Hardware/Software Development

Home Is Where IoT Is: Life In A Smart House

Smart House

Imagine being able to change the color and brightness of your home lighting as you wish! Or being able to check up on your home remotely while you’re at work. All of that and much more is now made possible with IoT.

IoT or Internet of Things is a network of smart devices that allow you to control most of your everyday gadgets remotely via an app. The IoT trend is really off to a flying start according to a study conducted by Intel. The study suggests, about 71% of Americans expect to have at least one smart-home device in every house by the year 2025.

India is on the cusp of a digital revolution with internet and smartphones being accesible to the masses throughout tier-II, tier-III cities, smalls towns and even villages. According to a study conducted by GrabOn, more than 4 billion people in India own smartphones. This sheer volume of internet subscribers and mobile phone users puts the country of billions into contention for the global IoT boom. IoT provides the homeowners tons of options when it comes to security, comfort, energy saving opportunities and much more. Using IoT you can now check up on your kids remotely, feed your pets and play with them, lock and unlock doors, change your ambiance and much more.

In case you’re wondering how exactly these IoT enabled devices can make your life easier, here are a few instances:  

1. Home Comfort & Ambiance Control

How many times have you wished if you could remotely control the temperature of the room while you’re comfortably curled up on the couch binging the latest TV show? Well, now you can! With IoT enabled smart devices you can actually change the temperature and ventilation of the room. Feeling cold? Turn up the heat using the smart thermostat using an app. Some smart thermostats even have the capability to adjust the room temperature based on the outdoor conditions and your presence. Not only temperature smart vents help you adjust the ventilation of your living space without having to get up from your cozy bed on a lazy morning. Moreover, these devices are environment friendly as they cut down both on your effort and the energy consumption. You can now change the ambience of your room to your desired setting using smart light bulbs like Philips Hue in conjecture with an IoT hub like Wink. You can adjust the brightness of the light, i.e. turn it up or down according to the mood. You can program the lights to auto-dim depending on the natural light. You can also utilize the music aware ability to change the colors as the music varies. This will help you turn your house party into a full-blown nightclub thus making you the life of the party.

2. Safety And Security

Smart-home security systems can analyze and learn user behavior patterns and alert you in case there is any unusual activity. Security management services like Protect America will alarm you in case of an emergency, lock and unlock doors and even dial for help. These products will help you protect your loved ones and prevent burglaries and break-ins from happening in the future. 

3. Easy Tracking Of Items

Do you often lose your car keys or house keys for that matter and spend hours trying to find them?Now, you can find them very easily using TrackR. Just attach the TrackR device to the valuable item, download the app and track down the item effortlessly. Don’t panic the next time you can’t find your phone, just TrackR and your phone will start ringing even if it’s on silent!

4. Voice Activated Home Hubs

One of the most widely known and perhaps the most impactful uses of IoT is the smart-home hub. Amazon Echo, Google Home, Wink and Nest are some of home hubs that complete you everyday chores effortlessly. These devices are not only connected to your smart devices but also to the internet thus enabling you to access the latest news, check up on the weather updates, play the chartbusters from Spotify and much more. You can activate the hubs by initiating simple voice commands like ‘Ok, Google’, ‘Hey, Google’, or ‘Alexa’. These voice-controlled smart-home hubs can help you dial your phone contacts, turn on the smart TV or look up recipes while you’re cooking. Hell, the voice assistants that come with the hubs can even help you with hotel reservations or making salon appointments. Majority of millennials prefer to order food online and eat in. In India alone close to 98 million food orders are placed yearly via popular food delivery apps like Swiggy, FoodPanda, Zomato and Uber Eats. The smart-home hub can help you order food online among its many other applications.

5. Smart Kitchen

The kitchen of the future is here. Moley presents the world’s first smart kitchen that comes with a fully functional robot that can cook with the precision of a highly trained chef. The system is fed with a recording of the cooking skills of Master Chef Tim Anderson, winner of the BBC Master Chef title. The smart kitchen can be operated remotely via a smartphone. When not in use, the robotic arms are encased in a glass unit for safe keep. 

The IoT enabled smart-devices like home-energy intelligent systems ‘Curb’, can monitor the electricity usage in your house and send you insights that can help make your home an energy efficient one. Curb accomplishes this with the help of sensors attached to the breaker box. It carefully asses all the electrical gadgets that are in use and how much power they’re consuming. Based on the data gathered, the Curb app shows you ways in which you can reduce power usage while sending safety alerts to your smartphone.

These are just a few of the miraculous ways daily chores can be accomplished in a smart home with the help of IoT enabled devices. What a time to be alive, perhaps the future envisioned in The Jetsons has come to pass!   

[The author is a content strategist and startup enthusiast with a keen eye for technology and investment in the ecosystem]

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