The State of Home Technology – 2019

The home is a canvas for endless personalization and customization. It acts as a movie theater, party venue, bonding space, and entertainment hub where families can embrace each other and enjoy life in harmony. Technology, like never before, can enhance these activities and create environments that many people have never dreamed of. Only now in 2019 has technology caught up with the dreams of yesteryear. Read on to see how technological innovation is already being woven into the architecture that we call home. This is the state of home technology in 2019.

Security

A home is home because it feels safe. A sense of security is invaluable for a home. The home stores your best memories protects your loved ones and offers a place for congregation, entertainment, and enjoyment. New technologies are emerging every year. This year the Internet of Things (IoT) has taken home security by storm. Every home can be outfitted with numerous devices bought from any E-commerce site to bolster a home’s security, but several key technologies are destined to revolutionize the ways homeowners manage emergencies, maintain security, and improve the safety of their homes.

First, homeowners and security companies alike can implement custom Closed Circuit TV (CCTV) cameras around a home or property in key areas so all activity on a property can be watched live, recorded, or reviewed remotely from their favorite devices including smartphones, tablets, computers, and integrated or wall-mounted home automation devices. With the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), and other smart recording devices the footage can be sorted automatically so that only valuable footage that captures movement is recorded and catalogued to save homeowners time and effort when reviewing footage from their properties. Additionally, these CCTV systems can be outfitted with a remote viewing functionality that offers interaction. For example, a homeowner would be notified if there is movement at their front door. The homeowner can tune-in from wherever they are to see the camera views and speak directly into their phone to whoever is on their property. The real power for homeowners comes from the coupling of home automation with CCTVs – read on to find out more about this!

Home Automation

The most powerful innovation for homeowners of the modern era is the advent of home automation. As mentioned already, the IoT, also known as the internet of connected devices, allows for endless automation of theoretically any and all aspects of the home. From climate control to security functions to entertainment assets, home automation is set to revolutionize it all. Related to security, home automation allows for homeowners to open doors to their homes remotely from any device no matter where they are. No more squeezing through windows when the keys are lost or remaking keys for when kids lose them at school. Home automation combined with CCTVs allows for homeowners to validate any visiting persons with video and chat and instantly provide or deny access to their home. Aside from security, home automation transfers the power of every room, lighting fixture, entertainment asset and climate to homeowners in a single integrated system. Integrated systems consolidate all automatable assets into single or multiple devices such as a wall-mounted tablet, multiple handheld tablets, and/or pre-existing devices. Homeowners can now control lighting fixtures, blinds, digital thermostats, HVACs, entertainment systems, and more from any location with only a tap on a screen. To make home automation even cooler, homeowners can now schedule events such as temperature increases, humidity alterations, or more complex sequences of actions to accommodate activities like movie premieres and dinner parties.

Voice Commands

Integrated systems combined with home automation enable the use of pre-defined voice-commands to control a host of home-assets. These assets include lighting fixtures, window blinds, smart thermostats, and entertainment systems. Currently, there are limitations to the interaction provided by voice-commands, but as digital assistants improve and natural language processing (NLP) systems grow, the subset of commands is likely to grow exponentially to provide homeowners with complete control over all home assets using conversational voice commands. In the near future, home assistants will become digitized alike HAL 9000 and understand all human language without any extra forethought from homeowners – without the dangerous aspects, of course.

Home Entertainment

Away with ratty wires hanging from all devices, which limit their placement around the house – home entertainment systems have either gone wireless or become seamlessly embedded in the walls or architectural components of any home. Technologies like Sonos and Sonance make music listening as easy as the push of a button. Sonos speakers can be placed anywhere inside or outside a home and are controlled with a simple app available for any tablet, phone, or computer. If homeowners want salsa music in the kitchen and baby sleep-sounds in the bedroom, or classical in the garden and rock in the family room, Sonos empowers homeowners to control each individual speaker or set of speakers by location with a single, powerful app. For those who prefer architecturally embedded speakers with Sonos-like location control, Sonance is the answer. Provided by a home-automation or home-technology provider, Sonance is the premiere embedded audio provider for entertainment inside and outside the home.

Lighting

Another innovation set to forever alter the way humans interact with their home is coined Human-Centric lighting. This concept, developed to mimic natural lighting conditions of the outdoors, tailors the interior light temperature to alter human wakefulness subtly to optimize rest and maximize attentiveness. It has been shown that human-centric light increases sleep time up to 46 minutes, sleep quality up to 10-15%, productivity up 5-25%, and mood up 5-10%. Aside from direct tuning of these devices such as smart light bulbs and smart fixtures, homeowners have a superior option now to incorporate scheduled light adjustments that synchronize with their habits and the amount of sunlight they receive based on their location and season. Integrated systems that empower homeowners to schedule these automatic light adjustments are the future of human-centric lighting and home ambiance.