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Technology has become an unavoidable part of today’s life, and it has taken over our homes too. Features of smart homes are not a matter of luxury but become a necessity nowadays. Whether you are doing a full home renovation or even just looking to upgrade a few attributes, adding smart technology can enable better usability, convenience, and energy efficiency in your home.
Here are the 10 best smart features in smart house renovation in the USA.
1. Smart Thermostats
A smart thermostat is a wireless thermostat that can be controlled and scheduled remotely through smartphone apps or voice commands. Mainly these devices use geofencing to detect whether you have landed or departed from home. Based on this, it would adjust temperatures when you are not around to reduce energy consumption. The smart thermostats gives detailed energy usage reports too making us aware of the energy spent.
Leading brands are Ecobee, and Honeywell. Rather than being costly at first, smart thermostats can result in lower utility costs through the features of intelligent scheduling, remote access, and energy-saving functions.
2. Smart Lightings
Similarly, smart lighting systems provide an opportunity to have full control of the home's lights using a smartphone app, voice commands, and automatic schedules. For example, Philips Hue, LIFX, and Lutron Caséta are among the top choices because you can control light brightness, scenes, and even colors to create a certain mood.
Wi-Fi smart bulbs and switches work independently and fit into your existing apartment/office lighting/power system. Some of the key benefits are remote access, customizable lighting schedules, energy saving with automatic shut-offs, and controllability with other smart home devices.
Many people use connected devices with voice control such as Alexa and Google Home. Despite a beginning investment, smart lighting gives long-term energy cost savings that are superior to the savings of conventional lighting.
3. Home Security Cameras
Home security cameras are the most important features in modern smart home security systems and the best ways to make sure your house is safe. This kind of Wi-Fi-enabled camera enables you to keep watch of your house from anywhere with the help of a smartphone app. They can also be connected to other smart home gadgets such as lights and locks, to make the more secure place. The ease of installation, smart mobile integration, and continuous firmware updates make these the best smart home innovations. Brands such as Arlo and Ring give users a chance to use motion detection alerts, two-way audio, night vision, and saved video to the cloud. Home Security cameras with AI technology can recognize and differentiate objects of specific classes like people, animals, and vehicles.
4. Smart locks
The smart lock is a core of the state-of-the-art smart home security systems which empower you to control and monitor your home entrance remotely. The smart locks are either Wifi or Bluetooth enabled and can be unlocked either with a smartphone app, voice commands, or even biometrics like fingerprints.
The most popular brands are August, Schlage, and Kwikset. Smart locks offer keyless entry convenience with the opportunity to generate and share digital keys with family members, guests, or even service providers. Many of them combine with CCTVs and lighting for complete protection. You can get notifications when the lock is engaged/disengaged, and the log of entry events is available to be viewed.
5. Smart Appliances
The smart appliances deliver the added benefits of convenience, energy conservation, and the latest advanced options. Smart refrigerators can create a grocery list from the contents, suggest recipes, and even automatically order groceries.
Smart ovens enable you to preheat, monitor cooks progress, and adjust settings via your Smartphone. Washers and dryers can be started, paused, or cycle customized remotely. Many smart appliances come in a package with virtual assistants like Alexa for voice control. Energy monitoring allows us to optimize energy usage and save money.
The top brands in smart appliances are Samsung, LG, GE, and Whirlpool.
6. Automated Window Treatments
Automated window treatments, or smart shades/blinds for short, are the latest in home improvement that allows you to operate your home's window either by remote control or voice commands through Alexa or Google Assistant to raise, lower, or adjust the position of the shades.
Top brands of smart shades products are Lutron, Hunter Douglas, and Somfy connect to market-wide smart home systems like Alexa, Google Home, and Apple HomeKit. Major benefits incorporate more privacy, energy savings that come from sunlight blockage, and convenience which comes as a function of custom timings.
7. Smart Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Detectors
The smart smoke and carbon monoxide detectors will alert you about smoke or potentially dangerous CO even when you're not at home. They are operated over WIFI.
They can also be programmed to turn off HVAC systems upon sensing danger. Contrasted with previously used technology, their intelligent sensors can better discern between types of smoke and reduce the number of false alarms.
8. Smart Irrigation Systems
The new age of water-efficient and smart irrigation systems comprises an innovative solution to ensure your garden and lawn stay green. They allow the use of Wi-Fi-enabled controllers which are designed to monitor via a mobile app or a web interface hosted by the same devices.
The key characteristics of smart irrigation systems include weather-based scheduling that customizes watering based on the rainfall and temperature data from the micro-location. Sensors of soil moisture turn the water flow switch on when the soil is dry and therefore they help avoid overwatering. They only activate, when it’s really dry. Leak detection involves constant flow monitoring which will ensure you of any hazardous leakage or broken piping.
Top brands are Rachio, Orbit, and RainMachine, among others, which provide automatic irrigation with zone controls that are advanced, along with an EPA WaterSense certification for water savings. They often share connectivity with other smart home systems.
Moreover, smart irrigation systems that can remote control can save almost 50% of water consumption and utility bills when they are compared with timer-based controllers.
9. Smart Home Audio Systems
Smart home audio makes it possible to spread music, podcasts, or other audio files across rooms, giving you a continuous audio stream with convenient control of all speakers. Normally these systems include speakers for different rooms which are connected via (wired or wireless) and controlled with one central device or smartphone app.
Popular brands that are already big in audio systems such as Sonos, Bose, and Control4 provide quality sound with high definition quality. Scheduling of speakers through time is super simple if you want to simultaneously play audio on all speakers or have slightly different content for different rooms. Many are synchronized with the most used music and radio services such as Spotify, Pandora, and Apple Music.
10. Smart Water Heater
Smarter water heaters are an energy-efficient electronic device that facilitates controlling and monitoring your water heater at any time and anywhere. It eliminates the necessary operation of temperature maintenance of the tank. Most of these models collect usage information and provide alerts on regular maintenance requirements as well. Smart water heaters can be a great tool to decrease energy usage and utility bills.
Conclusion
The incorporation of smart home features into your renovation task makes the ambiance of your house more pleasant, easier to operate, and secure, and the value of your house may significantly increase. Future technological advancement will just add other opportunities in which your house will be more automated and connected than before.
So why wait? If you are ready to modernize your home, Urban Refurbishment is ready to assist you...
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