The future is here. Your home is at the centre of a web of connected devices that are interactive, autonomous, or both. Smart home devices keep your place warm and well lit and take care of life’s usual worries, like leaving the lights on.
The number of things labelled smart is growing by the day: phones, cars, television sets, locks, refrigerators, thermostats, yoga mats, the stuff of Black Friday deals. Although smart devices are not necessarily intelligent, unless they have AI embedded in them, they exist to make your life easy.
And you know you are at the peak of technology when you live in a smart home with virtual assistants to help in running things around. One option is to move into a house with smart home technology built into it, a nest of internet-connected devices. It’s going to be fancy and expectedly expensive. An alternative is to install a home automation system or upgrade one smart home device at a time.
As it is, home automation is geared toward convenience, comfort, and connectivity. If you are looking for home automation solutions in the New York City area, or elsewhere more relevant to you, there are plenty of options to help you customize your space with the latest technology. Take stock of products and solutions to set up your home for pleasant and smart living with these ideas.
Light and Motion
An average home consumed 10,972 kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2018, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Lighting accounted for 6.2 per cent of the total annual electricity consumption in households.
You can take advantage of smart lighting to use energy efficiently by doing the following:
- Install motion-sensor products to control lights based on occupancy. It’s particularly convenient in garages, bedrooms, and closets where you typically leave the light on and forget about it. Motion detectors attached to outdoor lights are critical to the home security system, alerting you of intruders and even of staying-out-late teenagers.
- Adjust illumination based on external conditions. The lights are automated to respond to daylight levels, cloudiness, and more. Landscape lighting can also be configured to match the sunrise and sunset.
- Set up lights to automatically turn on when you arrive or while still on the driveway. A tap on the app can also signal them to switch off when you leave.
Climate and Control
Do you know cooling (using electric fans or air-conditioning units) took the biggest slice of the total residential electricity consumption in 2018 with 14.7 per cent? Space heating came second with 14.2 per cent; water heating, 11.9 per cent. Against this backdrop of electricity costs, you can save money by doing these:
- Install a smart thermostat to control your home’s heating and cooling and set a temperature schedule. More sophisticated devices can track your daily routines and, based on these trends, come up with a schedule. The latest thermostats have humidity sensors, weather forecasts, and motion detection to adjust the room’s temperature according to occupancy.
- Open and close drapes, shades, and other window treatments automatically. You can check automation kits or products that convert blinds and curtains into smart ones.
- Consider a carbon monoxide detector. Some devices work with other home automation devices and, more importantly, give you alerts on your phone about fire and carbon monoxide levels.
Running a Smart Home
The above solutions entail a bunch of smart devices with their own apps. You can unify and control them under one platform based on compatibility. This platform becomes the centre of your home automation setup with your voice their command.
Today’s most popular options for smart home hubs are the following:
- Amazon Alexa: the voice assistant debuted in Amazon’s smart speakers, branded as Echo. Nowadays, Alexa can interact with smart devices as part of its home automation feature.
- Google Assistant: it was initially launched with Google Home speaker and later with other Android devices. Here’s how you can integrate it with other equipment.
Apple HomeKit refers to the line of smart products that communicate with an iOS device. Siri still runs the show as the commands go through her.
The Internet of Everything
The internet is a success story as far as bringing the boons of technology to every person and house goes. Wireless network protocols that support the internet of things are only getting better as we speak. Many have high hopes on 5G’s promise of no latency and faster download speeds.
Although the majority of smart home devices connect to the internet wirelessly, a wired connection remains necessary to support a robust home-automation setup. You can hook up computers and printers to a network switch, which has ports ranging from eight to 24 and is designed for connecting wired devices to the internet. Your Wi-Fi may be crowded as it, and you can configure a switch to help speed up your network.
In this regard, technology brings even more control to household affairs. Life is hectic as it is, and you will need all the practical help you can get to manage the home front efficiently.
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