Home Automation

By far most impactful place to start automating your home is with smart lighting. Lighting you control with your voice, on a schedule, or based on a door opening or closing is convenient, can save energy, and looks really cool. Smart lighting also brings tons of features to your home’s lighting scheme, without having to hire an electrician.

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A smart bulb can be dimmed, have tuneable white light (go from cool white to warm white depending on whether you want to be energised or relax), and even throw in colour-changing options to really amp up the ambiance. Smart switches are another simple way to connect a whole room of existing lights, bringing dimming and scheduling features as well as voice and remote control.

Smart speakers and smart TVs are already pretty ubiquitous in our homes – in fact you literally cannot buy a ‘dumb’ TV anymore – and smart speakers from the likes of Amazon, Google, and now Apple, are so insanely cheap and do so much cool stuff it’s hard to find a reason not to get one.

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From playing any song you can think of on demand with just a few words, to connecting to your smart TV so you can stop worrying about finding the remote and just tell your telly to put on EastEnders, smart speakers – and the digital assistants that power them – are the fire that is fuelling the current smart home explosion.

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With the artificial intelligence of Alexa, Siri, and Google in them, your speaker can tell you the weather, set a kitchen timer, find you a recipe, read you the news, call a friend, and – crucially – control any connected smart home devices with just a few words from you.

A smart plug transforms even “dumb” devices into a part of your smart home network, giving you greater control and customizable options just by plugging the device in. Table lamps, the clothes iron, and even the coffee maker get an IQ upgrade with smart plugs. For the most features and best reliability, stick with smart plugs that connect to Wifi either directly or using a bridge or dongle that plugs into your router.

Intelligent control of your heating can save energy without the need for extra blankets. A smart thermostat knows when you’re home or away (by using presence sensors, geolocation of your and your family’s smartphones, and/or triggers from other devices such as your door lock) and can adjust by a few degrees to save energy automatically.

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As well, a connected thermostat can communicate with other things in your home like door and window sensors, smart blinds, and local weather stations to know when to turn down the heat because there’s a window open, because the Sun is warming a room, or because the thermometer is going to hit 22°C this afternoon.

While most of us don’t already have our home’s kitted out with CCTV cameras, the smart home makes it much easier to keep eyes on things if you want, thanks to inexpensive, wireless Wi-Fi cameras.

These easy-to-install and simple-to-use devices can be put inside or outside your home to alert you to any problems through motion-activated recording and let you see a live or recorded video of your home on your smartphone.

Many can be set to only wake up and record if they spot a person, animal, vehicle or package, or can tell you about all and any activity in its view. They can be programmed to automatically turn off when you come home or during the day so you don’t inadvertently record yourself.

This type of surveillance is handy for security, as a deterrent to burglars, and as evidence if there is a break-in. But it also has many other uses, such as keeping an eye on your pets when you’re at the office or checking in on older children or elderly relatives who are home alone. Our favourite type of security camera is a video doorbell, this dual-purpose device acts like voicemail for your front door – as whoever visits can leave a video message when you’re out – and also helps keep tabs on the main entry point to your home.

Finally, smart security cameras work brilliantly with smart security systems, which you can again easily install yourself and monitor from your smartphone. Most also offer professional monitoring of your alarm system for a monthly fee, and when tied into security cameras can allow for visual verification when your alarm is triggered, potentially helping get the emergency services there more quickly.