Home Technology: Smart or Not?

What do people mean when they talk about smart home technology?

Let’s say you visit Best Buy tomorrow, there would be a plethora of smart home appliances. Home technology has come a long way in its short evolution. Smart washing machines, smart fridges, smart stoves are just some of the inventions that have come through in this period. But here’s the question, what do people actually mean when they say a fridge is smart? This article is going to help layman understand what people mean when they talk about smart homes, the various benefits to smart home technology. While incorporating some of the concerns around this sort of technological proliferation.

What is Smart Home Technology?

Home technology is the general term given to basic home amenities. These can incorporate things fitted with communication technology, enabling a degree of control to remote control. On a universal scale, it includes things like:

  • Appliances, like fridges, and garage door openers
  • Home entertainment systems
  • Home security systems
  • Amenities like air conditioning, heating, and lighting

This includes several devices that have hit the market that sustain and control all these different devices. There’s items like ZigBee, Z-Wave, Lutron and Wink. The convenience of smart home technology is like no other. Established automated systems unite all devices, giving you one access point. The best part is that they usually come with a mobile app so the control is at your disposal at all times. Whether you are in or out of the house does not matter.

Human evolution has placed an emphasis on convenience. Smart home technology enables people to transcend the level of easy living. The ability to connect all your appliances to a smartphone is obviously a big advantage. It means that homeowners can run their laundry while working, or save an abundance of money on energy bills. For example, you can optimize your heat systems to only turn on 15 minutes before coming back home. Some countries in particular are known to reward people with rewards for using their electrical appliances during off-peak hours. 

Advantages of Investing in Smart Homes

Energy Savings                   

Home monitoring systems are adept at managing energy consumptions. They have an inbuilt alarm system that signals the user when any process is completed. A prime example of energy burning is adjusting the settings of your thermostat based on daily use. When implementing smart home technology, the thermostat changes the settings, initiating an auto response. This way homeowners can sync devices with other appliances. If the lights are on, it would imply that someone is inside the home, prompting the system to adjust the settings accordingly. This is revolutionary in terms of energy efficiency and helps lower the once pocket burning electric bill. 

Greater Awareness of Resources

A less talked about advantage is that due to smart technology, people now have a greater awareness of their resources. Information is available about every appliance and its use. The newer smart home systems already have usage logging tech, meaning it’s easier to see resource utilization. This helps in understanding the metrics behind the smart systems. Meaning that even laymen can quickly comprehend how to use advanced appliances for their own benefit.

Enhanced Monitoring and Ease of Communication

Before smart technology ever became a thing, older alarm systems were connected with monitoring service through telephone landlines. This was a great risk, leaving the entire system in the futile hopes of what would happen if the phone line was cut out. Newer smart technology is simply built differently. The control panel can use multiple paths of communication. They are also able to talk over internet connections and can be used as an internal cellular communication method. 

Multi-path connectivity means that your system is protected against some of the more common cyber criminal tactics. An example being that they may try to compromise your alarm system. When using the security system company, you are provided with an astute monitoring service that will always meet the highest standards. The panels connect to a network of three UL-certified monitoring centers comprising three stations. Each one of them is made for fire and intrusion monitoring. This means that your signals are guaranteed to reach a monitoring professional and get the appropriate response. 

Video Analytics Technology 

The stand out feature of smart home technology is the video analytics. This is an unrivaled piece of addition in an already existing super technology that can be added as an extra security layer, especially with motion detection. It is intelligent enough to distinguish between images of animals or humans. Not only that, the sensor system is adept enough to decrease false notifications and derive hidden movements that can help eradicate a false alarm. Then there is the added benefit of pre-programmed tripwires and activity zones that provide real time alerts. Warding off potential intruders, such as activating indoor and outdoor lights. 

Homeowners can consider adding Perimeter Guard from an authentic website like Alarm.com. It features flashing red lights, sirens and beeps through integrated LEDs and speakers.  

Home Technology and Security Concerns

In an ideal world, home technology would be a saint for everyone willing to invest in it. Unfortunately, the world is not all sunshine and rainbows. A huge roadblock in the path of smart home technology is security. There are two main problems to overcome. The first is a little complicated. Imagine that any time you connect a device to a network and then to the internet, it opens up another port you have to protect.

It’s similar to defending a castle. When the drawbridge is up, all seems good. If it’s down, then things get hard, albeit still manageable. With smart home technology, you are likely to deal with 10 drawbridges being down at the same time. This is the problem with adding multiple devices to your network. 

The second problem is that most of the home tech technology nowadays runs on some variation of Linux. Increasing the chances of them being vulnerable to the same security concerns faced by computers. Even worse is that most devices fail to address security the way PCs do.

So, there you have it, a comprehensive guide on how home technology is, and how it helps revolutionize the systematic universe known as smart appliances. Feel free to comment if you have any queries!

Featured Image: Build Magazine


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