A Guide To Smart Home

Imagine going on holiday out of the country with your family and suddenly you realise that you have forgotten to turn off your heating system. That ruins the holiday, doesn’t it? Luckily If you have a smart home, then your holiday is far from being ruined. Just pick up your phone, open the smart home app, and turn off the heating system, that’s it, holiday saved. Smart Home automation system gives you full access to your smart features from anywhere in the world.

British homes are already full of electrical equipment’s. We use electric doorbell, Air Conditioner, heating system, audio-video devices, electric blinds, security system etc. All these are to make our life comfortable. But these are not any new technologies, there is nothing fancy about them anymore. Now we are living in the age of the internet when every electronic device is getting an IoT makeover. These smart devices can be connected to your network and controlled remotely. When all these smart devices connect to a smart home controller then your whole home becomes smart.

Smart lighting is the most popular smart home feature in recent times. When you replace your existing lighting with smart lights, you get options to control all your lighting system using an app. Using the smart home system, you can set different colours of light for different occasions, monitor energy consumption, schedule lights to turn on and off daily at the time you prefer. The automated lighting system will help you to reduce energy cost.

A luxury smart property is not complete without electric blinds. This cool technology lets you control all your electric blinds automatically. The smart system can adjust these blinds based on the availability of daylight.

In a smart home, you can expect to have smart audio video distribution system installed. All your speakers are kept hidden inside your ceiling or wall. Play your favourite playlist in any room you want using an app or control panel. If you have smart home scenes created in the system, your smart home will play music when you evoke any scenes. For example, if you have a scene for when you wake up, the system can play the radio or your favourite playlist at your bedroom or any other room after you wake up.

Another fantastic smart home feature is the climate control system. Every room has temperature sensors, which continuously monitor room temperature. Your smart home then controls all your HVAC units to make sure that you enjoy the optimum temperature at all time.

Live CCTV, Doorbell integrated with Intercom, Entry system, Motion detection, alarms, smoke detection all together make up security system of a building or luxury property. When you have a home automation system, you have the option of observing all your security devices in a centralised monitoring system. Did someone come in front of your door? The motion detection system sends a notification to your phone with CCTV footage, open the app and look who is at the door. Smart homes now have the option to fool thieves into thinking there are people in the home even when it is completely empty. This is called “Mockupency”. The smart home operates its lights, TV and blinds automatically when you activate this feature. So, if any bad guys are observing your property, they will think there are people inside.

Home automation market is now one of the most lucrative market. People who want to automate their home are generally wealthy and can afford to spend a fortune to make their home smart. That is why many tech giants are competing for market share. Big companies like Google, Amazon and Samsung are developing smart home devices targeting the general population while already established brands like Crestron, SAVANT, Control4, Lutron are building automation system for high-end customers.

If you are wondering, which automation brand is suitable for you then read below –

Crestron automation is best suitable for large properties, conference centre or event, stadium, Luxury Yachts. Crestron has its own building management system. Installation requires experienced Crestron programmer as it is more complicated than other options. Crestron is compatible with most IoT devices.

Perfect for luxury properties. Its elegant approach to a smart home solution is suitable for high-end customers. Savant has the best-looking app interface. It is easy to install and maintain. Keep in mind that. this awesome system is not cheap. Infect, Savant is the most expensive system on our list.  If you are looking for a classy system with an elegant looking device then SAVANT is for you.

Relatively inexpensive but offers complete smart home control. The system supports a wide range of IoT devices. If your property needs a home theatre, then Control4 has a built-in system to support home cinema.

According to our view, Lutron is the best automation system for smart lightings and electric blinds control. It has a stunning range of keypad collections. Lutron smart lights are responsive and beautifully designed. Lutron works with other smart home systems.

Google has been heavily promoting its home hub in recent months. Even though google home hub is a relatively new name but they have been already supporting many smart gadgets from Philip, NEST, Samsung etc. Google has the best voice assistant which you can use to command the home hub to play your favourite song, do your shopping, arrange a meeting, make appointments etc.

Just like Google Home Hub, Apple Home kit is also a system that allows you to control your smart devices using a central eco system. Powered by Apples voice assistant Siri, Apple Home kit supports only a handful of smart devices. So do not expect anything beyond ordinary from this system.

Compared to the Apple home kit, Samsung smart things has a much better system. It supports Philip hue bulbs, Arlo security camera, Yale door locks, ring video doorbell. SmartThings also features motion sensors and water leak sensor. A good alternative to Google home hub or Amazon smart home hub.

Amazon smart home with Alexa is now the most popular smart home technology. Even with a strong competitor like Google, Amazon is marching ahead with its great range of products. More products support Alexa than Google assistant. The only problem is, you can’t ask Alexa to play songs from YouTube. However, the same song is probably available in Amazon music library so, it does not matter much.

According to a market forecast, the number of the smart home device will continue to grow rapidly in the next few years. So, the future looks very promising for this technology. Many companies have invested millions of pounds into research and development of new smart home devices.

Google, Amazon, Apple, Samsung and all other tech giants are coming up with new smart products for middle class consumer group. Just recently Google has acquired NEST, a company known for making thermostats which are used in a smart home. Smart home technologies were a big hit in this year’s CES event in Las Vegas. So, the popularity of this technology is growing among people.

We predict, AI will play a greater role in automating daily tasks of people in near future. Machine learning ability of smart homes will allow the system to understand you better and predict what you need and act accordingly.

Voice recognition technology will see a massive improvement with multi-language support. Your smart home will act like a virtual assistant who will be able to make calls, interact with you like a real assistant. Remember Jarvis from Iron Man? Well, we are all getting something like that in future.

Privacy and unauthorised intrusion are the biggest concerns of technologies associated with smart homes. All it takes is one bad device and suddenly the whole system is accessible to hackers. Smart homes require regular monitoring. So, it has a maintenance cost associated with it. If you select a good home automation installer while turning your home smart, then they should be able to make audit your network for any security weakness and create a strong and secure control system.

Automated homes provide the ultimate comfort. However, to ensure everything runs smoothly, you will need to monitor all your devices regularly. For constant monitoring and troubleshooting, it is best to hire an experienced home automation installer for this sort of tasks. AVITHA can provide you with 24/7 monitoring of your smart home system. Contact us for details.