Do you want to make your home more streamlined and easier to live in? Spend less time on daily chores? Next time you need a remodel, you can make your home “smarter,” so it does more for you, freeing up space and time for you to enjoy your life.
Traditionally, a fully “smart home” is one where you can remotely control everything from the lights to the thermostats to the garage door. This is a great way to make your home easier and more fun to live in, but there’s a lot more you can do to make your home smarter, with or without the very latest technology.
Let’s get started.
Virtual Voice-Controlled Assistants
This is how you connect the workings of your home to the internet so you can easily control and customize them. You’ve probably seen the commercials. The most popular voice-controlled assistants are Alexa (Amazon), Siri (Apple), and Google Home.
Each comes with its own set of pros and cons when it comes to price, ease of setup, hardware quality, and specific capabilities. If you choose the right product to meet your individual needs, your home will be running like clockwork in no time.
If you decide to set up a voice-controlled assistant in your home, this New York Times article lists the positives and negatives of each option and offers advice for setting up your assistant once you have it.
Smart Appliances
If you want to be able to control your home’s lighting with a virtual assistant, you’ll also need to install “smart” lighting that can connect to the internet. But you don’t need a virtual assistant in order to use smart technology in your home. In most cases, it’s also possible to manage your smart appliances via your phone or computer, or with remote controls.
Here are a few common smart appliances and other products to consider next time you remodel:
Lighting
- Heating and air conditioning
- Washers and dryers
- Kitchen appliances
- Computers
- TVs
- Entertainment audio & video systems
- Plug-in appliances (fans, electric kettles, coffee makers, etc.)
- Security and camera systems
- Sprinkler systems
- Pet feeders
- Many more
If you don’t want to connect everything in your home to the internet, don’t worry. You can still make your home more automated by choosing appliances that can be programmed to run at certain times and/or remember your setting preferences. The less you have to do manually, the easier it is to save time and other resources, like water and electricity.
A Smarter Home Through Personalization
A home that’s truly smart isn’t only about the latest technology. Many people end up buying confusing, expensive technology just because it’s novel — not because it’s useful. A really smart home includes all the features that benefit you and your family, and excludes all the ones that don’t.
Making the layout of your home functional and easy to navigate, creating the right storage spaces for your lifestyle, eliminating time-wasting features you don’t want or need — all these things will make your home smarter for you. In fact, some of the best smart home remodeling techniques involve going back to basics.
For example, the concept of the kitchen work triangle has been used for nearly 100 years to create more efficient kitchen layouts.
Personalizing your home for you and your family could mean knocking down walls to create more open walking spaces, installing a walk-in pantry in the kitchen, or adding a bathroom to your master bedroom. It could even mean creating more space with a custom home addition.
Square Deal Remodeling Can Help Make Your Home Smarter in Portland, OR
We’ve seen it many times: the right remodel truly can make your life easier and more fun. Plus, it’s a chance to beautify and refresh your home’s design.
Square Deal Remodeling can help you design and build the smart home you want. Contact us today and tell us about your ideas.