A smart home does not mean a home plenty of new and crazy gadgets or robots but a home with “connected” appliances and accessories, so it seems that they are appliances that can act autonomously as if they had some intelligence. Thus, we can talk about smart light bulbs, smart thermostats, smart washing machine, smart security systems, etc.
Until recently, the Wi-Fi network has been used primarily to interconnect electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets, TV, etc. However, the Wi-Fi network will take on great importance in the concept of smart home [14]. By connecting home appliances to the Wi-Fi network we can obtain great benefits.
Any device in our home that uses electricity can be connected to our home network.
Firstly, we could control everything in real time either from an app on our smartphone or tablet, or from our voice.
Secondly, we can have access to all data and information stored in home appliances. Thus, smart home appliances can give us easily accessible data on security by accessing to smart security camera records or on energy by monitoring electricity and gas consumption.
Thirdly, we have got home automation. Instead of manually controlling our home gadgets all the time we can go one further and set up routines and rules. The idea is that our home gets to know us and our family and automatically works based on what is happening, without the need of our control commands.
Finally, and probably in a near future, we can imagine completely autonomous gadgets and robots that operate themselves at home such as lawn mowers robots or laundry folding robots.
Entertainment, energy efficiency and security are expected to be the three big categories for smart home devices in the near future.
Application |
Description |
Real Time Alerts |
Starting time for washing machine and dish washer scheduled to save energy. |
Security and Surveillance |
To increase safety, protect our family and monitor activity on our property. |
Perimeter access control |
In buildings, access control to restricted areas and detection of people in non-authorized areas. |
Air Control and Central Heating |
House/room temperature is automatically adjusted to our preferences. |
Smart Lighting |
Intelligent and weather adaptive lighting in home and building lights. |
Smart Enterteiment |
Automatic selection and in a in a personalized way of a tv program or movie according to the user's tastes |
Energy and Water Use |
Energy and water supply consumption monitoring to obtain advice on how to save cost and resources |
Keep your plants alive |
To keep plants fed based on their actual growing needs and conditions. |