Sunday 10 November 2019

Are Smart Homes Worth the Investment?

Exterior of a two-story blue and white house at dusk with the interior lights on.
Breadmaker/ShutterStock

Converting to a smart home might seem expensive and complicated at first, but do the benefits outweigh the cost and hassle? Let’s check out why setting up a smart home is a good investment of your time and money.

Convenience for (Nearly) Everyone

An Echo Spot, Google Home, Smart bulb and smart plug on a wooden surface.
Josh Hendrickson

When you install smart lights, plugs, thermostats, and more, you add a great deal of convenience to your home. It isn’t that you’re incapable of getting off the couch and flipping a light switch, it’s that you’ve given yourself the option of not heading to the light switch.

We all accept a certain level of convenience in our lives. People generally don’t need electricity and light switches. Yet, you don’t often hear the argument that electrical lighting is the product of laziness, and people should use candles instead. Smart lights and other smart gadgets are just a natural extension of that progress.

When you start watching a movie, only to realize you’d prefer the lights to be dimmed or turned off, you’ll appreciate the convenience of making that happen without having to interrupt the film. Likewise, the first time you answer the doorbell from your office, or even when you’re away from home, you’ll appreciate the convenience of video doorbells.

If you’ve ever tried to teach a family member how to operate your complicated entertainment system, you’ll see the relief in their eyes when you can tell them, “Just say, ‘Alexa, turn on the TV.'” That’s so much easier than, “Hit power on this remote, then that remote, and then this remote,” or handing them a universal remote with dozens of buttons.

Convenience might not be a necessity, but that doesn’t make it a bad thing. Smart homes provide creature comforts you might not otherwise have, and, thanks to routines, they even offer peace of mind because you don’t have to worry if you remembered to turn off the lights in the living room.

Smart Homes Solve Problems

A young child in a wheel chair doing crafts with her mom at a table with an Amazon Echo nearby.
Amazon

Smart home technology can help you overcome some daily challenges. Take the classic example of asking a child to deliver a message, only to watch them shout it from two feet in front of you.

With voice assistants, you can communicate with everyone in the home, no matter where they are, via the intercom features. Google Home’s version of this is Broadcast, and it’s brilliant. While the initial message goes through every speaker in the home, Google Assistant sends the response to the originating speaker. Sure, you can buy intercoms, but they often cost at least as much as an Echo Dot. Besides, voice assistants offer you more functionality.

As a bonus, when you set up voice assistant speakers in several rooms as intercoms, you also get whole-home music.

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