IT FINALLY EXISTS!...

I don't Is this real life? I'm not

entirely sure what's going on. I hold in my hands an Android settop box from Lincoln and Link. If you don't understand what it is, it's basically a Fire Stick. Um, but they've put Home

Fire Stick. Um, but they've put Home Assistant on it.

They've put Home Assistant on it.

[Music] They've put home assist What do you mean you don't know what that means? If

you're new to this whole thing, if you've got a whole bunch of smart devices and you're thinking to yourself, "All of them connect to different manufacturers ecosystems. They all have their own apps. I hate this." Well, some

time ago, a bunch of nerds got together that were nothing to do with those companies and said, "We're going to make it so if people want to install our software on a Raspberry Pi, all of those different ecosystems will live on their

Raspberry Pi locally, without the need of an internet connection, without the need of the cloud, all private, and everything will be instantaneous in its operation." And whilst that always was

operation." And whilst that always was and continues to be the most rebellious and most fun thing that you can do with a piece of technology, it unfortunately

has proven to a lot of people to be more frustrating than that time I was trying to bend the spoon in the Matrix.

[Music] All right, little Yori Gulla. How'd you

do that?

>> Do not try and bend the spoon.

That's impossible.

Instead, only try to realize the truth.

>> That will never get decent Wi-Fi reception in the bathroom.

>> What's that got to do with anything?

>> There is no spoon.

[Music] >> No. Off Baldi.

>> No. Off Baldi.

So, Home Assistant takes every single smart home device you could possibly imagine, puts them all into one location so you can control them all via one app, but also of course means that you can

let them talk to each other. So, you can have a IKEA motion sensor turn on a Philips Hue bulb all within the same ecosystem in Home Assistant in your

house on a Raspberry Pi. Not only that, you can connect really, really cheap devices that you've probably never even heard of from AliExpress to Apple HomeKit, for example, because it works

with Apple HomeKit. It works with Amazon Alexa. It works with Google Home. It

Alexa. It works with Google Home. It

works with every possible platform you could think of in the smart home industry, and it makes everything so much easier to use. But you do have to be a bit of a nerd to get it set up in

the first place. Well, it's you don't have to be a nerd anymore. this exists.

[Music] Thanks to Lincoln Link for sponsoring today's video and for sending me their link and link ISG second edition gateway. If you want all of your smart

gateway. If you want all of your smart home devices to communicate with one another and exist in one place, your house, then you need to install Home Assistant on a device. And usually in

the past there has been a Raspberry Pi or a mini PC and people have found this difficult. Not anymore. Somebody's done

difficult. Not anymore. Somebody's done

it for you and then put it on a shelf for 33 quid.

What?

Hang on a minute. That I haven't made my head explode for quite some time. Paul

from the future. Can we Can we edit that in?

>> No. How many times I don't have time to edit this crap? We've done this joke before. Just do it.

before. Just do it.

Fine. We're going to do it.

33 quid. 33 quid. It's not always going to be that price. That's the super early bird special with a discount code in my description, but I haven't tried it yet.

We're We're going to talk to Paul from the future shortly, and he's going to give it a go. But if it does everything they say it does, this is the bargain of the century. But first, here's Paul from

the century. But first, here's Paul from the past to unbox it. Paul from the past, have you uh forgiven me for sleeping with your wife yet?

>> No, mate. I haven't. I think it's about >> Shut up, idiot. We've done that joke, too. over and over and over. Just unbox

too. over and over and over. Just unbox

it you I'm excited by this one because it's got 10 names. 10 names always means awesome.

10 names. 10 names always means awesome.

But it's got Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Mata builtin, and all the Home Assistant stuff, including local Toya Smart Life.

If you've ever struggled to get localized toy smartife devices working in Home Assistant, this thing has already got it set up for you. Wi-Fi

ZigGB requires a USB stick. Huh. Okay.

So, you don't have a USB stick with this, I don't think, or a Zwave stick, which means if you want to control ZigGB and Zwave devices, you'll need to get a

separate stick and plug it into this.

Oh, yeah. Stick it in me. Oh yeah.

Oh yeah. Two at once. Oh yeah, filth.

>> Just a point of note here. If you're a newbie, you don't have to buy that. If

you've got a load of Wi-Fi gear and that's all you want to control, that thing's for controlling Ziggby and Zedwave devices. So, don't worry about

Zedwave devices. So, don't worry about that extra expense if you don't want it.

If you do want it because you have Ziggby devices, and they're a really cheap way of controlling light bulbs and getting sensor information from contact sensors and motion sensors and all that stuff, then buy the Ziggby dongle that

comes with it. You can just get the package. They sell it as a package if

package. They sell it as a package if you want that. They just sell it without that if you want the cheapest possible way to get into Home Assistant. Just

thought I'd better mention that before everyone's like, "No, I don't want that." I've got 2p, a cable tie, and a

that." I've got 2p, a cable tie, and a suitcase padlock from your last holiday.

If it's any more than that, you can forget it on the show. There's the box.

[Laughter] [Applause] UK power supply for me cuz I'm in the UK. We've got a HDMI cable to plug it

UK. We've got a HDMI cable to plug it in. remote control

in. remote control with a little microphone in it. I've got

a Ziggby dongle. So, I think you can buy bundles that come with the Ziggby dongle too.

Ziggby dongle. We'll find out how good that is shortly. That is it. That's an

empty box. Let's plug it in. If you're

learning something or at the very least I'm making you laugh, please do me a huge favor and hit the subscribe button and ding the bell. It lets YouTube know that you want to be notified when I upload videos. You can also give it a

upload videos. You can also give it a like. I'd really appreciate it. On with

like. I'd really appreciate it. On with

the show. So, I plugged it in and as a streaming box, it's we'll talk about that later. We'll talk about that at the

that later. We'll talk about that at the end of the video. But for Home Assistant, it works amazingly well. Now,

I know I produced a video previously for Link and Link about their tabletbased version of this, and a lot of the comments were saying something to the effect of, "This product is rubbish. I

don't know how to use it. You told me I wouldn't have to learn anything." That's

definitely not what I told you. I told

you that Home Assistant would come pre-installed. I didn't say that you

pre-installed. I didn't say that you wouldn't have to learn how to use Home Assistant. That's insane. So, basically,

Assistant. That's insane. So, basically,

all you have to do to access Home Assistant on this thing is go down to settings and then open up where it says local ha local home assistant and then click on the IP address for Home Assistant. It will then launch you into

Assistant. It will then launch you into the Home Assistant menus and you can start going through the wizard to add your stuff. And one of the few things

your stuff. And one of the few things that tripped people up previously when setting this up on the tablet version was not knowing what the username and password is. This probably should have

password is. This probably should have been in big capital letters in the box is admin and admin. They've just

pre-installed Home Assistant and set up admin and admin as the username and password for you. You'll be presented with an empty dashboard and Home Assistant doesn't baby you through it.

There isn't a plus button where you can add a product. You have to go into settings and then devices and services where you'll then be presented with a bunch of integrations. These are the things it has already found on your

network. You can just click them to add

network. You can just click them to add them in and it will take you through.

give me your username and password for that device or press the Philips Huegh button on your hub now and I'll add all of those things for you. It is pretty straightforward at that point, but Home

Assistant is a complicated beast because it can do so many things. All you do is you ask Chat GPT for help. It really is that simple. Every time I'm stuck with

that simple. Every time I'm stuck with Home Assistant, I just get on to Chat GPT and go, I want to do this. Make me

do it. It's that simple. Chad GPT

is sick of your questions.

It wants to die and link Link have taken so much of the work out of it for you.

Toya Smart Life devices can be added to the ISG portion of this operating system and then be read into Home Assistant.

You have no idea how important that is unless you've actually tried to add local Toya Smart Life devices directly to Home Assistant before. If you've ever tried that, you'll be amazed at how easy

it is to connect those things into the intelligent super gateway operating system and then migrate them into home assistant. What do you mean ISG portion

assistant. What do you mean ISG portion of the operating system? Why is this so complic I hate Paul Hibbert? It's really

not that complicated. Just imagine the Android box is split in half right down the middle and one side is the home assistant stuff and it's you know that world of slightly more complication because there is lots more to do and the

other half is the intelligent super gateway operating system which is more basic and is much more userfriendly if you want to do basic stuff. For example,

if you wanted to add a Toya Smart Life bulb, you could use the intelligent super gateway to do that and then transfer it to Home Assistant and vice versa. You can add things to Home

versa. You can add things to Home Assistant and transfer them into the intelligent super gateway. And then

whichever interface you feel more comfortable with, you can use that one longterm. And overarching over the top

longterm. And overarching over the top of this is the link and link skill for Amazon Alexa and for Google Home, which will actually find things in both. So

anything you add into Home Assistant, you can then add to the ISG gateway and it will be found by the link and link skill.

>> Alexa, >> turn happiness on.

>> Okay.

Alexa, >> turn happiness off.

>> Okay, >> I said I said happiness.

Happiness, not penis.

So, I've spent a couple of days using this now and I think I know the best way to explain to you why they have this kind of separate operating system, Home Assistant and their own thing. is to

give newbies their easy to use front end. The thing that they understand, the

end. The thing that they understand, the thing that they are used to. Add a

device. So, this is a Wi-Fi product. So,

I'm going to hit Wi-Fi. So, we're going to hit tuya. I'm going to hit lights cuz that's what it is. And then we need to reset the device.

Is it going to work?

No way it's going to work.

[Music] You can actually use this thing to add stuff to Home Assistant and vice versa as I have already told you specifically because they're trying to give you a

newbie front end and they're adding more things to it all the time. The biggest

surprise here for me was being able to add GOI products through the ISG simple to use interface that then went into Home Assistant and again work entirely locally without an internet connection.

This only works for GOI products that have LAN control, but that's most of them. You just go into the settings in

them. You just go into the settings in the GOI app for the individual products and tick a little box that says LAN control and then in the ISG gateway you just press search or add or whatever it is and it finds them. It really is that

simple. They were immediately added to

simple. They were immediately added to Home Assistant. I got all my GOI stuff

Home Assistant. I got all my GOI stuff straight into Home Assistant through a very, very easy to use interface. Not

only that, my Riolink cameras, too. I

added my RioLink camera through the ISG gateway, and they were in Home Assistant 3 seconds later. And there are an awful lot more manufacturers than that. You

just click on this little apps section, and then you can choose from the manufacturers and stick it in.

>> That's what she said.

>> Stop that.

And of course, any devices that you have that aren't in that list that you wanted to add, you could just add them using Home Assistant because Home Assistant has a ridiculous library. That's it.

That's you can basically add anything to this box. In a very short space of time,

this box. In a very short space of time, I have been able to make it so that if a RioLink camera sees motion at the front of the house, it can turn a GOI light on in here. It really isn't very difficult

in here. It really isn't very difficult to do. You can do it in Home Assistant

to do. You can do it in Home Assistant through the automations in there because both things exist in Home Assistant. And

again, just ask Chat GPT. It's not hard.

Doesn't mean it's not hard for you.

Probably hard for Chat GPT.

>> It wants to die.

[Music] >> But Link and Link have also taken strides to allow you to create automations within their portion of the operating system, too. So again, if

you're a newbie, it's kind of like do this if this happens. It's a lot more straightforward. This thing really does

straightforward. This thing really does give you the ability to just graduate into Home Assistant slowly and not have to build a Raspberry Pi to do it. If you

want to get into Home Assistant, then you know this thing will help you regrow your virginity.

Home Assistant.

So both the Home Assistant aspect of this operating system and the ISG aspect of this operating system can be accessed using either their respective mobile apps or by visiting a web page. Both of

them have that capability and you can go and tinker around to your heart's content or you can just load it up on the HDMI port of your TV and use this thing, but I wouldn't. It's really

awkward to use. Plug in a mouse and keyboard and go and update the thing.

That's the first thing I would do when you get it set up is go into settings and update it. And not with this. I

would use a mouse and keyboard.

It's not very often that I plug something in and immediately clown music starts playing in my head. But uh

>> sponsorship cancelled. Sponsorship

cancelled. Sponsorship. I open Netflix to find that it's the mobile app version, not the proper TV OS version, which means you need a mouse and keyboard to operate it. This is the

mobile version of Netflix.

Yep, that's 1080p.

>> It's not even 1080p. I can see about a million pixels. That's a That's a

million pixels. That's a That's a potato. I found that Prime Video

potato. I found that Prime Video wouldn't actually load a video at first and now that I can get it to load a video having updated it, it actually only plays in 480p because it's not

certified for Amazon Prime. Um, so

although the device is capable of up to 8K according to its spec because it's not certified for Netflix or Prime or Disney Plus or any of the streaming services, you're not going to get more

than 480p out of it. For YouTube, you should be able to because there aren't those kinds of restrictions. But

anything over a certain bit rate, it starts stuttering. You can't use it as a

starts stuttering. You can't use it as a streaming box, and that's all there is to it.

[Music] However, this is currently on sale for 33 quid when you use my discount, and it is perfectly fine for Home Assistant.

That's a hell of a lot cheaper than you would pay for Home Assistant Yellow. uh

and and even cheaper than Home Assistant Green by a large margin. So, if you're looking to get Home Assistant pre-installed on a box that you can just

fire up and use, I mean, buy it now.

They've also added the hacks store for you, so you don't have to go and do that. That's that's a reasonably painful

that. That's that's a reasonably painful thing to do if you're just starting out with Home Assistant. This gives you access to so many very cool integrations that you wouldn't have had access to

otherwise and you don't have to do anything to make that happen. The hack

store comes pre-installed. And now for the elephant in the the elephant in the room. This is Home Assistant in all its glory, but it is

installed by Link and Link onto this device and they are the only people that can update it. This is a limitation of Android. It's cuz it's installed on an

Android. It's cuz it's installed on an Android machine. and you haven't

Android machine. and you haven't installed it on a Raspberry Pi yourself.

If you are bothered about using the very latest version of Home Assistant every second of the day, this isn't going to be for you. But Link and Link update their box regularly with the latest

version of Home Assistant. So, it's

whether or not that bothers you.

Secondly, Mattera support is currently limited and that matters.

[Music] So, sorry. So, the matter support,

So, sorry. So, the matter support, matter support is currently limited on the ISG portion of this to only a light switch or a wall outlet. They're the

only two things. So, if you have a matter enabled blind, you won't be able to control it. Um, and in Home Assistant, it doesn't work at all, which is a huge problem at the moment. They

have created a matter server, which will solve this locally. It's still a local thing, but the matter server, I've tried turning it on and it doesn't currently work. They're now investigating why and

work. They're now investigating why and hopefully by the time you guys get your hands on this, you'll be able to do matter. I shall let you know in the

matter. I shall let you know in the description, I shall update it there as soon as I have heard anything. If you

don't see anything in the description, assume matter doesn't currently work.

Aside from that, and I am definitely nitpicking here considering the price of this thing. It is a lot cheaper than

this thing. It is a lot cheaper than buying Home Assistant Yellow and having it pre-installed by the Home Assistant team. Um, this thing is a little bit

team. Um, this thing is a little bit slower to use than say my mini PC, which has Home Assistant on it. Uh, this is because it doesn't have the same level

of power. Um, and actually, although it

of power. Um, and actually, although it is a little slow to use if it's plugged directly into your TV and you're trying to access it through your HDMI port, I actually find it runs faster if I'm accessing Home Assistant from across the

network. Bizarrely enough, I guess it's

network. Bizarrely enough, I guess it's serving less things. It's not serving a display. It's only serving the

display. It's only serving the information across the network to your PC or your mobile phone. So, if I actually access Home Assistant using my computer, it runs just fine. I'm not

going to script this end bit. I'm just

going to speak from the heart. Um, this

is the most exciting thing to land on my doorstep in a long time because it's going to let newbies get into Home Assistant. My best friend asked me about

Assistant. My best friend asked me about Home Assistant a little while ago. He

was in Berlin with me filming for the Epha video and he said, "Should I get Home Assistant?" And I thought, "I don't

Home Assistant?" And I thought, "I don't think you've got the patience for it.

It's a lot to get it going." Um, he will have the patience for this. the I'm

going to give him this and let him use it longterm to see how he gets on. But I

am confident he will not lose patience with it because it has that nice straightforward interface to get him started. And once he gets started, he'll

started. And once he gets started, he'll slowly his his virginity will grow back.

I' I've warned him about this already.

That's a real message. That's that's me and Adam's back and forth. So yeah, but yeah, stay tuned. I'll I'll let you know how he gets on. But I am absolutely confident he will get into this. And the

same goes for you. If you're looking for a way to get into Home Assistant, this is it. There's a link in the description

is it. There's a link in the description as to where you can pick this up. It's

their Kickstarter campaign. I know

people worry about Kickstarters, but this is Linker Link. They have delivered over and over again on Kickstarter campaigns, so I wouldn't worry about it.

I am confident this will land at your doorstep. It might take a little while.

doorstep. It might take a little while.

You know, don't come shouting at me in a month's time cuz it's still not arrived.

I don't know how long it would take.

They said it's going to start shipping in October. Hang on.

in October. Hang on.

The end of October. So, it's going to ship at the end of October. I don't know how long it will take to get to you, but it will get delivered. I am positive of that. Uh yeah, check the link in the

that. Uh yeah, check the link in the description. Now, as usual, this video

description. Now, as usual, this video would not be possible without these incredible people running up your screen. They're my patrons from Patreon,

screen. They're my patrons from Patreon, and I'm trying to thank at least one every single video. And this week, I want to thank my new patrons, and again, I am so touched because there are so

many of them. Sil Radut, thanks so much, dude. Chase Stagger, James Caruse,

dude. Chase Stagger, James Caruse, Bradley Silox. Without you, I couldn't

Bradley Silox. Without you, I couldn't do this for a living. If you want to be like those guys or like these guys, then come and do that at either Patreon or buy me a one-off beer at PayPal. And

either way, I'll genuinely love you forever. These are my Facebooks, my X,

forever. These are my Facebooks, my X, my threads, my Instagrams, and my Tik Toks. Come and hang out there. I can be

Toks. Come and hang out there. I can be best friends. See you next time.

best friends. See you next time.