Creating a Smarthome (Part Two)

The last decade has seen a drastic leap in the improvements in home technologies. The ability for users to clean, communicate, and relax looks day-and-night different from how it looked even a few years ago for some home-owners. 

It’s a hopeful time to own a home, with a slew of brand-new, must-have items that can save time, money, or help consumers to live in the best ways possible. This blog continues our series on smart home devices on the market and how they can digitally upgrade every room, from the kitchen to the bedroom.

Some things to consider…

• Try doing a keyword search of the items you’re looking for online, and check out the comments and messages on forums left by other consumers to see what their experiences have been with the products, and how you might avoid any such issues when setting up your smarthome. You’ll also want to see when the product was released, and if there’s any news about another version of the item in which you’re interested coming out soon. Depending on what you’re looking for, that can mean that you get the older ones at a deal or you might find a newer, better model.
  

• Make sure that what you’re buying doesn’t have complications with assembly. If it needs to be assembled, you’ll want to have the right tools in advance for the job, or an extra set of hands if necessary. 

Thermostat

Smart thermostats give you total control of how your rooms feel, and the Nest Learning Thermostat from Google has a ton of features if you’re looking to beef-up the climate control of your home. First, it’s got an easier display to use than thermostats from other decades, with a digital display that is much easier to read than the analog models. Such devices let you know if there’s an issue (like a clogged duct or furnace troubles), let you save the cost of electricity on your home by giving you updates, and enable access that lets you change the temperature without having to walk to the unit to do so.

Smartfridge

Picture the convenience of never having to know when you’re out of a food item in your refrigerator. Samsung’s Family Hub is just that, a device that enables homeowners to know what’s in their fridge, plan when they need to pick it up, create meal plans around the contents of their fridge, and do a number of other things like integrating it with other apps or stream music while they’re deciding what to eat. Many smartfridges have touch-screens built into the door that let you interact with the device, so users who need to, say, use their phone to find a recipe might not need to do that if they can pull up said recipe via their appliance.

Portal

Facebook’s getting into the smart-device game with Portal, a video calling system that lets users communicate with clarity. Instead of using your laptop or phone to initiate a chat, Portal makes the call from it’s system. It’s advertised as letting users make up to an eight-way phone call, so you and seven other people can conference without having to actually step out of your house. 

As high-tech as its initial function may seem, Portal isn’t just for video calls though. The device has Alexa built-in so that it can double as a virtual assistant - meaning that it can play music, answer questions, or execute tasks that Alexa would be used to do. It can bring you the news and weather, see what’s going on with your home surveillance footage, or answer your door if you’ve got a video doorbell like Ring set up. It can showcase your personal photos like you use Augmented Reality to do things like play games or recreate famous childrens’ stories. 

Smartbulbs

Digital light bulbs have actually been around for a while, but not like they are today. For instance, the Revogi Smart Bulbs let users change the color of the light bulbs at will, sync them to music, alert the user when there’s a notification on their devices (like a phone call or a missed text message), or schedule the bulbs to execute a certain function at a specific time. They’re energy-efficient, with some serve as a theft deterrent, and their output is gentler on things that might fade other light bulbs, such as artworks that users are wanting to preserve.