The SmartThings kit has all the basics you need to get started connecting your home.

My apartment gets almost no natural light.

That’s one of the problems with living in New York. I spend about a zillion dollars per month in rent, and still have a teeny tiny apartment that faces the back of a bunch of taller buildings that block the sun. My bedroom window faces some other guy’s bedroom window across a narrow, dark alley.

So no matter what time of day it is, I always have the lights on in my apartment.

For the last several weeks, my apartment has been programmed to light itself up. Whenever I enter my building, my apartment knows I’m home and switches on the lamp in my living room so I don’t have to fumble around in the dark. When I leave the room, the light shuts itself off.

That’s because I’ve been testing something called SmartThings. SmartThings isn’t just one gadget, but a Web-connected system of everyday objects that can control everything in your home from your lights to your coffee maker. I tested one of the SmartThings starter kits, which sell for $199 or $299.

How It Works

SmartThings starts with the hub, a small white plastic box that looks sort of like a WiFi router. The hub plugs into your router and talks to the rest of the connected objects in your home. Since the hub is connected to the Internet, you can control everything from a computer or the SmartThings app, even if you’re out of the house.

From there, you set up the objects you want connected. My starter kit came with two motion sensors, two multi sensors that can tell you when a door or window is open, two presence sensors that you clip to your keychain so the hub knows when you’re home (the app can also double as a presence sensor using your phone’s GPS), a smart outlet for controlling lamps or appliances, and a moisture sensor that goes under the sink to alert you in case of a leak.

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