Smart Home
What is a smart home? If you look it up at Google, you can find the following definition: the smart home is a set of solutions for automating everyday activities that will save your time, energy and money. We’ll clarify what exactly “smart home” means – it means automation technologies that allow homeowners to interact with their households in a variety of ways and making their life easier. This can be a system for automatically turning off the light in the bathroom after a person leaves it, automatic watering of flowers on window sills, a cat feeder that works without human intervention etc. This includes household appliances – from robotic vacuum cleaners to devices controlled from a smartphone – and systems that control everything that happens in the house or apartment. In other words, a smart home is an improvement in the quality of life. Comfort consists of little things. If you wake up at night and go to the kitchen for a glass of water, you won’t have to make your way down the dark corridor in search of a switch: the light will turn on automatically. Have you ever worried that you didn’t turn off the iron or TV? Vanish your disturbing thoughts: it is enough to send a command to a smart outlet from the smartphone, and it will disconnect the device that is powered from it.
Why do you need a smart home?
Everything is very simple! A smart home is needed to make our life easier and better. A smart home means peace of mind and significant savings.
Let’s start with calmness. If worrying about everything is common for you, a smart home will help get rid of at least those anxieties that are associated with your apartment. Did not turn off the oven? It doesn’t matter, send a command to a smart socket, it will quickly de-energize it. Are you afraid that the washing machine launched before leaving the house is out of order and has arranged water slides for the neighbors below? Nothing wrong. If it does leak, you will be informed about this instantly by the leak sensor.
As a result, you are less worried about minor problems, because you can check how things are going at home at any time using your smartphone.
Now about the savings. For many, this advantage of a smart home will probably seem doubtful. You can ask, how can I save when I need to buy several sensors, sockets and a camcorder? Believe us, you can save a lot in a long run. Take the same smart outlet – it can track how much energy the device connected to it consumes. As a result, you can calculate the most gluttonous devices and decently save on paying your bills. And how much money you will save if the leakage sensor promptly informs of the beginning of the flood, hard to imagine.
How to make your home smart?
This is easy to do if you select the right equipment. You don’t even have to call specialists to install it, since all devices are equipped with clear instructions.
What needs to be acquired in order to make your home smart?
Control center
This is the first thing to buy. The control center will allow you to interact with all smart devices. You can connect up to 300 devices to it. With it, you can create work scenarios for your appliances. For example, when you leave your home – start the corresponding mode. The lights go out, shutters or curtains close, devices that operate from smart sockets are turned off. No more running around the apartment, checking to see if you turned everything off.
The control center works in conjunction with a free mobile application, so it is easy to control it from your smartphone. You can even give voice commands.
Sensors
Sensors will protect your home from strangers, floods, fires and gas leaks. Also, you can control your health and well-being with a temperature and humidity sensor. If you connect it to the control center, the sensor will monitor whether it is too hot or cold in the apartment. For example, if the temperature drops below a predetermined limit, the sensor will inform the control center about it, and the sensor will send a signal to the heater.
The opening sensor will be useful to parents of excessively curious children. If you have cabinets or drawers at home where the child should not look categorically, install such a sensor on them. As soon as the child climbs where he shouldn’t, you will know about it. And if you attach the sensor to the door, you can monitor whether the child arrived from school on time.
Cameras
What the child is doing while you are not at home, what your pet is doing right now, whether everything is okay with your elderly parents – a smart video camera will give an answer to each of these questions. In the mobile application, the camera keeps an event log and saves screenshots, video can also be recorded and saved in the archive.
A street camcorder is useful to car owners. Firstly, this way you will know for sure that everything is in order with your machine. Secondly, with its help it is easy to find out if there is a parking space near the house: this can be done right on the road. If in this parking lot someone damaged your car, you will identify the culprit in just a few minutes.
Smart sockets
If the electricity bill always gives you genuine surprise, buy a power outlet that measures energy consumption. A smart socket is a gem for those who don’t remember whether the iron or the TV was turned off. At the command, the socket turns off the device operating from it. A socket with a dimmer allows you to adjust the brightness of the light. Such an outlet can be installed in the nursery and the night light connected to it will fade out gradually. There are sockets that measure electricity consumption.
Smart appliances
Smart appliances – are a lifesaver for every homeowner. For example, an iron that gives a signal that it has warmed up or is turned off if its owner does not use it for a certain time. Or air conditioners with temperature and humidity sensors and control from a smartphone. The sensor monitors the temperature in the room, and when it rises, it tells the air conditioner that it is time to correct that.
Smart Kits
In case you do not want to think about which smart home devices to buy, there are premade smart kits for specific needs. This is a great option for the first acquaintance with smart technology, in addition, such a kit is cheaper than the individual devices included in it. The “Video Surveillance and Access Control” kit is suitable for those who are concerned about protecting their homes from intruders.
The kit has a control center, an opening sensor, a leakage sensor, a video camera and a relay for a two-key switch to turn on and off the light from a smartphone. For complete peace of mind, you can additionally purchase a smart intercom, power outlet, smoke detectors and gas leaks.
To summarize, we can say that technological progress is not only a flight to the moon but also decisions that help get rid of every day worries. Today, the “smart home” is no longer a toy, but a necessity. And we won’t even notice how in a short period of time most things will be massively automated.