Let me guess… All your friends have been talking about how smart their homes are and you’re beginning to consider if you should go ahead and make your home smart or not
In this new year you’re looking at doing something new completely and you’re wondering if automating your home will be a wonderful idea
Well, there’s a lot to home automation than meets the eye and you’ll be amazed at how wonderful an automated home can be.
In this post, I will be giving you reasons why you should make your home smart and make you see that it’s a much better investment in the long run.
You really won’t believe how big the smart home industry has grown over the years.
A decade ago the idea of having an automated home, that is, controlling things in your home like lights, thermostat, vacuum cleaners all through your smartphone would have seemed like a future impossible tense (Of course that’s not a real).
But 2018 proved to be a year of Smart home technology and the market continues to rise and rise actually Zion Market Research predicts that the global smartphone market will reach $53.45 billion by 2022.
But first, let’s understand some things
What is a Smart Home?
Simply put, a smart home refers to a house in which a number of interconnected devices and home appliances are performing certain actions in order to save money, time, and energy. You can get more details about the technology behind a Smart home here
Now, let’s get into the crux of the matter
10 Reasons Why You Should Make Your Home Smart
1. Security
This actually is the primary reason a lot of people really want to get a smart home. With the availability of indoor and outdoor security cameras which keep track of activities in your absence.
There are also motion sensors which trigger alarms when there are movements at illegal hours. Doors and windows sensors trigger alarms when there are movements in case of a burglar. Now that we have terrorism and crime everywhere, security is of high priority.
The wonderful thing about this is that it can be controlled and monitored from anywhere in the world with your smartphone.
2. Lower Electricity Bills
Who doesn’t want to save more money? I really wonder!!!
With the presence of thermostats that regulate the temperature of your house plays a major role in saving money. It can be set to turn off the cooling and heating systems in your absence especially when you had to rush off for work, class or an engagement so you don’t have to bother about it reading when you’re not there.
You can also monitor the energy usage of your appliances to know how to reduce your usage for lesser bills. There are also smart home lights that could turn off in your absence which you could also control from your smartphone or scheduling it to happen at a certain time based on your routine.
So in the long run, you’ll get to see that smart home devices put more money in your pocket.
3. Convenience
Imagine waking up early in the morning, you’re preparing for work and when you get to the kitchen your coffee is already set. You then have a sip and you’re off to your workplace or meeting. I’m sure coffee lovers will feel so on top of their game that day.
Smart home devices make your home much more convenient you can control the temperature of your home from anywhere you are. For example, you could be on your way home and your thermostat automatically sets the house to 70 which is your desired temperature.
It’s a wonderful way to rest after a long day. Your smart thermostat can do that because it is able to pick the sensor of your smartphone as it is approaching the house.
There are also smart plugs that you can use to automate any electrical device. You can schedule a time when a kitchen appliance comes on like the coffee maker just like we described above.
You have the luxury of operating different things in your house from the comfort of your couch. Basically you can make your house to learn your routine and increase your productivity in the long run.
4. Personal Assistant
I like to feel like a boss once in a while and I guess you do too. With the availability of smart speakers, you can check the news, check your schedule to know upcoming events, as well as control other devices in the house just from the sound of your voice.
You can have reminders of your workout routine, set a shopping list or even place an order with the sound of your voice. Smart home technology just gives you a smart personal assistant.
5. Aware of what happening in your Home
Life-saving alarms like those for fire and theft are available based on smart home technology. If you have elderly ones in the house motion sensors can inform me about their movements and help you to better take care of them.
There are also sensors you can fix on your garage door and windows to know if there’s any entrance or exit of anyone you didn’t expect. You can also track things like water leakages all from the convenience of your phone.
6. Peace of Mind
You don’t need to sleep with an eye open again because of the smart home technology. Things like checking up on your kids after school, knowing what they’re up to in the house you can monitor that with internal cameras and motion sensors.
You can also monitor and control other devices from your smartphone and know which is on and which is off when you’re not home. Most importantly when you travel for a vacation or time out your family you can be sure that your phone is protected as your monitoring it with your phone.
You can also get timely information to call the security in case of anything.
Your iron doesn’t have to overheat again and get to the extent of almost burning down the house with the use of smart plugs that you can automatically turn on and off.
If you’re away from the house you can control your security lights from your smartphone so you can chase unwanted intruders away. You can also ensure your garage door is closed and monitor any water spillage.
7. Efficiency
Everything in your house can now be controlled from your smartphone or from a button (for the lovers of smart remote). You can check the lights, control the thermostat, control your vacuum cleaner, your coffee maker or anything you connected to a smart plug with your smartphone.
8. Personal customization
You can now set your home to fit your desired taste. You can decide the colour of the lighting on your house at different times of the day both inside and outside the house.
For example, you can set your house to have the same colour as the sun as it sets. You can also set the timing for some particular events in your house, for example, the coffee maker coming on after your alarm or your thermostat setting the temperature to your house to 70 degrees by 4 p.m. when you’re on your way back from work.
9. Saves Time
This one works out for lovers of time maximization just like myself. You can set your vacuum cleaner to clean up your house while you’re away so that you come back to or warm and well-arranged house you really helps the mindset and increases productivity.
Your coffee maker can automatically start off after your alarm just like we had discussed. You can also take stock of the food in your freezer while you’re away in case you forgot to write a shopping list of things that are in shortage in your house to get from a grocery store on your way back and check it up on your smartphone.
10. Have Fun
Finally, it just makes your home to be a fun place and somewhere that you’re always looking forward to returning to. Programming your lights to be a particular warm colour maybe towards the evening time it makes you love your house more.
But then…
How do you Make your Home smart:
Here is a listing of a few appliances you can get to have the Smart feeling in your home but you can check out a more comprehensive list of the best Smart home automation devices. Affordable devices you can get include:
Amazon Echo ( Best Smart Speaker )
This should be the first device you get. The Bluetooth speaker works with Alexa, Amazon’s voice Assistant.
Apart from the good sound, it gives as a speaker, it also does a lot of other things like controls other smart home gadgets, reads audiobooks, checks the weather and helps you purchase things online just with the sound of your voice.
Alexa can actually do a lot of things but although it may take a while for it to adjust to your voice, it’s worth the try. You can also change the skin to match your home interior decoration.
Ecobee4 ( Best Smart Thermostat )
The Ecobee 4 has a built-in Amazon Alexa speaker, a sleek design, a wonderful touch screen interface and a remote sensor to regulate the temperature in any room in your house.
The built-in Amazon Alexa speaker can do things that Alexa can do like to control other smart devices, play music, shop online, check the weather and lots more. But I must warn you, it won’t be able to do personal assisting as effective as the Echo would.
Philips Hue Family ( Best Smart Light Bulb )
The Philips Hue family comes with different kinds of bulb: the white ones and the colour ambiance bulbs. The white bulbs have the power to increase the intensity to be much brighter as well as reduce it while the colour ambiance bulbs give you control over the looks of your house.
You can set it to you can schedule it to look like the sunset when the sun is setting and like sunrise when the sun is rising. This feature really catches my attention.
The whole ecosystem is compatible with so many voice assistants out there from Alexa to Siri to IFTTT.
Nest Hello( Best Video Doorbell )
You’ll also need to start with the Nest Hello as it has the best speaker, microphone and video amongst its competitors. It has an optional facial recognition feature as well as also announces them when they come to your door.
Unfortunately, it has a hardwired connection that you have to do manually.
You can also set up regions in which people’s movements announce their presence within the region. It has no free video clips storage.
Samsung SmartThings ( Best Smart Home Hub )
The best smart home automation system that we’ve discovered so far is the Samsung smart things. Making your home smart needs the presence of a central system to integrate and control the rest of the other devices.
Fortunately, Smart things play the part flawlessly. It works with a lot of devices and has built-in Wifi which eliminates the need for plugging in a router.
Netgear Arlo Pro ( Best Outdoor Security Camera )
The Arlo Pro’s 720p camera provides both indoor and outdoor security monitoring in just one single camera. That’s if you want to kill two birds with one stone.
I just admire the wonderful features of this little smart home beauty. It has wonderful motion and sound detection. Though it is costly and then the night vision is not so clear.
It’s also important to know that it also has a rechargeable battery can last up to six months and you get one week of cloud video storage free.
Now it’s over to you, I’ll like to know which one of these 10 reasons appeals to you the most and when you intend starting your smart home journey if you haven’t started already. Please drop a comment in the space provided below… Cheers