Trends in Home Automation: How to make the most of technology in your home
I'm always on the lookout for that one piece of tech that will make a difference and make my client’s life easier. Window treatments that open & close automatically or lighting that slowly wakes you up or creates the perfect mood. Lucky for us, there are tons of products on the market that when combined can give us the home of our dreams.
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Having the right illumination makes a huge difference to the look and feel of your home. What better way to control it than with smart lighting and there are many options on the market. If you’re renovating or building, you can wire in smart lighting. One of my favourite companies is Lutron. They offer a ton of smart home light control, including an app for your phone. Want the lights to be on when you arrive home?? No problem!!
Another option is to buy smart bulbs. Smart bulbs are great because you can control the hue and colour of the light - warm at night to help you unwind and cool during the day to mimic sunlight. Philips Hue is a great option.
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You can also swap out your switches for smart dimmable ones, and add attachments to your wall plugs to control your lamps. Kasa Smart and Samsung Smarthings offer great options such as dimmable switches and smart plugs.
Smart lights can also be put on timers or set up to turn on when you walk into certain rooms. For example, you can set up a light strip under your vanity and connect it to a motion sensor. This gives you an easy nightlight for late-night trips to the bathroom.
Another benefit is to set your bedroom lights to illuminate slowly in the morning so that you have a more natural wake up experience.
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Door sensors can be used to keep your kids in check and they're discreet and easy to install. For example, if your child is leaving their bedroom at night, you can set up a motion detector or door sensor and have your light change color in your bedroom to let you know that someone is out of bed.
Some smart bulbs even have sensors that detect the amount of natural light in the room and slowly brighten during sunset. This way you always have optimal lighting in your home.
When it comes to lighting everyone can agree that natural light is the best. With smart blinds, you can automate the process of drawing your blinds every day. If you already have blinds, you can skip the ones on the market that have integrated smart technology and instead attach a gadget to your existing set. MySmartBlinds and Soma smart shades 2 are both good options.
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One thing to note with all these gadgets is you will end up with a few different apps to control them. The products mentioned are all compatible with Amazon Alexa and Google Home so you can control everything in one place.
Source: House Seven Design
