How smart is your home?
“There’s an app for that!”
According to a 2022 report titled “Households With Smart Home Systems Worldwide 2015-2025” by market and consumer data platform Statista, more than 400 million households will feature smart home systems by 2025.
What is a Smart Home?
Smart homes are becoming more and more utilised globally, designed to bring automation and convenience to daily life. Whilst also providing a more effective energy efficient solution. A smart home is a smart system which connects with devices and appliances in your home to remotely control and automate tasks within your home. Giving you the freedom to control energy meters, heating, lighting, plug sockets, smoke & Co2 alarms, security cameras and much more.
How it Works
A smart home consists of a variety of devices connected through your homes Wi-Fi network. It could be as simple as one smart bulb, or as complicated as you like, consisting of multiple of devices ranging from bulbs to home security devices and appliances.
Smart devices in your home are connected to your homes Wi-Fi network and linked to an app on your smartphone or tablet. Giving you the ability to control devices from one place, whether you are at home, out at work or even on holiday.
Benefits
By far, the most common piece of technology is the humble smart phone which you always carry around. Why not utilise what you have at your fingertips. There are a multitude of apps available which can control the devices on your network. Being connected to you mobile phone or tablet, smart homes can be managed from anywhere in the world, at any time through remote monitoring. Giving you the freedom to check-in on various elements of your home and property. This provides a high level of security to users. Giving you comfort in knowing your property and loved ones are safe.
Energy Saving Benefits
Depending on how you use your smart-home technology, it’s possible to make your space more energy-efficient. Having the ability to have precise control over the heating and cooling of your home with smart heating that learns your routines and preferences and suggests which is the most energy efficient. The capability to turn off lights when a room is unoccupied can be priceless in terms of energy saving. Anything that saves you money on utilities can’t be bad!
For example, you can have more precise control over the heating and cooling of your home with a programmable smart thermostat that learns your schedule and temperature preferences, and then suggests the best energy efficient settings throughout the day. Lights and motorized shades can be programed to switch to an evening mode as the sun sets, or lights can turn on and off automatically when you enter or leave the room, so you never have to worry about wasting energy.
Another benefit of smart homes is the impact on your homes EPC (Energy Performance Certificate). By lowering the carbon footprint and bills, a good energy efficiency can be attractive to potential buyers. According to the Department of Energy and Climate Change, energy saving improvements can, on average, increase the value of a property by 14%.
Routines, Automation and Grouping
Many smart device apps give you the ability to group devices together for convenience. For instance, you could set all downstairs bulbs in one group, giving you the ability to turn on or off all of the downstairs lights at once. In turn making it easier set up schedules for a group rather than individual devices.
Schedules can be extremely useful, not only for convenience but also for saving energy and in turn lowering your bills. One example of this would be setting your bedside lamp to come on at the time you usually go to bed and turn off when you fall asleep. Routines can be set for specific days and times, automating your whole house indefinitely. You would almost never have to turn flick a light switch ever again if you wanted to go that far.
Customisation, settings, and profiles
Some Smart home systems and apps give you the ability to have different profiles for various users on the network. This works much the same way a modern car key stores your radio presets or seat settings, defaulting to your pre-saved settings when you login. For instance, when “John” signs in, the living room lights are automatically set to cool white at 50% brightness. When “Jane” signs in the living room lights are automatically set to warm white at 35% brightness. The sky really is the limit!
Security
Having a Smart home gives you the convenience to incorporate a multitude of security devices into your setup. The ability to sync and control multiple cameras, motion sensors or video doorbell to your network can ease the stresses of leaving your home unoccupied. Whether its whilst you’re at work or away on holiday for a week. No more asking your neighbour to house sit, just set schedules and alerts for your devices and relax knowing you have control from your phone.
Energy Meters
Having a smart energy meter gives you the convenience to see in real time what energy you are using in real time. Also, the ability to automate and mange schedules and timers, saving yourself on utility bills by only using what energy you need. Out in the heat of summer? Why not turn down your thermostat and get your house nice and cool before you get home.
Potential Drawbacks
Security Breaches
As with any tech-based solution there will always be inherent security risks. Just like with any device connected to a network there is the possibility for adept hackers to gain access to your network.
Measures such as encrypting devices and replacing factory set passwords with stronger more effective ones is a great way to keep your networks secure. Another important tip is to only allow devices you trust access to your network.
Cost
Cost can be a factor in setting up a smart home. Outfitting an entire home with smart devices. Anything from £20 for one or two smart bulbs, to potentially tens of thousands of pounds to outfit a whole home with devices that control virtually everything in your home.
Compatibility and updates
As with all software, it’s important to keep the apps controlling your devices up to date. Outdated apps may develop bugs or potentially stop working. The simple solution is to set them to Auto-Update. Alternatively, you can check the Appstore periodically.
Compatibility can also be an issue when choosing which devices you need. Wi-fi or Bluetooth? Windows, Android, or iPhone? What ever you choose, do your research, and make sure all of the devices are compatible with each other, the app you are controlling them with and the connection to your existing network.
Learning Curve
There can be a steep learning curve when it comes to technology, especially when it comes to multiple people in one household all learning to use it together. This is also dependant on how in depth you are looking to get with your smart home. Setting up groups of devices and multiple schedules can be daunting but once you’ve figured it out, it can make life a lot easier.
Reliance on automation
In today’s modern digital world, we’ve become more and more reliant on technology to make our lives easier. While this can be amazingly useful, it does leave a little room for human error. Making it easy to leave devices such as smart lights on. If you have you phone or tablet with you, its possible to turn things off, even if you are away from your home.
Conclusion
The future is digital, why not make the most of what smart devices have to offer?
As technology keeps advancing exponentially, the possibilities are endless for smart home technology.
While there are some drawbacks, the benefits make it a worthwhile investment. A smart home can be whatever you want it to be. My advice, start small with a few devices such as smart bulbs or a camera doorbell and learn how it works. Then, once you are comfortable you can grow your smart network at your own pace.
Author,
Ian Barlow
To find out more about investment opportunities in residential markets across the UK, please call our advisory team on 01244 343 355 or email sales@residential-estates.co.uk
