Smart devices have grown in popularity and are one of the most popular ways to upgrade your home. The options have become nearly endless. You can get smart devices to control your blinds, a smart refrigerator that automatically reads the bar codes on food labels and keeps an inventory of everything, lighting with custom settings for pizza night, and more..
All these bells and whistles (literally) aren’t just flashy gadgetry that looks cool and makes us feel like we’re living in the space age. Smart technology offers many tangible benefits. Smart home tech offers many advantages from saving electricity to remote access over your home security and even managing all your devices from one spot.
In part one of our series on making your house smart, we talked about smart technology options for the kitchen. Here, in the second installment, we’ll look at smart home technology options for the living room.
Smart Home Technology for the Living Room
If you want to upgrade your living space and lifestyle with smart home technology, look no further than your living room. If you’re like most people, you and your family spend a lot of time in the living room. So there are many devices and gadgets available to make that quality time more convenient, and most are compatible with voice-activated digital personal assistants like Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant.
Let’s take a look at some of the most popular smart home technology for the living room.
Smart TVs: Smart TVs have advanced significantly, evolving into entertainment hubs for the household. Use them to connect to all of your streaming services, browse the internet, or sync them up with your personal photo collection and use them as a giant slideshow. You can also use them as displays for other devices like security cameras.
Smart Lighting: How would you like to walk into the room and tell your smart assistant to turn on the “evening relax” lighting scene? Or set up a lighting routine that follows the sunrise and sunset? It’s easy with smart light bulbs. Control it with your voice assistant or control them with your smartphone to set up automatic lighting adjustments.
Smart Speakers: Smart speakers are taking sound projection to a new level with their ability to connect directly to music services like Amazon, Spotify, Pandora, and others. Control all your speakers from your phone or voice. Set up different zones throughout your house and play multiple sources of music on different speakers at the same time. You can even connect to your phone and take a phone call.
Smart Plugs & Power Strips: When it comes to saving electricity, you hear us talk a lot about getting rid of vampire power — that’s the electricity that some devices use even when they’re turned off. Smart plugs and power strips can be turned off or on from anywhere via a phone app, so they’re a good way to control the power to multiple devices at once and ensure that off really is off.
Smart Blinds: Ever notice how we tend to open and close the blinds at the same time every day? Smart blinds allow you to automate that task. You can open or close them without moving from the smart couch (more on that in a sec). Put them on a schedule or control them with voice commands.
Smart Ceiling Fan: The ceiling fan has long been known as an ace up your sleeve for helping to control the temperature in your home with less electricity than an air conditioner or furnace uses. A smart ceiling fan in your living room takes it a step further with voice activation, multiple settings, the ability to sync with smart thermostats, and more.
Smart Couch: Wait, what? Has smart technology even infiltrated furniture? Absolutely. Smart couches feature lights, speakers, and even capabilities to customize the firmness of the cushions, how much they recline, and even their temperature.
Smart Coffee Table: Couches aren’t the only smart furniture. Smart coffee tables feature speakers, power ports, lights, and even displays that can serve as the control panel for other devices.
Smart Picture Frames: Displaying all your photos is easy with a smart picture frame. Just sync it up with your phone or a portable storage device, and you can put all your favorites into the rotation without printing or hassle.
Smart Aroma Diffuser: Want to really set the mood? Get yourself a smart aroma diffuser that releases your favorite fragrances. Time it to your schedule, or control it with voice commands.
Robot Vacuum: When you’re outfitting your living room, don’t forget to make cleaning up easier with a robot vacuum. These little treasures can clean just about any floor surface thoroughly and automatically. Set it to run when you’re at work and come home to a nice clean house.
Smart Doorbell: Okay, so video doorbells aren’t directly related to the living room, but it’s pretty close and definitely worth a mention. These little treasures are outfitted with a video camera and accessible with your phone. That allows you to see who is there, even when you’re not home.
Smart Thermostat: To finish off the honorable mentions, we can’t forget about the smart thermostat. These little devices have become super popular in the last few years because not only are they a convenient way to control the temperature in your home, but they optimize your heating and cooling to save electricity and money. In fact, Energy Star estimates that homeowners using programmable thermostats can save $180 a year. Check out our smart thermostat recommendations here.
Improve Comfort & Convenience With Smart Home Technology
Smart devices and smart home technology are easy and convenient ways to streamline your life and have more time to do the things you want. Most smart devices, especially those for use in the living room, don’t require professional installation. You can start small with smart light bulbs and add more as your desire and budget allow.
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