How to Lay the Groundwork for a Smart Home You Can Control with Your Android

Smart homes are still in their infancy, but their potential has captured the attention of many. You can cut down on energy costs, make your home efficient, safer and enjoy many fun features that make it feel like you live in the future. From being able to change the lights by voice command, to setting different music to play throughout your home. You can do so much with a smart home that can be controlled either with your voice or with your trusty Android Smartphone.

The Benefits of a Smart Home

There are so many benefits of a smart home, for example –

Increased Safety Capabilities

Smart security cameras, smart alarms and more all work to provide you with a safer and more secure home. For example, an alarm that can send out alerts for help, to your chosen emergency contacts, to fire alarms that also include lights that will help you find your way out even if smoke were to blind your exits. There are so many ways that smart home features make your property safer.

Improved Energy Efficiency

Energy efficiency is certainly one of the most common reasons why people want to invest in smart systems. From a central heating and HVAC system that can detect when you leave and are coming home, to a sprinkler system that lets you use the least amount of water most effectively – you will safe huge on utilities.

Fun Home Features

Some smart home features are simply fun. From a personal assistant to smart speakers, you can make your home easy to entertain whether you are by yourself or hosting a party.

How a Traditional Smart Home Works

A traditional smart home will work by installing a variety of smart features like sensors, cameras, speakers and more into the home. All these devices will connect to a hub that you can access and control from your phone.

However, these hubs can be expensive, but thankfully they are not the only way to set up and start enjoying your very own smart home. Many smart products today can work with other smart products even without the hub, and you can customize commands online for free with very little know-how.

All you need is a great internet connection and to ensure that the smart gadgets you invest in are all compatible with one another from the start.

What You Will Need Before You Begin

What you will need to make any smart home system work is a means to control it. Usually a smartphone like an android is a great control method. More importantly than your phone, however, is a strong internet connection.

This means checking the signal strength of your internet in all corners of your home, and if it is sub-par, to investigate new ways to improve the signal once and for all. Thankfully, there are options available regardless of your budget. You can opt for a router separately or find a combined model for your ISP. If you are with Comcast, for example, then finding the best modern router combo for Comcast is a must.

This second option still gives you good internet and it will be more than enough to fuel your smart home. It also happens to be easier to set up, meaning that you don’t need to be an IT specialist in order to get your smart home up and running.

How to Build Slowly and Create Your Own Smart Home

The reason why you should invest in compatible smart gadgets over a single system connected to a hub, is that you can build up slowly and within your budget. Start with lightbulbs and then eventually upgrade to a smart thermostat or assistant.

There are so many ways you can customize your home. Simply start with the gadget that you need in your home the most and work by necessity upwards. Just some of the options you can install into you home include:

1. Smart Lighting

There are different components to smart lighting. There are smart bulbs, smart switches and smart plugs. If you put a smart bulb into a traditional switch, then its capabilities are severely limited. Smart switches are intended for light switches and ceiling lights, some smart plugs for lamps. Smart lights can change the color and intensity of the light, and with sensors installed, they can also turn off and on as you leave and enter the room.

2. Smart Assistants

Smart assistants are probably what really kicked off the smart home movement. Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Home Assistant are two of the most popular on the market, which is why you will also see these assistants feature in some of the smart products you can buy today.

You can also use your smart assistant as a hub if you don’t always want to keep your android on you. In this case, your android will be key to informing your smart home you are arriving and coming home, meaning it can heat or cool your property so that the temperature is perfect for when you arrive.

3. Smart Thermostats

Smart thermostats are one of the most interesting gadgets in this list because it simultaneously makes your home more comfortable and can help you save big on energy savings. Not only can your smart thermostat work on a timer, it can also work based on your location, by turning off when you leave home and turning back on when you return.

With sensors, you can also set it to work in the rooms you are in, rather than heating or cooling your entire property.

4. Smart Security Cameras and Sensors

With smart cameras and sensors, you can enjoy many safety features. From small benefits like lights that turn on when you get home, to being able to see a live feed of who comes up to your house. You can even set up smart locks so that when people you know (like a handyman) can enter your home without needing a key.

5. Smart Detection Alarms

Smart detection alarms do so much more than your old fire or carbon monoxide alarms. If there is a fire, your system can send out alerts to emergency contacts including the fire department, but you can set up who it contacts with the alert. They also often feature lights so that you can always find you way out even if smoke clouds your way.

6. Smart Irrigation Systems

Keep your grass and gardens well irrigated without unnecessarily wasting money with a smart irrigation system that will water at the best times and only if necessary.

7. Using If This Then That

If you don’t have a hub, then you will want to set up a series of commands for your smart home. Thankfully, this can be done online and for free with what is known as If This Then That, or IFTTT. Simply sign up for free and set up various commands from your phone. If you come home then turn the heating on, for example. If you leave a room, turn off the lights.

These are very simple commands made easier with the IFTTT interface that you can control with your android.

Your android will be able to control your entire home and let you enjoy location-based features. You will be able to turn on your home when you are ten minutes away rather than when you expect to be home and save day after day. There are so many ways you can control and use your Android to improve your smart home features, and once you begin, you’ll only be able to build on your smart home as time goes on.