Did you know that home automation helps homeowners save around $1,300 per year? How? Home automation helps control everyday essentials, such as the HVAC system, lights and security. As a result, smart home devices continue increasing in popularity.
Plus, smart home devices provide convenience by allowing simplified monitoring of your home. As a result, homeowners experience a savings on home insurance policies as well!
“People with home automation see home insurance savings of 20% (on average) or $1,154 a year.”
But, how does anyone know the smart home devices that make the most sense for their home? Some research and asking around helps. Therefore, we rounded up some of the well-ranked smart home devices as a start and encourage homeowners to complete their own due diligence.
Smart Thermostats
Perhaps the most well known smart home device remains the thermostat. Smart (or programmable or digital) thermostats offer the same core functionality as a traditional thermostat. However, programmable thermostats offer more versatility as they manage the heating and cooling systems over the course of a year.
Interestingly, thermostats control about 50% of the electricity used in the U.S. every year!
As a result, adding a smart thermostat helps control heating, cooling and electric costs. For some of the best smart thermostats on the market, check out these options.
The Nest Learning Thermostat programs itself as it learns your family’s behavior and helps save energy over time.
The ecobee4 comes with a room sensor, which helps manage hot or cold spots. When you place sensors in your favorite rooms, ecobee4 reads the temperature and detects occupancy, which ensures comfort in the rooms that matter.
The Honeywell Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat satisfies comfort needs while optimizing energy savings by eliminating the guesswork out of programming. This thermostat learns your preferred heating and cooling cycle times.
The Lux Geo offers home and away geofencing, which provides continuous savings, along with free iOS and Android apps for easy scheduling. Plus, the apps enable control of multiple thermostats as well.
The Bosch Connected Control offers a sleek, internet-connected thermostat and includes easy all-in-one control for heating and cooling systems.
Smart Locks
As opposed to smart thermostats, smart locks focus on home security. However, not all smart locks are created the same, so look to avoid certain things, such as complicated installation or no remote access. Also, some companies add smart locks to their product line. The best smart locks are made by firms with experience in the industry. For some of the best smart locks, check out these options.
The August Smart Lock Pro builds itself as the most advanced Wi-Fi smart locks. The lock remains very discreet as the August’s Wi-Fi enabled door lock installs inside of your door, so your exterior hardware does not change allowing your family to use your existing keys any time.
The Kwikset Kevo Smart Lock provides intelligence, which enables homeowners to know whether their phones are inside or outside of your home before unlocking. Plus, the lock features military-grade PKI encryption and inside-outside technology protecting the digital experience, backed by 70 years of door lock security, Kevo is a breakthrough in security engineering.
The Schlage Sense Smart Deadbolt improve your convenience, by allowing homeowners to enter an access code on the touchscreen to unlock the door instead of searching your pockets for keys. Plus, the lock and related app, enable shared access, so you never need to keep track of spare keys.
The Yale Real Living Deadbolt works on all standard interior and exterior doors, as well as offering an illuminated touchscreen for enhanced night time access.
The Samsung SHP-P718 Smart Lock offers a unique smart lock experience. The digital door lock enables a push pull concept, along with fingerprint and RFID card verification, which is a breakthrough in smart lock technology.
Smart Doorbells
Home security starts before the door and any smart lock. Home security starts as people near your door or entryway. As a result, smart doorbells feature cameras that record activity and audio. These features enable homeowners to check on deliveries or understand what happens around their home when nobody is home. Interested in learning more, here are some of the best smart doorbells available.
The Ring Video Doorbell 2 provides the next generation of smart doorbell technology. The device enables homeowners to watch over their home in crystal-clear 1080HD video, along with access to see, hear and speak to visitors from anywhere.
The Nest Hello replaces existing wired doorbells and delivers HD video and bright, crisp images, even at night. Plus, the video captures everything with 24/7 streaming or 3-hour snapshot history to see what happened.
The August Doorbell Cam offers similar video access (which includes free storage for up to 24 hours), along with real-time phone alerts. Plus, the device enables homeowners to remotely open the door (if paired with the August smart lock).
The Skybell Trim Plus makes home security easy with motion sensor alerts and free could reporting, along with weather and rain proof hardware.
The original Ring Video Doorbell remains one of the better smart doorbells on the market because it offers instant alerts or built-in motion sensors. Plus, the smart doorbells works with the Ring app to communicate with visitors.
Smart Lighting Solutions
In addition to smart thermostats that help control heating and cooling advanced lighting systems reduce electric costs. As part of that process, homeowners should understand the various factors that go into designing smart lighting solutions, along with some of the options on the market.
Philips Hue combines brilliant and energy-efficient LED light with intuitive technology. Plus, this system offers three types of smart lights that come in different shapes, sizes and models. They all work together to make your home smarter, comfortable and energy efficient.
LIFX smart lights lets homeowners create unique experiences in their home, wirelessly through automating lights via the LIFX App, voice assistants and other leading smart home technologies.
The Hive lighting systems offers control within the Hive app, along with Amazon Echo and Google Home smart speakers. The system also requires the Hive Hub, which does provide more stability and less outages.
Sengled Element offers an affordable option without the need for a company specific hub for control of the lighting system. However, as most homes contain a device from Amazon or Samsung, these platforms are required to run the lighting system.
The Ikea Smart Lighting options enable an expandable system that allows for additions as lighting needs change. The TRÅDFRI remote allows homeowners to control up to 10 different wireless LED bulbs, panels or doors from IKEA.
Smart Home Apps
Smart home apps enable homeowners to control various smart home devices that run throughout their home. From lighting to security, every smart home app offers different functionality and overall control.
SmartThings is the easy way to turn your home into a smart home.
NinjaBlocks offers a combined hardware and software platform designed to seamlessly bridge your smart devices together. By connecting to products from various brands, your home can start using them in new and exciting ways.
Savant’s premium home automation systems offer personalization features that make the difference between a smart home and a Savant Home.
Control4 keeps you connected to your family! The app enhances communication with auto-answer enabled on your Control4 Touch Screens, dial into and instantly video-connect to any room from your mobile device.
Nest offers a family of products that enable homeowners to control home comfort and manage home security. Although Nest does not currently offer an all-in-one solution, the products provide an ease of use second to none on the market.
How Can SolvIt Help With Your Smart Home Devices?
SolvIt aims to improve lives and the environment one home at a time. As a result, our vision aligns with the ultimate goal of home automation and smart home devices. To improve homeowners lives and help cut costs through reduced energy consumption.
Secondly, SolvIt is an approved partner with Nest, which is one of the leading smart home device makers on the market.
“Nest Pro Elites are at your service. As top installers in their areas, Nest Pro Elites get special training from Nest. Elite Pros can even give you special offers on Nest products and installation services.”
If you have any questions about smart home technology or installation, simply give us a call. We can help with any platform that helps improve your home comfort. For any questions or electrical needs, contact us today!