It is pretty much impossible to get through a day without running into a “smart” device, be it in your home, on your person or moving through your day. Smart homes and smart devices have been subtilty becoming more and more popular.  While I have written about some of the risks, which you can mitigate these devices really do make your life easier, they can help you save money or feel more secure. See my article on being cyber safe at home here: https://ericcrichardson.com/2021/01/28/home-the-cybersecurity-dangers-within/amp/

While there are many ways to think about what makes a “smart device” to narrow it down I’ll first speak to the following criteria.

-It must be some sort of electronic device (battery, plug, solar)

-It needs to have a degree of connectivity (WIFI, Z-wave, Bluetooth etc.)

-It must have a way to communicate to it from distance (via phone, via computer etc.).

Behind the scenes, these devices all communicate with either a service or another device it is paired with and in many cases both. You can either read information or adjust some sort of setting. While the list of possible choices I am going to use personal experience and what I’ve worked with to speak to some of the ways smart devices can help you out. I’ll speak to phones, tablets, computers as connectors to the devices and displaying data; while they are all part of the ecosystem, they help you manage these devices but are not the devices themselves.

Smartwatch

The Smartwatch may be the closest device as you wear it.  I wear a smart watch nearly 24×7 and I have for years from different manufacturers starting with a smart band and working up to a full watch.  I have what is very much for me a “head up display” for what’s going on with my phone, I can configure E-mail notification, phone calls, meetings, etc. to display on my watch.  It’s my ever-present step counter, I can set it to track workouts when I jump on the elliptical or treadmill in lieu of going out during staying at home for COVID.  It also tracks my sleep, heartrate etc. so I have good baseline for how things are with me.  I see news headlines on it and then then open them up on my phone so when I unlock my phone it is waiting for me.  It also tells super accurate time as it syncs with the phone which itself synchs to the wireless network which has very accurate time.  Lastly- I love analog watches so my watch displays hands. I have never liked the look of digital watches, so I get the best of both worlds.

Smart LED Lightbulbs

LED light bulbs are not at all new, they can provide excellent light at a fraction the cost of old style incandescent light bulbs and they produce nearly no heat.   While LEDs have been around a long time the last decade has seen an explosion of the use of them now taking the lead as the main lightbulb in households and businesses.   There are several manufactures of LEDs for the home which can product bulbs that have the same warm light as an old-style bulb as the lighting manufacturers have figured out how to alleviate that harsh white flicker.  In addition to that multiple LED manufacturers have equipped their bulbs to work on a network, often you must purchase a hub (like a wireless router) which communicates to the lights. The hub is itself pugged into the household network.  Now you can, from your computer, phone, or tablet control the lighting in your house.   Ever worry about “did I shut off the kitchen light?” Even from the other side of the world you can check to see if your lights or on or off.

You can use Internet services such as “If this than that” (IFTTT.com) to create automatic steps (Applets) which occur, such as when you get within a certain distance of your house to turn the external lights on.  It’s very easy to do and has great value.  Having the exterior lights turned on when I near the house is especially useful feature for me in winter.

Check out the section below about smart speakers for further integration to the smart house.

Smart Thermostat

Smart thermostats simply replace your existing thermostat, they will often connect to your house WIFI and thus to a cloud service.  A smart thermostat does let you adjust the temperature up and down all you want from anywhere using a computer or phone, oddly I almost never actually tough my smart thermostat anymore as I always have a computer, tablet, or phone nearby!

I feel the “Smart” comes from the connection to the cloud and the calculations that are done to identify when it is needed or not. The thermostat with then adjust the temperature up and down based on usage patters so you can ‘train’ it to get cooler at night and use electricity. I’ve had a smart thermostat for several years and I have seen a reduction in my energy use.

Smart camera

Smart cameras are all about security.  There are versions made for in us out of doors which have features such as microphones and speakers so you can potentially talk to someone at your front door if you are somewhere else.   They often have motion sensing built into them and can identify the difference between a motion (say a dog runs through your yard) or a human face. They can also record what is happening so you can review it later.

Robot servants

Robot servants, the never realized hope of a century of sci-fi movies.  Today we see some interesting things from some of the companies developing commercial grade robots, just do a web search for Boston Dynamics “dancing robots” but how about for the home?

Today one of the only viable options for a home robot is a roving vacuum cleaner.   There are some educational robots out there and some toys, but we are not there yet.  There is some early work in lawn mowing robots, window washing robots or even pool cleaning robots.   They tend to be expensive for what they do- but give it about ten years.

Smart Speaker

The Smart speaker has become something many homes have, in fact it is not uncommon to see homes with several.  In truth the ‘smart’ is the service running in the cloud which the speaker, or app communicates to.  It can take your grocery list, it can read you weather, show you YouTube videos. What started out with Cortana from Microsoft on Windows and Siri on Apple phones have mostly been overtaken by Echo from Amazon and Google Home from Google.

The power of whatever smart device you use is the cross-connectivity between the speaker or app and the other smart devices in the eco system.   With smart speakers and/or IFTTT you can create automatic steps what will occur when certain criteria are met. For example, when I tell my smart speaker “Good night” It’ll shut off all the lights in the house, set the thermostat to a night time setting and reply “Setting the house to night Mode” to confirm that’s what is happening- it’ll then flip the porch lights on full bright white for security.    The devices also come in some strange form factors like clocks or plugs, but that means they can be cheap and ubiquitous in the house which means you’ve got an instant home announcement system built in.

There are so many other devices such as smart ovens, smart refrigerators, smart locks, smart doorbells etc. so I recommend you look around for what is out there!   To me I really saw the power of them when I started connecting them to my different smart speakers/apps. I personally actually have Cortana, Google Home, and Amazon echo set up so I can accomplish whatever I want in front of any device.  But be smart about y our set up, for example take smart steps to protect yourself, use smart password discipline. You can read about how to manage passwords here https://ericcrichardson.com/2021/01/14/the-gist-of-passwords/amp/

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