STACK #185 Mar 2020

e mart Get Smart G t art et aart Get Smar LIFE TECH FEATURE

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Have you ever considered automating your house to make life just that little bit easier? Join the smart home revolution. Words Bec Summer

B ruce Lee famously said, “If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of”. Streamlining our busy lives to grant us more time with family and friends is a perennial quest. Throughout the 20th century, electricity made affordable domestic automation ubiquitous, making arduous manual chores around the house infinitely easier. In the 21st century, we’ve taken another step forward with smart home connectivity that won’t break the bank. Once the preserve of the wealthy, installing an automated home was also a complicated business of networking and wiring. Today, the task is so easy that even your grandmother could do it. But what is a smart home and why do you need one? Chances are you’ve probably heard the words ‘smart home’ or ‘connected home’ bandied around a lot lately. Having a house that connects devices via an online network is becoming increasingly more popular. These devices can include lighting, smart speakers, televisions, window sensors, security systems and even garden irrigation! The advantages of having a smart home ecosystem are many.

For starters, it’s convenient – with a simple command on your smartphone you can kill all the lights in a house, or dim them for a movie; raise all the blinds and even switch on the kettle from the comfort of your bed. It just makes day-to-day living that little bit easier and it’s only going to get better – and smarter. The positives for those looking to begin the transition to a smart home are price and installation. Firstly, you won’t need a loan to begin investing in smart devices and it’s always worth remembering the old adage: Rome wasn’t built in a day. Begin by adding some smart plugs, door sensors or a few lights and like any collection, slowly scale it up. Decide what part of the home you want automated first and work towards a goal. It might be your entertainment space or a security system. Secondly, the days of having to call out an expensive IT specialist to help with set up are long gone. We can’t stress how easy it is to install and link smart lights or door sensors. All you need is the Internet, a smartphone

accessible in 2020 that even the most ardent Luddite in the household could set up a smart home. Getting Started So, you’ve decided to take the plunge. The first thing you’ll need to decide is which ecosystem you want to use to control your smart home. What does this mean, we hear you ask? It’s a hub that manages all of your devices, and the four we’re going discuss here are Google

and an app, and then literally just follow the prompts. Tech has been made so

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MARCH 2020

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