It also tracks your sleep trends in its companion app, and offers personalized insights to help you snooze better. The Simplehuman Dual-Compartment Rectangular Sensor Can can open and close its lid in response to voice commands. The Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo T8 AIVI is a pricey 2-in-1 robot vacuum and mop with excellent battery life, the ability to identify and avoid obstacles, and a unique home monitoring feature.
A smart air purifier can help you keep a close eye on your indoor air quality and breathe a little easier, especially if you suffer from allergies and asthma. The Dyson Purifier Cool TP07, our all-around favorite model, is both a capable HEPA air purifier as well as an oscillating fan, with a small footprint and Wi-Fi connectivity for phone and voice control. With a smart plug, you can turn anything that plugs into the wall—be it a lamp, space heater, humidifier, or even a Christmas tree—into a connected device that you can control from your phone.
Another smart living room gadget that can add serious convenience to your life, and potentially save you money on energy, is a connected thermostat. Our favorite models let you monitor and control your home’s heating and cooling system by phone or voice, set temperature schedules, and offer energy-saving features that can help lower your bill. Our top pick, the Ecobee Smart Thermostat With Voice Control, comes with a remote sensor you can put in different rooms to ensure a consistent temperature throughout the house. Whilst a compromised smartphone is required as an entry vector into the powerline, once this is established, the DS protocol provides unrestricted access to launch arbitrary commands against any connected appliances. Smart TVs connect to the internet to access content through applications, such as on-demand video and music. In addition to being able to be controlled remotely and customized, smart lighting systems, such as Hue from Philips Lighting Holding B.V., can detect when occupants are in the room and adjust lighting as needed.
These also plug into your router, but they only connect a specific brand of devices to your WiFi. For example, Philips Hue has a bridge, which is required to connect the bulbs to your internet, but it isn’t designed to connect Hue to third-party devices like Wink or SmartThings can. Before you buy, check product reviews and avoid those that draw the ire of users.
Finally, if you have a cat or dog, your smart living room wouldn’t be complete without a pet camera that lets you monitor and interact with your fur babies 24/7, from wherever you are. The Furbo Dog Camera is as functional as it is fun, offering barking notifications and a remote treat-tossing feature you—and your pooch—will love. A Standard account will, however, limit you to creating just three IFTTT applets from scratch. If you can’t find an applet that fits your needs, and you want to create more than three new ones, you’ll need to sign up for an IFTTT Pro account, which costs $5 per month. That allows you to create up to 20 applets, while a $10-per-month Pro+ expands that to an unlimited number of applets. This indoor security camera has a built-in siren, making it an all-in-one system at a low price.
Consumers want a home system that provides value for the things they care about, along with a more personalized experience. Learning what owners want and communicating that in a more nuanced way will help to make these systems even smarter. Although consumers want the ability to check on their homes, that doesn’t mean they want to be bombarded with notifications. For example, their camera shouldn’t text them every time someone passes by on the sidewalk. People want to know about potential threats, not that their neighbor is walking the dog.
Most approaches are based on experiments or solely focused on the technology. Technological or engineering perspectives on smart homes have failed to interpret potential users’ actual needs from a smart home. While investigating integrations, remember to keep in mind if the smart devices you currently own are compatible or incompatible with the system.