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How to Turn Your House Into a Smart Home

Today, keeping your home connected is easier than ever. With a huge range of devices on offer to keep your home secure and communicate with things like your thermostat, lights, and even your front door no matter where you are, there’s never been a better time to upgrade to a smart home. And, many of the devices you can get are accessible for both homeowners and renters, making it easier than ever to get your home connected no matter where you live.

Energy Efficiency:

One big theme amongst smart home devices is energy efficiency, with a huge range of products and devices available to ensure that your home is using as little energy as possible with maximum results, reducing your carbon footprint.

Before you go ahead and invest in smart home devices for energy efficiency, it’s a good idea to make sure that your home is already as energy efficient as possible without them, if you can. Conduct a full energy audit and get a good company to carry out any necessary repairs on your roofing, windows and doors that could be contributing to heat loss at home.

Smart thermostats are, by far, the most popular option for increasing your home’s energy efficiency. They can be installed in place of your home’s regular thermostat. Over time, they monitor usage to optimise how your energy is utilised based on how and when you use it. In addition to limiting energy consumption when you’re not around, smart thermostats are connected to an app you can use on your smartphone to have full control of the temperature in your home no matter where you are.

Extra Security:

When it comes to ensuring optimum home security, there are a number of smart home devices that you might find useful. These include:

  1. Smart doorbells: Installing a smart doorbell means that there’s no need to walk to the door or peek out the window to see who is there. You can even use the connected app on your smartphone to see who’s paying you a visit when you’re not in. Most smart doorbells feature plenty of cool features that allow you to see and even communicate with somebody at your front door, and they are relatively easy and inexpensive to install.
  2. Smart locks: For even more security, you can add a smart lock to your front door. They are typically keyless and allow you to grant entry into your home even when you’re not there. If you forget to give your dog walker a spare key, or need to let a friend in before you get home from work, you can do it all with a smart lock. You can even create individual passcodes for anybody who needs to get in and out of your home.
  3. Smart cameras: For an additional security boost, you can install cameras that are connected to Wi-Fi both inside and outside of your home. Most people use them to record what’s going on outside of their home, or even to check on pets when they’re at home alone.

Personal Assistant:

Personal assistants on your smartphone only are yesterday’s news. Today’s virtual helpers come in the form of small devices that you can place anywhere in your home. Google Home and Amazon’s Echo are just some popular examples of home assistants today, and you can get various different models for each one, depending on what you need.

Place one on your kitchen counter, coffee table, or nightstand and you can ask it to do pretty much anything, from ordering groceries to updating your to-do list or playing your favourite tunes from Spotify, without even having to move a muscle.

In addition, personal assistants can be connected to many of the other smart devices that you use around your home. So, you can ask them to switch the heating on or off, or even turn down the lights in a certain room. There’s no need to get up and do it yourself. If you work from home, a personal assistant is a must for maximising productivity and limiting distractions.

Home Safety:

Gone are the days of a smoke alarm beeping constantly because it’s running out of battery. Smart smoke alarms and smart carbon monoxide detectors are the most reliable options out there because they are always charging themselves; you can be sure that they are working correctly.

And, there are some other major benefits of upgrading to a smart smoke or carbon monoxide detector. For example, your smoke alarm will be able to tell you exactly where the smoke is coming from, and it can send you an alert directly to your smartphone if smoke is detected when you are not at home.

Most smart smoke and carbon monoxide detectors can also be integrated with your home’s smart thermostat device, so that if smoke or carbon monoxide is detected, the heating system can be automatically shut down to minimise any damage.

Smart Kitchens:

Although we’re not quite at the point where your kitchen can cook a meal for you, there are plenty of worthwhile benefits to having a smart kitchen. A smart fridge, for example, can connect to your smartphone so that you can see exactly what you’ve got stocked in there when you’re picking up groceries; no more wasting money because you forgot that you already picked up milk yesterday or spending time making shopping lists.

And, a smart slow cooker is a great addition to the kitchen for anybody with a busy lifestyle; you can throw your ingredients in it in the morning and leave it to cook all day, while being able to make any adjustments to your cooking even if you’re not at home. And, if you keep forgetting to put the essentials on your shopping list, a smart trash can will scan the barcode on any packaging you throw out and automatically add the item to your list.

Which of these smart home devices do you already own, and which would you love to add to your home? Let us know!

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