Hey guys, anyone here setup a smart home?  I know there are a dozen forums out there that primarily discuss this, but I'd rather not create an account, and prefer to ask you guys here.  Besides, I'm a lot more comfortable here and this might continue to be a long discussion.

I know I'm a bit late in the game, so there's a lot of catching up for me.  So if you are into the smart home bit, what does your setup look like?

I'm having a pickle deciding on which direction to take.  Currently, I have 2 ISP (internet connection is unreliable here, so I need a backup ISP).  ISP 1 is my primary and use it extensively and everything that is not a smart home device is connected here.  I'm using an X50 deco mesh in band steering (one on the ground floor and another on the second floor).  ISP 2 is my backup ISP and all of my smart device is connected here via access point (ISP provided modem wifi sucks so I had to use an AP).  2.4Ghz and 5Ghz are separated SSID for ease of connection with my smart devices.  Mostly the 2.4Ghz is used, and the 5Ghz is left untouched unless ISP 1 fails (which is somewhat rare).  My pickle is if I need to retain this setup, or buy a load balancer to connect both ISPs.  Ideally I would go with a load balancer, but I'm having second thoughts.  for one, I'm not sure how the connection will affect the devices connected when the load balancer switches ISP, particularly for my NAS.  I've read that when the load balancer switches to another connection, websites you're currently connected to will time out.  I'm also concerned that this setup will congest my bandwidth since a lot of devices will get connected to a single SSID.  Basically my concerns is on the failover as I want the switch from one ISP to another to be seamless.

I bought a smart light bulb by mistake. I expected I could control the brightness via bluetooth, but it wanted to be connected to wifi and wanted my gps location and what room it was in. I realised this thing would be tracking and recording and uploading what times I use this room. That to me, is an unacceptable invasion of my privacy. That's the extent of my ability to advise.

That's an interesting case.  I guess some devices needs your location to determine which is the better server to connect to.  That's what usually happens on a smart device that needs to connect online.  It also gives you the ability to control it even outside the house.  In most cases, you can usually opt out of the information gathering.

In my case, I need my devices to track me, especially when I'm near home and needs help with the grocery.  But alas, that didn't work as expected so I turned location tracking off.

Well, I guess not much people here dabble in these kinds of things.