by Blake Herzog
Smart home technology is being adopted rapidly by Americans, with 57% of consumers expected to own at least one household device that can be controlled remotely by a computer or smartphone by 2025, according to Statista.
The recent release of the Matter interoperability standard should fuel even more demand with the smoother coordination it’s expected to provide.
The Matter standard will enable individual connected products to work with the smart home system of your choice including Amazon Alexa, Google Home or something else entirely.
Why is the sector growing so quickly?
We hazard a guess that it’s the luxury that everyone is after. Being able to set the thermostat to your ideal temperature and have the speakers playing your favorite song as you get home are just two examples of the ease and indulgence you can have at your fingertips.
Here are the bases you need to cover to know whether your home’s IQ marks it in the “genius” stratosphere and provides you the ultimate in luxury:
Heating and cooling
You can control your home’s internal temperature not by sidling up to the thermostat and fiddling with the “up” and “down” buttons, but with a few taps on your phone’s screen or voice commands issued near a voice activation unit.
These systems also monitor and optimize your energy use for financial and environmental sustainability and are continuing to improve.
Lighting
This is one of the areas where we’re seeing huge advances in the tech and products available.
Besides integrated systems in which you can brighten or dim the lights in a room just by speaking, individual bulbs can cycle through all the shades of white we’ve come to depend on, plus turn virtually any known color.
Light strips linked to a camera can pick up colors from your TV or computer screen to enhance gaming viewing.
Entertainment
Speaking of which, your entertainment system is where a smart home goes from sensible to sensational. This is where everybody gets to have fun enjoying their favorite content, and the best systems sync video across multiple screens throughout the house.
TVs are just getting bigger and brighter and are starting to even go wireless. Virtual reality sets are getting more portable, and one entrant is stepping up to bring odors to the multiverse.
Appliances
Kitchen appliances have been linking to home networks via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi for a while now for help with quality control inside the fridge and on the stove.
Now the devices are getting flashier, literally in the case of the refrigerator fronted by panels that can play movies, set mood lighting or turn transparent to allow you to see what’s inside.
Home security
Security systems introduced many consumers to the world of smart home technology as it required the integration of alarms, cameras, motion sensors, lights, locks and other elements that give you more control over who enters and leaves your property.
Commercial systems are starting to add robots to the monitoring mix — the largest luxury homes could probably use them, too!
