If you haven't added smart technology to your home, you're missing out. My family and I have many smart home items that make our lives easier and help us save money. We have cameras that allow us to monitor exterior of our home remotely. Our thermostat can turn itself down to keep our energy costs down. We also tech that allows us to tell us weather, news and play music all over our home. Smart thermostats that allow us to change the temperature of our home. Once you have smart items installed in your home, you wouldn't be able to live without them. Setting up a smart home is very easy, but you need to have the right smart home hub to make it easy to control all of your connected devices. There are several brands of hubs on the market, some you probably already own. Check out my list of favorite smart home hubs, so you can get started creating and enjoying your own smart home.
Before we proceed, understand there are a large number of companies that are competing for your smart home dollars and many of these devices will not work together unless you purchase all of their products or get smart hub system that works with every smart home product on the market. Also, some smart home hubs are wireless and others need to be connected to a router. With that in mind, let's move on. Also, keep in mind before you think about setting up a smart home, make sure you have strong wifi coverage all over your house. If you have spotty wifi, there are a number of devices you can purchase to give you a strong wifi signal.
1. Amazon Echo Dot. I know a lot of you probably already own an Echo Dot, courtesy of Christmas gifts, Mother's/Father's Day or birthday gifts, but it is a great, cheap way to start with a smart home. Yes, it's true that it's main function is a speaker for Amazon Alexa. The Dot is the easiest to control because it uses your voice to connect your smart home devices. The Echo Dot and Echo is completely wireless which means you can place your hub anywhere in your home.
2. Samsung SmartThings Hub. The SmartThings Hub allows you to connect smart home devices from different companies. Setting up new devices is easy because the SmartThings Hub will automatically detect smart home tech. Without this feature, you would have to log into the account you setup for each device to add it to your smart home. This feature is handy if you have already purchased smart home devices and you want to connect them all with one system. SmartThings also allows you to customize the way you can setup your smart home. You also use the SmartThings hub wirelessly allowing you to place it anywhere in your home. Samsung also offers a SmartThings Wifi, which is a wireless router. This means you can have once less piece of equipment in your home to worry about because the router can connect all of your smart home devices together.
3. Google Home. The Google Home smart speaker works the same as the Amazon Echo Dot. The major benefit for choosing Google Home over the Echo Dot is that Google Home works seamlessly with Google produced Smart Home products.
4. Apple HomePod. If you're a fan of Apple and have a lot of Apple devices, you will want to go with the HomePod. You get the some voice control options like you would with the Echo Dot or Google Home with Siri. Your Apple friendly devices can be setup very easily but the HomePod isn't cheap and there are a limited amount of smart home products that work with the HomePod.
There's no denying smart home products can make your life better. If you have a busy family, they help you save time. For older adults, a smart home can help you age at home longer and help you with your daily life.
Do you have smart home products? How have you incorporated them into your home?
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