With each day, technological advancements become more evident and more affordable. As a result, the creation of a smart home becomes less challenging than ever before. In comparison to earlier years, when one had to pay thousands of dollars and wait for weeks for their house to be transformed into a smart one, currently anyone can easily integrate basic elements that will transform your house into a connected living space. With a wide range of different smart devices available, one can significantly increase their comfort by incorporating even only the most basic devices, such as lights, thermostats, security cameras, and other devices, which can be easily controlled via smartphone.
Smart home basics
It is crucial to understand smart homes’ core concept and the basics behind them if one wants to integrate such devices into one’s home. The essence of a smart home lies in the ability to unite several elements of the living space into an interconnected ecosystem controlled remotely through various applications installed on the user’s smartphone, tablet, PC, or even via voice commands. The most popular types of devices for smart homes include the following:
* Speakers and voice assistants (Amazon Echo or Google Home)
* Thermostats that learn about users’ preferences regarding the appropriate temperature (Nest)
* Various kinds of lights that can be turned on and off as well as adjusted to users’ liking (Philips Hue)
* Security cameras for observing the surrounding environment, such as outdoor cameras (Ring or Nest Cam)
* Door and window sensors for alerting the homeowners in case of any threats (August)
Amongst the most popular platforms for setting up your own smart home include Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Apple HomeKit, and Samsung SmartThings.
Choosing basic devices
One should choose the right smart home devices, depending on their preferences and requirements, before installing them in their homes. The devices that fit all the above criteria include:
* Lights (Philips Hue or LIFX)
* Thermostats (Nest or Ecobee)
* Smart speakers (Amazon Echo or Google Home Mini)
* Security cameras (Ring or Nest Cam)
* Door and window sensors (August or Nest Secure)
Each of these products provides a lot of opportunities for customization and integration with different platforms or other devices from the same manufacturer or company. Depending on the particular brand, different features can be chosen.
Setting up your smart home
The setup of a smart home is rather complicated and time-consuming process that includes several stages. One should perform the following activities:
* Choose required devices that would be compatible with their particular smart home platform or ecosystem;
* Install these devices, ensuring that they connect successfully with users’ home network;
* Setup a hub or bridge, if such devices were purchased;
* Configure the selected devices, performing all actions required in accordance with the manufacturer’s instruction;
* Integrate the devices into their ecosystems, creating additional customizations, such as setting voice commands.
Using your smart home devices
After having integrated your devices, you will be able to perform lots of interesting and helpful actions within your smart home. Among them, one may mention the following:
* Turning on/off the light or adjusting its brightness using their smartphone or speaker voice commands (Alexa or Google Assistant);
* Setting new temperature preferences or checking the current one using their smartphone, speaker, or even voice command (Alexa or Google Assistant);
* Monitoring the area around their house or opening the intercom system in order to speak with a visitor in front of the door using their smartphone or speaker;
* Receiving alerts about doors and windows openings or closing and performing additional actions, such as locking their doors remotely.
Expanding your smart home
Apart from integrating the basic elements into one’s smart home, one can expand their home and include more advanced technologies that might make their everyday life even better. Among them, one may mention the following actions:
* Purchasing additional devices that would provide a greater number of functions, such as smart plugs;
* Creating their own automated procedures, involving various devices and completing certain actions at predetermined moments;
* Using their voice assistants to perform certain actions without even touching their device, e.g., "Turn off the living room lights", "Tell me, how much money is left on my account";
* Monitoring the overall electricity consumption of their devices, receiving alerts if required.
Conclusion
As it can be seen from this discussion, setting up one’s smart home is not as complicated as people think. One just needs to purchase several devices, install them and start using them. Therefore, there is no need to procrastinate and start immediately!
