Five ways to control your home with smartphones

Let us explore some ways we can use our devices to manage our homes. You see, we live in an age where home appliances are becoming “smarter” every day. That means they have more computer chips installed within their plastic/stainless steel bodies and they can talk to each other and to your smartphone via Wi-Fi connectivity. Here are five ways you can utilise your smartphone to control your home.

• Motion activated security cameras

Having a motion surveillance system for your home is almost better than the cable TV. There are effective applications in the market coupled with compact, yet high-quality security cameras, which allow you to be aware of anyone in your home. These cameras don’t record everything, they simply wait for motion to be detected and then switch on. It can alert you on your phone that it is turning on and you can be anywhere in the world and still watch live footage from your home. Talk about a vacationer’s dream! You can also adjust the security settings with your smartphone, and if you couple that with some other home automation systems, you can control almost everything from your phone!

• Security system

Remember that the home security system you installed a few years ago with the control panel strategically placed by the garage door or master bedroom? Now, with the availability of mobile computing, you can ditch the old control panel and programme everything through your smartphone. You will also be able to receive instant notifications of any foul play.

If you have the newest smart key technology in the market called Lockitron, you will be able to lock, unlock and send time sensitive smart keys to your family and friends if they need to get into your house. Not only does this make life more hassle-free, but it also takes the worry out of giving your neighbour the key to your house while you are on vacation, so he can feed your dog. All you do is give him a digital key that only works during the time you designate for it and your house locks up once the time expires.

• New improved lighting

Phillips makes a smart light bulb called Hue, which allows you to easily control all the light bulbs in your house. This makes a lot of sense if you don’t want to completely retrofit to new lamps or light switches. Simply buy these smart bulbs and you can change the colour of the lights, how bright or dim you want them to be, and of course turn them on and off, so much for the clap-on and clap-off lights.

• Smart keys

Using traditional lock and key deadbolts to open doors is so 2012. Upgrading your lock and key system means a lot of security like never worrying about somebody making a carbon copy of your key to enter your home when you’re not around is taken care of.

 It also means that you can see which doors are unlocked or open at any time. You can also make temporary keys for people who need to get inside on a short-term basis. But for many, and most importantly, this means you don’t have to carry clunky keys around in your pocket anymore to open your home. As I mentioned above, Lockitron is leading the way in this exciting technology.

• Remotely start your vehicle

There are several applications in the market, which connect your smartphone to your vehicle, allowing you to remotely start it and turn on your heater. This is especially beneficial when you live in climates that aren’t friendly for wearing shorts all year. Running outside in 10 degrees below to warm up the car is brutal and unnecessary. One company that experts found that has great reviews and an innovative product is Viper.