Unless you’re building a house from scratch and can integrate smart home essentials while building, then chances are you need to retrofit your home. Luckily, this is not as expensive as it sounds to get individual components.
Do you need to have a smart home, though? By updating your house, you are making your life easier, safer and more convenient.
The nice thing is that you don’t need to have everything. Since you don’t need a whole house integrated system, you can pick and choose which components best suit your needs.
In this article, I will go over the top five systems that you should be looking at to make your house smarter.
1 – All In One type system
You can have a system that incorporates many different areas with one hub to make your smart home more streamlined.
For instance, Vivint packages include a doorbell camera so you can see when you have a package delivered and prevent any porch pirates from stealing them. In some cases, you will get an alert if the camera senses motion so you can see right away what is happening instead of after the fact.
There is also a smart lock that can be opened and locked remotely so you are in control without even needing to be there. A garage opener is also included and is very handy, as well.
Everything is controlled with one app to make things a lot easier for you to deal with.
2 – Smart thermostats
Not only do you make your life easier with a smart thermostat, but you also save money. You can go very granular with the details when programming and using a smart thermometer that can’t be done with an ordinary digital thermometer.
From radiant floor heating to central air conditioning, the AI can understand when you need it most and will turn on these systems based on the data. There are even sensors that see which room you are in and will turn on the heat or A/C for that zone based on your location. Instead of heating a whole house when you are only in one area, you end up saving a lot of money.
Some will even use a weather forecast to prepare for a cold or heat wave and set itself accordingly even if you don’t program it.
3 – Lighting systems
An easy way to save money is to set up some smart bulbs in your home. You don’t need a centralized system for this as the bulbs can interact with other smart elements in your home thanks to the Internet of Things.
You can use smart switches to program your lights, or set up an app to do it with your phone.
4 – Smart speakers
Having a smart speaker like Alexa is sort of like having a butler or assistant in your home. Simply make a command and it is done automatically. Ask the speaker to dim the lights, lock the doors or cool the house and you don’t even need to lift a finger.
Many of these speakers are easily integrated with just about any component that you are using so they can act as the central hub of operations without needing to have everything integrated from the beginning.
5 – Audio systems
Control your speakers with your smartphone so you can listen to music, or watch your TV wherever you are in the house. Smart audio systems will allow you to listen to Spotify with a voice command without even needing to use an app.
They add convenience and personalization to your enetertainment system.
