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Discussion – Does smart home make our life easier?

From mere ideas to science fiction films, gone are the days imagining of what automated or smart living actually is.

The technology we seek to experience is now right in front of us through the fulfilment of smart home.

Smart home technology is often referred to as house automation or domotics (derived from the Latin word “domus” which means home), allowing homeowners to control house devices through applications using their smart phones or any networking device.

As part of the popular Internet of Things (IoT), the technology also allows smart home systems and devices operate together, sharing consumer usage data among themselves and even automating actions based on the homeowners’ preferences/commands.

Tl; dr;

Smart homes provides greater security, convenience, comfort, and energy efficiency, making every childhood fantasy into a reality.

Consider making your doors lock automatically whenever you leave the house and open them when you return, or having all of your appliances (coffeemaker, alarm, lights, heater, microwave oven, television, etc.) or even your car be connected and communicate at the same time to accomplish some tasks for you. Just use your smartphone or any networked device.

These amazing smart home features provide immense benefits for the elderly, handicapped, and busy-people.

Smart living with smart homes

Source: W.E. Brown, Inc.

Maintaining home is NOT an easy task. There are a lot of tasks to that require much time and effort to accomplish.

To make our lives easier, convenient, and more efficient, smart home systems are created.

Gartner, Inc. recently, forecasts that 20.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide by 2020, these includes smart home products at that sense.

Components of a smart home

Smart homes can integrate a huge part in your daily living:

• Weight management. With smart scales, you can regulate your weight and general fitness. These smart scales can connect and communicate with other apps/devices to monitor your weight loss/gain with comprehensive information and notification about your fitness progress.
• Centralized heating systems. Through syncing apps, you can now control your home’s heating and water system. Location alerts enable you to know if you’ve left the heating system when you’re already away from home and easily turn off its switch through the app.
• Smart surveillance. If you are always away from home arranging some errands or on a holiday vacation, you can use applications in your phone connected to your smart home cameras to keep your belongings safe.
• Smart lighting. This essential piece using mobile applications gives you a complete control of your house lighting even when you are away from home and schedule them to turn on/off accordingly to pretend that you are at home.
• Smart cookers. Cooking can be hectic and needs prior planning whenever there are events or a family-get-together. With smart cooking, you can leave your food unattended in the cooker because you can control it or time it whenever you are away. So it is energy efficient and time convenient.
• Smart garage. Using your smartphone, you can open and close your garage doors.
• Smart doorbells. Doorbells with built-in video cameras shows you inside who’s knocking.

Summary

Smart homes provide better way for you to do and manage day to day tasks. From just switching lights on/off, managing your fitness goals, monitoring for safety, and even saving costs on utility bills, everything is far beyond what we think of a smart home can do with just a powerful control from your smartphone or any networked devices.

By Tuan Nguyen