My Smart Home Tour： Tech items I use daily

When I moved into my New York City apartment, the goal wasn't to just make it look good. I wanted it to be smart. So today I'm showing you the tech that I use in my apartment every single day that actually makes my life easier and that I'd recommend to any guy wanting to upgrade his space. Starting with this little device here, which is the Real MVP, Google Home runs my whole apartment. My lights, my speakers, my shades, you name it. When I wanna set the vibe for when guests come over, all I gotta do is just ask Google Home to turn on the mood lighting in the living room. If I wanna play my favorite playlist in every room while I'm getting ready, all I have to do is ask Google to play music everywhere and it's gonna do that. And my favorite thing is coming into my office every morning and asking Google to turn everything on instead of having to do it manually, which would take forever. Hey, Google, turn all of my lights on. Magic. Now, some people prefer Alexa. I've always had a Google Home because as some of you know, I worked at Google for three years, so I have a connection with that brand and with the tech. I have one in pretty much every room. And let me just geek out here for a second. I can't wait until they put Gemini into every single one of these Google Homes because then it's gonna be like having a real virtual assistant at home who knows everything about you, who helps you send emails, who can order supplies for you, who can just do everything for you, and I'm pumped for that day to come. If you want a good vibe in your home, you need to have good speakers. So I have Sonos speakers set up throughout my entire apartment, living room, bedrooms, and even in the bathrooms. And the best part is that you can choose if you wanna play in all the speakers or in just some. I can take a shower, then get ready in my bedroom, then make a coffee in the kitchen, and the music doesn't stop at any point because I have speakers in all of those places. But if I'm taking an important call in my office, I can just mute the speaker in the office so everyone else in my place can still listen to music while my office is nice and quiet. And look, I know there are cheaper options out there, but the Sonos quality is insane. It's crisp, it's rich. The bass on the sub is crazy powerful, and it's easy. It's seamless to install and sync with each other. So in my opinion, Sonos is the way to go. Plus, Sonos has the Google Home integration, so they work really well together. It's a match made in heaven, and it just makes my life so much easier. I don't have to touch a single button to play music in my entire apartment. Next up, just last year, I got these Ryze Smart Shades, and they've been a game changer. I mean, I wake up and I just say, hey, Google, bring up my shades, bring down my shades. It's incredible. So obviously, I could come over here and just press the button, and it's gonna bring the shades down. But to me, I might as well just do it with my hands and pull it down if that's the case. So what I did is I actually connected it to my Google Home so I can say, hey, Google, close my bedroom shades. And then it's gonna start closing it just through my voice, which is the way to go. I was like, oh my, is this gonna happen or what? I will say, even though they're motorized and they do it pretty quickly and they have the Google Home integration, sometimes they break. By sometimes, I mean all the time. Like once every two weeks, something happens and I have to fix it. So they're still pretty finicky. I love the tech and I love being able to do it with my voice as opposed to having to do it manually. But I will say they break all the time. Now, I'm not sure if it's something that I have done wrong or if it's just their first iteration of this product. But unfortunately, they're just not that reliant. But if you have shades at home and you wanna motorize them, this is the way to go. I haven't found anything better than this. So I still recommend it. It kind of makes it feel like you're in a hotel room, and you can just bring up the shades by pressing one button. But in reality, you don't even have to press a button, which is even better. You can also schedule yours to open with sunrise and close automatically in the evening. So every morning you wake up to natural light and every night when you go into bed, it just literally comes down at a specific time, let's say 10 p.m. Just recently, I made a huge upgrade to my office that honestly was life-changing and I'm kicking myself for not having it done earlier. This is the FlexiSpot standing desk with the under-desk treadmill. I mean, this setup right here is just incredible. It literally changed my life. I was reading this book called The Five Types of Wealth, and the author was talking about taking meetings outside as he's walking around. Now, I'm not gonna do that. New York is really loud and just chaotic. So what I decided to do is get a treadmill for under my desk, and now I take my meetings as I am walking, very slowly. I'm not panting or anything. But it does bring your heart rate up, and for me, it makes me think better. It makes me be quicker on my feet, no pun intended, as opposed to sitting down. When you get kind of lazy, you get kind of comfortable, right? Sometimes maybe even distracted and just too relaxed. So I prefer to be standing and I prefer to be walking when I'm taking my calls. FlexiSpot sponsored this video. They sent me these two amazing desks. So I got one for Rodrigo, my videographer, and one for myself. You can set the height that you want and then it memorizes it. So you have the height set for standing up, and then you have the height set as well for sitting down, and you can change it so easily. All you gotta do is press a button on the side. So you control the height right here. You can go up or down in small increments, but you also have your memory. So for me, when I press one, it just has a specific height for standing, and when I press two, it goes to the exact height of my chair. So I can just press two, grab my chair, sit down, and I'm ready to go. Now the funny thing is, I had one of these when I was working at Google for three years, and I swear I probably brought it up like twice. Now that I just got this, I stand the majority of the time, especially on Mondays when I take all of my calls. It just makes my posture better. It makes me more involved in my calls too. If I'm sitting, sometimes I get a little bit too relaxed, and it feels like I'm not in it to win it. I've been wanting to get a standup desk for a really long time, just because I've been sitting so much. I'm on my computer all the time, and I'm sure you guys are the same. A standing desk is life-changing. It feels so much better to stand. I just feel so much more alive. My posture is better. And then of course the treadmill, if you want to go above and beyond, is even better. And I even got these file cabinets to go under the desks, because I like to have drawers right next to me if I need a pen, if I need a Post-it note, if I need anything, it's just right there, easy to reach. You know how people say you should be getting 10,000 steps a day? I'll be honest with you guys. I go to the gym every day and I work out, but sometimes I'm not going to get those 10,000 steps because I'm just working on my desk. So this is changing that for me. I would knock out 5,000 to 7,000 steps just on meetings, and that's the level of efficiency that I want for my space. I'm working, I'm moving, I feel more alive, I'm not sacrificing focus or posture. So FlexiSpot, thank you for sending me these desks. They're amazing. I've been using them every single day. If you work from home, if you spend serious time at a desk like I do, this setup changes everything. I'm going to leave a link to everything below so you guys can check out. The stand-up desk from FlexiSpot, as well as the treadmill and the power cabinet, which are also from FlexiSpot. It's all linked in the description below. Now on top of my FlexiSpot desk, you see this huge monitor that I got, and you can find this monitor anywhere. Honestly, the hardest part about this monitor was finding the right monitor arm because it's not just about aesthetics. It needed to be really strong because it's a very heavy monitor. So I got this arm, I think I got it from B&H. It's really good for your posture to make sure that you have it eye level so you're not looking up or especially looking down. And this monitor arm is really strong and hefty. So you can move it around pretty easily. You can go up, down. You can literally rotate it as well if you want a vertical monitor. And I think the best thing about it is that it clears up any space on your desk, right? So there's no monitor stand. It's just literally your arm clamped to the desk. So you have all of the desk space available to you right there. Now, let's head into the bedroom because I just got something that completely changed my life. And I want to share this with you guys. I got an Eight Sleep. This is something brand new. I just literally got it a week ago. And it's been life changing. It's not just a mattress cover. It's a full smart sleep system. So it cools the bed on hot nights. It warms it up when it's freezing out. And it even tracks everything from your heart rate to your sleep quality, to how many minutes you've spent snoring. I mean, it just tells you everything about your sleep. And here's the best part. It has dual zones. So if you and your partner have different sleep temperatures, you're both covered. Typically, my girlfriend runs pretty cold. So hers is set to be warmer and I run pretty warm. So mine is set to be cooling. Typically at night, I'll wake up sweaty. You know, it's just like sometimes uncomfortable. With the Eight Sleep, that doesn't happen. It just maintains your body temperature throughout the entire night and it adjusts it. So if the room gets too cold, it warms it up. If your body gets too warm, it cools it down. I read on my app this morning that it adjusted my temperature 26 times last night to make sure that I was in optical sleeping temperature. That's pretty incredible. You guys know that I wear a Whoop every single day. I track my sleep, I track my strain. I really like tracking all of the data on my body. So when we got the Eight Sleep, it was just, for me, exactly what I wanted. And besides all of the tracking, it also just helps me sleep a lot better. Something else that I just got, and it was kind of an impulse buy, but it was incredible. I'm so glad I got it, is this Matic Vacuum. This thing is so sleek. It's not one of those bulky Roomba that honestly are kind of dumb. They just hit everything. This has AI built in, it has a bunch of cameras built into it. It's like the Tesla of vacuums, right? It literally just goes around everything. And it's funny because I have a dog, Truffle, as you guys may know, and it just goes around Truffle. Sometimes my guitar's on the ground and it just doesn't hit anything. It's really, really intelligent. And I'm surprised at how quiet this thing is. So it vacuums really well, including little corners, and then it'll go and mop if you want it to mop as well, which is great. So sometimes, let's say I'll go out for the day, I'll be out for three, four hours, and I'll just start the Matic and leave, and I'll come back and my floors are perfectly clean. I have dark wood floors too, which means you can really see the dust or any dirt on the floors. So I was just getting tired of vacuuming every single day. So this is a really good in-between. It doesn't really go deep. If you really wanna get the little nooks and corners, then I use a Dyson vacuum. But for everyday maintenance, it's perfect. You can schedule it to run a couple of hours before you get home from work, for example. So then by the time you're back, the floors are spotless. The hardwood floors, the rugs, it doesn't matter. It handles it all. So if you want your place looking clean with low effort, this is the way to go. Now, I think maybe the most fun piece of tech in the apartment is the Ninja Creamy. If you guys haven't heard of this thing, I mean, I just heard about it last year and I got it immediately. It's a cheat code for healthy desserts. So the Creamy makes ice cream, but you can make healthy ice cream. I'll tell you exactly how I do mine. I literally just do a protein shake. Just water, protein powder, and then you freeze it, put it into the Creamy the next day, and it blends it up and it makes it into a soft texture ice cream. It's so good and it's so healthy. If you want to add some coconut flakes in there, if you want to add some chocolate chips, you can. Whatever you want to add in as a mix-in, you're absolutely able to do that. I try to keep mine healthy, but of course, once in a while, I have a sweet tooth and I just throw in some chocolate chips in there and it's such a good, healthy dessert. If you have a sweet tooth, if you want a cheat meal at night, if you're craving ice cream or craving something sweet and you're on a diet, you're trying to watch your form, you're trying to bulk, you're trying to do whatever, this is such a good technology for you to have at home because then you can just literally make healthy ice cream right at home. It does have one flaw. It's so incredibly loud. The first time I turned it on, I thought it was broken. It sounds like a jet plane taking off. I was like, this thing's about to blow up. Oh my God. But then I went online, checked it out, and that's just how it's supposed to sound. Maybe they'll make a new one that doesn't sound as loud, but for now, unfortunately, you just have to cover your ears or just dial up the Sonos while it's going. Having the right tech at home is honestly life-changing. So let me know in the comments below which of this tech you liked the best. And of course, thank you to FlexiSpot for sponsoring today's video. If you guys wanna check out their standing desks, I'm gonna leave everything linked in the description below. See you in the next one.