What tasks can home automation help us with? Well, from turning on the lights automatically when you get home, cleaning your house or even letting you know if someone has entered the house when you were gone and can show you a picture of that person on your own phone. If all this interests you and you want to know to what extent home automation can make your life easier, keep reading because I am going to tell you everything you need to know.
The term home automation is something that is already quite widespread but, if you are somewhat clueless with this topic, I explain what it means: in the dictionary it is defined as “a set of techniques aimed at automating a home”. Or explained in a simpler way: it is the set of technological equipment that you can include in your home so that, automatically or with certain actions, they help you to do your day-to-day tasks .
What is a home automation house?
A home automation home is a place that implements a series of benefits for its inhabitants . A home in which it is more comfortable to live because, certain heavy tasks, are done automatically and without having to worry too much about them. A more comfortable and safe place , since we can place sensors, surveillance cameras or alarms that, if they detect any anomaly, warn you or even the security forces that something is happening in your home.
A more economical place where, thanks to another number of sensors, connectors or light bulbs, not a bit of your money is being wasted with unwanted lights that remain on, open windows that waste heating energy or wasted water in the irrigation of plants.
Or, why not, a place where it is more “easy” to live with details that range from having an assistant to help you prepare a meal, a refrigerator that tells you that you are running out of food or just a television that you can control by voice commands if you don’t want to get up from the couch and go in search of the remote.
Why you should have a home automation house
But of course, like anything else, having a “domotized” house has its advantages and disadvantages . First, although I have already told you about one of them, I will tell you what the positive points are:
- Comfort: the fact that certain tasks are performed automatically and that, in addition, we can have control of all home automation through our own smartphone, makes us more calm and comfortable or even have more time for ourselves .
- Economic savings: that the lights of our house come on only when necessary, that we have open window alerts to optimize the use of heating or, even, the control of each plug of our house, are details that add up. If we manage to optimize each one of them and reduce them to the maximum, it will result in a lower energy consumption which, therefore, becomes a lower economic outlay at the end of the month. In addition, we can do all this from anywhere with an internet connection, which adds an extra point of ease.
- Security: we all like to go on a quiet vacation and not be wondering if everything is still in order in our house. The implementation of equipment such as video intercoms, cameras, sensors or alarms translates into greater security of our home and, consequently, in greater comfort as I mentioned in the first advantage.
And what are the negative points of a home automation house? Well there are also several:
- Connection dependence: everything is very beautiful in a “smart home” until the connection to the WiFi signal fails. There are devices that we can continue to use, because of the connection method they have with our phone, even though the connection fails. But, many others will be rendered useless or, depending on the equipment, we will have to use them manually “in the usual way”.
- Greater disbursement: it is true that this type of equipment allows us to save money due to its optimization but, as happened with the change of incandescent bulbs to LED bulbs, the initial disbursement we must make (compared to the purchase of a “normal” equipment ) is older.
- Vulnerability: Although these devices increase the security of our homes, we must also think that they are connected to the Internet and, like any connected equipment, they are “vulnerable” to be hacked by some undesirable. It is not very common (do not panic), but it is a detail to consider. In addition, if you include equipment such as intelligent assistants, it is said that these types of devices “listen” to us through their microphones and then sell certain information to certain companies that want to know our interests.
The time has come to “domotize” our house
Once you have seen all these points, which means “domotizing” a house and its advantages and disadvantages, it is time for you to make a decision and think if enjoying the benefits of a smart home is worth it, or not, considering The cons that this implies.
If it helps you, I am a pro-domotics and I have several items in my house that make certain tasks easier for me and that, if they were taken from me tomorrow, I could live without them but I would miss them. But here that everyone judges if home automation is for him.