Turning a house into a smart house will require you to buy several smart gadgets like, smart bulbs, speakers, sensors, security cameras, smart TV, and connecting all of them to a single hub which will help them in communicating with each other. Then you will be able to control them via your smartphone. And all this will easily cost you a lot of money, not to forget a lot of your time as well.
But what if I told you, you can get most of the conveniences of a high-end smart house, without having to spend a great deal of money?
What makes a full-fledged smart home so costly is the dependency of gadgets on a smart home hub. Although, it does makes it easier to control them, from a single interface, but it is not always important. You just have to make sure to buy the smart home products which are compatible with each other and don’t rely on a hub to be controlled.
Let’s have a look at ways to convert your house into a smart house.
A Wireless Router
Before talking about the smart gadgets, you have to make sure you have a good router, which covers every corner of your house. All smart gadgets will require wireless connectivity. If they are unable to connect to your router or if the link is weak, it may cause problems in controlling them. So, get a good wireless router.
Smart TV Streaming
Buying a smart TV with preinstalled applications like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, etc. can be very costly. So, if you have an LED or LCD or any TV, you can stream online media content directly to it using smart TV streaming devices, such as Amazon TV Fire Stick. You can watch your favourite shows, movies, live TV, sports, etc. on it.
Searching for content on it is pretty easy. Simply press a button on its remote and ask Alexa to find any show or movie you want to watch. Fire Stick can do a lot more things.
With a Firestick clean up you can do a lot more things. There are many Fire Stick Tricks available on the internet, using which you can even stream content for free. An Amazon TV Fire Stick costs under $40 and is a very popular smart gadget.
Smart Outlet
A Smart Outlet is one of the simplest smart home accessories. It will cost you around $20-$40, and with it, you can turn on any device plugged into it. You will simply need to plug this into the wall socket and plug your TV, lamp, radio etc. into it. After that, you can control this smart plug using an app, or the voice assistant (Google Assistant, Alexa) on your phone.
Smart Lights
Doesn’t matter how old your house is, it is very simple to add smart lights to it. Smart lights simply need to be screwed into a socket. Many smart lights don’t require a hub, and they can still interact with other smart gadgets. Bluetooth and/or Wi-Fi enabled smart lights are available in the market, which can be controlled from your phone pretty easily. You can use smart bulbs to turn on or off on a schedule, program lightning scenes, etc.
Smart Security Cameras
A smart security camera can help you keep an eye on your house when you are away. It works just like any other security camera. What makes it different is that you can watch live video from it on your smartphone.
Outdoor cameras can be used to keep an eye on whoever comes in the vicinity of your house, and using an indoor camera you can watch what your kid or your pet doing while you are away. Most of these cameras have motion sensors and they ping you on your phone whenever there’s any movement.
Turning your house into a Smart House can be a costly process. But using the correct device, you can do it without spending much. Look for smart gadgets which suit your needs, and select them according to their functionality.