Central Coast Home & Lifestyle Autumn 2021

Get wired for the influx of smart gadgets ‘Smart Home’ – what does it really mean?

An easy, affordable way to start on your smart home journey is with smart plugs, which you can switch on or off using an app on your phone or a voice command to Google Home or Amazon Echo. For example, you can turn on a lamp when you’re not home to make it look like you’re there. Or, you can triple-check that you switched the iron off by checking the app. To take things to the next level, you need to either pre-wire high-quality cables in a new build or retrofit smart wiring if you’re updating your current home. Pre-wiring means that even if you don’t use whole-house automation systems, whatever features you do use can be put into one single interface or control panel. This makes it much easier to coordinate, manage and automate all your heating, lighting and security options. With pre-wiring, you have the capacity to add additional systems at a later stage and you can easily run conduits to the areas in your house where you may want to access video, in-wall or in-ceiling speakers and data in the future. In the kitchen, smart devices can be retrofitted to existing appliances, such as smart stove knobs for fire prevention, or a camera system attached to a fridge that reorders food and controls other smart home devices via a front-of-fridge control. Or, you could start planning your installation of a robotic chef, like the recently unveiled Samsung Bot Chef, to do all your chopping, whisking, pouring and cleaning.

8 Home & Lifestyle Magazine | Autumn 2021 Other appliances like washing machines, dryers and dishwashers might run at odd hours to take advantage of off-peak power rates or solar energy. The connected home of the future isn’t just In a nutshell, it’s when your home and the appliances and devices inside it are connected to the internet and each other. From security cameras to heating systems, microwaves to washing machines, fridges to lights, they’re all linked to apps on your phone and to voice assistants – enabling you to control them wherever you are. They’re connected to the home too, meaning they respond to what’s going on around them. Smart home automation is fast becoming the norm. A truly smart home will turn off the lights when you’re not at home, take advantage of off-peak electricity rates, adjust your thermostat and even close the shades on a hot day. Many internet-enabled devices, such as smart thermostats, offer a glimpse of what’s to come, checking the daily weather forecast and optimising your heating and cooling for the layout of your home. Home automation also means you have a central ‘smart’ hub, which interacts with a wide range of household devices from fridges and dishwashers to smoke alarms and security systems. It’s the glue that binds your smart devices into a truly smart home and connects them to the outside world. Rather than just relaying your commands, smart homes will learn your habits so they can make smart decisions on your behalf while you’re asleep, at work or on holidays. They’ll also take advantage of smart meters to optimise your energy usage day and night. Forget to kill the lights when you leave for work and your smart home can turn them off for you. Head to the snow for a long weekend and it can ensure the heating doesn’t kick in on a cold morning when no-one’s home.

about the convenience of controlling your appliances from the couch; it’s about playing it smart when it comes to energy efficiency. We can control our home’s temperature, lighting, window treatments and security with a press of a button. As well as automating and controlling lighting and heating from wherever you are, you can control blinds and curtains, your vacuum cleaner and even your coffee machine – so you can come home to a clean, cosy house, and wake up to a fresh brew. For security you can install doorbell cameras that stream to your phone, security alarms that feed into an app, remote-controlled door locks, plus motion sensors, fingerprint scanners and more. Smart home technology allows you to monitor your power consumption and identify which devices are draining power. There’s also a host of products that can help reduce energy use. Smart plugs, monitor the amount of energy individual devices are using, and you can shut them down via your phone – or via your voice-activated personal assistant, such as Amazon Alexa or the Google Assistant. Many of the new technologies appearing in our homes are smaller and lighter than ever. Computers are no longer the bulky boxes they once were; cupboards of DVDs

have been replaced with Kindles and Netflix. Yet other technologies – like televisions and battery storage units – are taking up more space. It’s not always easy to imagine what the next technological advancement is going to look like, but with a little planning it’s possible to soften the impact technology may have on our home renovations or building.

Samsung Botchef