5 Devices to Make Your Home a Smart Home

Smart homes are taking off and everyone wants to live in a house that takes care of you as much as you take care of it. Smart homes are houses which are technologically advanced to make your life easier by taking care of some mundane tasks for you. Here are five devices that can help you turn your home into a smart home.

Smart Light Bulbs:
A smart light bulb is controlled by Wi-Fi, giving you complete control of when your lights turn on and off. With smart light bulbs installed in your home, you can schedule the times when you want them to turn on and off. They can also be turned on or off when you are not home. The benefits to smart light bulbs include: turning your lights on before you get home from an evening out, saving electricity, appearing to be home if you’re on holiday by turning them on and off from your phone, making sure a light isn’t left on accidentally, and saving you from walking around from room to room and switching lights on and off. Have a look at the Phillips Hue Smart Lights here: http://ow.ly/p7mB30jDYYW

Sensibo:
This clever little device is a breath of fresh air. Sensibo can connect to any air conditioner unit and allows you to control your air conditioning unit from anywhere. This allows you to turn your air conditioners on or off remotely, saving energy or preparing your home to the ideal temperature before you arrive. Sensibo works remotely, on a schedule, or automatically with data gathered from regular patterns and settings. Read about Sensibo here: https://sensibo.com/

A Wi-Fi Video Doorbell:
We cannot always get to the door immediately but we usually have our cell phones on us. Wi-Fi video doorbells allow you to answer the door without having to move from where you are. They include a variety of features to make this dream come true and allow you to see, hear and also speak to whoever is at your door through a cell phone app. Have a look at a wide selection of Wi-Fi Video Doorbells here:  http://ow.ly/x5B730jDZ2n

Google Home:
This amazing device allows your home to become your personal assistant. It is a voice-activated smart device that can keep your schedule, create reminders and give you the weather forecast all before you leave home. Google Home is very much like Amazon’s Alexa and can tell the difference between individual voices, giving each member of the family a more personalized user experience. Read more about Google Home here: http://ow.ly/74Lu30jDZ3B

Vox Guardian Eye:
There are many options available for smart CCTV to help you keep your home safe and monitor it while you’re out of the home. One of the more popular options is the Vox Guardian Eye which allows you to connect cameras to your home Wi-Fi. The cameras are equipped with motion sensors which send a notification to your cell phone while also receiving an audio feed, giving you the freedom to monitor your home from wherever you are. Check out the Vox Guardian Eye here: http://ow.ly/M4bz30jDZ6x

The app to control them all:
Many of these smart home devices can be controlled through a cell phone app, making it easy to use them even when you’re not home. Having multiple apps to run multiple smart home devices can get confusing and takes up a lot of space on your phone. That is why there is one app to control them all. IFTTT is available for both iPhone and Android cell phones and is cleverly designed to get certain apps and smart devices working together so that you don’t have to. For example, IFTTT will turn on Phillips Hue smart lights for you when a food delivery or Uber driver arrives. Read about the IFTTT app here: https://ifttt.com/

Having a smart home doesn’t take rocket science to use or install and can help you to make your home a place to relax in. With a wide range of gadgets, gizmos, and devices currently available or coming to South Africa soon, you can quickly turn your home into an effective living space.