What is a smart home?

What is a smart home - Ryve Blog

What does a smart home do for you?

Often when people think of a ‘smart home’, they think of a ‘connected home’, ‘smart house’, ‘intelligent house’ or possibly, the ‘internet of things’. The term ‘smart home’ refers to a home that uses the latest technologies to control or automate devices around the house.  Essentially a network is created within the house, and the devices talk to a central control system using that network.

Smart homes have a lot of thought put into the design of the build, particularly during the early stages of development. The process of designing the cabling for a new home to make it a smart home is called ‘pre-wiring’. The pre-build design process ensures the right pre-wiring is laid down during the build, to support the optimal use of technologies that will be used in the house.

It is possible to make an existing house a ‘smart home’, although different (and mostly wireless) technologies need to be used.  For the optimal use of technology, it is best to ensure your house is pre-wired during the build.

Why would you want a smart home?
There are practical reasons why people are opting to invest in smart homes:

Security– Using sensors and communication technologies, homes can be constantly monitored from your mobile device.

Convenience– Smart homes can help to simplify complex tasks, or to automate them completely; like the climate, lighting and temperature. Smart homes can control when to turn things on and off, to suit your lifestyle and energy needs, making energy use most efficient.

Smart homes – How do they work?

We’ve mentioned most smart homes work by ensuring pre-wiring is done during the build, but if you want to make an existing building smart, it’s possible to do ‘smart wiring’ to a house, to allow different parts of the house to communicate with a central control system.

This central control system can be operated by your mobile device. Timers, switches and sensors are used to determine when and how different automated systems should work, and different ‘scenes’ and events can be created to set different controls for different scenarios. This flexibility and control is why they’re considered ‘smart’ homes.

For example, when you come home, a sensor can detect that you’ve arrived and switch on certain lights, deactivate various security measures, and warm up the living room. When you’re going to bed, it may activate security sensors, draw all the curtains and turn off lights and appliances.

As you can imagine, this can make for comfortable living. Designing your smart home is specific to your lifestyle and needs, and your daily routine. You may want the heater to turn on one hour before waking, or an hour before you arrive home, and you can control this at any time from your mobile or tablet.

So every smart home is different pending your needs, what matters is the extent of how the technologies and controls improve your home and how easily this is done for you.

Technology is meant to enable and empower us, not add to frustrations or be obtrusive to daily living. It’s important the aspects of your smart home are designed and set up in a way for you to enjoy maximum control and ease of their operation.

How much does a smart home cost?

There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to smart homes, pending the state of your house (existing house or pre-build?) and your current lifestyle needs (do you need security alarms?) can we then start to assess a cost of a smart home. Call the RYVE team today to get a custom quote, or check out our smart home wiring page for more information. Our team can advise you on what kind of system will best suit your needs, and they can also help to ensure that it’s installed in the most efficient and cost effective way.

The RYVE team are audiovisual and antenna installation and repair professionals who service all of Melbourne and parts of regional Victoria. Since 2002, Ryve have been installing home theatre systems, CCTV, home security, lighting, networking and internet, Wi-Fi, antennas, pre-wiring of homes and installation of audio/visual equipment. In recent years the team have become leading experts in home automation and pre-wire across Melbourne and southeastern suburbs including Ringwood, Croydon, Ferntree Gully, Glen Waverley, Box Hill and more. Contact us today to help you with all your audio visual and antenna needs.