The landlord doesn?t have to know a thing With so many new products launching constantly, the home tech world can be an intimidating space to navigate. But as illustrated in this story of one San Francisco couple, who created a smart home in a rental apartment, no less, it doesn?t have to be a Big Scary Thing. Rather, turning your home into a smart one can be done step by step, in a relatively painless and potentially kind-of-fun way.
Tyler and Julia Waneka moved to the city about five years ago. Both work in the tech industry, but they wouldn?t consider themselves early adopters. Techies or not, the Wanekas met the typical San Francisco housing problem: They were priced out of owning.
Their decision to stay in the city but rent long-term was one of the main reasons the Wanekas looked into home tech. They thought: What would we do to our home if we did own" How can we make this apartment more our own" As it turns out, today?s smart home products usually come without extensive wiring, offering the couple a chance to customize and upgrade their place?and the landlord doesn?t have to know a thing.
Bit by bit, they assembled a smart home system comprising nearly 10 products, all connected to Wink, a smart product hub that lets you control everything via one app.
The whole setup cost somewhere between $500 and $1,000. Here now is a full breakdown of which products they used and why.
1. August lock: for a peace of mind

The mo...