Independent buying guides
For Canadian homes adding connected lights, locks and sensors one device at a time. Every guide answers one question, shows the sourced figures and check dates it relied on, and shows the working inside its calculators.
The decisions that actually change what you end up with.
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Photo: Shixart1985 · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Like-for-like comparisons on the specifications that matter.
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Photo: Smart Home Perfected · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
What the total comes to once everything is counted.
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Photo: TaurusEmerald · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Getting it working properly the first time.
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Photo: Authors of the study: Alicia Mora, Adrian Prados, Alberto Mendez, Gonzalo Espinoza, Pavel Gonzalez, Blanca Lopez, Victor Muñoz, Luis Moreno, Santiago Garrido, Ramon Barber · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
What the numbers mean in day-to-day use.
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Photo: user:Sking · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
The expensive errors that are easy to avoid.
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Photo: Jacklee · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Each guide answers one buying question and shows the figures behind the answer.
How to choose
The radio, the hub and the support window decide whether a smart home survives five years. Here is how to read all three before you buy anything.
Photo: Unknown authorUnknown author · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Budget and prices
Hardware spread over its life, standby electricity, cloud subscriptions and GST/HST. The four lines that make up a Canadian smart home's yearly cost.
Photo: user:Sking · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Setting up
Separate network, unique passwords, names that make sense in a year and firmware you actually check. The setup order that keeps a smart home running.
Photo: TaurusEmerald · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Every figure in a guide is taken from a named source, with the date it was checked. Where a number is an assumption or an example, it says so in the same sentence.
We do not run paid product tests, we do not publish reader reviews, and we do not claim to have handled every product mentioned. Where a claim needs a lab or a long-term test we do not have, the guide says that plainly.
Photographs are free-licence images from Wikimedia Commons or Openverse, credited to the photographer with the licence named. Charts are drawn from the figures printed in the same guide.
This site earns money from advertising and, where disclosed, from affiliate links. That does not change the order of a comparison or the conclusion of a guide.
Some links on this site can earn us a commission. That does not change which product a guide recommends, and it adds nothing to your price. Advertising is not enabled on this site yet. When it is, ads will be labelled and kept visually separate from the guides.
Each calculator shows its formula, units and assumptions. Nothing is estimated for you in secret.
What a cross-border order really costs once shipping, duty and tax are added.
landed cost = (item price + shipping) + duty + tax, where duty = item price x duty rate, and tax = (item price + shipping + duty) x tax rate
Spreads purchase price, consumables and repairs over the years you expect to keep it.
cost per year = (purchase price - expected resale value + consumables per year x years + expected repairs) / years
Annual electricity cost from rated power, hours of use and your own tariff.
annual cost = power (W) / 1000 x hours per day x days per year x price per kWh, plus standby power (W) / 1000 x standby hours x days x price per kWh