How Can You Use Smart Home Devices To Make Running Your Airbnb Easier And Safer?
Smart home devices can help you ease the burden of running an Airbnb and give you some simple ways to make your guest’s stay more safe and comfortable.
The best part about smart home products is that they offer remote access to information about your property. They can also provide factual data about your Airbnb rental that helps solve disputes and back up insurance claims. Here is a list of smart home devices that can help you in this venture. Outdoor security cameras are a must for Airbnb homes. As a property owner, you will be able to monitor the arrivals and departures of your guests. It also adds another layer of protection when the property is vacant. Indoor cameras are highly discouraged for Airbnb rentals because guests should always have privacy when they need it, and indoor cameras violate this privacy. It is a good idea to disclose to your guests that you have cameras on the property.
With the installation of smart locks, you will no longer have to worry about hiding the door keys at a secret place. The smart lock offers two main benefits. The first is the ability to allow and limit access to the property. That means you can provide guests with an access code that works for the duration of their stay. The second benefit here is the ability to log arrival and departure times. Additionally, if you have firm house rules about checkout and check-in times, smart locks can allow access only during specific hours.
Smart smoke and carbon monoxide detectors are definitely the next things you would want to add to your rental property. It can easily notify you when there is an issue and dangerous situations can be averted in time. Smart thermostats, smart light switches, and smart bulbs are great to have for saving electricity and money. They provide flexibility to the users. You will also be able to remotely control all these devices when no one is at home.
Source: https://www.makeuseof.com
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You can teach an old 🏡 new tricks with smart devices. Whether your house is one or one hundred years old it can be a smart home. Sign up today to see the top 12 smart devices to build your smarter home. 🙂
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Smart Home Insurance Concessions: Better Insurance, Lower Bills
With smart home systems taking over the control of our homes slowly, there are insurance companies that connect to this network to reduce the premiums. Smart home systems also provide data to insurance companies, helping them determine risks and costs for insurance. They are recognizing people who are taking steps to secure their home and offering incentives to install smart home products. A few of the common smart devices that providers might offer incentives for installing in your home are smart thermostats, security systems that include window and door sensors, smart locks or video doorbells, gas and water shutoff sensors, automatic interior sprinkler systems, and smart fire alarm systems or smoke detectors.
Most insurers offer discounts between 5%-20% on your homeowners insurance premium, depending on the smart device and its ability to reduce your likelihood of filing a claim.
Every deal has its own pros and cons. The pros in this case are that you will get added security with convenience, energy savings over time, and central control to most of your home appliances. On the other hand, the disadvantages include the cost, cybersecurity threats, and outages due to network/power. When considering the discount savings on homeowners insurance, weigh the pros and cons of installing a smart home device to know if it is worth the investment. Depending on the home insurance provider, you will be able to work out which provider can give you the maximum benefits.
Source: https://www.bankrate.com
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You can teach an old 🏡 new tricks with smart devices. Whether your house is one or one hundred years old it can be a smart home. Sign up today to see the top 12 smart devices to build your smarter home. 🙂
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Updated Amazon Echo Show Has A Few New Tricks Up Its Sleeve
Amazon, the smart home tech giant, recently announced the launch of three updated Echo Show smart displays – the midsize Echo Show 8, the compact Echo Show 5, and the chameleon skin-covered Echo Show Kids. The new smart devices will have some nifty tricks up their sleeves, like the Echo Show 8’s ability to pan and zoom during video calls to keep callers centered or the augmented reality technology that lets you add animated reactions to a video call. Other features have been announced which will be included in these devices along with some older devices. Amazon also mentioned that Sidewalk was going live. The platform is expected to help users share their network with neighboring devices to create a mesh network in the neighborhood. Users also have the option to opt-out of the program if they wish.
Other updates from Amazon include having shared home screens across multiple Amazon devices in the same network. You will be able to set up multiple home screens and have them also shared from one single device.
During the pandemic, video calling platforms of every stripe added all kinds of fun, silly and sometimes privacy-enhancing features like backdrops and reactions to their apps.
This feature is soon going to be available on Alexa devices. Amazon says you will be able to tap on the screen to choose animated visual and audio reactions (hearts, laughs and confetti are Amazon’s examples). You will also make yourself appear to be in front of street art, a classic painting or other digitally imposed backgrounds that obscure the actual room you are in. Apart from these, the other features that were announced include kid-friendly clock themes on the forthcoming Echo Show Kids, on-screen music recommendations from Amazon Music or Spotify, and Zoom support enabling users to make Zoom calls from the Alexa device directly.
Source: https://www.cnet.com
Be The Superhero Of Your Smart Home
You can teach an old 🏡 new tricks with smart devices. Whether your house is one or one hundred years old it can be a smart home. Sign up today to see the top 12 smart devices to build your smarter home. 🙂
Are you more interested in a Google smart home or an Amazon smart home? Let us know above.
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All The Ways You Can Effectively Use Smart Locks
Smart locks have been in the industry for a long time now. They have evolved over time and there has been a high demand for these devices for the last couple of years. They provide the right amount of security, a level of convenience, and flexibility. Here is a look at the hottest features of a smart lock. Firstly, you will be able to lock and unlock your door from anywhere in the world. No matter where you are, as long as your smart lock is connected to the home network, it can be controlled using an app on your mobile device.
With a smart lock, you literally may never need to use a key at home again.
The next best thing about the smart lock is that it can send you push notifications whenever someone unlocks the door. You can also set up multiple lock codes for various people and based on who unlocks it, you can set up to receive a push notification to notify you of who comes in and who goes out. You also have the option to limit people’s access, whether that is restricting them to using the lock during specific hours or days only, or even within a custom time frame.
Lastly, you can use the IFTTT or routines to trigger your other smart home devices when the door unlocks or locks. For example, having the hallway lights turned on when the door is unlocked. To have your lock automatically trigger whenever you leave or arrive home, you can set up most locks to rely on what is called geofencing—an imaginary border around your home that is based on the various wireless signals used by your smartphone. When you (and your phone) cross the wireless fence in either direction, it tells your smart lock—and any other smart devices you set up—to activate. There are plenty of benefits of having a smart lock installed at your place!
Source: https://www.nytimes.com
Be The Superhero Of Your Smart Home
You can teach an old 🏡 new tricks with smart devices. Whether your house is one or one hundred years old it can be a smart home. Sign up today to see the top 12 smart devices to build your smarter home. 🙂
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Use SwitchBot, A Remotely Activated Button Pusher, To Make Your Dumb Appliances Smart.
Home automation has seen a massive surge during the pandemic as people are being forced to stay indoors. Most households have at least one smart home device in their house but what about the devices that are not smart? Or what if you are renting out an apartment where you will not be able to install smart home devices? Here is a solution. SwitchBot recently launched multiple products that can turn your non-smart devices into smart ones. The two new products are the SwitchBot Bot smart switch and the SwitchBot Hub Mini smart remote.
The SwitchBot Bot smart switch, essentially a remotely activated button pusher, works with lights, fans — basically, any electrical appliance that turns on and off with a switch or button.
When activated, the Bot physically manipulates the switch. Once you get the SwitchBot App on your mobile device and connect to the Bot, you can easily turn any normal switch into a smart switch in seconds. And using it with the SwitchBot Hub Mini, you can also control it remotely. SwitchBot Bot is easy to install. You simply peel off the film on the back of the small device, exposing an adhesive surface, and stick it next to the switch or button you want to control. Functioning via a low-power Bluetooth connection, each Bot features long battery life — about 600 days. Using the switch in conjunction with SwitchBot Hub Mini, you can operate it with voice control. They can be controlled with smart home assistants like Siri, Google Assistant, and Amazon Alexa and can be integrated on the IFTTT platform.
The SwitchBot Hub Mini is a smart remote that “learns” and mimics signals from other remotes. The Hub Mini supports just about any normal household appliance that functions via remote control, like air conditioners, garage door openers, and TVs. Hub Mini supports Siri, as well as Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. You can connect the SwitchBot Hub Mini with IFTTT, or use the app’s built-in Scene function, to customize your smart home automation.
Source: https://www.cultofmac.com
Be The Superhero Of Your Smart Home
You can teach an old 🏡 new tricks with smart devices. Whether your house is one or one hundred years old it can be a smart home. Sign up today to see the top 12 smart devices to build your smarter home. 🙂
Are you more interested in a Google smart home or an Amazon smart home? Let us know above.
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Amazon Sidewalk – How Can This Help Smart Home Communication?
Amazon’s latest feature, Sidewalk, has finally launched in the U.S. on June 8, 2021. The new technology aims at keeping all the neighboring devices connected to the network by creating a mesh of networking devices. This is done by using a mix of Bluetooth and radio frequencies of the devices to communicate with each other. With smart home devices being adopted at a rapid rate, this will definitely benefit the users.
In a nutshell, Sidewalk is a localized network made explicitly for smart home devices in a certain area. Any Sidewalk-enabled devices can tap into this network to use it alongside someone’s home Wi-Fi, whereas Sidewalk Bridge devices are used to power the Sidewalk feature. Sidewalk Bridges currently include things like Amazon Echo Show 10 (3rd Gen), Amazon Echo (4th Gen), Amazon Echo Dot (4th Gen), Ring Spotlight Cam Wired, Ring Spotlight Cam Mount, and Ring Floodlight Camera. With Sidewalk enabled, users will be able to contribute a small portion of their internet bandwidth in order to create a shared network that benefits all Sidewalk-enabled devices.
Amazon also says Sidewalk can be used for simplifying the setup process for smart home devices, more easily finding lost items/pets with Tile trackers that tap into the Sidewalk network, and all sorts of other future applications that haven’t even been thought of yet.
In summary, the new feature can assist in solving many of the problems that we have been facing in the smart home world. Amazon says that the maximum bandwidth for a Sidewalk Bridge is 80Kbps, with there being a maximum monthly data usage of 500MB. Amazon has also promised that though the internet data is being shared between the devices, there will be no problems in terms of privacy. It has been designed to protect data with multiple encryption layers.
Source: https://screenrant.com
Be The Superhero Of Your Smart Home
You can teach an old 🏡 new tricks with smart devices. Whether your house is one or one hundred years old it can be a smart home. Sign up today to see the top 12 smart devices to build your smarter home. 🙂
Are you more interested in a Google smart home or an Amazon smart home? Let us know above.
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Newly Updated Nanoleaf’s Light-Up Wall Panels Look Great Even When Not In Use
Nanoleaf, the smart lighting company that shot up to fame with their famous illumination panels that can stick easily to your wall, has now announced the new Nanoleaf Elements line, a set of wall panels that are designed to look as nice turned off as they do when on.
The new Elements line accomplishes this through a wood-like veneer that allows the light to shine through when it’s on but doesn’t look blank when the light isn’t in use.
The Elements lights are very similar to Nanoleaf’s other hexagonal light panels, just that when there is no light, it gives a wooden effect making it look more natural. They glow from both the front and back of the panel, allowing for a double lighting effect, and can be programmed with different lighting patterns and effects. A thing that is missing here is that this series does not come with colorful lights. However, you can set the temperature of the lights from warm to cool white.
All other features stay the same which means that you will still be able to activate the lights with a simple touch of the panel and even synced to music or adjust their white temperature automatically throughout the day based on circadian rhythms. Nanoleaf includes 11 preset lighting effects, or you can use the app to program your own. With this new design, it appears that Nanoleaf is attempting to make its product more accessible in more homes. Though it is purely a decorative item, it certainly can change the mood of a room where it has been installed. Nanoleaf has announced that its light panels will become Thread border routers, allowing them to act as a hub on a Thread network and extend the signal throughout the home.
Source: https://www.theverge.com
Be The Superhero Of Your Smart Home
You can teach an old 🏡 new tricks with smart devices. Whether your house is one or one hundred years old it can be a smart home. Sign up today to see the top 12 smart devices to build your smarter home. 🙂
Are you more interested in a Google smart home or an Amazon smart home? Let us know above.
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Top Smart Home News Stories For The Week Of June 21, 2021
Newly updated Nanoleaf’s light-up wall panels look great even when not in use. Use SwitchBot, a remotely activated button pusher, to make your dumb appliances smart. And… Smart home insurance concessions: Better insurance, lower bills. Check out these stories and more in this week’s top smart home news for June 21, 2021.
Nanoleaf, the company best known for illuminated panels that you stick to your wall, has announced the new Nanoleaf Elements line, a set of wall panels that are designed to look as nice turned off as they do when on.
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Sidewalk officially launches in the United States on June 8, 2021. It’s a new technology that aims to improve the experience of certain smart home devices using a mix of Bluetooth and radio frequencies. Understanding how Sidewalk works is a little tricky at first, but in the end, it should result in gadgets that are more responsive and reliable.
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These days, people control more and more aspects of their lives remotely through apps. And it’s no longer just “smart” devices like wired doorbells, thermostats and lights. Even your not-so-smart devices can join the party. With SwitchBot products, you can control many of your ordinary, old-fashioned appliances and use them with home-automation systems like Siri, Amazon Alexa and Google Home.
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Almost all smart devices have a companion app that’s used to set them up and manage them. But most popular devices are also compatible with voice-controllable digital assistants, like Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, and Google Assistant (among others).
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From animated reactions during video calls to shared photos on your home screen, Amazon’s older model smart displays will get many of the new Echo Show features.
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Insurance companies are increasingly interested in the growing use of smart technology in homes. Smart home technology protects homes by making them more secure and potentially reducing the possibility of damage caused by perils like fires or theft. Smart home systems also provide data to insurance companies, helping them determine risks and costs for insurance.
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Smart home devices can help you ease the burden of running an Airbnb and give you some simple ways to make your guest’s stay more safe and comfortable. But which smart items should you use, and which ones should you avoid?
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Be The Superhero Of Your Smart Home
You can teach an old 🏡 new tricks with smart devices. Whether your house is one or one hundred years old it can be a smart home. Sign up today to see the top 12 smart devices to build your smarter home. 🙂
Are you more interested in a Google smart home or an Amazon smart home? Let us know above.
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Easy Steps To Making Seniors Comfortable With Video Calling
The pandemic is forcing people to stay away from their family members. With never-ending travel restrictions, it is important to stay in touch with elderly family members. Though technologies are here to help, they come with their own challenges in terms of usage. Here are a few things that can help elders understand technology more simply. The easiest of them all is to purchase a smart display that will help in making video calls, watching videos, helping with food recipes, and more. They will also act as an alarm clock or a constantly changing digital album. From the Google Nest Hub Max and Amazon Echo Show 10 (3rd gen) to the JBL Link View and Lenovo Smart Clock, several products can help your elderly parents connect effortlessly with you.
The next option would be to set up a Google Duo for video calling. Google Duo can be easily linked to a phone number and is available on most smartphones as an app. Firstly, create a new Google account for your elderly parents, which they will only use for the smart devices in their home. Doing so will drastically improve connectivity between all such devices and make it much easier to manage them remotely. Secondly, get a new phone number for this Google account. This will be useful when you want to connect through Google Duo for video calls with your parents.
If answering calls can be troublesome for them, you can program a routine in the Google Home application (the one connected to the smart display). This way, your parents will be able to call you regularly on your personal Google Duo account or phone number and answer the phone hassle-free. You can also choose to connect through the Camera feature on the Google Home app. Just click on it to access the camera on the smart display at your parents’ home and interact using the live feed. Set up the smart display near a socket for ease of access while ensuring it is not hidden from the Wi-Fi router either.
Placing the device around your router is guaranteed to avoid any connectivity issues you’d have faced had you set it up elsewhere.
Once installed, you can easily connect with your elderly parents, and they will not have to deal with learning about the tech!
Source: https://www.makeuseof.com
Be The Superhero Of Your Smart Home
You can teach an old 🏡 new tricks with smart devices. Whether your house is one or one hundred years old it can be a smart home. Sign up today to see the top 12 smart devices to build your smarter home. 🙂
Are you more interested in a Google smart home or an Amazon smart home? Let us know above.
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How Would Your Smart Home Look If Ikea Designed It?
Ikea, the Swedish furniture giant, is slowly starting to get a grip on the smart home segment as well. Augmented reality is one of the fast-picking concepts that many manufacturers have started to offer consumers to assist them in visualizing how things would be. Ikea enlisted its innovation research and design lab, Space10, and a group of external designers to come up with them as a way to reflect on what the future holds for smart homes. There have been samples achieved by various designers with one of the examples being pointing your camera to a product and the app would automatically show a blob above the product with the carbon footprint, materials, and production process of the product.
Another example is “Invisible Roommates”. Using augmented reality, it envisions smart home devices as cute characters that sit next to their real-world counterparts. When those devices communicate with one another, the AR versions represent the flow of data as a trail of paper planes. Perhaps the wildest idea of all is “Sound Bubbles,” which imagines using an AI app to cordon off silent parts of the home. Users could then steer sound away from those quiet spaces using 3D spatial audio. Many such experiments are being carried by various designers across the world.
The goal with these projects is to get people thinking about what’s possible in a way that doesn’t require years of product development.
The development of such ideas is small – about 9 to 12 weeks end to end. Another idea was an app that shows users the privacy policy about a product when pointed towards it. With Ikea heavily investing in the smart home space, we could soon see another giant rising in this space.
Source: https://www.fastcompany.com
Be The Superhero Of Your Smart Home
You can teach an old 🏡 new tricks with smart devices. Whether your house is one or one hundred years old it can be a smart home. Sign up today to see the top 12 smart devices to build your smarter home. 🙂
Are you more interested in a Google smart home or an Amazon smart home? Let us know above.
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