I am a big fan of smart home technology. On the positive side, home automation lets me do some incredible things with both smart and dumb devices. On the negative side, the rest of my family couldn’t care less about smart home tech. So I don’t really have anyone to commiserate with.
Here is one thing I try to convey when talking about home automation: even the simplest devices can amaze. Take the basic smart plug. It can make a dumb device smart. It could give you the opportunity to control that device from anywhere in the world. Depending on the plug’s capabilities, you could also program the device to do a variety of things.
I chose the smart plug as my example because so many people mistakenly believe that all you can do with it is turn a lamp on or off. My friend, that’s just the start. There are all sorts of simple devices with extended capabilities that will blow your mind. It’s really just a matter of learning how to use them. Although you can invest in a top-of-the-line system from a company like Vivint, you don’t have to. It is okay to keep things simple.
Christmas Lights: A Basic Example
Let me try to illustrate the point with the most basic example I can think of. It comes by way of a ZDNet article I recently read. Contributor Maria Diaz wrote the article as a review of the Kasa Smart Plug Ultra Mini. For the record, though I have several Kasa smart plugs in my home, I don’t have that particular model. But I am very familiar with the brand.
Anyway, one of the things Diaz covered in her piece was a plan to power the Christmas tree lights this coming season with one of her new plugs. You might think that’s no big deal. Think again. She’s going to program the plug to turn the lights on just before the kids get home from school. The program will also turn the lights off at bedtime.
I love Christmas lights. We decorate our home with great enthusiasm. And I know from my own experience what a drag it is to walk around the house plugging in light strings every evening, then turning around and unplugging them all before bed. Like Diaz, I don’t do that anymore. All of my lights are controlled by simple smart plugs. They are all programmed, so I don’t have to worry about them at all.
Voice Control Makes Them Even Better
Another simple device is the smart speaker. You can buy one, plug it in, and start using it. Smart speakers require very little setup. And the setup they do require is guided by the speaker itself. I have two smart speakers that I managed to set up in mere minutes.
I bring this up because adding voice control to my smart plugs makes the plugs even better. How so? Let’s go back to the Christmas lights example.
On New Year’s Eve, I won’t be going to bed at my usual time. Yet the Christmas lights will shut off at the expected hour. Do I need to get up from the couch, wander around the house, and manually turn the lights back on? No. I won’t even have to pull out my phone. I will simply say, “turn on Christmas lights” and my home automation system will do it.
The Cumulative Effect Is Noticeable
When I first got into home automation, I was talking to my adult son about it. At that time, my system consisted of just two light switches and a couple of plugs. I hadn’t learned how to set up routines at that point. So instead, I was using my phone to control my lights. My son was demonstrably unimpressed.
I get it. Pulling out my phone to turn lights on and off seemed like a waste of time when I could just go over to the wall switch and press the button. But then I learned how to automate. I also started adding new devices to my system. Now I enjoy the cumulative effect of all that work. And believe me, the cumulative effect is very noticeable.
My big thing is voice control. I can now control every device in my system merely by speaking. That means I can:
- Turn lights on and off
- Start and stop the irrigation system
- Control my thermostat
- Lock and unlock the door
- Turn on the TV and select a specific channel
- Play music – both streamed and locally hosted
I can control all my devices remotely as well. While I am away on vacation, I can view my video feeds in real time. But it gets even better. Home automation can even help me with things that don’t involve electronic devices.
Help Me Remember Things
The older I get, the easier it is to forget things. But once I figured out how to add SMTP capabilities to my home automation system, forgetting things became a thing of the past. Regularly scheduled events – like paying monthly bills – now exist in my home automation system as reminders. The system sends me an email two days before the event.
For one-off reminders, I can instruct my smart speaker with a voice command. I can tell it to remind me to switch the laundry in an hour or pull the ribs out of the freezer tomorrow morning. I can set reminders for the next hour, the next day, or even a year from now.
It All Adds Up to a Lot
I rely on a combination of an open-source home automation system and two smart speakers from Amazon. Between them, I can do an awful lot in terms of automation. It all adds up to an entirely different life compared to what things were like before I embarked on the smart home path. I will say this: I would never want to go back. Even the simplest devices have changed the way I live.
