Smart Home Tech

Even though you won’t need to spend a fortune to make your home smarter, with a bit of planning and careful selection of goods from the plethora of low-cost smart home appliances and smart gadgets we’re seeing today, it also might not cost much. 


Below is a list of seemingly simple yet cost-effective options for you to jazz up your home. These gadgets can turn your home into a smart one. 

 

Cost-Effective Smart Home Options

Below is a list of seemingly simple yet cost-effective options for you to jazz up your home. These gadgets can transform your home into a smart one:

Smart Plugs

A smart plug is the cheapest way to device-if any dumb appliance. Smart plugs are simply plugs that plug into main sockets and can be remotely controlled via a smartphone app or any smart speaker.


Almost all smart plugs will allow you to create schedules and timers to automate your daily routines around your house. They also have the added bonus of showing your daily energy consumption in order to save you on your monthly electricity bills.


A case in point is the TP-Link Smart Plug, which enables you to switch power to a device such as a light or Xbox wherever you have an internet connection via an app, as well as regardless of distance, with a voice command using Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant.

Streaming Devices

Streaming devices like the Roku Express 4K Plus or the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max can turn your TV into a smart ecosystem for streaming. Both are very budget-friendly and will bring a wide range of popular streaming apps to your TV: 

  • Netflix
  • Hulu
  • Amazon Prime Video and more…

These typically yield their own remote control console so you can wave your hands to navigate, and which can feed high-fidelity video and audio – 4K, HDR, or Dolby Atmos surround sound. 


Some may also permit you to hook up to smart-home systems, such as Google Nest or Apple’s HomeKit, for voice control and home automation.


Streamers - Google TV, Roku, Fire TV and Apple TV HD, Alexa, Siri, and voice remotes via WiFi 6, Dolby Vision and HDR 10.

Smart Security Cameras

Some new home security cameras or online security cameras can be viewed with any internet connection off-site.


Some of these might also be equipped with a built-in video recorder, motion detection, night vision, and two-way audio. The more expensive models come with AI-enabled face and object-recognition features as well.


Consider the Blink Mini, a little gadget that ‘streams live 1080p HD video’ with night vision and two-way audio to your smartphone or tablet and alerts you with push notifications when motion is detected.

Smart Doorbells

A smart doorbell adds a camera, which connects it to your home Wi-Fi network and to live video and two-way audio of your visitors that you can access from anywhere. 


Some of the doorbells have motion detectors, two-way sound, and sound-triggered recording. Some models integrate with other smart home devices to create a whole home experience.


The Ring Video Doorbell Pro ‘helps you let the right people in’, offering 1080p HD video, two-way talk and motion-activated alerts. ‘You’ll never miss a package or a friend at the front door again.’ 

Smart Lighting

One is a Home Automatic lighting system that consists of several LED bulbs or lamps that you can turn on and off via a smartphone app or by speaking commands into your phone. 


These systems, like many others on the market, are part of what is known as the IoT, and they use some of the same interfaces – Zigbee, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth – to communicate with and link devices to each other.


For example, you can paint the Kasa Smart LED Light Bulb (which works with Amazon Alexa) cooler or brighter, warmer or red or whatever else you want (using the Kasa Smart app) at whatever point in time you choose, and you can control the start and end of the painting process using your voice or a smartphone. 

Smart Speakers

Smart speakers are a type of voice assistant device where a central virtual assistant responds to different inputs, including human voice in natural language. A smart speaker can tell jokes and play music, control smart home devices, answer questions and handle other requests, including scheduling and notifications.


At another price point, the Amazon Echo Dot (5th gen) is a cheap speaker that gains much from Alexa (the Echo’s voice assistant), as well as reacting to rising ambient temperature and extending an Eero home Wi-Fi system.

Summary

A Smart home is a far goal, admittedly. But it’s actually cheap; right now, it’s possible to spend under $250 on a collection of smart gadgets that will get you functionality and convenience. Make sure your style of choice is compatible with the rest of your home. Most importantly, make sure the gadget you invest in is the kind that you’ll actually use; there’s no need to go overboard when so much hardware and software today is upgradeable.