This year has been the downfall of many things, but one area that’s on the up and up is home improvement. With more time spent indoors, homeschooling, and working from home, it only makes sense that you want to upgrade the spaces that have become everything to you. Especially for those of you balancing more tasks than usual from the comfort of your home, we’d like to explore some smart home technology upgrades and improvements that can make your stay at home journey more efficient and comfortable. Not to mention, this technology is designed to bring ease to your life at home, which we could all use.
Smarter Homes of Austin has an array of services that can totally transform your way of life. Let’s get started.
Smart Thermostats and Scheduling
When you increase the time you spend at home, you raise the utility bill right along with it. One way you can cut down on energy use is by installing a smart thermostat in your home. With a smart thermostat, you can control the temperature of your whole home, or specific zones from your personal device. The benefit of that is that no matter where you are, you can adjust the temperature. Let’s say you and the family run out for a spontaneous trip to the park. From the bench, you can crank the home’s temperature up and save energy while the kids play. On your drive home, drop the temperature back down and achieve comfort for your return.
In addition to easy controls, you can also set your system to learn and use schedules. Learning your patterns of use is a huge benefit because it eliminates human error and provides consistent temperature ranges and changes in your home. Why run the AC if you and the family are gone at a specific time on a specific day? Smart technology is all about efficiency. That’s why smart thermostats measure humidity levels, your use patterns, your distance from the home, and more.
Media and WiFi Scheduling
If the kids are supposed to be in their Zoom class from 9 am to 2 pm, then there should be no reason for them to have their TVs on or log in to their gaming devices. Prioritizing and controlling devices through the WiFi and app control is one more way you can keep an easy handle on the goings-on in your home.
By prioritizing certain devices on the WiFi, you can make sure that your work laptop and the kid’s school tablets always have priority over content streaming, gaming, and downloads. That means even if you’re burning the midnight oil, the Xbox party happening in your media room will never take priority over your tasks. This requires a Smart WiFi system in which you own your own equipment and have a private network. There are so many benefits to having a set up like this that extend beyond scheduling and control. With a smart WiFi system, you can receive a reliable connection throughout your entire estate that is high-speed, hack-proof and equipment fee-free.
Energy Monitoring
One way to keep a close eye on your energy consumption is by tracking and monitoring it. Smarter Homes provides an energy monitoring feature through the smart home control app we use via RTI. In this app, you can see the energy levels used in your home, when they peak and valley, and your wattage used in totality and at specific times.
With this knowledge comes power. For example, if you are barely using energy at 11 pm, why not capitalize on those dead hours that follow by cutting power to outlets in the kitchen, for example, turning off the water heater, and making sure the house is scheduled to turn off any forgotten lights since everyone is asleep. Smarter Homes owner and operator, Pete Sandford, did this with his family and saved money and energy. They cut the water heater off after their morning showers until dinner time. They scheduled the lights to turn off at bedtime and the outlets to stop providing power to unused utilities. Then, using their energy monitoring app, they got to see a huge drop in usage. By checking the app, you can also see how much wattage is being used at any given time, giving you a good idea of peak use hours and forgotten devices still running.
We hope you feel inspired to improve some of your Smart Home technology in ways that Smarter Homes is doing for families every day. If you’re in the Austin area, create a budget for your home improvement goals, today.