Creating A Smart Home Environment With IoT Devices

The latest advancements in the Internet of Things and wireless sensor technologies have contributed towards creating a fully operational smart home environment. Several technology companies have invested in IoT innovation as researchers explore new ways to transform user experiences with smart home automation. 

According to McKinsey, the global IoT market is expected to reach an annual cap of $11.1 trillion by 2025. Interestingly, smart home automation technologies will account for a major part of this growth. Forbes reveals that at least 12-16 percent of household citizens are currently using IoT-based smart home devices in the US. In the coming years, at least two-thirds of the household customers are likely to purchase smart home devices.   

At Oodles, we have experienced a substantial rise in the project queries related to IoT and smart home automation. A majority of prospects demand a 360-degree smart home solution or office automation services. Interestingly, in the last quarter of 2019, we received at least a dozen requests for building cross-platform smart home applications.
 

Let’s explore some new applications of IoT that are likely to drive digital transformation in the field of smart home technology.  

Control and Monitoring

IoT applications enable users to effortlessly control a wide range of home appliances and smart home devices. For example, a person can use these applications to remotely turn on/off lamps, fans or start/stop various electrical appliances like TVs, microwave ovens, and washing machines. IoT application development services also provide consumers control over their vehicles. They can use IoT devices to easily navigate to a remote location, learn estimated fuel consumption for a journey, and check vehicular emissions. 

IoT devices continuously collect, analyze, and process data to produce meaningful outcomes that the users can track on their smartphones or wearable devices. IoT-based smart home applications enable users to monitor the performance of their home appliances on a variety of parameters. For example, they can use these devices to track and monitor average monthly electricity consumption, calculate unit costs, and more. The IoT devices can also monitor air quality, weather conditions, and automatically adjust the room temperature accordingly.  

Also read Accelerating Construction Processes With IoT.

Enhanced Security

Another benefit of using IoT-based home automation systems is increased security and transparency. The devices are quite handy and can fit anywhere inside the house or outdoors to provide an optimal level of security. IoT-based remote monitoring systems are increasingly popular for surveillance and other household purposes. The modern-day CCTV cameras and surveillance devices are equipped with IoT sensors to detect faces and grant access to authorized personnel. Smart locks provide the same benefit with several other authentication mechanisms like tracking body movements, fingerprints, retina scans, and more. 

Smart home monitoring systems use a variety of IoT sensors to detect power surges, gas leakages, and air quality levels. They provide timely notifications to users to take preventive measures or automatically perform specific tasks like adjustments in room temperature. 

Improved Comfort

The main purpose of automation in any field is to provide increased comfort and interoperability. Similarly, a majority of smart home devices are built to provide comfort and uplift the living standards of the consumers. We have a variety of smart home devices such as smart speakers, security systems, surveillance cameras, smartwatches, smart locks, video doorbells, personal assistants, and much more. All these devices revolve around a common principle i.e maximize user comfort. To achieve this objective, these devices enable users to track, monitor and control their home appliances remotely through different mediums. In addition, they reduce human effort by automatically performing certain tasks like controlling light intensity, adjusting room temperature, and purifying air quality.

IoT-based smart home devices use intelligent algorithms to provide situation-based decision-making capabilities to users to save their time and money. For example, a smart fridge keeps users up-to-date with the available groceries and alerts them to reorder food products when required. Similarly, smart window blinders automatically adjust in accordance with the daylight to produce ideal lighting conditions to make users feel comfortable.

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Common Types of Smart Home Devices 

Below are the commonly used smart home devices that render automation across different household tasks.

Smart Locks and Doorbells

IoT-based smart locks enable users to lock or unlock their house doors from anywhere around the globe using a smartphone app. Similarly, video doorbells send real-time video footage of the person standing at the door directly to the homeowner. After seeing the video, the homeowner can decide whether to open the door or not, regardless of his current location.

Smart Heaters

Smart heating systems are effective at bringing a significant reduction in electricity bills. Smart heaters can automatically adjust the room temperatures in accordance with the weather outside and climatic conditions. These systems can sense if a person is present in the house or not. Accordingly, they turn on/off to avoid unnecessary power consumption. 

Personal Assistants

Personal assistants or smart speakers like Alexa Echo, Google Home, Apple Homepod have become increasingly popular these days. One can integrate these with the home kit accessories to gain a 360-degree control of home appliances.    

At Oodles, we have worked extensively in the field of chatbot development and personal assistant application development. A majority of projects we have handled involved chatbot development and mobile apps to control smart speakers.     

Smoke Detectors 

IoT-based smoke detectors and fire alerting systems have been tried and tested for many years to provide a better fire prevention mechanism. These systems use temperature and smoke sensors to accurately identify the instances of fire hazards. As of today, IoT-based smoke detectors are increasingly used in factories, power plants, hospitals, and shopping malls. Recently, a miniature version of these devices is also introduced to effectively handle household applications.

Also read Making Cities Smarter with the Internet of Things.

 

The Bottom Line

IoT-based smart home devices have made a remarkable presence in the day-to-day lives of millions of users. As time goes by, we are going to see many innovative applications of IoT in home automation including smart doors, windows, gardening equipment, and self-driving cars. Some technology companies are also working on creating mobile-controlled robots that will perform functions similar to personal assistants. 

How We Serve You At Oodles Technologies?

We are a 360-degree smart home app development company that builds interactive IoT applications to effortlessly control and manage smart home devices. Our development team is skilled at using advanced mobile frameworks and wearable technologies to create user-friendly IoT apps for increased user convenience.