Technology is developing at incredible rate, and it’s an exciting time to be renovating your home, as the possibilities of incorporating smart technology into the home are becoming limitless. Smart technology has started to become integrated into the home as a whole, offering ways to make interactions with your home seamless. Technology is also making our homes more energy efficient, and most importantly, comfortable. In this article, we take a look at three technologies that are making a mark on the smart-home technology scene. These technologies are all currently available, and we think you should absolutely consider them for your home renovation plans.

Smart Windows

Curtains are now a thing of the past. Gone are the countless hours of trying to decide what kind of curtains will go best in any given room in your house. Home designers should rejoice at the latest technology that now makes curtains obsolete, and consider getting smart windows installed.

Smart windows allow you to have complete control over exactly how much light comes through them into your home. Rather than getting up to pull the curtains closed, you can now adjust the amount of light coming through your windows without even having to get up. Instead, you can adjust the settings from your smartphone.

This technology works via suspended particle devices (SPDs) that are coated in between two window panels. Conductive material is then laid down in between two window panes as well. When the SPDs come into contact with an electrical charge, all of the suspended particles line up together in a vertical arrangement, allowing full light to come through the window. As the electrical charge decreases, the suspended particles dissociate, and this blocks out light. You can control the electrical charge via your smartphone or another type of remote control, which allows you to control the amount of light coming through your windows.

Smart windows also allow you to save energy during the summer. The sun can heat up your home substantially as light fills your home through windows, and this can cause the air conditioning system in your home to work a lot harder. Smart windows can block the intense light from the summer sun and help keep your home cool, which also helps keep your energy bill low.

Smart Doorbell

It’s a scenario we’ve all been in: the doorbell rings, you don’t want anyone to know you are home, but you are also dying to know who is at the door. So, you tiptoe as quietly as you can to the door to avoid making any sound and peep out the eye-hole in the door. Imagine if you could see who is at your door without having to go through all that. That’s precisely what smart doorbells allow you to do. You’ll never have to tiptoe for unexpected and unwanted visitors again, and you’ll even be able to see who is at your doorstep regardless if you are not even home.

Smart doorbells are essentially doorbells with a built in camera, motion detector, and a two-way audio system. When the motion detector is triggered, the camera turns on, and the smart doorbell sends an alert to your smartphone that someone is at your door. The camera sends live video to your phone, and you can then communicate through your phone via the doorbell’s speaker to whoever is outside your door.

The options available for different smart doorbell systems are pretty diverse, but we recommend nothing other than the latest, most technologically advanced systems. Currently there are smart doorbells that are fully integrated with your home, connecting to your Wifi and offering 1080HD video quality with recording capabilities that send video to both your phone and your cloud storage.

Smart Thermostat

Smart thermostats are one of the most incredible innovations for home improvement. These devices have the ability to optimize both your comfort, as well as your energy bill. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, both heating and cooling your home can account for about half of your home’s yearly energy budget. There are a lot of organizations investigating the energy-saving capabilities of smart thermostats, but the averages indicate that smart thermostats can save your home between 10-15% on energy costs.

Smart thermostats work by utilizing motion detectors, proximity sensing, and computer algorithms based on your home habits to optimize the temperature of your home. Motion detectors installed throughout your home keep track of what rooms are most frequently occupied throughout the day, and also what hours you are usually away from home. Sensors that detect the proximity of your smartphone, usually up to about a 7 mile radius depending on the type of smart thermostat you have, help regulate when to activate or deactivate heaters or air conditioning.

By keeping track of the seasons, your habits while at home, and the hours you are away from home, smart thermostats optimize the comfort of your home by automatically regulating the temperature so you don’t have to do it manually.

Conclusion

Smart technologies designed specifically for home renovation are being designed daily, and are all improving rapidly. The three smart technologies in this article are available now, and will make your home more comfortable, more energy efficient, and safer. With intercompatibility kept in mind, you can select smart technologies for your home that can set the stage for home automation, a topic which deserves its own article to go into the depth it deserves. Don’t wait until you pay your next energy bill to get started on renovating your home with these smart technologies. Get in contact with Divine Home Remodeling and we’ll discuss what your best options are for getting your home outfitted with smart technologies.