Over the past few years, smart home technology has become so affordable and accessible that almost everyone has some sort of smart home tech in their homes these days, according to a recent study data shows that three-quarters of UK homes now contain some sort of smart device or appliance!
Of course, while around 75% of UK homes have smart devices in them, it is mostly entry level gadgets like smart speakers (54% of UK households) and smart thermostats (21% of UK households) and not many of these homes are actually ‘smart homes’ despite having the entry level devices required for more advanced smart home devices.
There are only around 2-million homes in the UK that qualify as fully fledged ‘smart homes’, so if you want to upgrade your home into a smart home, you’ll want to start looking at some more advanced devices you can use to turn your home into the home of the future!
What Are Advanced Smart Devices?
While almost everyone has basic smart devise like smart speakers, advanced smart home devices will allow you to use those basic devices to make your life easier – With automation and integration options, you can essentially let parts of your home operate independently without you need to even think about it or control devices around your home with simple voice commands!
Now, we’ll look at what advanced smart home devices you can use in your home – Please bear in mind, we will not be covering basic devices like smart speakers even though they are important for smart homes.
Smart Window Shades
First off, smart window shades are an essential addition for any truly smart home, allowing you to automate your home’s blinds and curtains for security purposes, optimal comfort and even energy efficiency when they’re integrated with a smart thermostat.
Devices like DotcomBlinds’ Smart Control Blinds, allow you almost limitless options for controlling your shades, with programming options to with set times for your blinds to open and close, integration options for allowing them to open and close to let heat in or keep cold out, and even standard remote control or voice control options.
Smart Lighting Systems
Another essential advanced smart home device for 2024 are smart lighting systems, replacing the bulbs of your light fixtures with smart bulbs, allows you to do so many cool and convenient things with your home’s lighting, especially when they’re connected to other devices.
For example, if you link your phone to your smart lights, you can have the lights in your home turn on automatically as you arrive home in dark winter evenings, letting you stroll in to a well lit space, or when on holiday you can program lights to turn on and off periodically throughout the day, making it appear to would-be thieves that someone is still occupying the house.
Smart Household Appliances
This next essential piece of smart home tech, is more a group of appliances, rather than a single must-have device. Thanks to modern technology, many household appliances, such as ovens, washing machines, dishwashers and even coffee machines have ‘smart’ versions available.
To truly call your house a smart home, these smart appliances are essential, beyond heling you earn the label of ‘smart home’ they are also incredibly practical, for example: with a smart oven, you can set your oven to be pre-heated by the time you return from a day of work; with a smart coffee machine, you can program your machine to be brewing a coffee at certain points throughout the day, like having a coffee ready to pour when you wake up.
