Home automation

1. Home automation Home automation used to be the wave of the future. It appears that future is now. Inventors have imagined automated homes since the 1950s. Popular Mechanics featured the first automated house in 1950. Emil Mathias of Jackson, Michigan created it. Since then every new automated device brings us closer to a fully automated home – piece by piece. Security systems, heating, and cooling systems, cleaning, cooking and even mowing is now available in automated form. Here is a look at some of the lesser known automated items along with some of the more popular devices. Heating and cooling automation has been well-advertised and is now even smarter. Newly- updated thermostats are adding more sensors with items such as furnace monitoring and geofencing (geo-fencing is based on global positioning and allows a user to set up triggers based on global temperatures in his or her area) for even greater control and efficiency. One of the newer areas of automation is cooking. Cookers are now using Wi-Fi technology allowing their user to prepare food from anywhere. There are also Wi-Fi controlled electric smokers. Baking scales are now available with a connected app to help newbie bakers get it right the first time. Many options are available for outdoors as well. Automated sprinklers can monitor over 10 zones and don’t water the lawn if it is raining – all controllable with the tap of a screen. Even handier are the automated mowers. Many can mow up to 20,000 square feet. The mower neatly mulches, so there is no need for raking or bagging of cuttings. Like the mowers, several devices offer automated cleaning. Robot vacuums and mops are becoming more popular and are also controllable by Smartphone. Have unexpected company coming over? No problem. Simply launch a cleaning robot remotely and come home to a clean house. Security companies have long been offering Smartphone apps to control security systems. Now it’s easy to integrate cameras to monitor, arm and disarm your home system remotely. It is also possible to control your home’s lighting through smart technology. Not only can you turn the lights off and on, but now you can control the intensity and even the color of the light. The last piece of the automation puzzle and the single piece that connects all devices bringing us closer to a fully automated home are the controllers such as Echo powered by Alexa. These hubs are compatible with most of these automated machines and allow their user to control his or her home with a single spoken command. Finally, a word of caution. As of now, most, if not all, of these systems are subject to being hacked. Some would say it is a small price to pay for an automated world. Articles Source : http://www.theapartmenta.com/home-automation/