What is a smart home and what does smart living feel like? The term smart home refers to an intelligent house. Thanks to microelectronics, smart homes make everyday life more convenient. They allow you to wirelessly network all appliances – from the coffee machine to the robotic lawnmower – and control them remotely via smartphone.
For smart living in the smart home to be possible, the devices must also be able to communicate with each other. This allows you to save energy and optimize security in your home at the same time. The respective devices are operated uniformly via app or voice command. Here we explain how a smart home works, the benefits it offers and the current trends in smart living.
We would be happy to advise you on the subject of smart homes and find a property for you that enables smart living from the moment you move in, as the trend has been around in Switzerland for several years now.
How a smart home works
First and foremost, smart home refers to automation processes that allow a wide variety of technical devices to be linked together. The terms connected home, home automation and e-home are also widely used. There is also the term Ambient Assisted Living (AAL), which is aimed specifically at senior citizens.
A well-functioning smart home needs these three elements:
- Products: For automation, your devices and technical products should be compatible with each other. To do this, they all need the same wireless standard, such as Bluetooth or WLAN.
- Control: You can control the networked devices in your home thanks to a control center. The manufacturer will provide you with a suitable app or voice assistant. A good example is Amazon’s assistant Alexa.
- Automation: Your intelligent household appliances interact with each other by sensors detecting environmental stimuli such as temperature or movement and then transmitting a signal to the central control element, the hub.
In practice, this means, for example, that the smoke detector in the smart home detects a fire by measuring the air quality and temperature. It informs the control center of the smart home technology. The defined chain of the following response commands, which you can program, then leads to the house automatically activating lighting for the escape route, sending a notification to your smartphone and possibly even activating the sprinkler system. Some systems also call the fire department directly.
Another example: You can save routines for everyday life. Your smart home heats your home half an hour before you get home, plays relaxing music and dims the lights in the living room. Hot tea can also be provided for you. From your smartphone, you can also control household appliances such as washing machines, dishwashers and kitchen appliances and give many other commands, which in turn are linked to suitable actions.
A smart home offers these advantages
The smart home is very popular because it makes everyday life easier, more convenient and safer at the same time. Although it is more expensive to purchase, you can make the right decisions by considering smart living in your new property from the outset. We would be happy to advise you!
Advantage 1: Comfort
The convenience offered by a smart home is a particularly compelling argument. Household robots can vacuum and mop for you at the touch of a button, intelligent coffee machines can prepare the perfect hot drink for you and you can even control the room climate from your smartphone.
Light control by voice command with numerous color nuances is also popular. This can also be easily retrofitted to existing lamps with WLAN sockets and corresponding light bulbs.
For your next trip, you can maintain your garden with the help of irrigation computers, pool robots and robotic mowers. You can control your lighting, prevent mold even when you are away for long periods thanks to remote-controlled heating and keep an eye on your property via the security cameras.
Advantage 2: Health
Smart living is also beneficial for your health. Blood pressure monitors, smart scales and fitness trackers help you to manage and evaluate important values. The best apps can even make connections with each other and suggest recipes, for example. It can even be linked to the refrigerator.
Smart home devices that help with accessibility have become indispensable for older people. Whether as help in the home, as an emergency call option or to support communication with the family, AAL technologies enable self-determined living in old age.
Even Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant or Apple’s Siri can help you navigate your home without any problems. The smart home can also make everyday life easier for people with disabilities.
Advantage 3: Entertainment
In addition to home automation, there are also many advantages in the area of entertainment. For example, you can link your Smart TV with lamps, loudspeakers and blinds. As soon as you want to watch a movie, give the appropriate command and the house creates the perfect cinema atmosphere.
You can also program certain commands for music in Smart Living to create routines. You can make your files accessible to the whole family via a server. Other files such as photos or videos can also be stored on the shared NAS server (Network Attached Storage).
Advantage 4: Security
The smart home includes numerous sensors that not only create convenience, but also security. The following sensors are helpful:
- Motion sensors
- Smoke sensors
- Glass breakage sensors
- Water sensors
You can combine the devices with sirens and surveillance cameras so that no danger escapes you. You can check the current status on your smartphone at any time. High-quality surveillance cameras and networked alarm systems are now very affordable.
Advantage 5: Saving energy
The intelligent control of lighting and heating in smart living also makes it possible to save energy. WLAN thermostats and underfloor heating systems can now react intelligently to environmental sensors such as brightness, movement and temperature. This avoids unnecessary heating. You can check remotely at any time whether all electrical appliances are switched off or whether an energy guzzler is still working.
The intelligent thermostats, which heat the home to save energy as soon as a resident approaches, are particularly practical in winter. Other thermostats even learn your usage habits and adapt to them after a learning phase. Of course, you can intervene manually at any time.
Current smart living trends
As a proptech company, we are happy to inform you about the latest trends in the smart home and smart living sector when buying or renting a property. Simply ask us for recommendations on these current developments:
- Quality of the nationwide Internet
- Options for smart home entertainment in your property
- Self-determined living in old age
- Intelligent, networked kitchen appliances
- Saving energy through smart living
- Security systems tailored to your needs
The smart home sector is developing rapidly. It is now possible to activate or deactivate the alarm system using a fingerprint, have the roof windows close automatically when the weather changes and store all data in a central cloud that can only be viewed by your housemates.
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All data are without guarantee. The information on these Internet pages has been carefully researched. Nevertheless, no liability can be accepted for the accuracy of the information provided.