Home automation: 13 good reasons to fall for the connected home
Beyond the little nod to the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why, the idea behind this guide is to give you 13 reasons to get into home automation. An interesting article for the few people who are still undecided and wonder what a home automation box could bring to their home.
First of all, it is important to understand what a home automation system is, what it brings to the connected home and understand the importance of making the right choice. I invite you without further delay to consult our very detailed guide on the subject. You can even try to make your own home automation study using a powerful engine of our design. It’s free and it only takes 30 seconds. So follow the guide!
We mustn’t hide it, setting up home automation has a cost! Therefore, it becomes normal to ask yourself the right questions before taking the plunge. Through this guide, I will try to argue and maybe decide you to take the step. And why not, build your own box from A to Z at a lower cost and do all the design steps yourself! Based on a Raspberry Pi and free system such as Home Assistant or Jeedom and not dependent on the cloud. Moreover, a home automation server based on a Rpi is both silent and very low power consumption. So you can really control the subject and the budget on your fingertips.
Personally, if you ask me, I’d say go for it, but it’s also good to make up your own mind sometimes… So here are 13 good reasons to connect your home and go to the dark side of the force!
1- The connected home allows you to gain in comfort
One of the main goals of the smart-home, if not what it was created for, is undoubtedly to gain comfort. This comfort at home is achieved with all kinds of automation and equipment. These are simple everyday things, which suddenly become automatic and transparent for us, creating a very pleasant comfort that becomes complicated to do without later.
A light that turns on by itself when you enter a room, or electrical appliances that turn off in your absence to save energy. Motorized roller shutters that open and close automatically. An alarm that is activated as soon as you leave the house. A motorized gate that is activated when you arrive in your street, the garage door that closes when you leave it. A heating system that regulates the temperature according to our comings and goings…
It is truly the ultimate comfort in every room that a connected home offers. Conveniences that it becomes very quickly complicated to do without!
2- The smart home saves money
After comfort, savings are probably one of the most important items for smart-home users. Indeed, life is expensive nowadays. The different energies are constantly increasing. It is then time to contain these successive increases by acting where we can have some leeway.
Home automation allows us to play on this leeway, while keeping an optimal comfort. It is not about restricting the use of water, gas or electricity. Rather, it is about controlling and optimizing this use of energy. Indeed, thanks to the connected house, it is then possible to understand, analyze and not consequently, improve the management of energy by finding axes of improvement. This can be done, for example, with a connected thermostat and a thermostatic head. It also connected that will allow you a good management of the heating and consequently of fast economic benefits. It can also be done by motion detectors in the rooms of passage which cut the light when it is not necessary! Or a connected shower head that indicates a visual code according to the liters consumed. This last one may seem very gadgety, but it is a simple visual lever that can be assimilated, even by the youngest. It is a succession of small gestures which, with a more or less big impact, once cumulated allow big gains. Finally, for the most geeky, it will always be possible to extend the savings to the outside of the house by monitoring the level of the rainwater collection tank.
It is then natural to start by seeing how to automate lighting very simply with Philips Hue.
3- The home automation box allows to secure the house
Even if this is not its primary use, the connected central unit can also be used as an intruder alarm system. Beyond that, it is also a way to increase home security with connected smoke detectors or flood detectors. As you can see, in addition to securing the home, the smart home also secures your loved ones from the most frequent and damaging domestic accidents such as carbon monoxide poisoning or fire! More and more at the heart of the connected home, the safety of your loved ones is a daily objective.
4- The connected home allows to be alerted, even far from home
The connected home is based on notifications. Indeed, according to your scenarios, you can in addition to an action or an event, trigger a notification to know a specific status of your system. Alarm triggered, flood detected, power failure, light left on… The possibilities are numerous! Available via several channels: SMS, mail, push, tweet, telegram… Notifications are very useful. You choose for which event you want to be notified. You will not be polluted by useless notifications. The numerous updates of home automation boxes allow to integrate more and more communication means. It becomes very easy to communicate with your home. Even more so in 2023 with the simplicity of use and the integration of voice assistants interfaced with the intelligent assistants of the house such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home.
5- The home automation system has the ability to understand and analyze
Another strong point of the smart-home is its ability to record and store in a database all the events of your sensors and/or actuators. Even a “virtual” element, can be stored on its various state changes. It then becomes quite simple to exploit these data and cross-reference them. At this stage, you have a whole new understanding of events and the fact that you have concrete data. It is then easy for you to establish a clear diagnosis or simply understand a situation.
For example, it is possible to analyze your energy consumption. By exploiting your data, you will immediately have a very good reading of what is going on and will be able to simply find areas for improvement. Whether it’s about electricity or water consumption, it’s all in the cards.
6-The 4.0 house can also be the setting for your parties
Yes! The smart home is also the Wow effect! OK, I’ll grant you that it’s not a strong argument. But it’s still another good reason to motivate the transition to the home of the future. Of course, it’s a plus offered by an installation and peripherals that are in place for a completely different reason. And that is justified. However, this is a new illustration of the power of adaptability and versatility of connected objects.
For example, it is possible to analyze your energy consumption. By exploiting your data, you will immediately have a very good reading of what is going on and will be able to simply find areas for improvement. Whether it’s about electricity or water consumption, it’s all in the cards.
But still, during your evenings with friends, use the intelligent scenarios to create a friendly lighting atmosphere. You can control the outdoor lighting and thus enjoy an extension of the lighting atmosphere onto the terrace in summer. Finally, with Home 4.0, it is very easy to create a special atmosphere for a family dinner, a romantic get-together or a party!
7- The smart home: An argument of choice that can weigh in the sale
As surprising as it may seem, it is indeed true! I sold my house myself and beyond the fact that my house sold in less than a day and that my buyer is simply fascinated by the different automations and all the comfort that my “connected house” offers. All the visits from potential buyers agreed on one point: One of the assets of this house is its connected aspect which gives it comfort, energy control and security! It’s a fact, home automation sells.
An asset of choice if you have to sell your house, because if there was a time when the automated house could scare you, today it is envied and becomes valuable for a property on the real estate market, so take advantage of it to stand out on a very competitive market!
For example, it is possible to analyze your energy consumption. By exploiting your data, you will immediately have a very good reading of what is going on and will be able to simply find areas for improvement. Whether it’s about electricity or water consumption, it’s all in the cards.
But still, during your evenings with friends, use the intelligent scenarios to create a friendly lighting atmosphere. You can control the outdoor lighting and thus enjoy an extension of the lighting atmosphere onto the terrace in summer. Finally, with Home 4.0, it is very easy to create a special atmosphere for a family dinner, a romantic get-together or a party!
8- Home automation can connect to your connected objects
They are everywhere around us today. Our smartphones don’t have enough storage space to host all the applications, because there are so many of them… I’m exaggerating, but each object has its own mobile application.
So if one application to control a connected object is convenient, 40 applications to control the 40 connected objects in the house is already much less convenient! An online service has greatly contributed to this accelerated connectivity of connected objects, it is IFTTT. As systems are more and more open and compatible with more and more connected objects, controlling these objects directly from the box offers a unique way to consult and/or control your connected objects! It is even a real child’s play with voice assistants. Thus, Google Home and Amazon Alexa give you the control of your home simply by voice.
When I told you that the connected home allows you to gain in comfort, you see!
An asset of choice if you have to sell your house, because if there was a time when the automated house could scare you, today it is envied and becomes valuable for a property on the real estate market, so take advantage of it to stand out on a very competitive market!
For example, it is possible to analyze your energy consumption. By exploiting your data, you will immediately have a very good reading of what is going on and will be able to simply find areas for improvement. Whether it’s about electricity or water consumption, it’s all in the cards.
But still, during your evenings with friends, use the intelligent scenarios to create a friendly lighting atmosphere. You can control the outdoor lighting and thus enjoy an extension of the lighting atmosphere onto the terrace in summer. Finally, with Home 4.0, it is very easy to create a special atmosphere for a family dinner, a romantic get-together or a party!
9- Home automation is not only in the house, it is also outside
Indeed, home automation is increasingly exported outside the home. Every year, when spring arrives, the number of devices and connected objects for the outside grows. A motion detector that turns on the lights if it’s dark. A gate that opens when you arrive. Connected plugs in the garden for automated Christmas lights… It is even possible to connect the pool or the spa today.
It’s a fact, we love our little cocoon in winter. But when the summer comes, we love our outdoor spaces and spend most of our time there. It is therefore essential to bring the comfort of the smart-home indoors to the terrace!
10- The smart home protects you from dangers
The smart home is becoming more and more secure. Protocols are getting more secure and complex, AES-128 encryption is already present on some z-wave modules… So although it is not an official and approved security system… The connected central unit is just as powerful, even more so since it has much more information than a simple alarm system. The difference lies mainly in the standards and other certifications. As a system “open” to multiple protocols, wired and wireless (knx, Enocean, Z-wave, ZigBee, Edisio, Bluetooth, wifi, gsm, 433Mhz, …)
But the connected home does not stop there, indeed, it can also serve as a protection system for an elderly person with alert buttons or surveillance cameras. It can also be a way to warn you when the kids are finally home from school. A simple scenario on opening the door once the alarm is deactivated. Within half an hour of school ending, and you get a picture of the kids who just got home when they walk through the door!
It’s a fact, we love our little cocoon in winter. But when the summer comes, we love our outdoor spaces and spend most of our time there. It is therefore essential to bring the comfort of the smart-home indoors to the terrace!
11- Home automation becomes accessible and easy
Long misunderstood by the general public. Because it was too complex to program and was intended for geeks. The connected home is becoming more democratic and easy to configure and even easier to use. No need to have a technical background or development skills to configure your connected home.
Visit our special section, home automation for dummies to learn and understand very simply.
Systems have become simpler for the end user. While becoming increasingly complex and sophisticated in terms of internal code. This makes it possible to create very complex scenarios by simply using drop-down lists and logic functions.
12- Home automation can do everything
As I write this title, I’ve been racking my brain for a good 5 minutes to find a connected aspect of the house that can’t be automated or monitored. No matter how hard I try, I can’t see! Lighting, heating, comfort, security, energy, pool, garage and even car… In short, everything is possible and this is only the beginning! You only have to read our example article on the course of a day in the connected house to understand that everything is possible. And even then, this story only presents a tiny part of the whole potential available.
Visit our special section, home automation for dummies to learn and understand very simply.
Systems have become simpler for the end user. While becoming increasingly complex and sophisticated in terms of internal code. This makes it possible to create very complex scenarios by simply using drop-down lists and logic functions.
13- home automation has no limits
I don’t think I can say it enough, but let’s face it, home automation really does make everything possible. The only limit is your imagination. If your brain is full of ideas, you will be able to realize them. For those who lack inspiration, domo-blog is here to feed you with more and more connected projects, so don’t worry folks!
Visit our special section, home automation for dummies to learn and understand very simply.
Systems have become simpler for the end user. While becoming increasingly complex and sophisticated in terms of internal code. This makes it possible to create very complex scenarios by simply using drop-down lists and logic functions.
In a nutshell
So, besides telling you that if you are still hesitating to take the plunge, you should go for it… Which is only my opinion as a blogger, so although useful, not very objective… You now have 13 good reasons to convince yourself that home automation is fantastic! You know what you have to do! Don’t hesitate to browse through the blog to learn more and more.
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