Is a Smart Home Worth a Try?

Most of us love technology, except when our kids won’t come off their devices or when the WIFI is playing up… So, for the tech-confident amongst us, the idea of a ‘smart home’ might appeal. Others might dread the idea of having a house that might feel like it has a life of its own, or they might not even be familiar with what a smart home is. Whatever your starting point, we thought we’d explore whether it’s a good time to turn your home into a smart home.

What is a smart home?

A smart home is a home that allows you to control aspects such as its heating, lighting, security, TV, sound systems, and a vacuum cleaner using an app or ‘hub’ that is connected to all these devices and appliances by WIFI. You can control these appliances using voice commands or by touching the relevant icons on a specialized smart home App. All of these devices and appliances need to be ‘smart’, meaning that they can be controlled by signals sent by WIFI. So you could probably use your existing smart TV as part of a new system, for example, but not an older TV that couldn’t connect to the internet. Although the original smart home technology dates back to the 1960s or 1970s, depending on who you talk to, it’s only really in the last 20 years that smart homes have become something that you don’t have to be a supercomputer programmer to have. And, if you want to be technical about it, although some people use the terms ‘smart home system’ and ‘smart home hub’ interchangeably, they’re slightly different. With a smart home system, users can control all their smart appliances using an app on their phone or tablet but, with a smart home hub, users need to control everything using a specially-designed hub. These hubs are generally about the size of a WIFI modem or Apple TV box.

Do you need one?

The majority of smart homes are owned by people under 50 years of age, with about 40% owned by people under 35 years old. So they’re more likely to appeal to people who are comfortable with a lot of technology in the house. If you want a smart home you will need powerful and reliable WIFI – in a smart home the WIFI acts like the nervous system of a human body, sending signals around it so that the various body parts know what to do. So, without decent WIFI a smart home system would be pointless, as it wouldn’t work very well and would end up being more of a hindrance than a help. But for someone who is comfortable with tech and has good WIFI, a smart home could be a serious option. And the options are limitless. You could have a home in which all, or just a few, of your devices and appliances were controllable by touch or voice command.

Benefits of a smart home

A smart home offers many advantages over a traditional home (which will presumably be called a ‘stupid home’ in the future!). There are many examples of this. For example, a smart sprinkler system would receive weather updates and so wouldn’t water the garden before a forecasted rainstorm. With a smart door lock you could open your front door remotely if your child had forgotten their key and had told you they were going to get home before you. A smart light system could sequentially turn on lights in different rooms when you were on holiday so that it looked like someone was at home. Some smart devices can use artificial intelligence and embedded sensors to learn and adapt how they work. So, for example, a smart doorbell with a camera could learn to recognize your frequent visitors and tell you if a stranger was at the door. Smart devices can also communicate. That means that a smart window could notify an AC system that it was open and trigger the AC to shut off to avoid needlessly wasting energy. A motion sensor could communicate with lights so that they switched off when no one was in the room to save power here as well.

Disadvantages of a smart home

If there were only positives to having a smart home, everyone would have one, so clearly they’re not without their disadvantages. The first one, and it’s a big one, is the cost. Unless all the devices and appliances in your home are smart, not everything will work together. So, to set up a smart home most people would need to replace a lot of their appliances and devices. Your TV is probably already a smart one but is your washing machine, your air con system, your lighting system, for example? A smart home hub (the brain of the home) might only cost about $150, but each smart light switch in the house could cost you $60-$200. Smart door locks are priced between $200 and $1000. The costs soon stack up. Additionally, setting up the devices and appliances can be time-consuming and complicated. Not all devices will work with both iOS (Apple phones) and Android (other phones). However, most manufacturers have agreed to use ‘Matter’, a universal language for smart devices so that moving forward most smart devices should communicate with whatever App you use. And one other drawback to consider – if your WIFI isn’t functioning you won’t be able to use most smart appliances. Some people also have concerns about security and privacy – what if you control your home, including the front door lock, through your phone and someone steals it?

Smart home or not smart home?

Due to the costs of fully setting up your home as a smart home, we wouldn’t recommend you doing that right now unless you’re a real tech buff who wants to be ahead of the crowd. Instead, you could consider buying smart plugs, which effectively convert any wired appliance into a ‘smart’ appliance which can be turned on or off with a voice command or the tap on an App. Plugs like these range from $50-200 each but are likely to become cheaper over time. Although the functionality is very limited with a smart plug, it’s a good way of trialling a smart system to see if it’s something that you’d find useful. And rather than replace all your conventional appliances with smart ones immediately, we’d suggest that, as an example, you replace your conventional washing machine with a smart one as it reaches the end of its life. That way you can gradually transform your home into a smart home. Just make sure that you check that these appliances or devices would be compatible if they need to work together. Who knows, maybe in 20 years we’ll only be able to buy smart devices and appliances and the conventional home will be a think of the past. Your system could be set up so that your aircon knows when you’re 5 minutes from home, so your living room is nicely cooled by the time you get back!