Smart homes are no longer restricted to tech titans or scenes in sci-fi movies. Today, smart technology is more accessible than ever. And homeowners can easily update their spaces with smart tech that makes daily life a breeze.
If you’re looking for ways to streamline your life and improve how you manage your home, smart technology can help. Even just a few smart tech upgrades can enhance your life in ways you’d never imagined possible.
1. Improve Your Ability to Get Things Done
Given the prevalence of work-from-home arrangements today, your internet connection and its capabilities are more important than ever. With the ever-increasing amount of devices demanding your signal strength, smart Wi-Fi is more than just a smart upgrade.
Smart Wi-Fi tech adapts to your demands, providing stronger signal strength exactly where you need it. If you’re reviewing a recipe on your tablet in the kitchen and your kids are streaming movies, your Wi-Fi adapts. When you move into another room to shift your attention to invoicing a customer, your signal never lags. Your smart Wi-Fi shifts to meet your needs, instead of restricting you to a signal strength limit.
With a more adaptive and dynamic Wi-Fi signal, you can upgrade your appliances to smart technologies. Most kitchen tools offer Wi-Fi options, which can help you initiate tasks from afar. Command the oven to preheat as you comfort a cranky baby, helping your dinner plans stay on track. With technology that complements your life, you won’t have to sacrifice time like you had to in the past.
2. Manage Your Energy Efficiency
Energy prices only seem to go up, so anything you can do to manage your demand can help. Plus, if you’re also trying to manage your energy use for sustainability’s sake, you can feel good about smart tech. Smart home components that can learn from your behavior or initiate actions based on your settings can mean big savings. Before you start, download the last 12 months of energy usage from your utility company account to see where you can improve. After you’ve made your improvements, track your usage changes over time.
Most energy-efficient homes implement both physical upgrades and behavioral changes. With smart home technology, you can benefit from both with little sacrifice in comfort. Use a smart thermostat to set your temperature preferences while at home and away. If you shift your settings just 7°–10°F from your usual, you can save up to 10% on energy costs. Modern HVAC units can easily manage this temperature swing, making this a smart shift.
Beyond your thermostat, your lighting, ceiling fans, and window shades can complement your efficiency and money-saving efforts. Smart shades draw down during the brightest time of day, which can reduce the heat transferred through windows. Ceiling fans with smart tech turn on when added air circulation is needed, adjusting for cooler and warmer airflow needs. With a full suite of smart technology, your home will feel comfortable, and so will your budget.
3. Keep Everyone on Schedule
The hustle of daily life only seems to get faster. Anything to help you and your family stay on course is worth deploying. If your snooze button has become too familiar each morning, use smart lighting to kick your bad habit. Set your lights to turn on gradually at your appointed wakeup time, triggering your body’s natural response to light. Schedule your lighting to dim as you near bedtime, working with your circadian clock instead of against it.
Using lighting to improve sleep schedules isn’t just for adults. Kids struggling to get adequate sleep can benefit from lighting triggers. Younger kids who are just learning to maintain a sleep schedule thrive with routine. Pair a dim light schedule with sleep-inducing practices like baths and stories to help toddlers come to terms with bedtime. Generally, reducing exposure to bright light at least two hours before bedtime can help incite sleepiness.
Use your home’s lighting shifts along with technology restrictions that limit or eliminate blue light before bedtime. Blue light can negatively impact sleep schedules, so technology that can help improve your family’s health is beneficial. Set your home’s smart Wi-Fi access so family members can’t scroll into the night. Create profile settings for family members, devices, or both to create healthy boundaries and encourage good use of time. Your technology upgrades can help establish better habits so everyone can function at their best.
A Smarter Home Means a Smarter Life
Your home should work with you, and with smart tech, it can even work for you. Modern expectations of the basic need for shelter include more than just protection from the elements. Home is the hub for all things — it’s where your family eats, plays, works, and sleeps. In reality, home is life, and it only makes sense to outfit it with things that make life better.
Before you experience a smart home, it may seem frivolous to program so many of your mundane tasks. But once your home is outfitted with technology that suits your life, it can be hard to imagine doing without it. Smart technology reduces decision-making, eases stress, and adapts to what you need. With fewer instances of restarting the dryer, flicking off lights, and chasing Wi-Fi signals, you’ll discover the beauty of found time.
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