How much does home automation cost? This is the first question comes mind who want to make their dumb home smart.
It depends on which and how many smart home devices you want to install. However, home automation can cost you minimum from $1200-$2000. A smart home hub cost around $100, a smart thermostat cost around $300, a smart ceiling fan cost around $400, a smart home camera cost $100-$400, and a smart home lock cost $150-$200.
This article is a complete and comprehensive guide on why, how and which smart home essentials can really help with the leap of your home to a smart home. Budget consideration and how much does a smart home cost are some other questions tackled in detail.
Why should you upgrade to a smart home?
If you are unsure about upgrading to a smart home or just don’t know what difference it can make, the fact is that investing in the right smart home automation can save you a lot of money along with transforming your lifestyle.
1. A smart home can help lower your energy bills
Its sure sounds like a misjudgment when you consider all the costs that new technology and devices are going to add up as bills, but actually, these devices can perform the required daily tasks and much more at a much better energy-efficient level than the conventional ones.
Smart lighting is the first when it comes to saving a lot on your electricity bills while still maintaining a vivid clarity all over your house. Smart LED bulbs use as much as 80% less energy than the conventional bulbs with the added benefits of automatic switching on-off when not in use.
There are several other components as well such as smart thermostats, smart fans, and smart water heaters. Heating and cooling are a large chunk of your electricity bills and upgrading to a smart system for these needs can save quite a lot of money.
In short, all the investments you make in smart home devices to transform your home will be returned to you in the form of savings.
2. Smart home offers a vast array of help at your fingertips
Personal assistants, voice or remote control and sensors are some of the features which allow you to do daily activities with ease and comfort. A personal assistant can aid you in managing your schedule, control other smart devices or even order a pizza by speaking from your couch.
You can also check daily news, get groceries delivered to your doorstep and airport lines wait times on voice assisted devices like Amazon Alexa and Google Home. Managing your doors, fans, lights to follow your schedule is easy with smart home automation.
Smart home devices like thermostats, cooler even adjust to environment-suitable settings automatically.
3. The smart home is a smart choice for security
Automatic locks, cameras, sensor doorbells are some of the various items that a smart home puts in your home security arsenal. You can stay connected and monitor your home 24/7 from anywhere with your smartphone or computer.
Smart door locks come built with attributes that allow you to unlock them even when you are not physically present. This saves you several headaches like being home when any service like a cable guy arrives or hiding the key under the doormat.
Cameras and doorbells again play an important role in smart home security. Smart cameras track every small motion and can alert you instantly when any motion is detected. You can view what’s happening inside your house real-time too.
4. Smart homes ultimately make you aware of your home and also improve your lifestyle.
The most significant advantage of a smart home is the amount of information and control we have on your home. Smart sensors, an integral component cover a varied array of issues and alert you about water leaks going on, garage and windows being unclean, all of which provides a healthy peace and efficiency to your daily lifestyle.
You can tailor-fit all the settings in your home to your liking. If you want a song to play in all of your rooms- smart speakers make it happen, if you want the lightning in your home to mellow with the environment, smart bulbs make it happen.
These are some of the primary reasons why a smart home should be your go-to choice for your perfect home. The next part of this article goes over all the features and attributes that a smart home comes with.
Key attributes of a smart home
Smart homes are no longer a science fiction staple or something restricted to the homes of billionaires. Homeowners across all regions and levels are getting their homes ‘smartified’. The key attributes that a robust smart home includes are: –
Personalization
Smart homes automation enables the owner to connect all of the devices in a central place and then tweak them as per your personal choice.
With more and more of technology entering our daily lives, the personalization allows for you to de-clutter and organize all the devices, appliances, entertainment systems and security to your liking.
Monitoring the energy-efficiency or switching through different control settings for different parts of the day are some of the ways in which a personal and perfect home can be achieved with smart home automation.
Integration
The USP of a smart home is a completely intercommunicated home. This means that you should be able to switch on music in the bedroom while cooking in the kitchen or to open the main door while lying on your bed etc.
Anything and everything that has the latest technology can be integrated to create a smart home system. Interconnectivity of even the communication system is a significant benefit.
Imagine someone calling you on your landline in your living room and you being able to pick it up on the phone in your bedroom. Several features like hold, mute, conference call can also be accessed by quick voice
commands.
All this signifies that you can easily adjust your home to your comfort while you are at your ease.
Adaptability
Smart home technology can adapt to a vast array of environments and setting for even specific tasks like playing music, watching movies or setting brightness level for rooms. The owner can easily tailor music, shows, movies and communications using a voice command or the central remote control.
The technology can be adjusted to change/switch habitually or at specific timings. Multi-home audio system can be configured with ease to allow for multiple different rooms. This means that in your smart home every family member can play his own songs at the click of a button.
Eco-friendly
As well all know every electronic device in our home contributes to energy consumption. Devices apt for a smart home come with Energy Star ratings which implies that they are efficient in producing maximum output at very meager energy consumption.
A smart home complete with a plethora of the gizmos that can save quite a lot in energy bills which in turn is ecology-friendly as well. These devices and systems are also compatible with smart-grids so can be powered up by solar energy etc.
Several systems also come with a feature to work effectively even during low electricity supply or power outage.
Temperature
Smart homes offer a unique climate-control system that is adjustable according to your habits, conditions or plans. You can do all of this adjustment and settings by downloading a simple app on your smartphone.
Be it high-tech thermostats or smart coolers you can adjust and schedule their heating/cooling from anywhere with the help of cloud computing.
This saves a lot of money in energy bills as you can turn off or lower the heat/cooling when everyone is asleep or out of the house. You also can ramp up the climate when you are about to arrive home.
Security
This is quite the A-list feature of a smart home with so many theft and crime concerns in today’s day and age. Your smart home is a robust working intelligence system that monitors and protects itself like a fortress.
You can get notification and alerts on your email or phone for normal discrepancies like windows left open, garbage not closed, etc. Levels of security can be easily managed remotely, and the surveillance is 24/7 with cameras and intercom systems.
You can view all the activity happening in your home on TV or your smartphone.
Smart
A smart home is smart can be called a no-brainer, but exceptionally smart architecture is also a component of smart homes. Right from the basics, a smart home has a streamlined structure and design that allows for remote-control, energy-efficiency, security, and interconnectivity.
Heat-sensitive rooms and floors, solar panel technology, insulated device controls, etc., are all present to enable you to make any changes you want, anytime. The concise and skilfully-built infrastructure plays a huge role in ensuring longevity along with efficient functioning.
Essentials of a Smart Home
Now we are in the business end of this article. Starting with what things to buy as a basic foundation can be really tricky. The essentials when it comes to a smart home are: –
Security devices
Security devices form a significant chunk of essentials to buy when starting out with your smart home. Windows and door sensors, automatic locks, surveillance cameras are some of the components you need to buy for the security aspect.
Voice Automation
This is the ‘make or break’ part as voice automation and control is at the heart of the ‘smart home’ concept. Fortunately, there are voice automation systems by very reliable companies out in the market that can not only control most of the attributes of a smart home but are also compatible with a vast array of devices ensuring maximum utility.
Entertainment
Creating an interconnection between your TV, music system and home theatre is necessary for entertainment automation. Smart hubs that allow for the integration of your entertainment system to your voice assistants are the best devices in this domain.
Upgrading to a smart TV or home audio system is only recommended if your current ones do not support the aforementioned devices.
Temperature-control Gadgets
Thermostats and a smart ceiling fan are all that you need for effective temperature control on both heating/cooling. A smart cooler/air conditioner is a personal preference as the latest smart fans work nearly on par along with energy savings.
Kitchen Appliances
A smart kitchen is also an integral part of a smart home, and that is where the smart kitchen appliances come into play. Smart cookers, stoves, water purifiers, etc., are all basic necessities in a smart kitchen.
Garage Automation
Your garage needs a whole lot of smart devices as well to integrate into your smart home ecosystem fully. The garage door is one basic essential that you should cover up at the start.
A fully integrated garage door can be a wonderful experience as you can manage it from anywhere in your home along with being able to monitor if it’s open or close when you are away. The importance of this bit cannot be stressed enough as a garage has a responsibility to hold some of our most valuable assets like cars, bikes, etc.
Blind Automation
A smart home is not complete with smart blinds. Finally, with the advancements in technology, the smart blinds that roll up/down on commands or automatically are not just sci-fi anymore but a reality.
The latest blinds come packed with a variety of features and importantly, compatibility with voice assistant/automation devices. The setup is the only catch here as you need to be careful about the size and fit, you choose.
Lightning
Controlling the light of your home with your voice or your smartphone is the first image when we think of a smart home. Saying commands like ‘Lights off’ while in bed to sleep or about to wake up is something to look forward to in your smart home.
Smart light systems also include several brightness options for every occasion along with having motion detectors to automate your daily routine.
Budget Consideration
This is where your smart home looks like is going to be decided. If you are on a small/tight budget and still aim for upgrading to a smart home, congratulations it is very much possible.
The key here is to do judicious spending and to build your home over time. Spending a lot of money on smart home gadgets can be fun but leads to a waste of money and dissatisfaction.
New products, new awesome sounding features, and new glitzy advertisements are going to make you yearn for spending on something ‘cool’ to add, but the basic essentials should be your priority.
The best possible way to save a lot of money and still have a quality smart home is the DIY route. Although DIY will require a bit of technical know-how along with your time, it can help you in saving money spent on professional setups and systems.
As smart devices usually are ready to be used right away after some configurations to integrate them with your voice assistant/smartphone. There is not much physical expertise needed placing and connecting devices is all you need to do.
Keeping a budget and writing it down can go a long way in helping you stick to the essentials first. It also helps you in picking up the devices in your desired level of cost. Setting a budget can be tough if you don’t know how much the items you need will cost.
The next part of this article will clear this aspect of upgrading to a smart home.
How much does a smart home actually cost?
This question has no one-size-fits-all answer, but the different needs have been covered. The amount mentioned as well are ballpark figures for you to consider in your budget plans.
This article lists all the value for money albeit less expensive products for the sake of convenience to everyone. If you are starting from scratch or upgrading to a smart home. These options are best, to begin with. Breaking it all down item-wise: –
Smart Home Hub
This is of prime importance when you are selecting items for your smart home. As a rule of thumb, you should first start of buying with a smart home hub.
The Samsung SmartThings Smart Hub is the best budget option which also has no technical hassles and can be used right away. The hub comes under $100 which is a steal for the functions it serves.
Smart Home Thermostats/Ceiling Fans
When buying for a thermostat or a cooler/ceiling fan make sure you check out their reviews and compatibility. Smart Home thermostats from brands like Ecobee are efficient and budget-friendly.
Ceiling fans from Hunter, Minka-Aire are robust as well. The budget for this should be under $300 if you are going for a thermostat and $400 ceiling fans.
Smart Home Cameras
Firstly, make sure the product you have shortlisted is compatible with your Samsung SmartThings hub. Next, ensure that the cameras are all-weather one along with having night vision.
Covering all of these and importantly the security aspect the Blink XT cameras. You can select the number that you will require and thus the budget can range from $100-$400.
Smart Home Locks
Choosing a smart home lock is serious business for your smart home planning. Smart locks from companies like Schlage make quality products that have great reviews from users.
Also, they work without a hitch with the smart hub and voice assistant. $150-$200 is the maximum budgeting you should do for this.
Entertainment Automation
Look for a reliable smart control in this area if you have to custom control in this area if you have to custom control all of your home entertainment devices.
Logitech Harmony Smart Control; stands out here. You can custom control literally everything from your TV to your PS4 with this. Also, the best part is that is ultra- cheap on Amazon about $69.
Smart Home Lightning
Lightning is an aspect that you can cost you about $50-$200 depending on the number and color of lights you want. Brands like Philips, Lutron are the best when it comes to budget and quality lighting.
Buying light bulbs instead of systems is better as you can change bulbs with ease. Some brands like JACKYLED on Amazon are suitable for saving even more money.
Smart Home Kitchen Automation
Kitchen appliances are something that you can add gradually to your smart home. There are a number of highly-lauded smart kitchen products like cookers from Anova culinary, the Weber Kitchen Thermometer and the Behmor Brewer Connected Coffeemaker.
Refrigerator from Kenmore and air fryer from Gourmia are the most value for money products, you can find. Budgeting is not an issue as you can add these items over the course of time.
Voice Automation
This is another important and tricky choice to make. Amazon Alexa is the frontrunner when it comes to voice automation for smart homes. It is compatible with a vast array of products and also connects seamlessly.
But here again, you have to consider the Google Home and Google Home Mini as well. These voice assistants
have come out late but offer a reliable alternative to Alexa due to the integration of all Google services. Choose one of them as per your personal preference and budget.
Conclusion
Upgrading to a smart home can certainly be one of the best experiences of your life. The comfort and serenity of having the ability to do all the tasks by your voice commands or smartphone are unparalleled.
Also, it does not have to a major hole in your wallet as the devices and methodology to choose the best gadgets has been listed already.
Start out small today with this comprehensive article as your guide and a perfect smart home will be right in your reach.
