More About Smart Home Technology

The basic concept behind a smart home technology is that it is an unconventional way to automate a number of appliance and things at your home.

Some of the appliances that can be controlled through your smartphones and tablets are listed below:

TVs

Kitchen, Bathroom and Laundry Appliances

Switches, bulbs, doors

Audio, Video appliances

How Do Smart Home Systems Work?

A lot of these systems operate via Bluetooth but mostly work on the internet. So, as long as you have an internet connection you will be able to control everything at your place. It’s like a net, all smart home devices are connected and automatic controlled.

Things You Can Automate at Your Home

Here is the list of thing that you can automate at home with just one click from your smartphone and make your life a whole lot easier.

Popular Categories in Smart Home

Light Bulbs

With a simple remote you can now control all the light bulbs at your house by just one tip of the hand. You can control their light intensity and brightness. Furthermore, you can also set their timings for automatically switching on or off. .

Switches

The smart switches at your house will let you switch off the lights in the building if you forget to switch it off on your way out. The best part is that some of the devices have the option of scheduling on and off. These types of smart home gadgets are going to be a great addition to the list of your smart home ideas. Like .

Home Security Cameras

The idea of a home security camera is now becoming a need of the hour. Now there are many security cameras available that will provide you with the ideal security solutions. Such as the .

Door Locks

Back in the day, we looked for places to keep our keys outside of our home but fortunately, those days are gone.

Now, there are many technologies that automate keyless access to your house, which is indeed a blessing in disguise in emergency situations. Moreover, this one has been in practice for quite a while now.

Climate Control

The coming of age phenomenon that is termed as the internet of things is an amazing discovery in the field of digital space.

With the help of an automated thermostat system installed at your house, you will be able to regulate the temperature when it is required in extremely hot and cold temperatures.

Fridges, washers

LG and GE add Google Assistant support to fridges, washers, and ovens.

Here, the added benefit is that when it will be linked to other smart home devices it will obviously save you from a lot of future burdens. Mainly, these technologies do not run in the background and you will be only utilizing while you will be at home.

How Can You Build Your Own Smart Home?

Before you jump into details, you need to start from the basics.

What would you like to install

Lightening

Temperature

security control

Once you have decided you can make a budget accordingly and ask expert’s advice on this important matter.

Tips for Building a Strong Network

The basic ground of every smart home idea solely works on a great internet connection. Your house must have a secure internet connection.

Below are three main things that you must consider before heading to the installation of smart home devices.

Bandwidth

A quality bandwidth will speed up a process and will be essential in connecting all of your devices. In addition to that, it will also have the capacity to handle huge tons of information that is coming in and out.

So, make sure that the bandwidth is exactly what you need to have a transparent path for the availability of signals. This will make sure that your every command instantly reaches all your devices just like it is supposed to reach.

Wi-Fi Router

While setting up a state of the art wifi connection for your home make sure the connection just doesn’t disconnect from the router every now and then.

Cyber Security

You should choose a password that will not be easily recognizable by cyber intruders. Use WP2A encryption to strengthen your wifi network, according to Norton. You must ask for recommendations from security companies so that there is an efficient security system installed at your place.

Top 10 Smart Home Devices

Amazon Alexa

Known as the intelligent device it lets you control a number of tasks and runs with the help of Amazon Echo. From getting to know about weather information to the performance of different tasks, Alexa can do a range of things for you.

Google home

The tech geniuses at Google are working day and night to ensure that there is an app for your every need in your daily routine and they have succeeded in achieving that.

With Google home, you will be able to control your home all by sitting in your TV lounge.

To give you some idea, here is the list of tasks that it can perform:

Play your music

Control your home devices

A Google assistant to give you suggestions

Apple Home kit

You will be able to perform a whole lot of sophisticated tasks through this smart home gadget.

What’s more: It lets you control a bunch of smart home devices all through a single medium and that too, all at the same time. Some of the automated smart home gadgets that it can control are lights, thermostats, window blinds and audio system in the house.

Belkin WeMo

Through this single device, you will be able to control your electronic devices through a smart Belkin WeMo plug.

Lutron

This is considered as the top smart home gadget for all your lighting problems. It will allow swift controlling of your lights all day and night.

Nest

The nest company offers the best range of smart home devices like thermostat and lighting solutions for your home.

Philips HUE

This bulb will be controlled through wireless remote and it comes with a power adapter manual and a two-year warranty. You can also sync the lights and connect them with your music games and movies

Samsung Smartthings

Known as the top quality brand this single device is one hub for all your TV home theatre, computing, and mobile appliances.

Wink

This is one of the simplest smart home hubs and has made its way among a list of other competitors. The best part is that you will be able to connect it to Nest and Philips gadgets.

Ecobee 4

Ecobee 4 is an advanced remote that has quickly made its place in the huge sea of thermostat devices. It comes with a building Alexa voice service so that you can give command of your choice to regulate temperatures at any given time. In addition to that, you can ask the assistant to read the latest news and you might as well order groceries.

To sum it up, here are few suggestions before you take necessary measures to build up a smart home of your choice.

Set up your house according to your needs.

You don’t have to buy just about everything that is available on the internet.

Make a list of things that don’t have to be controlled via an internet connection.

Read more:

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Originally Answered:
Get up to date on the latest and smart home technology and read up on product reviews. You’ll want to know not just what devices are out there but also how to install them and how much they will cost. There are various products on the market with new ones coming out each day.

You’ll want to read up on these topics:

- This is all topics from smart home automation, such as smart lighting, to ways to make your home more customized to your personal lifestyle.

- Everything from smart home entertainment system to smart beer making gadgets.

- All gadgets and tech out there that allow you to live a happier and healthier lifestyle. You see products from smart tech for fitness to smart tech for emotional wellness.

- Devices and hacks that make traveling, commuting, and more much less of a hassle, and maybe even a productive time for you.

268 Views ·
Originally Answered:
Here's how we made our house smarter (it's still not that smart but it's smarter than most houses)..

We've got a Google Home which is getting better every day at talking to other IOT devices. It's kinda like the brains of the operation.

The Google Home is synced to the Hue lights, the Nest thermostat and several smart plugs. It also talks to the Chromecast attached to each TV.

The Nest thermostat talks to the ceiling fan. The Hue lights talk to the Nest smoke detectors in case there is a fire.

So I can tell Google Home in the living room (there's a second Google Home in the bedroom) to turn on lights in whatever room, change the temperature (which triggers the ceiling fan in the living room to turn on or off), i can also turn on or off whatever is plugged in to the smart plugs.

I can stream music to both home devices at the same time which is cool, so you can listen to music in the whole house.

Google Home can also control the Chromecast, so you can tell Google to stream YouTube or Netflix to whichever TV you want.

The downside is setting everything up to work together takes a while. It's not terribly difficult, it's just time consuming to setup all the settings and apps you need to talk to each other. And sometimes Google doesn't understand what you want and it becomes a struggle to get the lights turned on or off.

A few things I'd like to add are:

Swap out the Kevo door lock for an August (it works with Google Home to lock and unlock the door).

I'd like to find a way to connect the driveway gate to the network so it could be automatically opened for guest by saying “ok Google open the gate.”

I'd also like something like the motion detectors that would turn the hall lights on and off automatically as you walked down the hall (Hue + Samsung IoT sensors I think would do that).