Smart homes are now incredibly popular, but creating one involves buying multiple smart devices, and may cost you a pretty penny. So do you really need a smart home, or is it not the right call for you?
Let’s explore some reasons why you should create a smart home so you may understand if it’ll benefit your lifestyle.
1. Lowering Energy Bills
Energy rates are always fluctuating, but are generally increasing over time. In some countries, energy bills have skyrocketed over the past few years, with many finding it hard to afford lighting and heating. Even if you can foot the bill each month, it’s frustrating to see things getting increasingly pricey.
With smart home technology, you can tackle hefty energy bills by getting a better insight into how you use electricity, as well as the benefit of a system that helps you save wherever possible. It’s smart home thermostats that play a big role here.
Smart home thermostats don’t just control the temperature of your home. These nifty devices can provide you with analytics on how you’re using electricity in your home, and can also alter the temperature of your home based on the daily weather. You can also program your smart thermostat to heat up and cool down rooms based on your preferences.
Smart home thermostats are what can facilitate energy saving throughout your home, but smart lighting can also help.Smart light bulbsaren’t just convenient. Your standard LED smart bulb can be turned on and off remotely, allowing you to save electricity whenever you’ve forgotten to switch off a light before leaving home.
Not all smart thermostats and bulbs are guaranteed to lower your energy bills. The amount you save (if anything) depends on how you use your devices, your changing energy demand over time, and your provider’s changing rates.
2. Improving Home Security
Unfortunately, locking your doors and closing your windows simply isn’t enough to fend off criminals. Even intruder alarms have their shortcomings, as they can’t warn you of an impending threat, and cannot identify the individual trying to break in.
With smart security devices, you may make your home borderline impenetrable to intruders, using smart locks, smart doorbells, smart motion detectors, and smart surveillance.
Let’s start with smart locks. These devices cannot simply be unlocked with a key. Rather, an extra layer of authentication is needed. For instance, you may need to authenticate entry via an app, use biometric identification, or scan a code on your phone. Some smart locks also use atechnology known as geofencing, which alerts the lock if you are within a few feet of your home (based on your smartphone or smartwatch’s proximity), unlocking the door automatically.
Smart doorbells also help people improve their home security by alerting them of people at the front door while away from home, recording those who come to the door, and even allowing you to communicate with whoever is at the door through a speaker, regardless of if you’re at home or away. Ring is the most popular smart doorbell brand, but there are many other options out there, such as the Nest Hello and August View.
3. Boosting Productivity
Whether you’re carrying out a typical working day, folding laundry, or cleaning the kitchen, remaining productive can be tough on some days. But with your smart tech, you can boost your productivity and complete the tasks important to you.
For instance, you may use your smart speaker to generate reminders for important things, notify you of incoming calls or messages, set timers, and make to-do lists. Amazon’s Echo speakers, for instance, can do all of this. You can have multiple Echo speakers in your home, or evenlink your Echo speaker to your Google Nest speaker.
If you have a smart washing machine, smart oven, or similar, you can also use your smart home hub or smart assistant to turn on these devices remotely, saving you time and energy. Maybe you want to pre-heat your smart oven, put a load of clothes on to wash, or just switch some lights off, you can do this via your smart hub or assistant, giving you more time to handle important tasks.
4. Increasing Home Control
With so many electrical devices running our homes nowadays, it can be tough to keep track of what’s going on and ensure that everything is running smoothly. Sure, you remembered to turn on the dishwasher, but now you’re ready to take a shower and you forgot to turn the heater on.
Smart home tech helps you keep things on track by giving you control of all your smart home devices from one place. By using a smart assistant that supports your devices, such as Apple’s Siri or Amazon Alexa, you can enable, disable, or customize any device from your smartphone or smart home hub.
What’s more, you’re able to use your voice to enable or disable your smart home tech using a smart assistant. Simply ask your assistant to perform a task, and, if the speaker is linked to the relevant device, it can do so in a split second.
5. Facilitating Remote Home Surveillance
Even with an alarm system, being away from home can sometimes make you a little nervous, especially if you’re away for an extended period of time. Leaving your pets at home for any stretch of time can also be distressing, as you don’t know if they’ve caused damage, ingested something dangerous, or put themselves in harm’s way.
Using smart home appliances, you can keep an eye on your humble abode from anywhere, so long as you have the relevant apps installed on your phone. For instance, with asmart pet cameraor feeder, you can check in on your furry friends at any time. With a Ring doorbell, you can see who’s at your door at any time of the day or night. If your kids are at home, you can see if they’re leaving lights on unnecessarily, or using devices against your permission.
Smart Tech Can Change Your Life
Whether you want to grab two or three devices, or transform your home into a tech haven, having smart appliances working for you can make life so much easier. If you’re looking to make your home safer, streamline your domestic life, or boost productivity, smart home technology can do wonders for you.
