“Hey, Google! Turn on the lights.” This is how home automation works; from our lights to security systems, everything is automated. These features are not only convenient for our daily lives but they are cost and energy-efficient.
However, home automation is still a relatively new concept and technology that a number of us might find overwhelming. That said, the entire process of home automation is much simpler than it may seem to be.
What exactly is home automation? Well, home automation is enabling the automatic control and managing of electronic appliances and devices in your home. These appliances and devices are connected to your home internet.
In other words, this allows the appliances and devices to be controlled remotely, from anywhere around the world. Home automation has made it possible to have other smart devices triggered so you no longer have to manually control them.
For instance, you can schedule your lights as to when they should turn on and off, or you can also turn on your thermostat remotely when you’re on your way back home so that you get to a nice and comfortable home.
In fact, home automation has so many benefits that once you start building a smart home, you’ll be left wondering what were you waiting for up till now. In this article, we’ll share how home automation world and its benefits.
How Does Home Automation Work?
Home automation works through a network of devices connected to the internet via different communication platforms, such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, etc. The devices are managed remotely through electronic interfaces like a voice assistant or an app.
Most of these Internet of Things (IoT) devices have in-built sensors that have the ability to monitor any form of changes in motion, light, and temperature just so you can have an access to the information about your device’s surroundings.
In order to make physical changed to the device itself, you will trigger the actuators or devices’ physical mechanisms that allow you to control the devices remotely. It’s as simple as it gets and very easy to use.
Here are the three levels that home automation works on:
- Monitoring: This means that you have the ability to check in on your other smart devices remotely via an app. For instance, you can easily view your smart security camera’s live feed through its app from anywhere in the world.
- Control: This means that you can control and manage your smart devices remotely, such as panning your security camera to check that everything is alright.
- Automation: Finally, this means the setting up of smart devices so that they can trigger each other, something like when your security camera detects motion, your smart siren goes off.
Remote Control
Home automation’s hallmark is having the ability to control your smart devices remotely. This can be done through a voice assistant or a smartphone application.
- Voice Assistant: Voice assistants allow you to control smart devices through your voice. It could be you disarming your security system while entering the house, showing your smart video doorbell’s footage on a smart display screen, or simply setting a time on a smart speaker while baking. The most commonly used and popular voice assistants are Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri.
- Mobile Applications: Your smart device’s mobile app allows you to control and manage its devices remotely in real-time. You can also set schedules, group all your IoT devices, create scenes, and even customize the smart device’s settings.
Control Protocols
The medium through which IoT devices connect to the internet and one another is all because of their control protocols. Here are the four control protocol smart devices connect through:
- Wi-Fi: Wi-Fi is the most common control protocol. In other words, an IoT device uses a regular internet connection provided by an Internet Service Provider. While you may not require the use of an additional hub, do understand that it can probably slow down your web surfing speed, especially if several IoT devices are relying on the same Wi-Fi connection to communicate.
- Z-Wave: Would you rather not disrupt your home’s Wi-Fi network? Well, you can always get Z-Wave protocol devices, as it’s a wireless technology that will work on its own with a Wi-Fi connection.
- ZigBee: ZigBee is a control protocol that is very much similar to Z-Wave. It’s a mesh network that lets your IoT devices interact with one another.
- Bluetooth: Bluetooth is just another mesh technology to not only allow you to control but also monitor your smart devices and further automate them.
Conclusion
We hope the read helped you understand what home automation is and how it works. Home automation will inevitably change your life for the better, and also make you much more productive, as you can finally multitask!
