Automating some basic features and functions in your house can make your homelife easier. Here are a few tips about what you can do to get the most out of automating the things that you use most often.
Use a High-Speed Internet Connection
In order to communicate with a primary hub, all of the devices in your home that you’re going to connect need to have high-speed connectivity. If your internet’s bandwidth isn’t up to par, it could interrupt your services or your ability to control them.
For the best performance, you should use high-speed internet service, but make it a point to shop competitively. The market for home internet has been steadily opening up to new providers, and traditional utility providers don’t have a monopoly. Consider solutions that optimize signal distribution so that you won’t have dead spots in your house. Service with Plume can generate signal strength to support multiple devices that are connected over a home with sizable square footage.
Secure Your System
Having a lot of devices connected to your IP address could expose you to online threats. Be sure to use a hub that is password protected. Without this essential safeguard, it could be possible for cyber criminals to gain access to your network and change settings. In fact, a cyber intruder could potentially shut off your air conditioning, start blasting music, or even unlock your front door. Create strong passwords that are unique and hard to crack. Don’t use the same password for all of your devices.
Prioritize Safety Features
Making your home safer is definitely one of the most appealing elements of home automation. In years past, home security systems simply weren’t practical and affordable enough for a lot of homeowners. To equip a home with monitoring, people had to pay professional security companies to hardwire complicated systems at every access and egress point. In addition to installation expenses, continuous monitoring expenses could be rather costly. In fact, people who bought homes that already had systems installed didn’t put them to use because the ongoing expense made it seem impractical.
Now, advanced home automation technology has made it much easier for homeowners to take advantage of continuous monitoring. Outfitting your home with these types of features can help you keep your loved ones safe and potentially lower homeowners’ insurance premiums.
Pick automation hubs that can send you real time alerts when there is an unauthorized access attempt. Ideally, a system should be capable of sending emergency notifications in the event that an alarm detects smoke or carbon monoxide poisoning.
Put Your System Towards Energy Savings
Use home automation as a tool to make your home more energy efficient. You can reduce your carbon footprint and generate appreciable savings on your monthly electric bill by setting your HVAC to a schedule. You can also adjust temperature settings and even turn off lights remotely to avoid using energy when you don’t really need to.
Get Everyone on Board
In a perfect world, everyone in your household would have a comprehensive understanding of how to use every piece of technology in your home. In reality, a lot of families have just one or two people who are tech gurus and the rest of the family defers anything having to do with using tech to them. To really get the most out of home automation functions, however, everyone under your roof needs to know how to use it. After you’ve mastered basic functions, pass on the knowledge to everybody. You can do a group tutorial, but also take time to review how to change settings with people one-on-one to make sure that they have a strong grasp of using your hub’s interface.
Of course, using any type of new technology is going to take a little getting used to. Nevertheless, you can get the hang of using home automation options in hardly any time at all. After you do, you’ll probably wonder how you got by without them.
