I loved Star Trek: The Next Generation. It’s the first sci-fi 🛸 that I can remember growing up. Although I’m not a hardcore trekkie/trekker (I don’t even know the difference), I have enjoyed every movie and TV series since TNG 📺. One of the things I like most about Star Trek is the creative, forward-thinking technology 🖥️. Back in the late ’80s and early ’90s of the show, they dreamed up things like cell phones, universal translators, tablet computers, video calling, and voice assistants. They missed the mark by a few hundred years of when these things would become reality, but they were dead on in what would become the smart home boom in just a few decades 📅.
A smart home 🏠 to me is taking the most common appliances in my home that I interface with and giving them a central hub from which to be controlled. The hub of my smart home is Google (of course!). Automation is a useful benefit to having everything connected. More on that later. Instead, I find the biggest benefit the ability to use voice commands or tap my phone to trigger multiple actions at once. Here are a few examples of routines that I have set up in my home:
- Good morning 🌅: This routine is triggered after I stop my alarm in the morning. My thermostat is adjusted, my bedroom lamp turns on, the volume on my Nest Hub speaker/display is set to a defined volume (in case I was blasting music too loud during the day or too softly at night), and then the Google Assistant tells me about the weather and the appointments and reminders for my day.
- Good night 😴: I say goodnight to Google every night before going to sleep. It asks me what time I want to set my alarm, turns off all lights in the house, adjusts the thermostat, sets the volume of my speaker, and plays soothing ocean sounds.
- Turning in 💡: I use this routine to move from the living room to the bedroom in the evening. It just turns on the bedroom lap dimly and turns off the living room lights, again with a voice prompt or a tap.
Do I need any of these? No, of course not! I lived just fine for years without them. But even something small like the ‘turning in’ routine is super convenient. Besides, it’s kinda cool! 😎 These are all examples of routines that I have to actively trigger via voice or phone. Next, let’s take a look at background automation.
Some smart home actions can be triggered by time, motion, or location. Here are some of the simple automations I have set up in my home:
- Vacuuming: My floors are vacuumed at designated times of day. My robot army can be deployed on demand as needed too.
- Lights: I have a decorative LED strip in my window that turns on at sunset and off at a designated time. My living room lights are set to turn on when I get home (location) and if it’s after dark (time).
So there’s a little bit about the why of my smart home. tl;dr I’m a geek 🤓 and tech things in the home are fun! Later in this series I’ll share some of the hardware and services I use to power my smart home.