We’ve read and heard the term hundreds of times lately, but are we clear on what exactly it is? To understand it, we must first know the definition of home automation and then, how we can apply it to our home, and in our daily tasks.
Thus, we can explain the definition of home automation as the set of technologies applied to the intelligent control and automation of the home, which allows efficient management of energy use, which provides safety and comfort, in addition to communication between the user and the system.
Of course, there are many definitions of home automation and if you search the internet you will find many sites that tell you about it and its use applied to the home, which is increasingly widespread.
If we analyze the definition of home automation by parts, the first one: a set of techniques aimed at automating a home, we could say that it refers to all the techniques or technologies that can be implemented in a home to turn it into home automation. For example, we can automate the heating, the electrical system, the blinds of the house, the alarm system … etc. and all this thought for the well-being and comfort of the user.
What is home automation for?
Having home automation is like having a “smart home“, it is as if the devices that we used to operate manually now could “think alone”, and act according to certain needs.
For you to understand me better I will give you the example of a light bulb. Something all you can do is turn on or off if we press a button. However, if we equip this light bulb with home automation technology, we can make it turn on or off by itself when it detects the presence of a person in the room or the absence of it. In this way, we are fulfilling what the definition of domotics that allows us an efficient use of energy says.. With this, we avoid that the lights of a room stay on when we leave the house due to some oversight, since that light bulb when it detects that no one is there, will go out by itself.
But not only that, we can do many more things with that light bulb, such as timing it on or off, or regulating its intensity.
Obviously we can also apply this to security systems and alarms in the home, or to heating. To make efficient use of energy, we can also control the temperature of our home. Make the heating turn off when reaching an optimal temperature, or turn it on when the temperature in our house falls below the temperature that we consider ideal. We can even automate the temperature of the rooms independently so that the cold and hot of the house are not always arguing.
Imagine also that you left home in a hurry in the morning and forgot to roll up the blind of a room. If you have a home automation system also to automate your blinds, you can raise or lower them from anywhere, just by connecting to an application through your mobile, and thus optimize energy, raising them in the hours of greatest natural light or lowering them when the night and the cold begin to show and thus prevent it from seeping through the glass.
Are you interested in home automation?
The truth is that home automation has many advantages and plenty of possibilities to make more optimal use of the energy we consume, which is already an important starting point.
What if you are interested in home automation? Well, from my point of view, certainly yes. There is no doubt that initially converting a house into home automation involves an investment, but it is something worthwhile, since, if we pay attention to the definition of home automation, and it is certainly proven that it is, it is designed to make our lives easier, bring us comfort and well-being, and get to make optimal use of the energy we consume at home, and therefore, saving on our bill.
In short, home automation contributes to increasing our quality of life, makes the distribution of the house more versatile, changes the environmental conditions creating different predefined scenes, and makes the home more functional by allowing the development of domestic, professional, and leisure facets. under one roof.
But like all systems, it has its pros and cons, something that should be analyzed to see if it is feasible or not to install home automation in your home.
Home automation advantages
Energy-saving
Home automation manages control elements that contribute to saving water, electricity, and gas. That is, we can program all the devices to turn on or off at the necessary time. Home automation control of lighting and air conditioning controls the management of 70% of energy consumption. It is possible to guarantee that all the lights in the house are turned off and that the reference temperature of the air conditioning is in saving mode when nobody is in the house. When going to sleep, lights and blinds are switched off and the reference temperature is changed for the night. Detecting the presence or not in each area of the home can activate other savings policies. What produces effects in the domestic economy and contributes to being more ecological.
Security
Another of its important advantages is being able to detect fires, intruders, gas leaks or a water leak. You can see everything that happens from anywhere through cameras and simulate presence by turning lights on and off remotely.
Communication
It is essential nowadays to establish correct communication between people and housing. New technologies and the Internet are a natural part of home automation and become intuitive and practical tools. Even the recognition of voice or body movements can become a channel of communication with our home. With all these elements, the house can interact with people through the home automation elements of the installation, text messages, emails, and voice calls.
Comfort
The tasks to be carried out in our homes are much easier, and you can do many actions comfortably from a screen.
Wellness
Through home automation, we can automatically close the blinds, detecting the amount of sunlight that enters the rooms or the wind that causes it; control the degree of light in the different rooms, and be able to direct the different environments of the home.
Telecare
The system consists of a set of sensors that monitors the user’s life habits, such as the time spent in bed, bath, taking medications. The parameters obtained by these sensors configure a profile that is stored on a central server supervised by healthcare professionals 24 hours a day.
Disadvantages of home automation:
Initial cost
The price of the home automation installation is still very high. The initial investment that must be made is very important since the entire home must be wired.
Maintenance
In the event of some type of breakdown, its repair can be complex and expensive. In addition to this, it is possible that an important part of the system will be blocked and more functions will be canceled. Therefore, the cost of any type of breakdown can be very high.
Data transmission speed
Depending on the number of systems that are connected, when transferring a large amount of data, the network can become congested and decrease the transmission speed, causing the functions to slow down.
Ring connection
When the information is connected in the form of a ring, there may be some delay that will also depend on the number of points that are connected to the network, which gives little reliability to the system.
Taking into account the pros and cons discussed above, it can be concluded that there are more benefits than disadvantages of using a home automation system in the home. But, what is your opinion about it? Would you install a home automation system? I hope that with the information provided in this blog you can answer those questions.
Author Bio
Digvijay Rajdaan is Sr. interior designer at Design By Lavassa. He is an award-winning interior designer of residential and commercial spaces. He strives to design unique interiors that will have a positive impact on his clients’ lives.
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