What are the Latest Trends in Home Automation?

The internet of things continues to be a hot topic, but it’s often hard to sort out what’s useful and what’s merely... well... gadgety. From our perspective as an HVAC company, we know you spend a lot of money trying to keep your home in great shape, and trying to make sure homeowner heachaches are kept to a minimum. Finding products that save you time, money and hassle might be worth the investment, so we thought we’d highlight some of the best new home automation tech along with some of the things that might not be ready for prime time.

Connectivity- Creating a Hub to Connect Everything

Many companies are coming out with appliances that can connect to the internet. One of the first steps in this process is to create a “hub”. Amazon’s Alexa technology, Apple’s HomeKit, and Google Home allow you to connect lights, thermostats, locks, and more to a central hub, and then control it with apps and/or your voice.

The Amazon Echo system, using “Alexa” has a small, entry level device called the Dot, which costs under $50. At this entry point, I felt more comfortable experimenting with home automation this year than Google’s $129 device or the larger Echo which runs $179. With any of these devices, you can ask connected systems to turn on lights, adjust the heat,  lock the doors, or a variety of other tasks.  Just be aware that all of these other appliances, including connected light bulbs, are separate expenses and aren’t particularly cheap.

In addition, we should note that having great connectivity throughout your home is important when adding more connected devices.  This means considering adding a mesh network of routers to get really strong wifi wherever you are in your home. Multi-unit systems are available from Eero, Luma, Plume, Google and Netgear.

Home Security

Home security is a big concern these days, and there are more and more smart devices available to help you with it.  

Smart Locks

There are smart locks available from Kwickset, Yale, Schlange, August and other manufacturers.  The advantages of smart locks are similar to those of having a keyfob for your car rather than a traditional lock. Many also will connect to your phone, allowing it to act like a key. We love the smartlocks that allow you to set a code so that anyone needing access to your house while you’re not home- HVAC repairmen like us, your drycleaner, the dog sitter- can have a code set to use for a certain period of time. No more running home to let the cleaning ladies in!  Many of the locks now work with Alexa, Siri- Apple’s home kit,  and even with smart watches, and you can lock the door remotely.  This is really important for folks like us, who worry they might not have locked the front door when you’re about 20 miles down the road.

Home Monitoring/Cameras/Doorbells/Surveillance

There are new Video doorbells like Ring, that will show you a video of whoever’s at your door and let you talk to whoever’s at your door.  This could be useful for families with young children- it always seems like someone comes to the door when you’re putting a kid down for a nap or giving them a bath.

Additional home monitoring systems involve automatic turning on of flood lights, motion sensors, and hidden cameras, like those from Heath Zenith. If you have concerns about home safety, these remote monitoring systems might be just the thing, and the starting point is around $180.

Home Monitoring- Lights

Philips, Cree and Sengled are just a few of the companies that have wifi enabled light bulbs and fixtures available. These lightbulbs can be put in standard fixtures and connected to an app that allows you to control everything from brightness to even the color of the light. You can pre-set “moods” so you can adjust the light automatically for reading, movies- whatever you want. Some lightbulbs even have bluetooth speakers built in, and can then create a room full of sound, connecting to speakers all over your house.  

The ability to control lights remotely is great, but the bulbs themselves are often quite expensive- A starter kit to automate lights with Philips runs about $70; although TP-Link has wifi LED bulbs that start at $20 and do not require a hub. We put this in a “nice upgrade, but…” even for a home where Mom is constantly yelling at kids to turn off the lights.

Home Monitoring- HVAC Systems - Offered From Comfort Now By Bob McAllister

There are new air purifiers that can connect to Amazon’s Alexa and monitor air quality for you. That sounded over the top at first, but if you have relatives who have allergies or asthma, or other medical issues, air quality is a serious concern, making this new technology more worthwhile.  

Smart Thermostats have been around for some time, starting with the Nest, and now almost every company has its own smart thermostat available.  Smart thermostats allow you to control the temperature in your home, no matter where you are in the world.  This is especially helpful when you have different zones of heating and cooling, and can adjust each area independently, like with the Kumo cloud controls for Mitsubishi Hyperheat ductless systems. Many of these controllers will also send you monthly reports on energy efficiency, to help you learn more about you’re using energy and what you can do to save.

The hidden benefit we hear from homeowners is actually the ability to adjust the temperature in the house even while they are still in bed.  We’ve all had those times when we’re a little hot, or a little too cold, but going downstair to adjust the thermostat doesn’t seem quite worth it. Now you can bump the temp up or down at whim from your phone or tablet, and our homeowners just love that feature.

Gadgets or Helpful Integrations? TV, Refrigerators, Microwaves, Garbage Cans and more

When it comes to home automation, some of the features of new appliances seem to be more for show and less practical. For example, the wifi enabled microwave that allows you to scan a label on your microwave meal and program the time for cooking exactly seems to be solving a problem few people actually have.

Likewise, the garbage can that allows you to scan the barcode of what you’re throwing away so you can add it automatically to your shopping list seems like overkill.

Moen is even introducing the U shower system where you can remote start and program temperatures for your shower in the morning.  Again, this seems like overkill - luxurious, perhaps, but certainly not a huge problem.

Even the new wifi enabled laundry machines let you start a load remotely and will send you a notification when the load is done.  Perhaps useful for people working from home, but we’re still waiting for a system that will switch loads automatically, and then fold everything.  When that happens, let us know!

What We Recommend

If you’re thinking about adding home automation to your home, choose wisely.

• Products for HVAC and home safety have great advantages and are modestly priced.
• Many of the appliance-oriented technology is more expensive, and much of it doesn’t seem to be worth the investment. Just remember, every time to connect another piece of equipment to your home wifi, you will need to make sure you have a great connection to make them work well.
• We recommend you start off with making sure you have great connectivity throughout your home, and then start with a hub.
• Then you can gradually add additional devices as you wish, while avoiding the frustration of things not working as billed.