Ah, the automated home! It can reduce your energy bills, and increase your savings; it can make you a delicious cup of coffee even before you entered the kitchen, as well as spare you of a midnight trip downstairs to turn off all the lights. But, can it increase your productivity and help you getting things done on time?
The home automation market is expanding at an astonishing rate. As of 2017, market penetration rate is at 17% and projected to reach 34% in 2021. However, numbers can’t speak for themselves; so, in this article we will present some reasons why so many people are becoming part of the smart-home community, how this technology is saving them money and freeing their time allowing them to do more, be that for their work-lives, family or friends.
Create Morning & Night Rituals
Are you a morning person? Do you wake up at 6am, have some coffee and off you go? Or, do you stay in bed, snoozing your alarm clock until noon? Regardless, home automation can save you the hassle of having to do many of the daily annoying little things, the ones that make you think, “Ugh, I’ll just sleep 5 more minutes…” Even if it never turns out to be 5 minutes. Why not changing that and automating things from your bed, freeing your life from those chores.
Make things even easier! Certain products allow you to control your whole house, customizing some devices to create a mood, or scene. For example, you can set a “Morning scene” by turning on specific lights inside your house, raising the blinds, setting your house to the right temperature, and starting your coffee machine. All of this by pressing a simple button on your phone or wall switch, as easy as that! You can also simplify your nighttime routine. Press one single button to turn off all the lights in your house, set the temperature any way you like, lower the blinds, and get ready for a cozy night’s sleep.
Routines are an easy way to get your day started. They can help you creating structure, and structure is essential if you wish to get all your tasks done. Furthermore, they can eliminate distraction making it easier to focus on your daily goals.
Control your Home from Anywhere, and Live the Every Moment.
Have you ever stressed over thinking that you left the garage door open? What about cancelling your plans last minute because you needed to go back home in a hurry? Home automation can help you avoiding these situations by giving you control of your home from anywhere. This way you can worry less about what might be happening at home and help you taking advantage of the moment.
For this purpose, you should take into consideration your system’s protocol compatibility (protocols are the language used to communicate several home-automation devices). Higher compatibility allows for greater customization. In other words, a home automation system with many protocols will give you more control over your house, from your lighting to your doors.
Bonus Tip: A smart lock allows you to lock and unlock your door outside of your home. There are many smart locks with video camera compatibility and they can be integrated to certain home automation systems.
Automate your Habits
With functionalities, such as having a delicious cup of coffee ready as soon as you open the door of your house, home automation makes your habits more streamline than ever. Less time wasted setting the right temperature for your home means more time for the important tasks needed to be done.
Habits follow the principle of a cue, a routine and a reward. Most people are partially conscious of the routine, but they rarely know the cue, and sometimes they are even ignorant of the reward. With a home automation system, you can keep yourself more accountable by finding out what cue is effecting a negative habit, then, using that same system to change the bad habit to a positive. The opportunities are endless.
Bonus Tip: habits take up to 45% of our day unconsciously. That is what makes getting rid of bad habits hard. With a home automation system, you can change your life so that if for example you want to improve your sleeping habits, you can preset your lighting and other devices automatically, and not having to think about it again. Live the life you want to live.
In short, smart home systems are going to be the next big thing, just like the smartphone in the mid-2000s. As more products become compatible with home automation systems there will be more opportunities to increase productivity. However, even now, there is enough opportunities to live a life designed by you. Stop wondering where your day went and start taking control… Both inside your home, and outside.