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In Lifehacker’s series, “A Guide to Automating Your Entire Home,” we’re highlighting all the ways you can power your home with autonomous technology, room by room. Whether you want to build a smart security system, turn a “dumb” device smart, or simply control your lights from your phone, this guide will help walk you through it.
Temperature is crucial to your comfort at home, and smart tech can help you find that perfect balance—starting with smart thermostats, but extending to other devices and apps to help through the summer and winter months.
Not only does a smart tech overhaul like this mean more precise temperature control, it also helps cut down on energy bills, because you’re only heating and cooling when you need to. These systems can be operated remotely via apps, set to work on a schedule, and can sometimes even automatically adapt to the local weather conditions.
Smart thermostats
A smart thermostat is a good starting point for most people. They’re simple to set up in most cases, replacing the thermostat on your wall and connecting to the same internal wiring: Google, for example, has a complete guide to installing a Nest thermostat. Once you’ve disconnected the power, it’s typically a 20- to 30-minute job, although on older properties some more work and extra connections might be required.
You can then control the temperature in your home through the physical smart thermostat itself, and through the companion app on your phone. Many smart devices will hook up to a smart home platform (or two) as well, which gives you extras like voice control (through an AI assistant such as Alexa), and tighter integration with everything else in your smart home.
If you already have a home full of devices that work with Apple Home, Samsung SmartThings, or Google Home, then it makes sense to buy a smart thermostat to match. It means you’ll have more options for controlling your gadgets (through an Apple TV 4K box, for example, if you’re deep in the Apple ecosystem).
Once you’ve mastered the basics, you can move on to more advanced features. Smart thermostat features can vary depending on the model and manufacturer, but most offer a broadly similar set of functions: The ability to set up heating and cooling routines to work on a schedule, remote access when you’re away from home, and smart adjustments based on weather, time, or sensor readings from around your home.
You could, for example, have the smart thermostat automatically adjust to your current location (reported by your phone), so putting your HVAC system into a power-saving mode when you’re out at the office, then starting to heat up rooms again when you’re on the way back. Or maybe you can have the temperature automatically adjusted while you sleep, maintaining a consistent coolness based on sensor readings overnight.
As well as the Google Nest Thermostat mentioned above, you’ve also got devices like the Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium. Its capabilities include being able to adjust temperature in relation to humidity—via the bundled smart sensor—and timing its heating and cooling for periods when electricity is going to cost the least amount, as much as possible.
The Honeywell T5 Smart Thermostat is one of the most customizable devices of its type around, which extends to the information shown on its clear touchscreen panel, and you can schedule heating and cooling timings for up to a week in advance. The accompanying Resideo app means easy access to all the controls from a phone or tablet.
Smart thermostat accessories
Smart vents give you a little bit more control over how and when specific rooms are heated and cooled, whether this control is automated or handled manually. A Flair Smart Vent, for example, can be operated through a dedicated app or through a wider smart home system.
Then you’ve got smart ceiling fans—rather than having you switch these fans on or off manually, you can set them to operate on a schedule, or have them enabled or disabled depending on the temperature. They start up when needed, and you might not have to lift a finger.
With ceiling fans and some other devices (such as smart lights), you can opt to make the connected switch smart rather than the device itself. So, invest in a Lutron Caseta Smart Switch, and you can control a connected ceiling fan from your phone or tablet, or through the Amazon Alexa app and devices. It can be automated based on timings, temperature, and your location, like the other smart devices in your home.
Air purity is something else that you might consider looking at, with devices like the Levoit Air Purifier available. It’s another device that plugs into the Alexa ecosystem, enabling control via apps and smart speakers, and it can scrub dust and pollen from the air across an area of up to 1,073 square feet.
There are also spot heating and cooling fans that work separately to a smart thermostat, giving you on-demand temperature control across a smaller space—you can move these from room to room as needed, and they often come with support for app control and at least some level of integration with your other smart home devices.
Another example here is the Dyson Purifier Hot+Cool HP1, which throws in air purification features as well. While the cooling isn’t active (it’s just blowing air around), the heating is, and it can come in useful all the year round—and again, it can be operated via an app in addition to a physical remote control and the buttons on the device itself.
One final option: Smart blinds. These are handy to have at night, but they also help you manage the temperatures in specific rooms. If there’s a room that’s a real sun trap, you can set a smart blind to block out the sunshine during the hottest part of the day, so it’s relatively cool whenever you decide to go into it.
Something like the Zstarr Motorized Smart Blind works well here. Via the remote control, you can set up timings for raising and lowering the blinds, and it can be plugged into Amazon Alexa and Google Home smart ecosystems as well if you need it to work with your other smart devices.
There are plenty of ways to approach this, and you can add devices as you need once you’ve got the essentials in place. Eventually, it’s possible to get the temperature of every room carefully calibrated using the right gadgets and apps—with the devices all working on a schedule of your choosing, and in combination with each other.
Original Source: https://lifehacker.com/home/best-smart-tech-cool-heat-home?utm_medium=RSS
Original Source: https://lifehacker.com/home/best-smart-tech-cool-heat-home?utm_medium=RSS
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