Do you want to live in a smart home? Are you ready to invest in a couple of useful products that will make your life easier? Here are the most useful home automation ideas for increased safety and energy efficiency!
If you’ve been putting off the process of home automation thinking it will cost a lot and won’t do much for you, this article will make you question that decision. Having an automated home comes with significant upsides that don’t come in a regular house and they can even pay off in the long run.
So, let’s get to it!
What Can I Automate at Home?
With today’s technology advancements, you can automate almost anything in your home! From lights and blinds set-ups to heating and cooling systems, home automation helps you save money on electricity bills and make your life easier. It even offers you the possibility to increase the security in your home with devices like smart doorbells, smart security cameras, and automatic locks.
How Can I Do Home Automation Myself?
If you want to explore the world of home automation without the hassle of hiring someone, there are many devices that are easy to set up yourself and simple to use.
Smart light bulbs and smart plugs are a great first do-it-yourself project for more comfortable and affordable living. Taking the DIY approach is a practical and cost effective approach to automation, allowing you to start small and learn how things work, without investing too much cash.
What Is the Best Home Automation System?
Every home is different, and everyone wants to make different parts of their life easier. By identifying for yourself what parts of your home would be best to upgrade, you can then focus on what the best automation systems are for you and your home.
Here are some ideas on home automation to help get you started designing your own, specialized smart home!
Get Smart Blinds
One of our favorite home automation ideas 2021 is automatic blinds. These automated devices come with sensors that monitor the brightness and the temperature of the room. Your blinds automatically close or open depending on these two factors, pre-set to your desirable conditions.
For example, if the day is sunny and hot, the blinds will close on their own.
If you aren’t ready to invest completely in fully automated blinds, you can buy a kit that turns your regular blinds into smart ones. This can be one of your own home automation projects as the kit can be installed without the help of a professional. Maybe it’s not totally new and automated, but it’s cost-effective and could be worth trying out before investing in new ones.
Buy a Smart Doorbell
A video doorbell is a must for any home! You can find great, affordable options on the market that help increase the security of your house. These doorbells come with cameras that allow you to see who is at your front door without having to open it, making it one of the smart home ideas that are especially perfect for houses with multiple floors.
Many smart doorbells have a feature that records and stores videos for you. This can be useful if you want to check whether somebody is lurking around your house, or if you’re going away for a longer period of time and you’re leaving your house empty.
More expensive video doorbells also include a face detection option. That’s a pretty cool home automation aspect that your doorbell tells you exactly who is at the door when they arrive.
Opt for a Smart Door Lock
Smart locks are a useful option for anyone who has ever lost their keys. In most cases, you can connect it to an app on your phone or computer, allowing you to lock and unlock doors at the press of a button. If you have a habit of coming home with your hands full of groceries, it’s much easier to simply click on the “unlock” option instead of having to search for your keys.
One more reason smart locks are part of our home automation guide — you always know if your house is locked. This is especially helpful when you’re far from home or it’s late at night and simply, you don’t want to go and check.
Just like most smart devices, smart locks come with a variety of features and scale at different prices. Those that want to maximize the security of their homes can opt for a lock that is more difficult to open. For instance, there are many great smart lock options that can be opened by using your fingerprint. What says “smart house automation” more than a fingerprint recognition smart lock?
Try Out a Smart Thermostat
Buying a smart thermostat is a very practical way to reduce your energy usage and utility bill!
Even with the simplest version, you are able to reduce the heating and cooling costs of your home, making smart thermostats one of the most efficient and coolest home automation products on the market (pun intended!).
Besides these basic features, you can also opt for more complex devices that configure ventilation systems and monitor the humidity of your house. A high-quality smart thermostat can also track your daily schedule and adjust the heating and cooling system on its own. Some even work with geo-location, monitoring your presence in the house and adjusting the temperature accordingly as you move from room to room.
Automate the Whole Home With Smart Plugs
Smart plugs are among the most popular home automation project ideas. They are inexpensive, easy to install, and make almost any device in your home automated!
Installing them allows you to adjust the lighting of your house without having to do it manually; connecting your coffee maker to a smart plug allows you to have your coffee made while you’re still in bed, or they can ensure that everything is turned off when you leave the house.
Smart Home Ideas for Lights
Some of the simplest and most energy efficient devices in home automation involve smart lighting. It’s relatively inexpensive, and installation is simple. First, think about the areas of your home where these lights will be the most useful.
You can add light automation in every room, but we recommend starting with specific areas of the home in order to first test the mechanism and see whether it works for you.
Testing out automation is a great first step because the whole point of installing home automation systems is to make life easier, not more complicated. If you’re not sure where to begin, we’ve got you!
Here are a few good ideas on what you can do with the lights in your home to make them easier to use.
Start With the Lights in Your Yard
The best place to start is in your yard. Installing an automation system in front of your house will make it so much easier for you to park your car and get to your door.
Smart yard lighting is one of the home automation ideas that make your house safer by turning lights on and off when you’re not around or setting the timer in order to make it seem as if you’re home even when you’re away.
Just like so many home automation options, this mechanism will make your electricity usage more efficient, saving you money as your lights won’t be on when you don’t need them.
Make Falling Asleep Easier
Playing with lighting is one of the best forms of simple home automation. Especially for anyone who has trouble falling asleep. If you want to make your bedroom more pleasant in the nighttime, you should opt for a system that enables you to change the lights to a warmer color before you go to bed.
By configuring the lighting to slowly dim at the same time every night using a smart LED bulb or a smart dimmer, this creates a regular routine before bed that signals to your body that it is time to go to sleep, helping you fall asleep faster.
Buy a Motion or Door Sensor
Among the most creative smart home ideas, is buying a motion or door light sensor for certain areas of your house, especially those with poor lighting or that provide access inside.
For example, the attic, garage, or basement rooms are often isolated from the rest of the house and have a higher likelihood of being broken into by intruders. Motion and door sensors make these rooms safer and more comfortable by ensuring visibility, or alerting you to unidentified movement at any time of day.
Save on Electricity Bills With a Geo-Fencing Feature
If you’ve been researching the smart home automation process for some time now, you’ll have realized that your smartphone will be a critical tool in controlling your other smart devices. One of the most valuable features you can use for automation is geo-fencing.
When you connect your phone to the lights in your house, this feature will turn them on and off based on your geographic location. For example, when you’re away from home, all of the lights will automatically turn off.
Geo-fencing is one of our favourite home automation ideas as your phone will detect that you’re coming back to the house, and turn on the lights for you. You can also configure multiple “scenarios” depending on your lighting wishes based on your geo-graphic location. This includes turning lights on and off as you move throughout your home, saving your electric bill, and making you feel like a character from Harry Potter.
How Much Does It Cost to Automate a House?
Undeniably, all the perks of having an automated house come at an initial higher price point. No matter which automation you want in your home, smart devices are more expensive than regular, non-automated versions. One study found that houses with automated thermostats and lighting saved more than 10% of electricity costs than non-automated households.
On average, an American household spends around $723.00 on home automation projects, but the cost can run up to over $100,000 depending on the devices and installations involved.
In most cases, homeowners pay between $2,000 and $7,000 on smart doorbells, plugs, light bulbs, and door locks combined. On the other hand, if you choose bigger projects that are more expensive, such as fully automated security systems, the cost could easily reach $10,000 or more.
Although this may seem like a big investment, the added security benefits and improved power efficiency can make these cool smart home ideas a financially wise decision in the long term.
Final Thoughts
Whether you are looking for simple and cost effective ideas for updating your house into a smart home, or wanting to invest in a fully automated renovation, it doesn’t have to be complicated.
Living in a smart home is fun!
Automated gadgets save energy, money, increase the safety of your house, and perhaps most importantly, make your life easier.
We hope that our home automation ideas inspired you to take the next step, and get started on your automated journey!
