My Smart Home: A week in the life of a consumer tech obsessive, making expensive financial mistakes so you don't have to

Consumer technology writer Gareth Butterfield's new pad is a blank canvas - and he has lots of plans

placeholder image — Consumer technology writer Gareth Butterfield's new pad is a blank canvas - and he has lots of plans

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Welcome to My Smart Home, a new weekly column following the triumphs, frustrations and questionable financial decisions that come with filling an ordinary house with extraordinary amounts of technology.

It's often said there are few things more stressful than moving house. But I can think of some. Passing a kidney stone during a job interview. Waking up during an operation and nobody has noticed, or being trapped in a burning lift that keeps stopping at every floor.

But that's basically it. Nothing else I can think of is as stressful as moving house. And I know this, because I've just done it. I'm just settling in to a four-bedroomed, two storey pile in a nice village on the edge of the Peak District.

Everything's still in boxes, we can't find the colander, and I'm sick of accidentally writing my old address on forms, but this is the exciting bit. I'm up late every night planning where to put things, and up early every morning trying to remember which box said things are in.

And I have big plans. My last house was filled with gadgets, but I made some obvious tech errors and I learned a lot along the way. I frequently promised myself that, next time, I'd do things differently, or I'd upgrade something, or I'd spend a bit more time researching something else. And now's the time to start fulfilling those promises.

Everything is currently in a box - it's just a case of finding it

You join me, then, at the start of an exciting journey. I've got a lot of consumer tech shopping to do. I've so far set up everything from a trick ceiling fan to a robot lawnmower, but I've got a lot more on the list, and a lot more gadgets to acquire.

I want my new house to function in the cleverest, simplest, and most interesting way possible, and I've got a black book filled with contacts in the world of consumer tech to help me achieve it.

From smart household appliances to a suite of wireless surveillance cameras, my house will be a tech-lover's dream when it's finished.

But, as any tech lover will tell you, it's never actually finished. This could be a long journey.

Week one: Getting the basics right

I'm fortunate that I struck up a solid rapport with the people who sold the house to my wife and I, and they kindly offered to leave their internet running if we covered the final bill.

It serves up a fairly glacial 50Mb, but we've got fibre right outside the driveway, so Openreach has promised to hook us up to 900 glorious Mb soon.

Sadly my idea of "soon" and their idea of "soon" is wildly different, so under a little bit of duress, they sent out a temporary 4G mobile router. I had low expectations of this little white box, but I have to say, it's pretty decent.

EE's little temporary mobile router is surprisingly good

We're lucky we have decent mobile signal where I live, and it's coughing up 30Mb, which isn't too shabby.

I've been able to configure it with the same WiFi name and password as my old router, so the few things I have found and plugged in have powered right up.

My PC works, my Google display works, and my SwitchBot Air Circulator fan works. We're getting there, slowly.

Here are the gadgets I'm most looking forward to dragging out of a box and getting set up.

EZVIZ EP8 Ultra Video Doorbell

I've tested loads of video doorbells, but this is the one I'm sticking with. The little display is cute and genuinely useful, it's quick-thinking, and wonderfully reliable. Living without a video doorbell hasn't been fun, so it's high on the list.

Eufy Omni S2 Robot Vacuum

We have a lot of hard floors in our new pad, and the new Eufy Omni S2 is brilliant at mopping, so it's coming out of the box as soon as we have enough floor space.

The EZVIZ EP8 Ultra will be going straight on the wall - as soon as I figure out which box it’s in | Amazon

SwitchBot smart lock

SwitchBot is launching a new smart lock and, if it's even slightly as good as its previous versions, I'm going to love it.

It's going to mean changing my lock barrel, and a moderately complicated installation I'm not looking forward to, but I can't wait to leave the house without a key again.

Tapo security cameras

I've been running a small selection of wireless security cameras on my old house, and of all the models I've tested, I've been happiest with Tapo. They just perform so well, and they link up to a storage hub, so there's no subscription, and a live view can be piped to a big screen through HDMI.

I'm not a nosey neighbour, honest, but I do like to keep an eye on what the dogs are doing.

Birdfy's smart bird feeder will help the birds come out of the heatwaves | Birdfy

Birdfy smart bird bath

I've always loved feeding the birds in my garden, and Birdfy's brilliant smart tech sends you video clips whenever they land and accept your offerings.

I've had smart bird feeders before, but this new gadget offers them water. Which, after such a dry summer, can be a pretty precious resource.

SwitchBot Curtain

Yes, I'm a bit of a SwitchBot fanboy and, yes, I'm too lazy to open my own curtains. But there's more to it than that.

My master bedroom is quite long and currently full of packing boxes, so getting from one window to the other is a chore, and if I've got the kit to press a button, or bark an order at Alexa to magically open and close them, I'm going to make it happen.