Have you ever been to someone’s house who has their favorite music playing in every room, or been out to dinner with a friend who was able to check they’d locked their front door on their phone? Smart homes are one of the ways technology is changing how we live, making things easier, more fun and even safer.
The definition of a smart home is connecting your electronic devices to a central network that you can control via your phone or computer. And its recent surge in popularity suggests it’ll soon be the norm.
Make Life Easier
Think of all the time you take on chores that you might never have to do again. The weekly shopping could be organized by your fridge with a programme that learns your behaviour and preferences and organizes re-stocking accordingly.
Perhaps you’re constantly fiddling with your home’s central heating to get the temperature right when you could install a system that not only keeps each room the temperature of your choosing, but also learns how warm you like it so you end up with the temperature you want without having to do a thing. This can also increase the efficiency of your home and cut heating bills.
If you can’t stand cleaning and mopping you can also get robots that’ll do that work for you, too, giving you more time to socialize and relax.
Smart plugs are a great way to start – you can control any device that’s plugged into them from your smartphone once you’ve downloaded the app.
Make life safer
With everything from remote locking (so you can lock your door from the supermarket via your phone) to CCTV cameras you can see on your smartphone, and doorbell cameras through which you can speak to people who visit your home when you outsmart technology can give you enormous peace of mind both when out and about and when tucked up in bed at night.
Make Life Fun
It needn’t all be practical. If you love music but can’t stand what your other half listens to, you can both enjoy different tunes in different rooms. Or, if you both adore the same stuff, you can have singalongs from opposite sides of the house.
You can also stream box sets and movies to different TVs in your home from the same system.
You might ask why bother installing these nifty gadgets into your home. Well, the answer is that, once you do, you may wonder how you ever lived without them, and the extra time you have available to spend doing the things you actually want to do could be invaluable.
Photo by Sebastian Scholz (Nuki)
About the Author/s
The New Jersey Digest is a new jersey magazine that has chronicled daily life in the Garden State for over 10 years.
