Reasons to invest in a smart home
What is a smart home and why do you need one?
This seemingly simple question has many different answers, all depending on who you ask. Shortly, the “smart house” is a residence equipped with several devices that automate the tasks that are usually done by people. Some smart devices were built into the structure itself, and some were added later. Homeowners are the ones who manage them through apps, voice commands, automation, or artificial intelligence. For some owners, turning an ordinary house into a smart one means just buying, for example, a wireless, many will say smart, speaker. For others, the process can involve connecting several different products, including speakers, cameras, computers, smartphones, tablets, televisions, security systems, devices, and more.
But what is a smart home? There are a lot of different opinions about what it is or what it should be. Either way, the notion of a smart home alludes to the fact that it is a place equipped with things that we can manage via our mobile phones or tablets.
For us, a smart home has a smart central management system and is open to future upgrades. Many devices already have built-in smart modules and developed apps with which we can manage those same devices. If we load our home, office, or business space with a bunch of smart devices, and with an even greater number of apps that come with them, then a new problem arises. Just imagine that to create a romantic atmosphere in the bedroom, you must first run the lighting control app, then the blinds or curtains control app, then the temperature control app, then the smart speaker control app, and finally your system crashes because there are too many apps turned on at once and your romantic evening is slowly turning into a nightmare.
But with the help of an appropriate central management system, all these worries can disappear. It is possible to create an ecosystem that forms one smart ensemble which has the possibility of upgrading at any time. With the help of a unique app, it is possible to manage absolutely all smart devices in your home. Then and only then can it truly be said that a smart home works in your favor, and not vice versa.
What are the benefits of having a smart home?
There are many reasons to have a smart home, but we think the following 5 are just the most important.
1. It saves energy.
2. It simplifies life.
3. It makes household chores easier.
4. It increases security.
5. It makes the home more fun.
Why should you have a smart home?
Now that we have explained what a smart home is, the question arises why would you even want to equip your home with smart devices that can be easily interconnected and thus easy to use?
1. Its saves energy (and money).
Nowadays, all of us have to save energy and money, and with a smart home, you can do just that. Whether it’s controlling the thermostat, curtains, lighting, air conditioning or simply turning off unnecessarily turned-on devices, the smart home takes care of energy savings on its own.
2. It simplifies life.
We all want to feel comfortable in our own homes. Sometimes we go to bed and remember that we may not have closed the garage doors or have left the attic light open. Nothing easier! The owner of the house does not even have to be aware that the light in the attic is burning unnecessarily — the system autonomy can be allowed to turn off unnecessary things, so you can relax and be sure that everything is under control.
3. It makes household chores easier.
If you want to get rid of boring chores, a smart system can command your smart devices to do it for you. Some of the most obvious examples are commanding a robotic vacuum cleaner to clean the house before you get home from work, another example is starting the laundry machine, then opening windows or ventilation when there isn’t enough oxygen in the room, watering the plants when there is not enough moisture, or ordering food when the refrigerator announces that your supplies are running low.
4. It increases security.
While you can buy alarm systems to protect your home, smart homes can provide you with extra security. Connected lights, speakers, cameras, and even doorbells can help make your home much safer. An example of this is a suspicious person in your backyard. What such a system offers in such a situation is to warn you and the competent security service, or to scare off a potential burglar with the help of an audiovisual signal.
5. It makes the home more fun.
What is a smart home, if not a place to relax and socialize? A smart home can entertain you in new and exciting ways. A smart control system combined with AI-based digital assistants, can play music, prepare your house for a particular event, shine in the colors of your favorite football club when a player scores a goal in a match, and can even find you a good movie to watch, either at home or in a real movie theater.
Buy your first smart home products
Many products can help you make your home smarter. To help you get started, we’ve created a few simple steps for your journey into the world of smart homes:
1. Conduct central cabling or provide Wi-Fi throughout the facility
If you are in the planning and designing phase of a house, be sure to pay attention to its IT infrastructure. Whether it’s central cabling, i.e. bringing all network cables to one control room, or supplying the whole house with a protected Wi-Fi network, keep in mind that all devices that will be in the service of a smart home will have to be connected to a single ecosystem. If you already have a house and want to upgrade it with smart devices, and if you don’t already have a resolved IT infrastructure, consider whether it pays to run cables or whether it’s more worth investing in a secure Wi-Fi network.
2. Obtain a smart central control processor
Under point 1, we created the foundation for the introduction of a smart system in the house. The next most important step is to procure the brain of the entire operation, and that is to procure the central control processor. People otherwise skip this step and build their smart home by buying independent smart devices, which at one point leads to a bunch of smart devices that are smart on their own but are unable to communicate with third-party devices. So, the result is just a bunch of separate apps and remote controls that make our smart experience quite strenuous. Therefore, we strongly recommend that you consider and build a system starting with a central control processor that is smart enough, reliable, and upgradable so that it can keep up with the technological changes in the coming decades and thus be agile for any upgrades and challenges that the future will bring.
3. Buy smart devices
Once you have all the necessary infrastructure and the brain of the whole operation, then does the building of a system begin and then your ideas can turn into reality. Be careful when choosing smart devices in the sense that you are targeting devices that have an API available, i.e., buy devices that can be managed via central control systems because only then will you have the true experience of a smart home.
4. Don’t forget the control interface
Once you have a complete wish list for your smart home, contact a trusted software expert who will tailor all electronic equipment to your measurements and make the management interface intuitive and attractive. One of the biggest mistakes when making a smart home is that users expect equipment resellers (whose only goal is to sell equipment) to get the most out of the equipment and be skilled enough to tailor the equipment to the requirements. Imagine for a second you were transposed into the karmic-driven world of Earl. We’re sure you understand, and we’re even more certain that you’d probably get an ultra-hyper-powerful computer with Tetris installed as a result. Therefore, we believe that contacting a trusted software expert, such as ONIO Interactive, is an important move that will allow you to have a system tailored to your needs and a system that is limited only by your imagination.
