A home is meant to be your safe haven, a customized living space for all its residents. Each aspect of your home reflects on who you are as a homeowner, and ultimately impacts everything you do while you’re there. Your productivity, sleep cycle and overall health is dependent on the state of your home, which means focusing on making it the most comfortable space possible should always be a priority.
One way for homeowners to do this is by upgrading to a smart home. While the prospect of altering your lifestyle so drastically may seem daunting, it is quite simple if you know what to do. Following a few steps to strategically redesign your home will allow you to transition gradually into a smart home, so that the change doesn’t seem too overwhelming.
The following are some ways through which you can turn your existing home into a smart one at your own pace.
The Basic Trio
When trying to create a smart home, the first priority should be getting the basics down: comfort, ambience and security. There are certain gadgets which can help you easily add these characteristics to your home, and this is a good place to begin with smart home automation.
Thermostat
No matter where you live, the temperature of your home will play a big role in how comfortable you feel. An imbalance of temperature in your home can result in laziness, sleep deprivation and discomfort, which is something every homeowner wants to avoid.
To ensure a good quality of life, a thermostat upgrade is a must. Switching to a smart thermostat has a range of benefits which you will get accustomed to fairly quickly. This benefits include remote monitoring, frequent upgrade and learning temperature patterns for decreased energy consumption.
Lighting
The second step is ambience. When talking about your home’s environment, the mood set in your home using colors, décor and lighting is key. Smart lighting is a great way to improve your home’s visual appeal.
Through smart lighting, you can have much better control over the operation of your lights. The range of style, colors and intensities of smart lights is very wide, so you have many different options to select from. This makes smart lighting a must-have for any home.
Security
Security is one of the main concerns for any homeowner. If your home doesn’t have proper security, your valuables, and even your life may be at risk. Intrusions, burglaries and property damage are all serious concerns, and smart security is the solution. Using certain smart gadgets, you can minimize these issues substantially.
A few examples of smart security gadgets which you can use for your home are security cameras, smart locks, smart home hubs and smart lights. Once you have the foundation of your smart home, you can begin adding some extra features to elevate the experience.
Get Smart Plugs
If you’re someone who wants a smart home experience without having to fully automate your house, there are alternatives available. Certain gadgets can give you specific features of smart homes without the full investment.
Smart plugs are gadgets that plug into any outlet in your home. To these, you can then connect your regular gadgets; once you do this, you will be able to monitor and control these regular gadgets through an app in your smartphone. You may also receive updates on the status of your gadgets when they are connected through smart plugs, such as how much energy they are consuming.
The Wemo insight smart plug is an excellent example of such a device. With features such as Wi-Fi compatibility, voice control and automatic schedules, you can test the waters of smart home automation in the most affordable and reliable way. A smart plug is also convenient due to how compact it is, since it won’t obstruct any other sockets once installed.
Add a Smart Speaker
Once you have a few smart gadgets in place, it’s time to think about what you can do to make things more efficient. Having several different gadgets can become overwhelming, especially for people who don’t like to use their phone often. Rather than having to control each individual gadget using a smartphone app, you can get one reliable source from which you can access all of them.
A smart speaker or smart home hub is a good way to go. Smart speakers are multi-purpose gadgets that can be used to access the rest of your smart home through voice commands. All of your secondary virtual tasks – setting up meetings, alarms or finding the quickest route to work – can be accomplished by simple voice commands.
Using smart speakers is a user-friendly alternative to a somewhat more hectic way of controlling your home. Even without too many smart gadgets, you can always use smart speakers for things like better lighting control and playing music at any time. This may prove to be a good investment when it comes to any virtual task.
To Conclude
Smart technology has become increasingly popular recently, and for good reason. Everyone has some smart gadgets which are vital in their home’s functioning, but some homeowners may want to take things a step further. Fortunately, planning things out can allow you to do that. Instead of randomly purchasing smart gadgets and adding them to your home, you can prioritize. This list will help you get started with the basics of smart home automation, so that you can later add extra features without having to compromise on your home’s requirements.
