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Smart homes are becoming much easier to set up and more affordable, yet some people still aren’t convinced and think that being able to turn your lights on and off with your voice is just a gimmick.
Once you start learning more and more about smart home technology, you’ll soon realize that they can provide significant benefits for you and your family as well as change the way you live your day-to-day life for the better.
Let’s take a look at 13 of the biggest benefits you can get from having a smart home.
1. Convenience
Convenience is something we all strive for more for in our lives, and smart homes can certainly go a long way to help.
Smart homes allow you to control all your lighting, your heating system, and electrical appliances all through just your smartphone or even with your voice.
You don’t even have to be physically there; everything can be controlled from anywhere in the world. All you need is an Internet connection.
Having a smart home with just a few basic automations set up has definitely made life more convenient for me and my family.
2. Save Time
Anyone that finds themselves on the go a lot or has a to-do list the size your arm can benefit from the time-saving capabilities that come with having a smart home.
You could have your voice assistant tell you the weather forecast, how long you can be expecting to commute and read out your schedule for the day all whilst you are in the shower or getting the kids ready for school.
The time savings may seem small, after all, how long does it really take to check your phone for the weather forecast?
You will be surprised at how much time you can actually save over the months and years by having your smart home batch perform these tasks for you whilst you put your focus towards other things.
3. Comfort
I can’t see how anyone can deny that having a smart home just makes life more comfortable.
No longer do you have to walk around the house, checking all the appliances are powered off and that the lights aren’t kept on overnight; you can control all of this from the comfort of the sofa or your bed.
Almost every night I find myself having left something switched on after I have already got into bed, but thankfully I don’t have to get out after already getting comfortable and can simply turn them off with my voice or with my phone.
It’s also nice being able to stay in bed and have smart blinds open automatically for you whilst a smart plug powers on the coffee maker so it is ready and waiting when you do decide to get up.
4. Peace of Mind
This benefit may not apply to everyone, but as someone that tends to worry about whether I have taken care of everything before leaving home for the day, having a smart home has helped put my mind at ease.
With so much already going on in everyone’s lives, it nice to have to not to think about something as basic as making sure an electrical appliance is off or whether you locked the door when you left for work.
Having a smart home can give you peace of mind by taking care of some of these important tasks to save you having to worry about them throughout the day.
5. Remote Control
Just because you aren’t physically at home doesn’t mean you can’t control your smart home devices.
The technology has come a long way since it was first introduced; you can now pretty much control anything from wherever you are in the world.
There will no doubt come a time where you are thankful you decided to invest in a smart home as you needed to do something whilst you were away.
A few examples include being able to remotely power on your slow cooker so that dinner is ready for you when you get home from work, being able to check to see if the front door was left unlocked and being able to lock it remotely, and being able to see who is at the front door looking to drop off a parcel from your smartphone.
If you ask me, having a bit more freedom and knowing that I don’t have to be physically at home to do certain things is one of the best benefits of having a smart home.
6. Improved Energy Efficiency
Use your smart home devices correctly and you could see a massive improvement in energy efficiency throughout your home.
Smart thermostats give you much greater control over the heating and cooling systems in your home by allowing you to set up schedules and telling it your preferred temperature. Some will then even tell you whether what you are proposing is a good use of energy and may suggest a more efficient alternative.
Smart lights can also be set to work to a schedule with them coming on automatically at a certain time of day and then turning themselves off when you head to bed. Combine these with a motion sensor and you can have the lights come on or off depending on whether any movement is being detected in the room.
If you have smart blinds, you can have these open in the morning when you wake up to let the natural light in, so you don’t have to use the artificial lights that are using up valuable energy.
This in itself isn’t going to save a huge amount of energy, but every little bit helps and over time will go a long way in improving the energy efficiency in your home which is going to contribute towards a cleaner environment.
7. Save Money
Being more energy efficient through the use of smart home devices is not just good for the environment, but for your wallet, too.
One of the main reasons many people will choose to invest in some home tech is to save money; something I have certainly been able to do since setting up my smart home.
Sophisticated timers and usage monitors have changed the way we use energy throughout our homes by making sure it is used only when it is really needed.
You’ll probably find yourself saving the most money by using a smart thermostat.
Keeping your heating on when it isn’t needed can be a real drain on your bank account; it is almost like flushing money down the toilet.
Smart thermostats give you complete control over the temperature within your home, even if you aren’t at home. With a bit of help from other smart home devices that manage electricity use, I believe you could remove almost all wasted energy.
I have my smart thermostat to warm the house up a bit in the morning before heading off to work and then again for a few hours in evening time, but other than that, the heating is off thanks to the easy to manage schedule.
If I am at home during the day and start to feel a bit chilly, I’ll activate the boost feature to have the heating turn on for an hour before going back to its normal schedule.
At the end of the day, this has resulted in more money in my back pocket through not using gas and electricity when it simply isn’t needed.
8. Improved Safety and Security
One of the most valuable benefits that come with having a smart home is the improved safety and security through your home for you, your family and your guests.
This is often considered the main reason for people looking at setting up a smart home in the first place, and it is easy to see why. Who wouldn’t want to live in a safer environment?
A few devices that help improve safety around your home are smart air purifiers, water leak and freeze detectors, and a host of different smart security products.
Smart air purifiers allow you to easily control the quality of air throughout your home to keep everyone in the family healthy, whilst water leak and freeze detectors can warn you when there is a risk of flooding or your pipes freezing over.
Catch these issues in time and you could save yourself from damage that is very expensive to repair. You could also find yourself saving a bit on your insurance premiums with these devices, too.
There are many security-focused products ranging from your basic security camera, motion sensors, smart door sensors and video doorbells that all do a great job at keeping an eye on your valuables and notifying you if there is an unwanted guest trying to enter your home.
Outdoor smart lights can also come on automatically at certain times of the day or when motion is detected to light up the path and reduce the risk of tripping over something and having a nasty fall.
All of these devices can certainly put your mind at ease in knowing that your home is now much safer and more secure.
9. Increased Resale Value
In addition to saving money through improved energy efficiency, a smart home can help you make more money in the long run as they will typically add a bit of extra resale value should you come to sell.
Installing just a few simple smart devices and showing off what they can do as part of your house tour could be a great way to boost the price that you can sell your home for.
It doesn’t even have to be anything particularly complicated or expensive; many people will be willing to pay that bit more for something if it means they don’t have to go through the hassle of having to sort it out themselves.
Having a video doorbell or smart thermostat wired in professionally is one of those investments that could have you getting more money back in return when you come to put your house on the market.
10. Contributing to the Economy
It may not seem obvious at first, but you are contributing towards your local economy as well as the global economy when you set up a smart home.
Initially purchasing your smart home devices will alone help the economy, but so will controlling the amount of energy you are using and making sure none of it goes to waste, all thanks to these devices.
Simply by making sure the lights are switched off when they aren’t being used or having your washer-drier automatically power off with a smart plug means you are doing your bit for the economy as well as the environment.
11. Integration of Devices
If I were a betting man, I would suggest that once you buy your first smart home product, you won’t stop there and will want to get more and more. That’s what happened to me, at least!
Having multiple smart devices is where the smart home really begins to take shape and you can start to see the benefits that they bring to day to day life, but how exactly do they all work together?
Smart hubs such as SmartThings or Hubitat give you the ability to manage your entire smart home from a single app, even if the individual devices are from different companies and use different protocols like Wi-Fi, Z-Wave or Zigbee to communicate.
If you had to open several different apps to perform a simple automation, it would soon get very frustrating and would probably be quicker to just resort to the manual method.
There is definitely nothing “smart” about that!
Smart hubs allow you to set up routines that utilize several different devices and can be set to run on a schedule or as and when you need it.
A good example would be a “good night” routine where all of the lights in your home switch off, the appliances connected to smart plugs get powered down, your smart door lock makes sure the front door is locked, and your security cameras power on to keep an eye on things whilst you sleep.
Even though a dedicated smart hub may be needed if you are a smart home enthusiast and want the best possible control over your entire network, they are optional, and many people will get away with not needing one.
The possibilities that come with using a voice assistant device like Alexa or Google Assistant are now much greater and still allow you to set up some relatively complex routines that integrate several different devices.
In my opinion, most people won’t need a dedicated smart hub and can rely on just their voice assistant, but it is still nice to know that the hubs exist if you need to go that one step further in integrating all your smart home devices.
12. Ease of Access
Another benefit of having a smart home that you may not have considered is how they improve the accessibility to your home whilst also keeping it secure.
With a smart lock, you can remotely open your front door to let the kids in when they return from school or for the mailman to drop off that important parcel you have been waiting days for.
Gone are the days when you need to stay in all day just in case someone turns up or must rush back from whatever you are doing at the time just to open the door.
Smart homes can also benefit the elderly and those with disabilities.
For example, a video doorbell can notify someone that is hearing impaired through their phone that someone at the front door. Being able to control devices through voice is a fantastic benefit for anyone who is visually impaired and smart lighting can be set up to come on automatically at certain times of the day to potentially save a fall whilst walking in the dark.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, there are many benefits of having a smart home with some that you not have ever considered.
The main benefits I get from my own smart home is the convenience, cost savings through being more energy-efficient, peace of mind that simple daily tasks are taken care of for me, and the improved safety and security for me and my family.
