What is the first thing that comes into your mind when you think of hosting a party? For some, it’s to walk around their house, making sure everyone is entertained. For others is to set the lights and sound, prepare food and drinks, and or lock all your valuables away.
People love a good party. It makes them feel good and gets them in a better mood. However, most hosts forget that the mood of the home can have a huge impact on how people feel. If your guests don’t feel comfortable around you or your house, chances are they will have bad memories of your party.
You can now make your home a hub for parties by using home automation. These systems can help you throwing that amazing party that you’ve always wanted.
How? Here are some ways it can help
INSTANTLY CHANGE PARTY MOODS
In a previous article, we talked about how a hidden benefit to owning a smart home is being the life of the party. We talked about the concept of scenes and what their use. Still, we did not talk about HOW they can help you. Imagine for a second you are about to throw a party; the party starts at 6:30pm with dinner; afterwards there will be a little drinking (yeah right!), and some dancing to top the night off at midnight.
From the guests’ perspective, this sounds great. Enough time for snacks, a good dinner, some drinks, and then some late-night socializing. For the host, on the other hand, it means changing the lights constantly, setting different moods, different music and walking all over the place.
What if we could completely change the mood from “DINNER” to “LATE PARTY” by pressing a single button? What if changing the music, or the device playing it, was as simple as tapping your tablet or iphone? Well, all of this is possible, in home automation, this functionality is called “scenes.”
Creating scenes is a function available for the majority of home automation systems, although can add different capabilities. For example, Neocontrol’s system, allows for unlimited scenes. This means you can have a scene for ‘pre-dinner aperitif’, a second one for ‘dinner’, another for ‘late-night party, one for “guests’ arrival” and more! Stay where you are and give each guest your full attention. This way they will remember your party as having an awesome mood, and an attentive host!
YOUR HOME IS YOUR HOST
Remember those sci-fi movies, like Star Wars or Star Trek? The characters there could talk to a robot that would reply “BE-BE-BEEPP” and then follow an order. Well, while we haven’t gotten the BEEP sound yet (thank goodness) we can safely say we are at the point where we can make them do what we want.
Take Amazon Echo, and their voice recognition persona, Alexa. Alexa makes mundane tasks easier and fun! You can ask her to look up for recepies for your dinner, order a cab for your guest or play a song for you. Now, Alexa is also compatible with some home automation systems, so you can ask her to change the lighting, temperature and more! Some more complex ways to use your home are also available, for example, with the popular service IFTTT (If this, then that) the user can assign cues to change the lights, from nice and quiet to party mode!
Your home can essentially be a party assistant. Need to open the doors for the guests? You can set a smart lock that registers specific keys. This means that you can give each host specific keys on their phone that allows them to open the front door. Not invited, or don’t have a key? Don’t get in!
Amazing… Now you can grab a drink and relax while you let your smart home do all the work. Long are the days where the host had to walk all over the house to check how everyone is doing. No more having to be a doorman. No more worrying about the orchestrator and trying to fix all the little things before the guests notice.
This isn’t exaggerated. Home automation is here now, and it’s here to stay. Enjoy your party, have fun with your guests, and let your home automation system take care of the rest.