Home IoT Basics and Smart Device Recommendations

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You will learn the basics to Home IoT and also my smart device recommendations to start with. This setup will help you simplify your life and protect your home.

Imagine coming home after a vacation trip.  As you open your garage door, a huge wave of water comes crashing out.  This is due to the thousands of gallons of water that has flooded your home – Ouch! 

Unfortunately this actually happened to my colleague.  The problem was that his laundry machine hose came loose which gushed water throughout his entire house.  

Wave of Water
A laundry machine caused a colleague major heartache needing to gut and fix his home

With a Home IoT setup, this catastrophe could have been potentially minimized.  

What is Home IoT?

IoT refers to Internet of Things.  By connecting to the Internet, this allows you the ability to control, monitor and automate these devices.  You can receive alerts such as text messages if a sensor detects water or if your home becomes too cold or too warm.  If you forget to lower the thermostat before your vacation, you can easily adjust this using your mobile device.  

These devices become ‘smart’ by leveraging information from the Internet.  For example, my ‘smart’ sprinkler system can increase or decrease the watering time self-adjusting to the local weather.  It feels great to receive compliments from my visitors saying that my lawn looks as beautiful as a golf course!  

Home IoT has taken off in recent years.  As a result, normal time consuming and difficult steps such as setup and configuration have been made a breeze.

Basics – What do I need?

Smart Hub

In general, IoT devices use one of the following connectivity types to connect to the Internet: Wifi, Zigbee, Z-Wave.  I recommend using a Smart Hub that can control all these devices and make them interact together.  One major benefit of the Smart Hub is having one application to manage all these devices.  Another benefit is having these devices work together to make life really simple:

  • Front Door Light automatically turns on when Doorbell device detects visitors
  • Use voice commands via Alexa to “Turn on Kitchen Light”

There are many Smart Hubs out on the market today.  It is possible that you may already have one in your household.  Some of the latest home devices such as Amazon Echo, Apple TV or Google Home have embedded Smart Hub capability built in.  

As an Amazon Associate, I will receive a small commission if you purchase any of the recommended items below.

Personally, my home is running Samsung SmartThings.  I love SmartThings for its easy to use interface and compatibility with many of the best IoT devices.

Smartthings Dashboard
SmartThings gives you one place to control, schedule and configure your IoT devices

Basic IoT Devices Recommendations

These devices could help protect your home with minimal setup time:

  • Water Sensors: Place these by your main water sources. Target areas like the Laundry room, under Kitchen Sink, Sump Pump, Main Drain, Water Heater, etc
  • Light Plugs (Outdoor and Indoor): Plug your lights into these devices. This will enable you to setup schedules and control your lights in other ways such as via voice command.
  • Motion Sensors: Know when there is movement such as opening doors, entering room or garage.  Connect this to your other devices to automatically turn on the lights or capture video.
  • Thermostat: Control A/C & Heat anytime. Alert when extreme heat or cold temperatures are detected. 
  • IP Cameras: Capture video for both inside & outside of the house

Advanced IoT Devices Recommendations

These are my favorite devices that incorporate additional ‘smarts’ into your house.  As a consideration, you may need professional help to install some of these devices:

You have learned the basics to Home IoT and also my smart device recommendations to start with. It will be exciting to see what other innovative devices come out to help simplify and make our lives easier. Welcome to the future!

About DadMBA: Through his schooling (he does have a MBA) & more importantly being a Dad, he has provided practical advice to family & friends on finances & other life topics.  He loves helping others thus the creation of DadMBA.

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