus 800 Series Z-Wave Long Range Outdoor Motion Sensor for 25 % off. It senses motion, temperature, and lux levels, and is IP66 rated for outdoor installation. It works as a Z-Wave Plus device or Z-Wave Long Range so you can hide one in your neighbor's yard and detect if they're having a pool party without you. Please don't actually do that, that was my idea. Zeus would definitely not condone that. Now for more information on the deal of the week and to find the best prices on all Zeus products, visit thesmarthishouse.com. And now on with the show. All right, here we are next episode of technical difficulties with me as always is Brandon. Brandon, how are we doing today? You know, I'm doing great, staying warm here, kinda windy out there. hey, that's the cost of living in Minnesota. Vince, you stay warm as well. Yeah, we got some snow out here last night, so my Yarbo is hard at work. yeah, while I'm recording. you get enough to Yarbo? Like I got like just a dusting. we got like three, three inches, four inches. Nice, nice, I can't wait to see the video when that comes out, showing that off, because that's very cool. But today's guest, very special guest, he's a very popular YouTuber, he does not need a Yarbo snowblower, as it's, I think he said it was 70 degrees out there today. Everybody, welcome to the show, Shane Watley everybody. Yay! Well, thanks for joining us, man. it's really a pleasure to have you. on the show, you've got how many followers you have now on your YouTube channel? YouTube's around 160,000 last time I checked. you've been crushing it it just keeps going up on up. I would say you have one of the more unique perspectives in the smart home YouTube community, I'd say. You've got a very unique voice and very relatable. Check out his lives if you haven't seen that because you go on what, every week, right? Every Monday? Every Wednesday, right. We're recording this on Thursday. I'm totally, totally out of it, but yeah, check. Check it out, he's got a good following and because of that live, partially, you were the winner of a YouTubey this year. So congratulations. right, that's right. What an honor. Thank you guys so much for that. I appreciate it. It is an honor. Probably the greatest honor you've ever had. It's up there, top three for sure. Alright, so now we know Shane is a liar, but Yeah, as you can tell, it's displayed very proudly in his background. It's just blurred out because of the lens. it just sitting right up here. I've got some Nanoleaf shelves that I just put up recently. like, I don't think I'll sit that right there for now. So yeah, it is proudly displayed right here in the studio. Is it next to the silver play button or is that behind you? No, that's back there. We got that one back there. It's too big for my shelves over here. But it's next to a nice little plant. We got some Nanoleaf lights behind it. It looks really good. I'll show you afterwards. looks looks at it every every time before he hits record he looks up at the YouTube being like this is what it's all about this this right here all right. He's gonna have to try to win next year too, so. Well, put on a good show here today. yeah, so we were happy to have you on the show. Again, like I said, I think you have a very unique voice and I'm just interested, you know, what got you into the smart home business right from the get-go. I think I'd say probably like a lot of people I had just bought the the house that I'm currently in so this was our second house and you know just got a new house years ago and you know I've always liked gadgets and stuff like that and so with the new house and we had more space here still not huge but our last house was our starter home so we had a little more space here and I was just like man This could be fun. So smart light bulbs and cameras and things like that I kind of started getting into just because I like to tinker with stuff a little bit. Yeah, nice. And now you're, you do not come from a programming background or anything like that, correct? I do not, not necessarily. I have more of a design background. So I did a lot of graphic design, even web design and stuff in my earlier years. So I've dabbled with HTML and stuff like that, CSS and actually ActionScript, if anybody remembers the flash days, things like that back in the day, but definitely not a programmer by any means. So every show that we've done, we've asked the creators, what was their first smart home device? Like, what was the first one that kind of got you into this, into the realm? think my first one, if you would consider a smart home device would be cameras. Cause we got, you we want, I wanted cameras around the house when we moved into this house. So that was the first thing I got. I don't know that really counts cause I was really just using that, you know, wired cameras to an NVR system. Didn't really get into like smart home, you know, the Apple ecosystem or any of that stuff at the time. So if we don't include that, would probably say like so many people, I think it was like a Phillips Hue starter kit was like the first thing that I got. And not only was it my introduction in a smart home, it was also my introduction into the frustrations that come with it because I quickly learned that smart bulbs are not good for the dining room chandelier when everybody's turning off the switches and stuff like that. So yeah, I, I started learning quick there. Yeah, we've shared our fair share of frustrations on this podcast. So going back, what, six years now, what just made you decide to like get into sharing your journey on YouTube? Well, I was doing a lot of video work before I started YouTube. for my day job, actually, like I said, I had a design background. So I did a lot of that stuff. then I kind of like my day job kind of led to a lot of video editing. So I did a lot of like post-production stuff at my day job. And I'm always freelanced on the side, just, you know, to make a little extra money, trying to raise kids and stuff like that. And I really enjoyed video editing. So I was doing a lot of or not a lot, but a fair amount of freelance video editing for other people, even just like other small YouTubers and stuff through some of the different freelancing websites. eventually I just kind of got tired of editing other people's stuff, to be honest with you. And I had, no, I stopped doing that a long time ago. No. of editing my own stuff, but yeah, go ahead, go ahead. always really enjoyed the editing process the you post-production side Like I said, I did a lot of that with my day job And so I was just really enjoying that at the time and I just didn't have really much experience at all on the other side of the camera both You know filming the production side and obviously being in front of the camera I was terrible at that and I just knew there was a lot of room to improve so I'm kind of one of those that's just always likes to continue learning and improving my skills and stuff like that. So I decided, you know what, let me start making my own videos because I do enjoy editing so much and that way I can get better in front of the camera. I can get better actually using the cameras because usually the way it worked at my day job was, you know, somebody would hand me the SD cards and I would start from there. So I really didn't use the cameras much either at that point. So it's just a way for me to kind of continue learning and stuff like that. And Yeah, that's kind of how it started. Cool, well, you I gotta say that, like you said, you said, started with little experience in front of a camera. said you weren't very good in front of a camera. I feel like that's almost a bit, kind of an asset that you have used. You know, I feel like it gives you some, lot of a relatability to people. Obviously you're very good in front of the camera right now, but I think you still have some of that, I don't wanna call it a lack of polish, but like you're real. Like you're not a talking, you know what I'm saying? A straight talking head. I think people really. really relate to that. I really, so I really do. I can say, congratulations you've. I appreciate it. Yeah, I think, you know, in the beginning I kind of tried different things. I tried using a script, tried not using a script and just, you know, I had to kind of find my way there, which I'm sure if you go and look at some of those old videos, there's some pretty rough ones to watch. They're hard for me to watch, but I keep them all up there, you know, just because, you know, we all improve and I mean, it's, I think it's fun to watch sometimes. you know, to see kind of where you came from and where it all started. But yeah, I just remember from the beginning, the one thing that I really wanted to focus on was just being myself as much as possible. So regardless of what I was talking about or anything else I was doing, I just want to be myself. And that way you either love it or you don't. If you don't, don't watch it. But that way, at least if I ever did build a following, you know, it was people who hopefully like watching me for me. That way you don't have to be fake or try to be something you're not on camera, because nobody wants to do that. Yeah, I would definitely say you were very authentic. So great job on that. You started doing the live streams about what a year and a half ago. What is it that enables you to like say so consistent with that? I don't know man, I'm just one of those people that you know I just kind of obsess to a degree over certain things whatever it is that I'm into. I'd say I'm a very dedicated person so if I say I'm gonna do something I'm gonna do it and I just you know once I decided to start doing that I kind of are I was still working full-time. when I started doing those and I just picked a time that I thought I'd be able to do every week and it's just something that I committed to, know, as a way to connect with the audience and just kind of give them a little something more and try to build a good community and following there that way. How many channel members are you up to now? It fluctuates. I think I actually hit 400 at one point not too long ago, which was pretty awesome That was like I like YouTube sent me some little notification or something in the email But a lot of those are gifted memberships. So during the live streams, you know other followers and even I can gift Memberships and sometimes I think gosh, what's the max? I think out I think we had one or two streams where there were like 50 gifted memberships and so the way yeah, so Members are awesome. They'll, you know, they'll gift those sometimes and that will give people watching the live stream. I think it's a month. Well, I know it's a month of membership and then, you know, they can get all the perks and stuff of being a member for free without having to enter any credit card information or anything like that. And we have had a couple that have gotten those gifted memberships and then decided to renew because they, you know, enjoy some of the perks and stuff that came along with it. So that's always cool. And what are some of these perks? They get your personal number, they can hang out with you at the beach. What's the, what No, no unlike my buddy George I refrain from putting my personal number on YouTube but Let's see the perks the biggest one I'd say is the member discord server So I have a discord server that's set up just for channel members So you link your YouTube account there and once you're a member you can get access to that discord server and for those that don't know discord that's basically like a glorified chat room, but we have different channels for just everything in there, including all the different product categories like locks and cameras. We have a section for home kit questions and shortcuts, and we even have advanced stuff in there like, there's a section for home assistant, home bridge, all the different things. And it's just been a really cool community of people that are in there. They're all interacting every day. I get in there every day as well and interact as much as I can. I always prioritize that when it comes to answering questions and stuff like that. that's the big one and that's been really fun. You also get early access to new videos. So usually members will get access to new videos like at least a day or two before they're released to the public. There's YouTube emojis and some weird little things like that as well. Let's see, is there anything else? Also you get some little benefits also when you're... During the live stream so you have like a monthly it's kind of like a super chat that you get as a member and you can use those During the live streams, which is cool So then with the Discord thing, if their membership lapse, are they just kicked out of the Discord? Does that happen automatically or what? Yeah, so yeah, the way I set it up was it does all happen automatically so there's like a little grace period I think like Excuse me. It's like a week or two or something like that where there's a grace period like, you know credit cards change and stuff like that I guess where people can fix it. But yeah, that's that's how it works. It's all automatic So I set up that way that way don't have to like go in there and manually add people and you know don't have to worry about invites going out and all kinds of crazy stuff like that. it's been working really well. Nice. Hey Shane, and you do this full time, correct? you don't, okay. So, moving to kind of more speaking about like ecosystem, what made you decide that you wanted to use Apple as your kind of your ecosystem and kind of the launch pad of your channel? And then have you tried other ecosystems, know, like to kind of compare and contrast? And do you like anyone more than Apple? Well, I'd say there's probably benefits to all of them pros and cons. I do like Apple the best home kit. So I the reason I use Apple is it's just how I started. So I was a big Apple fan to begin with, you know, when I started the channel. And honestly, I really didn't know anything about anything when I started the channel. So I didn't know any other content creators. I didn't know anybody else doing smart home stuff. I was literally it was like me on a desert island. just making videos, you know, but I wanted to get into the smart home stuff because we just moved into this house and it was something I was just interested in. So, but I found it to be very confusing, you know, and this was probably like 2018 or something somewhere around there. I just found it to be very confusing. You know, do I need a hub? What hubs do I need? What work, you know, the typical stuff. And I just found it kind of hard to find information at the time. At the time too, there weren't really that many content creators. I think doing like, you know more basic Apple home stuff So I was like, you know what I kind of I did all my research Figured out how to use Apple home and then I just decided to make videos about that Basically just showing my process and kind of bringing people along You know with me on the journey because I literally like my first couple videos you can see I had like zero accessories in my smart home So I was literally just starting and just showing people. And yeah, I was just an Apple fan. I like the way Apple, just the user interface with all the Apple stuff. It's very user friendly. So I just assumed that the smart home would be kind of along the same lines. How big of an Apple fan do you have an atme.com email address? all right. So it does not surprise me that with a designer type background you would be in the cult of Apple. I'm also an Apple guy myself. I did not come from a programming background either. And I do appreciate that they tend to make things pretty easy in everything they do. Can you tell me a little bit about where you see Apple evolving, Apple Home evolving especially because I've watched your latest video. You talked about some of the things that have been released in HomeKit. Do you see Apple Home ever being a total home solution for the true, it's good for 99 % of people, trust me, but you know what I'm talking about, like the real deep home automation guys. Is Apple ever gonna be able to replace all the other hubs and be a total solution? So for your real hardcore smart home enthusiasts, we'll call them. I don't know that it'll ever get to that point. You know, when you look at stuff like Home Assistant and the crazy things you can do with, you know, an open source platform like Home Assistant, it's hard to imagine that Apple will ever get to that point. With that said, you know, 2020, there hasn't been a whole lot of progress, shall we say, within Apple Home in terms of the smart home or with Apple in the smart home in the past number of years, honestly, since I've been doing that, we've had a little, you know, a few things here and there that have kind of advanced the ecosystem and HomeKit as a platform, but there hasn't been a whole lot. that's kind of what makes 2025 exciting, I think, because it, you know, all the rumors and stuff, I really don't focus too much on rumors on my channel, but it does. There's been a lot lately that's really pointing to 2025 being a really big year for Apple to kind of finally go all in on smart home. So I'm really excited to see what happens this year. And if all that stuff does become true, I think 2025 is going to be a really big year. there's a lot of room in the marketplace for that. And we've seen a lot of development too with Matter over the last couple of years. I think what I actually talked about on my last live stream, I think 2025 is going to be a pretty big significant year for both Matter and Apple Home. So it should be a good one. I think it's a great time to get into the smart home stuff if maybe you're new to it because of Matter and just all these developments. So do you think matter is, if someone's buying, looking to buy new stuff, do you think matter is the way to go? I'm still very matter hesitant. It's getting better in some respects, but it has its problems. But what do you think? Is that what people should be going for these days if they're getting into it? Yeah, I think so. I don't have any problem with it. I have a lot of matter devices in my house now. I do think though it's still, matter is still early enough in its development that it can be kind of confusing. So that's where kind of the frustration lies, but that's also where, you know, having YouTube channels like y'all and podcasts and stuff is helpful. You know, if you're really getting into it, just, I'd say really do your research on whatever it is you're looking to get. Matter stuff does work really well with Apple home. I've read that Apple home is You know kind of top of the list when it comes to matter support with Not with all the device types, but would just just with stuff working. Well that does already exist especially with like thread that said I You know, it's it's kind of a good way to future proof yourself a little bit but there are still just a lot of weird things like I matter buttons still don't work really well with, I think it's Google and Amazon. know, stuff like that. It's just good to do your research. But yeah, I think getting the matter accessory now for your smart home is fine. But then you also got the protocols to look at. So there's just a lot of things to, you know, it could be a matter of a Wi-Fi, could be a matter of a thread. So it's just doing your research and trying to figure out what it is, what will be the best solution for your smart home. It seemed like matter was a big thing at CES. Speaking of that, what were you most excited about that you saw out at CES this year? Hmm well It was you guys it was 100 % No, honestly that is one of my favorite parts about CES is just kind of meeting up and hanging out with actual people, you know, That's always fun other creators and stuff like that. But as far as tech goes I don't want to sound like a downer but this year CES this was my third year going so I'm kind of starting to the hang of it and I don't know if maybe that's part of the reason why but I just felt like this year was a little underwhelming in terms of really just everything that you know I again hate to be a downer but I just you know you had the robot vacuums with the arms coming out of them and stuff and I don't know that didn't really excite me too much I feel like that's a little gimmicky still I'm waiting to see that used in real life to see how that actually performs I'd say, you know, I'm almost getting tired of talking about smart locks because last year was a big year for smart locks. know you got, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you got the rig set up, right? With the whole. this like it's making me want to quit YouTube altogether doing this video about locks. like, I just, yes. They, okay. Not to hijack your topic, but locks. Okay. Okay. Stop making locks people. Okay. Like we have enough locks. Like I have this video as 16 locks and all I'm going to get is comments about people saying, why didn't you do this lock or why didn't you review this? Like there's so many locks and they're like all the same. Basically, right? There's some that has unique features, like, does it, they all work. Some of them are terrible, but like, it's just like, I can't, there's too much stuff that I just don't freaking care about that doesn't matter, right? It's a lock, all right? It's just a lock. You're not, the facial recognition is awesome. The palm stuff is cool, but other than that, it's all the same and it drives me nuts. there's there's always new ones and that's why I say I kind of you know I kind of get tired of smart locks like I don't want to be like the smart lock guy But I did a lot of smart lock videos. I think in 2024 and it was it was kind of a nice shift because I guess 2023 there wasn't a whole lot like, you know, apple home key came out. That was one of the kind of big nice features that we did see with with home kid of the last few years and we only had like maybe two smart locks for a while that supported home key and then 2024 came we just had like you know one after another that supported home key then you started getting all these other crazy features like you were talking about Pete and I just yeah I ended up talking about locks a whole lot and I I thought that was kind of going to be the year smart locks but then at CES you know we did see a lot more locks and You know, the lock itself, you know, I'm not super excited about just smart locks, but I am kind of excited to see what they're doing with some of the new ones. So I guess that might be one of the things that I was excited about at CES, you know, ultra wideband, you know, a new feature coming to Apple Home for smart locks. To me, that's exciting. think that will be, that'd be nice to see how they implement that. I've talked for, quite a while about the desire to see ultra wideband utilized more in the smart home. I think there's just a whole lot of application there and it really hasn't been used at all. So maybe this will be kind of like the beginning of more to come. I don't know, but that was nice to see. then, and we did get to see a few ultra wideband locks there displayed at CES and then. You know having locks with cameras built in and doorbells and all kind of stuff like that. It's kind of neat too. So You know, I guess we're stuck talking about locks for a little while longer In our creator Slack channel, I kind of warned some of the other guys like, Hey man, once you do one lock video, they all come out of the woodwork and then you're kind of pigeoned into being a lock guy. it's, it's soul crushing to be honest. so speaking of that, like, how do you approach working with brands? I imagine you get emails every day. with your 160,000 subscribers and your loyal audience from all these companies that want you to promote their products. Yeah, the emails get a little overwhelming sometimes. The way I approach working with brands though is just, you know, a lot of these brands at this point have been doing this for a little while. So a lot of these brands, I've used their products before, whether I've worked with them or not. And so those, you know, is usually a safe bet, you know, certain brands that we know and love. When it comes to... Brands that I don't know or I'm not familiar with you know you can kind of tell pretty quickly when something like we get a whole lot of junk I mean we filter out Probably like 95 % of the emails I'd say I mean maybe even more it's there's just so much junk Every single day you know cheap things from Amazon. You know stuff from China. It's just all over the place I'm sure you guys see it too So we filter out. I just delete most of that stuff Don't pay any attention. And then if there's something that just looks interesting, I try to always keep the audience kind of like at the forefront of my thinking. So when I'm looking at something, I'm thinking about my audience. I'm like, okay, is this something that maybe my audience would be interested in? You know, obviously it has to be interesting for me too, but for, you know, that's, that's kind of like my basis. Like would the audience be interested in seeing this? And if so, then maybe I'll respond as far as like actually working with brands, you know, sponsorships and stuff like that. If it's a product or brand that I've never used before, always say, you know, send me the product. Let me test it and use it first. You know, make sure it doesn't just completely suck before I make any agreements to, you know, sponsorship or anything like that. And then, you know, if I do work with somebody, you know, it's like you got to take the good with the bad, you know, and be honest about the product regardless of what it is. But usually, we're always at the point where I'm actually agreeing to work with somebody. I know at least that the product doesn't completely suck. mean, there's pros and cons to just about everything, and I'm always honest about that stuff. I'm pretty much never making a video about something that just completely sucks. It's just not worth it. or for your, like, yeah, who wants to watch a video about something? I'm the same with you. Like if I get something that sucks, I'm like, I'm not doing a video on that because it's a waste of everybody's time. So I would be curious though, what are you most passionate about as far as when it comes to smart home? Like what kind of type of products or type of projects really get you going? Well, let's see. I do really like automation. So I'm a big fan of automating things, but I also am a big fan of keeping things simple. Vince, you asked earlier about, other smart home ecosystems. I don't know if I answered that, but I have used Google Home. I've used Amazon's. I've used them all a little bit at this point. I haven't used much. I've done like, mainly I started doing that when Matter. first started coming out so I could test them all. And I started using Home Assistant not too long ago and I've used Homie, used Hubitat for a little while. the things you can do with Home Assistant are incredible, but it's just not fun for me. So right now where I'm at is I just wanna enjoy working on my smart home. You because it is kind of like once you get to the level We're all at where you have just so many devices you do kind of have to always kind of tinker with it You know, I would say we're all at the like enthusiast stage, you know where it takes it takes attention constantly and I want to enjoy that time that I'm spending so You know, that's kind of where I'm at now. I do like working on automations I don't like using home assistant even though it's really impressive and I am still using it. I also have homey homie setup. So right now I have homie, home assistant, and home kit. I think that's all of them. All the major ones right now. And I'm running like scripted also for my cameras. So I've got like all these kinds of things right now. I'm trying to figure out where exactly to go with it, but I like using homie for creating automations. It's just, again, the old designer in me really enjoys the interface and it's just so much fun, you know, playing with the flows and stuff there in home assistant. So. 100 % on that. Like you said, Home Assistant just isn't fun. It's just not fun. Homie actually, it's solving a problem with pictures almost is how I view it. And it's just more enjoyable to try to figure out what you're trying to do with that. I totally understand how some people can enjoy Home Assistant. You know, there's just different sides of the brain probably. You some people really like that method of doing things, but for me, like, I don't want to code, I don't want to do, and I know you don't have to in Home Assistant anymore, but still, it's just, you know, it's just different. Yeah, give me the pictures and make it simple, you know, make it fun. I am still using it. That's right, that's right. That's right. What is your, what is your, do you think your favorite like devices that you're currently using and automations like, like in your home? I'd say my favorite devices are, I love automating the blinds and shades, so I kind of always go back to that. That's just one of the things that just feels so, I don't know, it feels just like luxurious or something when you have your shades automatically open and closing. And I've got various ones. I've got some from Lutron. Those are, you know, obviously amazing. I've got... One or two Eve blinds. I've got a bunch of Smart Wing shades. I've got those all around my back porch. And I've got a bunch of the SwitchBot blind tilts. So it doesn't really matter the form or factor, but just being able to have those open, you know, when the sun rises. I love that stuff. And as far as automating, I've been having a lot of fun with my back porch. That's something that we set up. It was a new addition maybe like a year ago. and just adding like devices and you know smart home stuff out there has been pretty fun. So you can use your back porch more than two months out of the year where you live. Yeah, okay, that's nice. That'd be... we just sat out there and watched a movie just the other night actually. God dang it, we could only do that if it was like a five minute movie. And we'd be like, all right, back in the house, it's cold. Okay, it's not that bad, Pete. This is how stereotypes begin. You know, about Minnesota, we can only be outside for two minutes of a day. I feel like most of the creators, at least a few have said Smart Blinds is probably their favorite device in automation as well. So, that's right up there. smart blinds are great. And then other than that I would just say I'm a big fan of just like cool lighting like so like stuff like the Nanoleaf lights I got you know, I really didn't expect to put up RGB lights around my whole studio That's not really like I wasn't like going for a gaming type of look But I still ended up with basically RGB lights around the whole studio But I just really like the way it came out so you can kind of do it in a way that doesn't look Cheesy or like a little kid, you know, and so I have a lot of fun with like accent lighting and stuff like that. That's been really fun. I really like your studio setup and the video that you did around that was really cool to watch. Thank you. so I've been using AirTags, and I'm having a little trouble with the Apple Home automations, trying to get more conditions with them. Like I can do the straightforward basics, but if I wanna add conditions, is there a good way to learn that, to do that, or what are your thoughts on? making more complicated automations with Apple Home. well, so two parts of that question. You mentioned air tags. Are you actually automating your air tags? I, well, I want to, I want to automate something like when I leave the house or when I come to the house and like, you know what I'm saying? so I don't know that that's possible with air tags. Well, it should be. it possible. Talk to your guy at Apple. I know you got a guy. right. I'm not quite there yet, but maybe one day. Yeah, I don't think it's possible unless maybe there's been some developments or something somewhere where somebody's figured it out. I even looked recently, it was either a homie or home assistant to see if there's like an Apple plugin. works with FindMy for kind of stuff like that, but air tags weren't supported in that. So yeah, I don't think that's something you can do, unfortunately. Now, the other part of your question, doing more advanced automations with HomeKit specifically, I would say you can. So there's a big misconception, I think, with a lot of people that HomeKit is not very powerful or you can't really do complex automations with HomeKit. And I understand why people think that it's because the home app doesn't really give you access to what everything to everything that home kit can do, which sounds a little complicated, but basically like home kit as a a, you know, as a infrastructure is pretty powerful, but the home app limits you a lot. So you can actually use third party home kit apps. to do a lot more stuff and they are actually HomeKit automations. You'll even see them show up in the Home app. You just can't do a lot of the like, if, then, the conditions and things like that, multiple triggers. You can even do stuff like that using some of these third party HomeKit apps. So there's ways to do it and there's some good apps out there for that. So which apps do you recommend? And I'm sure you have videos for some of these. Okay. I've done a few videos on these. So the Evap is a good one. I usually tell people about because it's free. So if you don't want to spend any money, that's a good one. And it's strictly a HomeKit app. So basically you just give it access to your Apple Home and then you can set up anything you set up in there. Basically will show in the Apple Home app too. But in the Evap, you can do like multiple triggers. You can do add conditions and stuff like that for your automations. So that's a good free one. One of my favorites for more advanced stuff is called the Controller for HomeKit app. That one is super powerful. gives you, it's a little bit of a pricey app, but they do have a lifetime version or yeah, a lifetime license that you can get. So I usually recommend people just get that. People spend, it's so funny to see people spend hundreds of dollars on smart light bulbs and stuff, but then. You know not want to spend any money on the software to like use this stuff But I say get the lifetime license if you're real dedicated in a home kit and the controller for home kit app gives you access to There's maintenance tools in there backups. You can do the advanced automations I did a video recently on a new hub mode that they have which is really interesting and gives you a lot more flexibility and power along, you know a lot alongside home kit And it even has like a floor plan feature if you want to use that for like a wall mounted iPad or something. And yeah, it's just got a lot of features in there. And there's, you know, there's a number of HomeKit apps out there, but specifically for automations, those are probably the two I would look at. Home Plus is another good one, but I haven't really used that one much in a while because I've been using the controller for HomeKit app. Well, that's, uh, that's cool. I will definitely have to look into that. I totally hear what you're saying about like, why aren't people willing to spend any money on the programming? It's I worked at Hubitat for a while as you know, and like the fact that like when it went on sale for 10 bucks, suddenly more people would buy it than, you know, it just seemed weird to me. Like this is the brain of your house. Like, and $10 is going to make a difference between this system and another system. Right. It's like, get the one, get the one that's best for you. Even if it costs $50 more. or whatever, it's totally, if you're gonna spend thousands of dollars on the rest of the stuff in your house, that mentality never makes sense to me. Watch your latest video, a smart home tech you can't see is the video. those are the types of videos that I like, like where you're doing an interesting project. It's funny because sometimes those videos are not the ones that perform the best. It's like your favorite ones, you know, that you can't wait to get out or that you just have so much fun making but you know, it is what it is. I'd say in the past my back porch video was one kind of like that. we basically for that project it was basically making, you know, I can't remember what the name of it was but... creating a smart backyard or something like that. But we basically ripped out my old deck. It was all beat up and stuff. Had that completely ripped up and we had a whole new screened in porch built. it might have been over a year ago now that we did that. But that video was a lot of fun and I just added all kinds of cool smart tech to it. The smart shades. I've got a TV that lifts up out of the cabinet back there, which is pretty cool. String lights, smart robots. mower and all kinds of stuff out there so that was a really fun project to do. One that and then also the studio so I did do the know kind of I think I did the makeover kind of version of the studio here which is that was probably my You know one of my favorite ones and again, that's one of those videos that didn't perform well But I've been wanting to do this video for so long and just make this space Something that was good for filming making YouTube videos, but also just somewhere I you know, like to hang out So I really love that video And then one that's coming up this year Hopefully, I don't know yet time frame, but hopefully will be a garage video So I haven't really talked about that much but I want to redo my garage And we don't really park in there so I want to create a space. It's actually a two-story garage because of the way the house sits. So I want to create like a whole kind of like a loft upper deck where I can just use for storage and then underneath have a workbench and maybe a place to film additional videos and stuff like that. Just more space to you know do the the stuff I love. So I hope that'll happen. talking with some people as of this past week or two in terms of like what it'll take to get all that done so we'll see but hopefully that'll happen this year and you know it'll be full of smart home tech you know once we do it so So why I'm, I'm the same way as you is like, I have some videos that I've done, some projects that I think are pretty neat and fun and they just have not performed at the level of a review video or whatever. It's like, why, why do you think that is? What are, what's those are so much more interesting in my opinion, someone doing something unique and creative, but why do you think they don't tend to get the views? I have no idea, man, I have still not figured this stuff out. Solve my problems for me. That's why you're here. Conspiracy. it's cliche and I hate to say it, but title and thumbnail comes down. It makes such a big difference, I think, on performance. And then, you know, the hook of the video, which is like the first, you know, 30 seconds or so is really important. So there's all that, like, technical stuff that I typically don't focus too much. I've tried to get better about, like, my titles and thumbnails, but, you know, it's... That's not the fun part for me. I'm with you. I'm with you. think part of it is like, it's not searchable either. Like I did a video where I put LEDs under my wife's piano and it's automated, right? That's just kind of fun and interesting, but like nobody's, nobody's searching for that, right? Nobody's searching, how do I automate my wife's piano? And so like the people that watched it, they watched, it's probably has my highest percentage of, you know, they watched all the way through, but yeah, it's just hard to get people to watch weird things like that. and change change the title and thumbnail on those old videos. See what happens Speaking of the thumbnails, mean your thumbnails are really good. How are you creating these? thank you. I use Photoshop. So again, I've got lot of, many years of Photoshop experience. Yeah, I just kind of go in there and play with them until I'm happy with it. It's funny because I actually have somebody so I I use a service I actually have my videos edited now for me to like save me some time and I've been doing that for a while now part of that service is like video or yeah thumbnails too and so pretty much every video I try to get a thumbnail made for me but I always end up just going in and redoing it making it myself almost every single one so just because you know Photoshop is it was kind of like my bread and butter back in the day so I'm just really comfortable with Photoshop so yeah I just make them you know I don't know try to tweak them until it looks right I like it. Let's dive a little deeper on that. What does the whole creative process look like? So you come up with an idea for a video and then walk us through the whole way. Alright, yeah so I have like I use Notion. I've been using that for a little while now to just kind of keep track of all my like my schedule and stuff like that and I have a whole list of ideas in there and in each you know each video topic or whatever I can click in that and I've got you know outline script and title and know spots for sponsors all kind of stuff like that where I can fill in so I kind of use that for organization it's worked pretty well but yeah when I have a new idea I'll go in there and just start scripting and you know then it's just a matter you know this is all after like the testing so if we're talking about products and stuff of course you got to like test the products and use them forever so I may have some notes and stuff in there, you know, from that whole phase. But once I start scripting and coming up with, so I do usually work off of scripts. find I just, that just makes the editing process a lot easier with me. So most of my stuff is largely, does largely rely on scripts, but not always, but most of the time. And so that just kind of helps the process a lot faster. So a couple of years ago, yeah, yep. So I, one, most likely. no, it's a camera. What it is, what it's called. I've had it for a long time. It's called like the parrot or something. It's just a little thing. Just snaps snaps on. And speaking of that, it was kind of funny because years ago when I early on in my YouTube career, if you will, I tried teleprompters and it was awful. I mean, it was so robotic and it was horrible. And so I didn't use them for a really long time. But I noticed my, this is when I was still editing everything myself, my editing process was, it was just brutal because I just would, I think of stuff to say later and I just wasn't as sharp with everything. So my editing would just take so long because I was cutting out stuff and moving things around so much. So I decided to try it again with a teleprompter and it's just a good way. And then I just got better at using the teleprompter. So hopefully it's not. super obvious that I'm just reading and stuff a lot of times. But I spend a lot more time on the script now before I start recording. So, you know, I get all my points down that I want to say and everything and that way I'm not missing stuff. And that just makes the filming process and the editing process go a lot faster and a lot smoother. So that's kind of the way I do that now. And like I said, I've been using the editor for, I don't know, at least a year now, I think. Yeah, over a year because I was still working full time when I started using one. And so I'll film the footage and then just submit the request to edit it. And then I get it back. I get a draft back and then I can either make notes on it for him to keep editing and changing stuff up or can just, sometimes I'll just take it and finish it. I usually finish every edit myself, maybe 10%, if not more of every video I'll edit. but it's nice to have that help now. So that's kind of my process. Nice and is that a US space company? The company is based in the US, but they have editors from all over the world that work for them. So mine is actually across the world and it's on a completely different time zone. So I think in the Philippines is where my editor lives. So that's actually, I thought that was going to be difficult, but it's actually kind of nice because, you know, I was just so stressed out trying to just do everything, especially when I had a full time job. But I thought the time frame would be, the time difference would be difficult, but it's actually kind of nice because I do my filming and I get everything done and I send it off and then I can like sit back and then I know that they're like just starting their day and you know, they'll be working while there's something really satisfying about knowing somebody's working on your stuff or you're getting work done while you're sleeping. I don't know. That's, that's been kind of cool. I've done a bit of outsourcing with the Philippines and that's the one fun part is that you wake up and then you have something to review the next day. But I too outsource all my editing for like my smart home tours and so I've used people in the Philippines and also local, know, to Minnesota as well as people just throughout the US. so it's interesting to hear different people's experiences with outsourcing. Yeah, this one, I mean, I got lucky. I was really hesitant to do it at first. But the company, like I said, it's company based here, I think, but they have editors everywhere. But what I like about this, and I used to do a lot of freelance editing, you know, like I said, so I know what it's like to be on that side of it, you know, and people get sick and people have kids and all these things happen, you know, and that was all it. And then there's the whole control thing. Giving up control was really hard too. But what's nice about using a company like this is that if my editor, you know, gets sick or has emergency leave or whatever, they'll put me with somebody else temporarily. So like nothing stops and it keeps going. So I've been pretty happy with that. And it really helps for consistency purposes too, because if you've got other things you're working on, whether it's testing or scripting, or in my case, my full-time job is selling real estate, this way I can still hit those goals of doing a video a week, which it looks like you've been doing a video a week for years now. So kudos on that. thanks. Yeah, since the beginning, that was one of those things I kind of told myself. I was like, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it, I'm do it right. And I set a realistic goal. It was one video a week and I stuck to that almost religiously. I mean, there were years where I maybe missed like two or three weeks, you know. So yeah, it's been good. And definitely with the consistency and I think you're very authentic on camera, very real and early in your journey. I think I started subscribing around 30,000 and I had this Excel spreadsheet I was using to track people in the space. And right away I was like, this guy's going to make it. And sure enough, it was a few months later, you had already hit 100,000 subscribers. wow. Was there a big video that really kicked you over the edge or anything, or has it just been a build? You know, for the most part, it's been a pretty slow and steady build, I would say. I don't think, you know, I've had some videos that have done better than others for sure. There was, there's a few and it's, it's funny cause it's always the ones like you don't expect a lot of the times, or at least, you know, starting out, it was like the ones I didn't expect, but for the most part, it's been very gradual. And I think, you know, Like I did one that I think one of my most popular videos was installing light strips in the kitchen under the cabinets. You know, I think to this day is still one of the most popular ones. And then other than that, it tends to be stuff around Apple and new, new Apple products. You know, we had the year, I think the year where We had new HomePods, it might have been the year where the HomePod Mini came out and new Apple TVs and stuff. Those usually do pretty well. So I think that might have been a pretty good year for me in terms of like growth. yeah, I wouldn't say I've had like a viral video or anything, you know. Are you doing any shorts videos? Are those working for you at all? I don't know if they're working, but I'm doing them. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if it's working. I'm just cranking them out, as much as I can. So that was kind of another thing I told myself recently is that I want to really... kind of focus on just putting out as much content as I can for those who are into the same stuff that I'm into and see how it goes both on you know on Instagram and YouTube. So what I do with a lot of the Lot of the short videos lately. There's a mix but a lot of them have been just cuts from my YouTube live streams because you know not everybody watches the live streams They're long and you know, they're a lot of fun to interact with live But I think for people maybe who can't make it live may miss a lot of that So I'll take you know relevant or maybe interesting clips and topics from those and you know post them as short videos Maybe add some b-roll and stuff to those and that just kind of it's that's of a cool way to to release information or share information without you know having to make a whole video so it's it's kind of cool. And are you using a product like Opus for that? Yeah, right now I'm using I am using opus for that to cut them up and then I usually do a little bit they've actually added a lot of editing tools in in the software, which is pretty nice so I can add b-roll and stuff nowadays directly to it to the shorts without having to export them or use premiere pro or anything. So that's been pretty cool. But yeah, I've been using that I'm always looking at other ways. I know you guys use Riverside for for these podcasts. And I've been kind of looking at that lately to see some of the solutions there. It looks like they have a lot of features built in which might be nice. I might switch it up. I think I can use Riverside for live streams too. Yeah, well, like you said, getting help is with the things you either don't have time to do or aren't good at is the right way to go. So that's why it's been good to have you ever set up for this. And I got to look into getting help with some editing and stuff too, because it would help keep me on track. one of your most popular videos is getting people into HomeKit. HomeKit 101 is your most popular video that you've had. So can you just give us what advice would you have for somebody that, and you did a video earlier where you built your home from scratch. You started over. So what's the number one advice you would give to somebody who's looking to start with their smart home? Well, if we're talking about home kits specifically, it would be, well, any smart home, I should say before that start with a good network, a good wifi router. That's the basis. of any of them. It doesn't have to be something super complicated like, or I should say, maybe I shouldn't say super complicated, but it doesn't have to be like a UniFi system. There's a lot of really good mesh Wi-Fi systems for those who maybe don't want to get super technical, but get a solid Wi-Fi network first. That's the first thing. And then from there, get your smart home hub, Apple TV or a HomePod or HomePod mini for HomeKit users. there I mean then it's just time to start having fun. I'd say start with the products that you're most interested in things that you think would solve a real problem. Smart locks for some people, garage door was one of my first ones I thought that was you know awesome to be able to I can never remember if I shut my garage door you know so I first, 100%, that was my first automation as well. Yeah, yeah, so I mean stuff like that's great. Security cameras, whatever it is, know, make it fun, I'd say is my advice. you know, that's gonna look different for different people. But once you have that good foundation, then it's time to just have fun and, you know, start getting the devices here and there and slowly add on to it. You know what, having fun is actually good advice that I don't hear from a lot of people in this. It's all about doing weird things, but yeah, keep it fun and then it's okay. Then you're not working on your smart home, right? You're just having fun with it and hopefully your family is also having fun with it as well. That's another... Yeah, that's we could we could go in deep there on that one. I've got a video coming I'm not sure when this Podcasts were released but there's a video coming out soon where we actually get my wife's opinions Aha! my smart home. that was fun and interesting. I actually learned some things shooting that video that I did not know. Some things she likes. I know about most of the things she doesn't like because she makes that pretty clear. But I actually learned about some things that she does like. So it was pretty interesting. let's look out for that to get the spouse's opinion is always fun. Well, she's let you do this for six years so far, so you must be doing something right. She's a good sport, so I'm lucky. All right, so I'm gonna ask you one last question. Being the technical difficulties podcast, we ask all of our guests this, what is your biggest smart home fail that you have had in your smart home career? Well, something that was my fault and not the fault of like, you know, systems or other things or devices. I would say, well, sort of, it was my fault. It was very recently, the first time, and I think we talked about this maybe in that video I just referenced, but recently my wife was locked out of the house. And... That was not fun. So that was due to a smart lock that basically stopped working. She didn't have a key. There was no access codes available on there. So she couldn't get in the front door. She had her hands full and you know, stuff. And I got her on the cameras just cursing and she was pissed off. So I would say that's a big fail. If your smart home is pissing off your spouse or your other family members that bad, that's a fail. I agree and I have been in the same situation, out a lock and I forgot to program in the code that used to be in it. Hey, there's a new lock in the house and all of a sudden, surprise, you can't get in. well Shane, this is awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us. I know you've got a lot of stuff going on. Everybody watch his channels. Do you have any, we'll put your socials in the description below. Do you have anything to promote for the fine folks? no, not really. Just check me out on YouTube. I post a lot of behind the scenes on Instagram, so if you're into that, can follow me over there. And I've got a lot of resources too on my website, so I try to keep that up to date as well. ShaneWatley.com. That would make a lot of sense. So check out ShaneWatley.com. We'll put the rest of the links in the description for his Instagram and things. thanks for watching everybody. You can subscribe to this channel as well. Until next time, my name is Pete. on behalf of Vint and Brandon and our guest Shane. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.
