How to Decide Which Smart Home Devices You Need
Ok, it’s true, no one really needs smart home devices to survive. But they can definitely provide some useful added benefits and convenience to your life. If you are ready to bring your house into the 21st Century, here are some excellent starter products that will help you on how to decide which smart home devices you need.
For the Energy Conscious Consumer
Are you an environmental enthusiast? Whether you want to optimize your power consumption to save money, protect the planet, or both, you now have the power (pun intended) to keep your appliances and devices from wasting energy by customizing their operation to the times you’re at home and away. Some of the best choices include:
- Smart thermostat: while programmable models have been around for years, intelligent thermostats take energy savings to the next level, reducing electric bills by up to 8-15%. While these tech-heavy products can run a couple hundred bucks, you’re looking at a likelihood of it paying for itself within a year. Top brands include Nest, ecobee, and Honeywell.
- Smart lighting: this ingenious concept allows you more control than you might think – rather than simply being able to turn lights on and off remotely from your phone (which you can, indeed, do), dimmable LEDs allow you to program the bulbs to come on and off as you enter and exit rooms. They can even light up at just 80% capacity, so you’re not wasting energy if you don’t need them super bright. With kids around, this is a nearly fool-proof solution to their power-wasting habits. GE’s smart bulbs run about $16 a pop.
- Water heater monitor: you probably don’t think about how much power your home is eating up when you’re at work all day, and your water heater is continually running to keep the water inside hot. This energy-sucker comprises up to a whopping 18% of your power bill. If you have a Rheem water heater, they make a stand-alone monitor you can add to your system. Another option would be the Nest thermostat, which can communicate with some water heaters, allowing you to combine your HVAC and water heater control in one unit.
- Smart power strips: these come in particularly handy with your home entertainment components. These electronics are notorious for sucking power even when the whole system is off. Control the flow right from your phone, and even check the power usage of your equipment with some versions.
Safety
While they are not the most hyped components in the smart home genre, advanced safety devices like the Nest Protect smoke and CO detector serve a vital function. If you are going to bother installing tech in your house, safety monitoring should be one of your first priorities. The Nest not only uses highly sensitive sensors to detect actual events, but it can also communicate with other Protects throughout your home, as well as other Nest devices. It tells you when and where a problem is located (in a comforting human voice, no less) and if you have a smart home security system you can tie your monitoring to your fire/CO detector.
Getting It Done
Sure, you may be thinking, it all sounds great if it works right. If you’re tired of struggling to install and troubleshoot the advanced technology of today, you’ll want to find qualified smart home expert service so you can make sure everything works together just as it should. From professional thermostat installation to the most complex fire alarm install, ServiceLive can pair you with the best home installation experts, who have been vetted and background checked to the highest standards for your total peace of mind.
Who to hire for installation? Plumber, Electrician
Need professional installation? Our ServiceLive installers will have your smart device up and running in no time!
http://fortune.com/2014/10/04/the-7-most-useful-smart-home-devices/
