What is a Smart Home?

When technology moves at the pace it does these days it can be hard to keep up with all these new concepts like smart homes and connected living environments. Trust us they aren't as complicated as you think; whether you are getting your first smart home appliance or looking to fully deck out your house we here at The HOB want to help you make sense of it all.

To break down this concept let us paint you some mental pictures: imagine being able to sit on your couch and turn the kettle on; imagine turning up your houses temperature as you drive home in winter, imagine going on holiday and having your pets fed automatically. Sounds like the future right? Well the future is now and all of these things are possible in a smart home. You see its as simple as saying a smart home is just a home that is fully connected through the internet. 

The Internet:

As we can see one of the core features of a smart home is the internet. While there are smart home appliances that have some of the most mind-blowing features built in; linking your devices through the internet is the key to maximizing your smart home.

For your mega Camps Bay homes the use of access points and mesh systems allow for users to ensure their entire house can operate under one connection. For smaller homes even just a simple router can work with smart home brands like Xiaomi favoring 2.4ghz connections anyway. One connection makes things simple and smart homes are all about making life as easy as possible!

Smart Home Hubs:

I know what your thinking; do they make smart home hookah pipes? While that would be pretty impressive that isn't what we mean when we say smart home hub. A smart home hub is like your Amazon Alexa or Apple Home Pod; the central controller for all of your devices.

If a social hub is where everyone comes together to connect in one place then your smart home hub is where all of your different smart home appliances and apps come together to connect through one device. This allows owners to control their entire space from one app.

Smart Home Appliances:

This is really the fun part; smart home appliances are your smart kettles or smart air fryers of the world. These appliances push the limit in terms of what you thought was possible from everyday household appliances.

For example the Xiaomi Smart Kettle 2 Pro allows users to control their kettle temperature in 1°C increments; it allows you to keep your water boiled for up to 24 hours and of course all of this can be controlled remotely using the Xiaomi Home app. Features you didn't think you needed now become non-negotiables; why compromise? 

Many smart home appliances can be used without a hub or internet connection so they are a great place to start taking your home into the future. Once you start to build a network of devices you can look to integrate them into a connected living environment.

Smart Plugs and Lighting:

Smart plugs are like an added connection point to your wall that turns normal plugs into remote controlled smart plugs. Worried that you left the iron on at home? Check your app and turn off the plug remotely. This is such a simple way to immediately transform a normal home to a smart home. 

Smart lighting is something you overlook when starting to build a smart home. They don't have all the glits and glam of your appliances but trust us when we say that smart lighting is a game changer. Voice activated dimming when cuddling up watching movies; automatic lighting saving you bruised shins in the middle of the night and then we have lightbulbs that stay on during loadshedding, need we say more?

Smart Security:

South Africa is one of the greatest places on Earth; however we do have our fair share of issues and unfortunately crime is one of them. This is scary enough at the best of times but to make matters worse you have just decked your house out with all these fancy smart homes systems! This is where smart security comes in. 

Smart security is lowkey one of the most advanced aspects of the current smart home landscape. They are smart cameras with 24 hour live feeds allowing you to check on your home from anywhere in the world. Smart motion detection that sends alerts to your phone when it detects humans or even animals. Smart doorbells with cameras allowing you to open your front door remotely for the right people. Live peacefully knowing that your home is protected by leveraging smart security. 

Smart Monitoring:

There's an old saying that says knowledge is power and if that was true during loadshedding libraries would have never had power cuts. On a serious note having access to real time information for your house can be a lifesaver. Smart home monitors can help you regulate temperatures, humidity and even air quality. Using smart home sensors can even help identify power surges or plumbing failures which can save you thousands in the long run.

Smart sensors may not be as showy and spectacular as other smart home use cases but in terms of value we think they rank towards the upper end. These sensors are often a lot cheaper than your appliances or security systems so they can be an easy entry point to start seeing the value in having a smart home.

Once broken down we think you would agree that a smart home isn't this complicated unattainable concept. You don't need a lot of technical knowhow or even a lot of money to get started. Building a smart home can be fun; you can do it slowly over months or years as you add to your smart home ecosystem over time. 

The HOB offers a vast range of smart home products ranging from appliances to sensors, security systems to Wi-Fi devices. Life is short; make the menial tasks as effortless as possible so you can spend more time doing what you love.