Room-by-Room Guide to Home Automation

Now that smart home devices are more affordable and easier to install than ever before, you might want to expand your home’s collection of smarter technology. It helps that smart home products can control just about everything in your home . . . except your kids.

With this in mind, we put together a room-by-room guide to home automation and recommend the best smart home devices to help you make your life easier, safer, and more energy efficient.

Home automation for every room

• • Entryway
  • Living room
  • Kitchen
  • Bedroom
  • Bathroom
  • Exterior

Entryway

Forgetting your keys is a huge hassle, and that nagging worry about whether or not you locked the door when you left on vacation can ruin an otherwise relaxing trip. A smart door lock, not only keeps your home safe—it gives you quick access and lets you rest easy.

Some smart locks look like regular deadbolt locks but with Bluetooth or Wi-Fi capability. Other locks have touchscreen keypads to give you a high-tech look and the convenience of a backup code. You can set your lock to sense your smartphone so it automatically locks the door when you leave and unlocks it when you get home.

You can also set rules for your lock, like programming it to arm your security system whenever the door locks. And you can control your lock remotely so you can lock or unlock the door for a neighbor, whether you’re across the world or snug in your own bed.

Living room

Turning lights on and off isn’t exactly a major inconvenience, but smartbulbs offer quite a few surprising benefits for your home and your wallet. Smart lightbulbs last 10 times longer than regular bulbs, and they only consume 8.5 watts of electricity as opposed to the 60 watts eaten up by conventional bulbs.

Smart lights like Philips Hue, HomeMate Smart Bulb, Wipro lightbulbs are easy to install—it’s as simple as changing out a lightbulb. Once your new light is in, you can use your smartphone to change the color, dim it to your desired brightness, or have it turn on and off at certain times of day.

The scheduling option puts your lighting to work as a safety feature as well because having lights turn on and off throughout the evening can trick potential burglars into thinking someone is home even when the house is empty.

You can also switch on your legacy Tube light, Fan, TV, AC with our Backend Device.

Kitchen

If your household is like most, your kitchen is probably a common gathering place. So it’s a perfect location for a smart speaker like an Amazon Echo Dot.

These affordable devices can help you operate other smart devices in your home using voice commands, but they also offer nifty features all on their own.

If you’re baking and you use the last of the sugar, there’s no need to stop what you’re doing to make a note. Simply say, “Alexa, add sugar to my shopping list.” The next time you’re at the store, pull up the Alexa app on your smartphone and you’ll see everything you’ve added to your shopping list.

You can also use your smart speaker to play music, make phone calls, listen to news, check the weather, help you get answers to important questions (“Alexa, why is the sky blue?”), set timers, play games (Jeopardy is one of our favorites), and more.

Bedroom

You can use your smartphone to control power to a smart plug, making smart outlets like the HomeMate Smart Mini Plug an inexpensive, energy-saving device for any room.

If you don’t want to swap out your regular lightbulbs for smartbulbs in bedroom lamps, smart outlets are another easy way to give you smartphone control over your lights. And if you connect the outlet to your smart speaker, you can enjoy the convenience of voice-activated light and appliance control.

Or maybe you want to use festival lights to decorate your room (instead of leaving them in a box all year)? Not a problem.

Bathroom

If you’ve never been halfway to work and wondered if that flat iron is still plugged into the outlet, you might be interested in learning more about smart outlets.

Smart outlet controls like Wise Backend Device allow you to integrate any of your home’s older lights or appliances into a new automation system. Turn lights on and off remotely. Manage smaller, window-style air conditioner units. Monitor the amount of energy these appliances use, so you’ll know whether it makes sense to upgrade to more energy-efficient models.

Water tank control: Oakter Tankbolt can help save you money—and if you live in a drought-stricken area, it might even be mandatory. Home automation lets you turn your motor on and off remotely, from inside the house or across the country.

Check your water usage levels whenever you like. Automatically on and off based on the water level.