Welcome to our latest smart home technology gallery, this time showcasing the variety of smart utilities that can improve your home.
We’re beyond excited about the burgeoning popularity of smart home technology and want to share the possibilities out there.
With smart home technology, your utilities can become more convenient, efficient, and safe.
There’s really nothing more you can ask from an upgrade, so we’re delving in to the myriad options, features, and improvements that smart technology can bring to the home utilities we use every day.
The first requirement for a worthy upgrade is, of course, whether it improves the product and your experience with it. We think that the below examples of smart home utilities all pass that bar and then some.
As we explore the various home utility options that now come in smartly upgraded form, take note of which specific features will improve your home and work best with your lifestyle. Take for example the plumbing options: if you own a rental or vacation home, there’s nothing more reassuring than knowing your house is flood free and safe.
While considering the big safety improvements here, make room for the array of smaller but incredibly important convenience features. Consider how, for instance, a self-programming thermostat might make your home more comfortable while saving money on your monthly heating and cooling bills.
Consider, too, the implications of being able to command the inner workings of your home itself from anywhere, whether it’s the bedroom, the office, or a beach in another country. With smartphone connectivity, most of these utilities can be monitored and controlled whether you’re at home or not.
We’re beyond excited at the idea of moving the most important, but least-considered parts of our homes into the future. It’s about time!
See more fantastic smart home products, check out our smart home technology ultimate guide!
1. Plum Wifi Lightpad Dimmer
Entering a room at night, you’ll see the Lightpad softly glowing so there’s no need to fumble for a switch, and the color can be customized to your preference. The pad works with finger gestures, much like a smartphone screen, allowing you to control lights individually, for a whole room, or even the whole house.
Beyond the Lightpad itself, the product is designed to work with an accompanying smartphone app so that you can remain in control of your home lighting system from anywhere inside the home or out. You can monitor energy use and turn lights on or off from the office or even while on vacation, anywhere you’ve got an internet connection.
2. Blossom Smart Watering Controller
Blossom is all about controlling your sprinklers from anywhere, using smart technology to water your landscape as efficiently as possible. With an accompanying smartphone app, you’ll be able to monitor and control water usage from anywhere in the world, setting different waterings for different yard zones.
With Blossom, you’ll conserve both water and money, because it comes with built-in weather analytics to self-program based on real-time weather data. If it’s a rainy day, for example, your sprinklers won’t run. There’s few better feelings than lowering your bills and doing good for the environment at the same time.
3. Aros Smart Air Conditioner
Regular window AC units only give you two choices: Leave the air on all day, wasting electricity and money, or come home to a hot and humid home. Instead, Aros uses information gathering to learn about your patterns and habits, tailoring its operation to your home and lifestyle. Used in combination with the Wink smartphone app, Aros can automatically maintain the right temperature at the right time, maximizing savings in the process. Additionally, it can be controlled and monitored from anywhere in the world.
4. Leviton Humidity Sensor and Fan Control
The Leviton detects excess humidity and automatically activates the ventilation fan to dry things up, helping to prevent and reduce mold and mildew. The built-in smart sensor monitors and manages humidity levels and features simple controls for adjusting sensitivity, humidity level, and time-out settings. This device can replace a single pole switch and can be combined with almost any bathroom or ventilation fan. Basically, it’s an ideal solution for ensuring a consistent, dry atmosphere where it’s needed most in your home.
5. Whirlpool Energy Smart Electric Water Heater
The venerable water heater is a longtime household workhorse that we don’t really think about until it breaks. However, that doesn’t mean technology hasn’t improved it recently. This model features a touch screen user interface with diagnostic reporting and three selectable operating modes: standard, vacation, and Energy Smart. This last mode intelligently adapts to your hot water use in order to reduce standby heat loss and wasted money. Beyond this, the heater can be hooked to your existing smart home environment via wifi connectivity.
6. SNUPI Technologies WallyHome
WallyHome is a smart home device that alerts you to water leaks and changes in temperature, giving you a heads up before your home can become damaged. It’s made to be placed near appliances or rooms susceptible to damage, like basements or kitchens, where it can detect any changes in humidity and temperature with its array of sensors. The information is convey via your home’s existing copper wires to the central hub, which will alert you via phone about any problems. It’s one of our favorite new safety innovations.
7. Tado Smart AC Control
This smart AC controller allows you to connect your smartphone to your existing air conditioner. Using a companion app, the Tado uses your phone’s location to determine when it should pre-cool the home before you arrive, and when it should turn off after you’ve left. Of course, you can also control the air conditioner from anywhere in the world, setting up the behavior patterns and scheduled cooling of your home with precision.
8. FortrezZ Wireless Z-Wave Water Valve
With this valve plumbed on your home’s water main, you’ll be able to control the water supply remotely through the Z-wave Home Automation system. This opens up a host of opportunities. When leaving home for vacation, you can have peace of mind knowing that nothing will go wrong with appliances. If an appliance leaks, for example, flood sensors can detect it, shutting off the water supply automatically to limit damage. In the meantime, you’ll be notified by phone so that you can get right on the problem. It’s a perfect solution for vacation homes, rental units, and even commercial buildings, and can be applied on dishwashers, water heaters, bathtubs, refrigerators, and more.
9. Nest Learning Thermostat
The Nest Learning Thermostat adapts to your lifestyle and the seasons, programming itself after just a week of operation. For instance, it will learn when you turn the heat down at night, and when you wake up for breakfast. It’ll take note of when you leave for work and start programming around your schedule. Even more, with a companion smartphone app you can keep track of temperature and energy use remotely, and even set the temperature from wherever you are. Additionally, the wall unit itself will light up only when you’ve entered the room, and can be programmed to look just how you prefer.
10. Honeywell Lyric WiFi-Enabled Thermostat
With this smart, wifi-enabled thermostat, you’ll be able to control the temperature of your home from literally anywhere on earth, or allow its built-in computer to manage the household environment automatically. When maintenance is needed or extreme conditions present themselves, the Lyric will send a notification to your smartphone. Additionally, it will use your location information to adjust the temperature as you come and go from home, increasing money savings along the way. Perhaps smartest of all, it will fine tune itself based on both indoor and outdoor temperatures and humidity readings to reach the perfect set point.
11. Keen Home Smart Vent
Keen Home Smart Vents will intelligently regulate your home’s temperature with room-by-room specificity, increasing comfort and reducing energy costs across the board. Wifi connectivity ensures that you’ll be able to control the entire system with your smartphone or tablet. The Smart Vent is designed to painlessly retrofit any existing floor, wall, and ceiling air vents, then wirelessly connect to your home network. The vents are able to communicate with one another, connected system, regulating airflow in rooms that can be too hot, too cold, or not in use for the majority of the day. It’s a comprehensive system to make your entire home more comfortable and efficient, and it comes in a variety of faceplate styles to match your sensibilities.
12. WeMo Water
The WeMo Water senses pressure changes throughout your home’s plumbing system every time water is used, employing machine-learning algorithms to analyze these changes. After it’s identified every fixture in the home, from showers to sinks to outdoor irrigation, it will calculate how much water each consumes and learn from these patterns.
The WeMo will also smartly schedule adjustments that allow water pressure in the home to cater to your habits, cooling and heating water based on your smartphone location and daily schedule. With an accompanying smartphone app, you’ll always stay connected with this important but often overlooked part of your home.
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Home Stratosphere is an award-winning home and garden online publication that’s a result of our talented researchers and writers who work directly with hundreds of professional interior designers, furniture designers, landscape designers and architects from around the world to create helpful, informative, entertaining and inspiring articles and design galleries.
