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Benefits of owning an Automated Smart Home

There are many lifestyle enhancing benefits to owning your own Automated Smart Home particularly in areas such as security, comfort and entertainment. In this article we cover many of the benefits you can expect in your new Smart Home.

A challenge of installing home automation systems is balancing the complexity of the hardware against the usability of the system. When planning your smart home, it's important you consider some of the following factors;

 

Home Aesthetics

It may seem like the most obvious answer, but one of the primary reasons that people want a fully automated smart home, is because it adds a "wow factor" to their lifestyle. Smart homes usually have a polished modern appearance through the clever use of touch screens, iDevice control and integrated remotes that are often used to control blinds, lights, audio equipment, or almost anything.

During it's planning a smart home designer specifies what equipment will be used and where and the cabling is pre-wired into the wall cavity during your build. Let's face it, there's nothing that can ruin the look of a home cinema more than that of messy audio or power cables running from behind an LCD Panel and down the wall to the AV equipment.

 Benefits of owning an Automated Smart Home

 

Convenience

Smart homes have the ability to make home life easier and far more convenient for the owner. In a world so demanding of our time, who wouldn't love being able to control entertainment, lighting and temperature from their lounge or even from their iPhone? What about using automatic occupancy sensors and timed lighting, so that as soon as you enter a room the lights switch on? or switch on ready for your evening at the same time everyday relative to sunset time and the prevailing light level?

Home Automation allows the simple presetting of 'life scenes' for your day, mixes of lighting, room configuration, temperature and entertainment selections to suit your lifestyle at particular times. For example, if you love hosting dinner parties then you can easily configure a "dinner party" scene into your touchscreens, so that at the press of a button the lights dim, the music fades in, the curtains close and the temperature is set to be just right.

 

Security

Everyone needs to feel secure in their home and properly installed Home automation can also provide the owner with enhanced peace of mind. If you are at work or away on holiday, your smart home can alert you to what's going on with your home security. You can even enable or disable your home's security and allow the entrance of a contractor, whilst ensuring their movements are securely monitored by both surveillance cameras, internal multi-zoned alarm or occupancy systems.

The security system can also be built to provide instant help in an emergency situation, for example, not only could a resident be woken with the notification of a fire alarm, the smart home could also unlock the doors, dial the fire department and illuminate a path to safety, all automatically.

 

Future-proofing

Future-proof design adds value to your property - with rising energy costs, futureproofing your home for energy efficiency for instance makes good financial sense. Ask yourself, "Wouldn't it be nice to move into my new home and have perfect picture quality in every room from day one?" Or, let the kids have their own phone or the ability to select or stream their own music in each bedroom.

By having all the appropriate digital cabling installed during the building process, it allows you to move in and start enjoying the full benefits of your Smart Home immediately with easily accessible TV, Music, Internet and phone in all rooms. No mess, no fuss and no need to organise another contractor to come in after when you've already settled in. A properly 'Smart Wired' house has a significant asset over the standard homes around it, which leads to:--

 

Resale Value

Probably not the most important factor when first deciding to improve your lifestyle with a Smart Home installation, but it is comforting to know that your investment in Smart Home and Home Automation technology will add considerably to your house's inherent long term value. Savvy buyers understand the lifestyle benefits afforded by automated home systems and will value your house appreciably more than similar 'old technology' houses in your close vicinity.

At the more prestiguous end of the residential home market, a Smart Home investment makes even more sense. The actual installation costs in most cases represents an even smaller percentage investment compared to the lift in selling price as influenced by the Smart House systems. A Smart House is almost always advertised with the systems being one of the top three features on the sales literature, as it should be and people looking do take notice. In a world of increasing automation, particularly the proliferation of smarts into vehicles has led to a watershed of people interested in having the same or similar features in a place they spend a whole lot more of their time, being their home

Take a look at the brochure below to better understand the huge benefits afforded by implementing a fully integrated, Automated Smart Home.

Smart Home Automation - Australian Government info pack