How to Boost your Smart Home’s IQ – Tips for Smart Home Living

As consumers we now have the option to integrate technology into just about every  household item or fixture we choose. With some thoughtful consideration and setup, smart home technology can seamlessly integrate into your daily routine.

Walking in with an armful of groceries? Now you can put on the light without putting down your bags. Want the house to be warm when you get back from work in the winter? You can automate that. Want to remotely monitor your home while you travel? There’s a smart home app for that as well. Aside from making your life easier and your home safer, smart home tech can also save you money. By taking advantage of low off-peak energy pricing, it can calculate when to heat your home so that you get home to a warm house without having to foot the bill because everyone else wants to do the same.

At the Paragon our living spaces feature IOTAS integration, google nest smart thermostats, and come with smart switches, smart outlets, door sensors, motion sensors, IOTAS learns from and can be programmed to support your daily routine by automating your actions.

If you’re new to smart home living here are a few tips for beginners:

• Pick a Smart Home System and Stick to it – Think of it like an operating system for your computer, you’ll want to select devices that are all compatible. Amazon’s Alexa is a popular choice and its widespread popularity means you’ll have better options when it comes to connected devices. As you accumulate devices like smart TVs and even things like smart toaster ovens, these will all become part of your smart home ecosystem.
• Have a reliable network – Smart homes run on the internet of things, and if you don’t have internet, they don’t run. So investing in a good router is a worthwhile endeavor.
• IFTTT is your friend – This simple app is a great way to get all of your smart home devices to play nice, automating complex workflows and bridging gaps between some non-compatible systems. Want your alarm to go off ten minutes earlier if the weather is crummy enough to impact your commute? IFTTT can do that and brew you a coffee to go along with your cold slog to work.
• Read the instructions – In the end the time you save will likely dwarf the half an hour or so needed to thoroughly familiarize yourself with your smart home system’s capabilities. No one likes to spend time reading manuals, but your smart home is ultimately only as smart as you are.

You don’t need everything – Like all technology, smart home tech can potentially create more problems than it solves.Think carefully about your life, your daily habits, and how the technology will functionally impact your day-to-day. If you always seem to forget your grocery list, a smart fridge that reminds you is a great idea. But if you’re on top of your shopping those reminder updates from your smart fridge can and will become a nuisance.