Smart home technology has been around for a few years now, but only recently has it become so easy to implement that it is growing in popularity. Before, you basically had to build your home around it. Now, however, you can install things one at a time as it suits you.
Smart home technology is like potato chips though. It is hard to stop at just one. A single device will usually provide you with such convenience and efficiency that your mind races to find the next thing that can be upgraded or optimized. But what devices are even out there?
In this guide we will be exploring the different aspects of smart home automation. We will start with the kitchen, as that is the core of more smart homes.
Automating the Kitchen
There are two things you have to understand about smart home kitchens. The first is that there are more smart devices for the kitchen than any other part of the home.
This is mostly because there are simply more possible devices there. You do not need all of them though.
How do you choose which devices to automate and which to leave on manual? That is the second thing. Some people hate cooking and wish they could make the whole process automatic.
Others prefer to do it all by hand as a matter of preference. This is the dividing line that indicates to you which smart devices to get for your kitchen: Keep what you like to do.
With that out of the way, there are three main devices that usually see automation: The oven, the refrigerator, and the cabinets.
The oven is the most obvious one, as ovens have needed innovation for a while. Simply put, preheating is a pain to get exactly right.
Automated Ovens
The advantage of automated ovens, whether they are gas or electric, is that they can be programmed to preheat precisely and turn on and off automatically in response to prompts from either their on-board controls or their connected mobile app.
Automated Refrigerators
These make ice, go into cooling phases, and help with organization all on their own. Some will even have touchscreen devices on par with tablets on their surfaces to give you something to do while waiting for food to cook in the kitchen.
Automated Cabinets
These work a bit differently than ovens or fridges and are far less common. Automated cabinets are devices that manage the atmosphere of your cabinets.
This means they can be sealed shut to prevent air from getting in or out, humidified, or dehumidified to protect freshness.
All three of these have similar app controls to make sure that they operate as you like them. Everything beyond these three are far more niche and up to taste.
Automated toasters, for instance, will be smart enough to eject your toast after it is cooked but before it is burnt.
Automating the Living Room
This is where people tend to get really excited about automation. There are two halves to automating the living room you will want to think about: Convenience and efficiency.
You cannot get one without the other, so this isn’t a dichotomy. It’s an understanding of what you’re getting.
Convenience
The convenience of the automated living room usually takes the form of voice and motion activated electronics. Obviously, this starts with the TV.
Most smart TVs will have these controls, in addition to being able to connect to wireless internet and streaming services on their own. Some will download apps, while others will use web browsers, and even VPN services.
Using the same technology, the living room can incorporate stereos that are connected to Spotify, iMusic, and Google Music accounts.
Some devices can even play files directly from a hard drive or cloud drive, so you can play your own music collection.
Efficiency
Here is the easiest way to think of it: Convenience in smart homes means that things are easy to turn on. Efficiency means that things will turn off when they need to.
That means obvious things like lights and TVs. But it can even go so deep as to include individual components.
For instance, think of a smart TV. A smart TV will usually connect to the internet in order to stream media. Imagine, for this example, that the media in question is an episode of a TV show.
Well, it only needs to stream one episode of the TV show at a time. That means once the whole episode is downloaded, it will reduce the amount of electricity used by its wireless connectivity.
This is just one small example as well. Most smart devices will have this.
Automating the Security System
Home security is one of the most advanced and desirable fields of innovation for smart home technology. And if you want home security in Melissa, Smith Thompson can tell you how to automate it easily. It all starts with the alarm system, which can be programmed like the oven.
By that we mean you can use an app that tells it to turn on and off at certain times, very much like how an oven preheats intelligently.
Keeping this schedule can help reduce false alarms. That phone app also lets you respond to alerts and resolve errors remotely. And if you have security cameras, you can use a remote app on any device to check them.
That means the camera can be off for the most part until a motion detector sees someone enter its field of view. You will get a notification prompting you to see if anything is going on.
This all makes alarm systems more reliable, efficient, and gives you a greater degree of control over them.
Conclusion
Smart homes are the way of the future. They save you money, add value to your homes, and create efficiency that is beneficial to the environment.
The best part is, as we alluded to earlier, that you do not need to incorporate it all at once. You can start with just a fancy oven.
