Home Improvement

Common Smart Home Devices

As the world moves towards a technologically advanced age, the use of smart home devices has been on the rise, alongside certain accompanying products that enhance their capabilities as well.

Smart home devices are categorized as those that connect to the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or a Hub, providing wireless control of devices to users. They are what is taking the market by storm as of recent and you would find that on average almost many households in America have at least one smart home device. There are several categories, ranging from something like smart kitchen appliances such as smart ovens and coffee makers to smart thermostats, sprinkler controllers, and even garage door openers for that matter.

These devices bring with them the level of convenience a domestic user wouldn’t know they needed. They are great for easy home automation, providing remote control access to devices within the home from miles away, and are the perfect measure for boosting home security.

Here are some smart home devices that are commonly bought among domestic users.

Smart Lights

Smart lighting exists as a general category with numerous products under it such as smart bulbs, smart light strips, floodlights, and even smart lamps. Smart lighting enables all kinds of products under that general category to be able to be controlled via smartphones, tablets, Central Hubs, and even sync with your voice assistants such as Google Assistant and Alexa, enabling voice control. Just tell your voice assistant to turn your lights on and off and it will do just that! Similarly, you can switch the lights off from your phone while you’re already in bed as well.

Certain Smart LED bulbs have the ability to change colors according to your preferences – anything from warm and white tones, to colorful shades as well. With a smartphone application on your devices, you can also control your lights from almost anywhere, whether you are at home or away! This will help you save up on your energy bill and is especially great if you’re someone who occasionally forgets to turn the lights off.

A device that can be synced to your light bulbs or smart lights is the Wiz Motion Sensor. With the Wiz motion sensor, users can easily configure the motion sensor with the light bulbs and enable them to turn on and off anytime they detect movement. So when you’re entering a room, the motion sensor will detect the motion and turn it  on, while it may also turn off the lights if there is no movement for a certain amount of time. This is a very helpful feature for those that occasionally make their way to the kitchen in the middle of the night or even with small children and elderly individuals as it helps to keep them safe and secure and avoid tripping over or injuring themselves in the dark.

Smart Voice Assistants

Smart Voice Assistants are trending because of how easy they are to use as well as how they can be configured with almost every device and help them enable voice control whether that is already a pre-existing feature of a particular device or not.

Two of the most popular smart voice assistants currently are the Google Assistant and the Amazon Alexa. These two voice assistants are compatible with almost every smart home device not only are they available on their respective smartphone brands, but they are also featured in smart speakers.

If you have a number of people in your family using the voice assistant don’t worry about information getting altered or mixed up because both Google and Amazon Alexa allow for multiple users in their systems – which means they can identify different voices and recognize who’s who. Google refers to this feature as Voice Match.

Since Voice assistants are now normally found within smart speakers they can allow users to play and stream music as well as videos and podcasts on the speaker itself or any device like the Smart TV or a tablet that is connected. The great thing about voice assistants is that as speakers they are also very portable. That means you can take them outside when you’re having a picnic with your friends and even to other places – and lounge around while listening to your favorite songs or using any of the other voice assistant features that you would need, such as setting reminders, carrying out internet searches, checking traffic situations before you head home; you get the picture. Both Google Home and Amazon Alexa support various music streaming services as well such as Apple Music, Deezer, Spotify, and even YouTube.

What Other Smart Home Devices Are Useful?

  1. video doorbells
  2. smart locks
  3. smart cameras
  4. smart plugs

Final thoughts

The Smart Home category is quite vast, and there are numerous devices that homeowners would find fitting for their homes and lifestyle. Head on over to FirstEnergy Home’s website www.firstenergyhome.com. You’ll find an entire catalog of smart home devices that are affordable and would be very useful when installed into your homes!