A growing number of homeowners are using smart home technology for increased security, energy savings and automation. Smart products are connected to one another using wireless communication protocols such as X10, Zigbee or Z-Wave. These communications components create a network of connected products.

Some smart home devices include artificial intelligence for learning what needs you’ll have at home depending on the time of day, configuring smart home devices for optimal function, including adjusting lighting levels, music selection, and even energy usage, based on predicted behaviour. Other features can help to foster wellbeing or promote sleep.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) stands as perhaps the most critical element of smart home technology: it allows for appliances to understand your habits or wants before you ask.

Smart cameras equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) can recognise people when they come in a home and send alerts when someone enters, or can evaluate behavioural parameters to solve threats, or else add another layer of protection with face or biometric identification for statutory access.

Voice assistants such as Alexa or your phone’s Google Assistant are a third kind of noodle-brain: the ones that collate information about your usage habits so as to shape the kind of information available to you – such as news headlines or music tracks – in ways customised based on that data, and so to make smart home devices available without their physical controls.

Autonomous Appliances

A smart home system is a set of web-enabled devices that connect via WiFi and talk to each other. You can control smart home systems with smartphone apps or voice assistants like Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri for smartphones or Amazon Echo Dot or Siri on iOS/Android phones for voice-control of lights, thermostats, door locks or security cameras, providing remote access for devices such as lights, thermostats and security cameras.

And some smart appliances include a ‘set-it-then-forget-it’ solo functionality that might run on a voice-controlled schedule (or just ‘do things’ when an owner returns from work) or respond to individual commands such as ‘turn on all office lights’ or ‘go down to the lobby to check for any incoming mail’.

As a result, smart homes are starting to proliferate, promising both greater convenience and cost savings. But, for the tech to stick, smart products have to work seamlessly and stay secure. This is especially so for machines linked to private financial or health information such as doctors’ notes, for example – smart fridges have no business broadcasting this type of data out of the home, or to any server we can’t name.

Health & Wellness

Smart homes can gauge significant health parameters and record air quality, mould and other environmental conditions. Some incorporate the ability to dial 911 in case of fire or security threat, while locking the doors and turning the lights on to an escape route.

Smart versions are available for almost every home appliance and electronic device, from light bulbs and plug-in outlets to refrigerators, washers and dryers, TVs and speakers, doorbells, thermostats and garage door openers – they can all communicate via a mesh network of hubs, platforms and apps.

Some will set up automatic routines for you e.g. switch on your kitchen lights and play some music at a particular time every day, or respond to your presence e.g. as you walk into your home, automatically turning itself on. Take motion-sensor LED lighting e.g. Sengled Smart LED Wi-Fi TV Light Strip. It turns on when you walk in and goes off with your motion out – so no energy is wasted in an empty room. It automatically creates a welcoming ambience and saves money too.

Immersive Entertainment

Current technologies are being developed to enhance immersive entertainment within the home and in commercial applications for all ages including students and children. The worlds of gaming and simulated reality become more realistic with newer immersive technologies. These environments even permit you to live out your fantasies.

Thanks to immersive cinema technology used in new smart-home solutions, homeowners can share the best of cinematic experiences with family and friends at home. High-resolution displays – such as 4K and 8K – that offer cinematic fidelity almost on par with a commercial theatre, combined with advanced surround sound systems such as Dolby Atmos, fully immerse audiences in the story. We are now seeing 4K TV sets, for example, with truly stunning picture quality. Such systems are fast becoming a staple in high-end apartments and villas in Riyadh and Dubai and across other cities in global urban hubs.

Other smart-home solutions geared more to entertainment are the use of wireless power charging for smartphones and other devices (thus eliminating those tangles of wires) via microgeneration. This facilitates a self-sufficient power supply, through the creation of energy by using solar panels and an intelligent system to monitor and optimise consumption.