Home automation is often a journey of the practical combined with the opulent. In a practical sense, home automation conserves energy, offers security, and increases control of your environment. This automation can be tailored to your most extravagant dreams and offer luxuries you never imagined in an opulent sense. Automating your home can be difficult because there are many options. You will be pulled from one home automation idea to another, only to realize that you’ve entirely forgotten your original intent. That is why it is good to have a flexible plan in place that covers your wants but makes room for the new home automation ideas you are bound to find on your home automation journey.
Home Automation Ideas for Your Space
Home automation ideas abound, but here are six of the most common:
1. Smart Lighting
Most people think about timers when they think of smart lighting options. Generally, this is for security, so you can set your lights to turn on and off throughout the house to give the impression that someone is home.
But, smart lighting has exceeded the simplicity of basic security.
Today’s smart lights offer access to controls via an app, touchscreen, voice command, motion detection, and remotely. You can easily set up your home to perform one light routine when you want to watch a movie and another as you go to bed.
Smart lighting offers unimaginable convenience. However, it also provides some very cool home automation ideas. For example, with the use of LED lights, you can expand color options.
For a more dramatic vibe, your game room or home theater might be a dark red glow, or it gives off the commercial theater’s usual amber lights. When you throw smart lighting and home automation into the mix, there are plenty of options. There’s something for everyone.
2. Automated Window Treatments
One luxurious home automation idea everyone should get their hands on is automated window blinds.
Unfortunately, many people live in houses that resemble caves because of the inconvenience of window curtains. With automated blinds, you can let the sunlight in or keep it out anytime you want!
These brilliant inventions also help you to save energy. For example, window treatments that go up and down at set times will help you reduce heat loss during the winter. On a hot day, this can keep your house cool and comfortable. Moreover, modern automated window treatments, or electronic shades, are beautiful and easily integrate with your whole home automated system.
As far as aesthetics, automated window treatments come in nearly all styles, including Venetian blinds or modern blinds hidden within discrete pockets. With factors ranging from 100% to complete blackout blinds, you can get any natural lighting effect with the touch of a button or voice command. This home automation concept eliminates the trouble of traditional, manually adjusted window treatments!
3. Smart Thermostat
Most cool home automation ideas have some energy savings inherent in their design, but smart thermostats are probably the greatest at offering energy savings. That is because you can conserve energy when nobody is home!
Whether at work, school, or on vacation, there’s no need to keep your house a balmy 72 degrees when nobody is there to enjoy it. Instead, you can conserve energy during the summer or winter and reduce the stress on your system.
Are you getting off early or coming home off schedule? No problem!
Your smart thermostat climatizes by the time you get home. In addition, you can access the smart thermostat from your smart device before you hop in your car to drive home.
4. Audio & Video Entertainment
Entertainment inspires many home automation concepts. When that is the case, most people turn to audio and video first.
Of course, high-quality video is a must. However, home automation implies that you won’t see the screen until it’s in use. Your screen might rise or drop away from a fireplace or perhaps lower from the ceiling. The point is, the ambiance of the room is not interrupted by technology until you want it.
Audio should be present in every room of the house. Ceiling speakers, built-ins, and soundbars should all be linked together. You can connect all these to your whole home automated system so that you can enjoy music and movies from any room.
Read More: Home Theater Automation 101
5. AV Rack
Your AV Rack becomes the center of activity for your household. So naturally, some people are concerned if it is essential, but an AV Rack is required to access entertainment without bulky boxes (consoles, streaming devices, etc.) stored beneath your screens.
What comes with an AV rack? Network switches, amplifiers, cooling fans, and the sources of your entertainment; therefore, with an AV rack, you can access your entertainment from anywhere in the house without having to store it in that room. It’s a home automation concept that you can use in any area with multiple screens.
6. Security
Home automation offers many security features that stem from motion detection lighting to security cameras. Today’s automated gadgetry provides multiple ways to get that security, including robotic vacuums that serve a dual purpose as security monitors mounted with cameras that can patrol when you aren’t home.
The beauty of security in your home automation system is that you can access it from your smart device. Thus, you can put your mind at ease if you get an ominous feeling while away. It also means that motion detection can deter would-be criminals from entering your home by activating lighting.
Integrating Home Automation Ideas into Your Home
The essential thing to do with your home automation ideas is to make sure they integrate easily.
An integrated system will have you walking into your home with lights, music, and temperatures set to your preference. It will have you sitting down to watch your television without sifting through remotes. You’ll be able to set different rooms to personalized preferences to accommodate others who live in the household. Ultimately, if you want it to happen, home automation ideas are relatively limitless.
Speaking to a home automation specialist is the best way to make the dreams you have for your house a reality. They will be able to offer guidance to make sure all parts integrate without issue, and they might even be able to provide some ideas of their own to expand your plans for your home.
Contact Northern Utah’s Advanced Integrated Systems to start your home automation journey today!
