Smart Home: How to Upgrade Your Outdated Home

Smart homes are becoming the standard, but it wasn’t so not long ago that it was a luxury. When looking at the specifications of a new build, there are generally many things that take precedence over focussing on upgrading your home with all the smart home features.

The primary thing most people typically spend their money on is decor upgrades; namely, hardwood flooring, moldings, stainless steel appliances, marble countertops and on and on. Having your new build equipped with all the latest smart home technology usually falls by the wayside when you’re taking on the tremendous expense to have your dream home built out.

The good news is, there’s no rush. If you’re like most people operating on a budget, integrating smart home features is something that you can do as budgeting allows. Ripping out flooring, redoing kitchens and bathrooms and most other renovations are costly and invasive. If possible, it’s ideal to get the messy stuff out of the way before you move in. Integrating smart home features are relatively simple and quick.

If you built your dream home and are looking to slowly integrate smart home features, you can go about it one by one until your home is fully state of the art. Here are the features you want to focus on:

1) Smart Home Security

Think of your security system as the central hub of your smart home of which everything connects to. For this reason, this should be the first thing you upgrade once your contract is up with your old, outdated security system. The features included vary, and you can add on as necessary. Your basic package gives you smartphone access to your alarm features, a smart door lock that you can also lock or unlock with your smartphone and the ability to monitor the activity of your sensors with your smartphone. Everything is controlled by your smartphone and you can add additional features as you get them.

2) Smart Cameras

Instead of security cameras, you can only view from one monitor, install smart cameras in places such as your front door, back door, and babies room. This gives you the ability to monitor all your cameras from your smartphone, whether you are home or not.

3) Smart Thermostat

Control the temperature of your home from your smartphone. This also includes programmable features like having it set to ‘off’ during work hours when nobody is home, enabling you to be more energy efficient.

4) Smart Lights

Turn lights off and on from your smartphone. Also programmable so you can have lights go off or on at specific times you have set in your preferences. This is also great when traveling; most people tend to leave lights on to deter burglars. By programming ‘normative’ lighting patterns in your home, you’ll give off the appearance that somebody is always home while being energy efficient.

5) Smart Appliances

Check on your laundry, dishwasher, ovens, and refrigerator from the palm of your hand. No more paranoia that you left your oven on before leaving the house and it’s burning down. Now you can turn it off on the go. You can also set automatic alerts that inform you if any appliances are on when you’re setting your alarm. Appliances are expensive, so only upgrade them once the old ones break down.

If you want to dive more into smart home tech, check out this article on smart technology and millennials setting new home standards.