There’s no denying the power of smartphones and the internet. In the past, our phones were somewhat capable of accessing the internet, but having full access to the web in the palm of our hands gives us an incredible amount of control and power. Our smartphones have many applications in life. For instance, we can use smartphones (and also tablets) to work remotely when we’re not in the office. This takes a little setup, but it allows us to get stuff done when we’re not at a full-sized computer. It also allows us to access maps so we’ll never get lost no matter where we are, and we can also play games on it to pass the time.
However, one of the growing trends that we’ve seen lately is the addition of smart home technology that is controlled using our smartphones. The ability to control parts of our home using a handheld device sounds convenient, but is it really as interesting or useful as it sounds? Let’s find out.
Smart Home Technology Can Be Useful
There are plenty of useful pieces of smart home technology that can absolutely improve our lives. However, most of this is just for convenience and it doesn’t really offer anything that we absolutely need. For instance, you can use a smartphone now to control the lighting in your home. This requires specific smart lights to be installed, but being able to turn them on and off, set timers and even control the colour from the palm of your hand is a convenience that you’ll grow to love the first time you try it. It will save you energy, it will make changing the mood of the room easy and you won’t need to get off the sofa just to turn the lights on or off.
And It Can Even Save Lives
Let’s not forget that smart home technology can also save lives. You can’t argue with the peace of mind you’ll get if you install a smart wireless camera in your home to monitor your children on your phone while you’re at work, and there’s no safety of locking your home with several layers of security instead of just a physical key. Smart home technology will no doubt save lives, but it’s important to note that it only enhances whatever security practices you currently have.
But It Can Get Really Silly
Unfortunately, smart home technology can get silly. For instance, if your smart home technology relies on a web-service such as IFTTT, then it could strip you of control over your home. For instance, Amazon once experienced an outage on their web services and this left people in the dark in their own homes that were controlled using smart technology. Losing control over your home is a pretty serious problem. Although they were able to restore access to customers eventually, it gave many people a taste of what it would be like to lose control over your own home.
So is smart home technology worth it? If you have the money and want the extra convenience, absolutely! It offers some fantastic safety advantages and can help save you money, but if you’re not keen on losing control of your home due to some computer glitches, then you’re better off sticking with what you already have.
