A Room-by-Room Guide to Home Automation

Optimizing home tasks with smart devices

Home automation provides ease and convenience. With smart home technology, you can optimize household tasks and potentially lower utility bills. The following guide takes you room by room to show some innovations that are available, beginning with details about how home automation works.

What is home automation?

There’s more to home automation than smart light bulbs, although smart lighting is a major element. Home automation allows remote, timed or customized control of the modern amenities in a residence, from a studio apartment to a large mansion. From temperature to lighting to appliances and home entertainment, smart technology connects with personal devices and digital assistants to let you run your home as you wish.

Since there are whole house features of home automation, a good network connection and signal are a crucial facet of a smart home. Optimal performance often requires a variety of sensors throughout the space, so a strong and reliable internet feed is necessary to support communication with each accessory.

How to automate your home

While no single blueprint exists for home automation, there is a standard process that involves incorporating smart devices into your day-to-day life. Whether it’s an incremental integration or all at once, you can choose the automation strategy that works best for your needs. A basic smart home uses a device – with or without a digital assistant – and a main hub to connect multiple items.

How a hub works for home automation

A smart home hub uses hard-wired and wireless signals to connect and control the automated devices, switches, outlets and dimmers in the home. Connected to a smart display, hubs provide a seamless connection to the various parts of a fully automated home and enable systems to sync with less energy. You can achieve automation without a hub, but keep in mind that the desired level of your automation dictates whether you need one.

The digital assistant option

Increasingly, digital assistants are the most common control type in home automation. Voice commands offer unparalleled convenience for controlling an automated home:

How to Automate with Google Home: With over 50,000 compatible devices, automation with Google Home presents a straightforward proposition. Make sure your elements have that compatibility and consider a NEST for connection to Google Assistant.
How to Automate Your Home with Alexa: More than 100,000 items offer compatibility with Alexa. Syncing any item proves as easy as opening an app and adding the device to your list. An Amazon Echo smart speaker or display coordinates compatible accessories.

While Amazon Alexa and Google Home are the two most popular options, there are other digital assistant options. These include the Apple Siri and Samsung’s Bixby as well as some lesser-known options, such as Lyra, Hound, DataBot, Extreme and Fyle.

A room-by-room look at home automation costs

Not surprisingly, each room of your home has different costs associated with home automation based on the number and type of appliances and devices connected to the system. As with any home improvement undertaking, a whole-house automation project is a big investment. A room-by-room strategy offers a more streamlined and budget-friendly approach.

Kitchen

Streamline your life with connected appliances by outfitting a kitchen with a smart device in every nook and cranny. Smart refrigerators, ovens and dishwashers elevate your housekeeping with state-of-the-art features. Consider how small appliances with Wi-Fi integration can help you save time. Are mornings hectic? Tell your digital assistant to make you a fresh cup of coffee to free up a few critical moments at the start of your workday routine.

A display for your smart controls makes a great addition to the kitchen, which provides an ideal central location. With vocal commands, you can return a call to a loved one or access recipes with your hands free to cook dinner.

Living room

Your living room benefits from smart speakers for both entertainment and communicating with the digital assistant. Choose from smart speakers in designs ranging from sound bars and shelf models to recessed ceiling units that provide crystal clarity and full connectivity.

Nothing pairs with audio like great visuals. Find the programming you want in an instant with a smart television. Your days of searching for that lost remote control end with a smart TV that gives you the option to use a phone, tablet or voice control to change channels or stream music.

A clean, healthy atmosphere is possible with robot vacuums and mops. The living room provides an ideal base for these thorough cleaners to fan out and freshen the entire house. You can program robot vacs to run regularly, so they can rid your floors of dust and dirt even when you’re not at home to start them.

Bedroom

Optimize your home’s climate control when you install a smart thermostat. You can adjust the temperature in just the bedroom or the rest of the home without getting out from under those comfortable covers. Smart thermostats help conserve heating and air conditioning costs too. Built-in sensors detect when rooms are unoccupied to save on your energy bills.

Bathroom

Home automation works in the bathroom as well. Water-resistant speakers keep you connected while you’re starting your day. Smart bathroom mirrors incorporate built-in televisions and speakers so you can catch the morning news while getting ready for work or school. Connect your digital scale to your phone or computer to help track your fitness. High-end touches such as heated floors and heated toilet seats are also part of the truly automated home.

Basement

The basement, whether finished or not, can also benefit from smart tech. With a guest room, in-law suite, man cave or laundry room, there are plenty of opportunities to optimize your downstairs area with connected devices and appliances. A smart washer and dryer allows remote starting and stopping of laundry loads and can notify you when a cycle is complete. These must-have automation devices download new options for optimum care of all your laundry.

Smart water leak sensors and alarms are crucial for the basement since that’s where pipe leaks and mold are most likely to occur. Placing moisture detectors underneath sinks and near drains can save you from extensive damage and costly repairs as a result of backed up drains and compromised pipes due to extreme cold or faulty sewer lines.

In summary, a smart home helps you manage resources, conserves the environment and makes daily life easier overall.