Welcome to Smart Home on the Range!
Follow us as we build out and upgrade our new smart home and other content.
The Latest Smart Home On The Range Blog
Refinement, Integration, and the Art of Intentional Smart Living
This past week was a good reminder that building a smart home isn’t just about installing devices - it’s about refining how everything works together. Progress continued across several key systems, with a strong focus on tuning performance, tightening integrations, and improving the overall day-to-day experience. From whole-home audio and lighting automation to network usability and thoughtful design details, this phase of the project is less about adding new hardware and more about optimizing the foundation we’ve already put in place so the home operates as seamlessly as it was intended.
Follow Our Home Build Week By Week
Week 60
While family time took center stage, we still made solid progress in Week 60 - completing the patio TV and audio integration, expanding lighting automation and continuing to fine-tune whole-home AV performance. There’s still plenty to do, but the foundation is in place and the focus now turns to optimization, convenience, and making everything work seamlessly together.
Week 59
The focus remains on settling into the house while continuing to build out the smart home systems that will ultimately tie everything together. A significant amount of time was spent moving items from the garage staging area into the house, with the goal of transitioning out of “living out of boxes” mode and into a more functional daily setup. Progress is steady, and spaces are becoming increasingly livable.
Week 58
Week 58
This week continued the shift from construction into fully settling into the house. The focus remains on getting essential spaces functional while steadily building out the smart home systems that will ultimately tie everything together.
As expected, we're finding things we wished we had done differently ...
Week 57
Week 57
Week 58
The transition to settling into our new house continues to gain momentum. This week didn’t involve a large amount of hands-on DIY installation, but several meaningful milestones were reached - from completing a key part of our water infrastructure to continuing to expand the possibilities of our smart home automation.
Week 56
Week 57
Week 56
This week marked a major transition point in the smart home build. After months of planning, wiring, configuring, and fine-tuning, heavy-duty moving officially began. The project is shifting from “construction mode” into “lived-in reality” - and that changes everything.
Week 55
Week 57
Week 56
The shift from construction site to fully functional smart home continues to accelerate. This phase of the build has focused on final electrical infrastructure, water system planning, incremental move-in logistics, expanded automation, and a few lifestyle upgrades that will make everyday living more streamlined.
Week 54
Week 54
Week 54
Construction continues to move from core infrastructure into refined finish work as the house approaches completion. This phase has focused heavily on electrical finish-out, plumbing finalization, energy analytics, landscaping, and expanding smart integrations throughout the home.
The U-Haul by no means signals the build project is complete. There's still plenty to do but we're certainly on the final lap and excited to get moved in.
Week 53
Week 54
Week 54
Progress continues steadily on our smart home build, with several major milestones reached across electrical work, flooring, plumbing preparation, interior finishes, landscaping, and ongoing DIY automation. This phase of the project is focused on transforming core infrastructure into a fully functional, intelligently connected living space.
Week 52
Week 54
Week 52
One year in as the construction site to evolves into an integrated smart home platform. Over the last twelve months, the house has transformed from raw earth into a tightly integrated residential technology platform - one designed intentionally around infrastructure, flexibility, and long-term adaptability. As we approach move-in, the pace hasn’t slowed; in fact, the convergence of systems this week makes it one of the most technically significant milestones yet.
Week 51
Week 52
Week 51 marked a critical inflection point in the build - the transition from installing discrete components to validating an integrated, operational smart home infrastructure - proving that the underlying architecture can support reliable automation, deterministic behavior, and long-term scalability. They are now active, interacting systems that expose real-world behavior, constraints, and opportunities for optimization.
Week 50
Week 50 may be the most transformational week of our home build so far because the house crossed the invisible line from “technology-ready” to technology-active. This was the week the smart home’s core systems were powered, interconnected, and placed into service. The home began operating as a single, integrated ecosystem rather than a collection of independent systems.
Week 49
This week marked a critical convergence point in the smart home build where infrastructure, finishing trades, and system-level planning all came together. At this stage, progress is more about precision - verifying that every cable, outlet, and control point is exactly where it needs to be. It's reinforced a core theme that smart homes live or die by the quality of their underlying infrastructure.
Smart Home Product News
Lymow One Plus Robotic Lawn Mower
Lymow introduces a smart lawn mower with tracks instead of wheels, it climbs slopes up to 45 degrees. World’s first dual rotary blades: High-efficiency cutting to tackle all grass types. Mows up 1.73 acres in 24 hrs. Durable aluminum alloy frame with long-life LiFePo4 battery with smart navigation - RTK+VSLAM system enables stable, precise mowing. Sealed to IPX6 standards to guard against heavy rain, mud, debris, and corrosion. Lymow is ready for any weather, eliminating the need to constantly monitor the forecast.
Need a Robot Vacuum That'll Pick Up After You?
With the launch of Roborock's Saros Z70, the first ever robot vacuum with a mechanical arm, your next home helper may be able to pick up stuff scattered about the room instead of simply cleaning around them. It features a first-of-its-kind five-axis robotic arm that emerges from the bot when it encounters items. It lifts any items weighing less than 10.5 ounces and deposits them in a single pile or designated basket, so it can continue to clean unobstructed.
Sunseeker Robot Mowers Cover Yards (Very) Large and Small
Sunseeker Robot Mowers Cover Yards (Very) Large and Small
Sunseeker is bringing its excellent onboard intelligence to three new robot mower models, including a new top-of-the-line model that’s capable of handling spreads of up to 3 acres.
The brand announced the entry-level X3, the mid-range X5, and the X7 Pro with a 3 acre due to being equipped with two 10Ah batteries.
The rear-wheel-drive X3 carries a 4Ah battery. It can handle up to 0.2-acre yards.