Why do you think we call our mobile smartphones? Well, It’s not like it just started to talk and solve our problems, right? Wait a minute. Yes, it does. If you still didn’t get it, to make a device smarter, just connect it to the Internet, just like you can do it with home improvements and appliances such as speakers, clocks, windows, cameras, lights, water heater and everything else in between.
We call this phenomenon as an Internet of Things (IoT), were not only the devices are connected to the internet, but also it can communicate with each other, and send to and fro information all in real-time.
In 2018, some amazing devices paved its way into our homes, improving our lives in the process and making it smarter. We are going to list down some of the top smart home devices in 2018, which has helped to increase our standard of living.
1. Wireless Bluetooth speakers with voice recognition
There is nothing as smart as send voice commands to your assistant to play your favorite music. It has been a buzz in 2018, after the success of voice recognition and personal assistants like Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Assistant, you can control pretty much everything in your house. With some work using If This Than That (IFTTT) technology, every device that communicates via a recipes’ system can perform simple tasks based on your voice commands. Just make sure you don’t let your parrot say to turn on Air conditioning for hours, Yeah we’ve seen the video too.
2. Smart Home Controllers
Alexa, although, looks cute but it’s still a box which more or less looks like a miniature speaker. If you happen to increase your capacity of more power inside your smartphone, you should go for smart wall switches, which doesn’t take space and can control your entire home, which includes, lights, fans, TV, music system, and can even show you who’s at the door. With an LED touch display along with cool buttons, it can do everything an Alexa does or even more. It can also support many smart appliances from makers such as Nest, Philips, Ecobee, Sonos, Ring, and Hue.
3. Smart Universal Controller
No-one can beat a universal control which still works today because many people don’t prefer a wall mounted or stationary options, I mean you may need to go to the washroom and check if it’s your pizza guy at the door. These smart universal remotes come with a touch display and your usual array of buttons to support them. Wifi and Bluetooth connectivity, to communicate with other smart devices to make your real home smart.
4. Smart Plugs
If you think smart lights and fans are enough, well you can’t light up your TV without a smart plugin (well ordinary works as well, but smart is still better). So what does it do? Well, everything except making you a sandwich. You can schedule a time for them, make it remote ON/OFF through your controller, monitor energy consumption and most importantly, call out ALEXA, turn off my cell phone, the cause of the built-in voice recognition system as well.
5. Smart Locks
With a smart lock, you can keep a check on its status through your controller hub. A sleek and stylish design with Wifi technology makes it’s only better and more intelligent. If you are looking out for a smart lock, make sure to see whether is supports August’s Door Sense technology, Wi-Fi connectivity, and Z-Wave compatibility. Smart Locks can also communicate with Alexa and Google’s Assistant if you want to say out loud.
6. Home security
Home security consists of cameras, sensors, and locks. Mostly everything there is to make a tough of a job for buglers or thieves wanted to break into your home. It consistently provides updates on every event, like information about room temperature, locks status, and live feed of your security camera. Not to mention, it sends an emergency recorded message to concern authorities if your house seems to be in distress.
7. Smart Temperature control
Making your house more chilly on hot summer can warm during cold nights is now automated, thanks to the induction of smart cooling and heating control system. It is merely an auto controlling agent which gives signals to your Air conditioning unit to start/stop his will. Also, it can change the thermostat level based on your setting or automated as well. It supports two most popular voice assistants as well, which means listening to music while air throws cool breeze is just something to look forward to.
8. Smart Lighting
There is no smart house without a smart bulb, which turns on and off with your single command. That’s the power of going wireless. Through your central control hub or merely calling out Alexa, your lights are controlled all together, with controlled intensity based on the night and day cycle. If you happen to connect it to IFTTT system, you can further pinpoint the smart light even more targeted. Ah, and yes, you can control the lights from your smartphones as well.
9. Smart Vacuum/Robotic Vacuum
House cleaning is still a tedious work with everything going wireless, how would you can those pet hairs getting stuck in your beautiful carpet. Well, fear not, because the robotic vacuum has been doing cleaning and removing all these pet hairs with great success and appraised. These robotic vacuum cleaners are battery operated and generally smaller in size so that it can go inside tight spot areas, where you animal love to go.
Additional resources about smart home devices:
Types of smart home devices, how to use them and the best brands. This and other information you can read on these resources.
- Smart Home Technology – Summary of smart home and types.
- Get started with the smart home – Very good overview about how to use smart home devices
- The Best vacuum cleaner for pet hair – Nice review about robot vacuum cleaners for carpet and pet hair
Conclusion
Smart homes are a way to the future, as we can observe in the year 2018, every gadget that is available in the market can be made a force to reckon with. The performance factor and innovation in these devices has indeed risen the bar on producing top-notch smart home devices for the future ahead.