What Are Smart Home Devices?

With today’s ever-evolving technology, it can be hard to keep up. With some of the tech available today, smart home devices are becoming more and more prevalent to make people’s home lives more convenient. But what exactly are these devices, how do they work, and what can they do for you?

Automate your Home.

Smart home devices exist with one sole purpose to make everything in your home run more smoothly. They achieve this goal in a few ways, and this article will explain the more complex ways as we go along. To get started, we’re going to look at the base way these devices work then build up into what they can be if set up correctly.

There are devices that you can control with your phone for almost everything in your home. You can find smart light bulbs that can be turned on and off through an app. Smart door locks, video doorbells, thermostats, TVs, speakers, sprinklers, the list goes on. These devices typically work by being connected to your Wi-Fi network, then being accessed with an app. Most of these devices can be accessed even when you aren’t home.

Automation Hubs

Most smart homes use what’s called an automation hub. These are hardware or software that unites all of your smart devices in a single place. This allows you to control all of your smart devices from your phone, computer, or laptop from a single app. This adds a whole other level of convenience to your smart home, which was already very convenient and we haven’t even gotten into what smart speakers can add to your smart home set-up.

The Power of Smart Speakers.

Most people have heard of these nifty devices by now. Amazon has the Echo; Google has the Nest. The base function of these devices works a lot like the assistant on your phone, it can play music, answer questions, and even make calls if you have it set up with your phone correctly.

Smart speakers have a lot more capabilities than just that, though, and are really where you start to become science fact in your very own home. Many smart devices are able to be set up to work with your smart speaker, so you can control all of your smart devices with your voice.

The Smart Home of the Future.

With all these separate pieces presented to you, it may be a little difficult to imagine what this may look like. So, picture this. You wake up before the sunrises, and say “turn on the lights and start boiling the water.” and your lights turn on. You walk into the kitchen to see your water boiling already, so you use it to pour yourself a cup of tea. You’re in the mood for some Coltrane so you say “play John Coltrane,” and almost instantly, the sound of Coltrane’s sweet saxophone solos is filling your home. Your doorbell rings, so you take out your phone to see who’s at the door. It’s your neighbor, so you ask them what they need. They’re able to hear you through the speaker in the doorbell, and you’re able to hear them because it has a microphone. They tell you they just wanted to visit and have a cup of morning tea with you, so you say “open the door,” and it unlocks, so you tell your neighbor to come into the kitchen and join you.

The Most Convenience at your Fingertips.

Smart homes are definitely a far cry even from the technology we had available in the 2000s, and it may seem futuristic and high tech, but that’s where we are today. It’s never been easier to make your entire home convenient and to control almost anything just with your voice. As technology continues to improve, it’s hard not to wonder what our homes will look like in 10, 20, even 50 years from today.