What do we all want in a home? It’s not a difficult question. If you’re imagining swimming pools and mansions, that’s fine, but you don’t need anything fancy to have an ideal home. What are really importance are safety, comfort and convenience.
The smart home security system can help you experience all three. If you’re unfamiliar with smart home technology, this system is a bit like being catapulted into the future.
By adding smart home features to your home, you can greatly increase your home’s security and your ability to control your home. The total power you possess gives you a true sense of security and peace of mind.
With a home security automation system, you enjoy the convenience of control and relish the ease of your new lifestyle provided by this revolutionary technology. But what exactly is an automated smart home?
What Is Home Automation?
Put simply, home automation lets you control electronic devices in your home using your cell phone. In addition to remotely activating your dishwasher, or anything connected to the system, you have remote private cell phone access to your security system.
This security system contains a series of security cameras. The live feed from these cameras will appear on your cell phone screen. From there, you have full access to all of your installed electronic aspects and can make a change, in real time.
If you want any electronic feature activated, just use your phone to make it happen. With home automation, any device connected to your system can receive your remote instructions.
It’s staggering to consider the full implications of this technology’s usefulness. In your home, almost any task can hook up to the automated system. Just to name a few:
- Garage doors
- Your HVAC air conditioner or heating system
- Mechanical windows
- All security system features
- Locks on doors, windows and gates
- Lights
- Home surveillance
- Kitchen appliances, your TV set and any other electronic device you can name
It’s easy to begin imagining the ways this technology will transform your command over your home. In the wide range of applications available, you’ll find that home automation will:
- Save you time
- Increase your sense of control over your home
- Give you total security, mobile monitoring and peace of mind
- Decrease your energy consumption
- Add to your convenience
In our journey into the world of automated home security we’ll touch on several main areas. First, we’ll talk about how this technology actually works. Then, we’ll go into some details concerning the installation process. Next, we’ll cover video surveillance aspects. We’ll also touch on the benefits of saving electricity, full household automation, remote monitoring, and finally the history of smart home technology.
By the end of our trip, hopefully your jaw will have returned from the floor, and you’ll appreciate how this technology is no fantasy. It’s merely the product of the collective achievement of the human race, applied to our aspirations of owning a home and living in greatest security, comfort and convenience.
How Does Home Automation Work?
As previously mentioned, the home automation security system works by using cell phone computer technology. All the parts you decide to connect to the system send and receive data to and from your cell phone, tablet or other computing device.
This streamlined process is similar to what goes on in the human nervous system. Your entire body constantly sends information to and from your brain. When you touch a hot frying pan, a signal shoots to your brain, and your brain shouts at your hand to move away.
Your cell phone offers the same centralization of decision making and control for your automated home. Now that you’re well versed in the basics, let’s explore the more technical aspects of home automation.
To help compartmentalize a home automation security system, consider it as comprised of:
- Stimulus: Your home system sends a message after receiving certain stimulus from its sensors. Like the sensation of burning your hand, your home system operates using faculties that become triggered by sudden changes. If a smoke alarm goes off, a break-in gets detected, or a perceivable change in your home’s environment occurs, the sensors pick up the message.
- Communication-: After the sensors create the signal, it gets sent onward to the actual hardware in place. This communicative phase relies on your central alarm unit to deal with the signal. Your home alarm unit analyses the input before sending it on to your cell phone. This step filters the stimulus factors to provide a crystal clear picture of the situation.
- Response: Once you receive the alert on your cell phone, you decide which course of action to take. If you chose to install surveillance cameras, take a look at what’s going on. You can watch a live video of your home in real time.
Responding to Alerts Triggered by Home Automation for Security Systems
If it’s something minor, you can easily make a change using your system’s actuators. Actuators refer to things like window blinds, door locks or your thermostat. For instance, perhaps it’s turned into a hot day. Your house plants might not like so much sun. Check in with the situation and send a signal to the actuators to close your blinds. Plant suffering averted.
For more serious situations, such as a window mysteriously opened, check in with your video. Make sure it’s not your child or another benign scenario before confirming a break-in.
If you believe a break-in is occurring, simply use our app to pass on that information to alarm.com. The security specialists at alarm.com offer a lightning-fast response and will immediately handle the situation while keeping you informed. Of course, you can watch any possible scenario unfold from the safety of your surveillance cameras.
At Lloyd Security, we strongly encourage customers to explore video surveillance options. Our easy-to-use surveillance app lets you look at your home for any reason, day or night, anywhere in the world. Feel free to check in on your home.
Our surveillance app works with iPhone and Android devices. Know everything about your home’s security at the touch of a button. For more information on the app and its easy to understand layout, visit our webpage on the smartphone home security system.
How to Install Home Automation
Without a doubt, you want an experienced home automation technician to do the job of installing an automated home system. At Lloyd Security, we take pride as a leader in smart home automation systems. Feel free to ask us about any specifications you might require during installation. We’re all ears and aim to give you the optimal home security solution.
We give careful consideration for your individual home layout and budget. This ensures you receive ideal coverage for your home at a price you’ll love.
For the installation process, you should first imagine which elements you want included. Most customers begin by choosing the most vital areas related to home security and safety. These generally include:
- Smoke alarms
- Heat sensors
- Carbon monoxide detectors
- Motion detectors
Sensors send the message to the central computer, which relays the data to your cell phone. That’s when you can make an informed choice as to your response.
Controllers for Your Home
The second main aspect of installation concerns your control over your home’s actions. In addition to sensors, you’ll want plenty of controllers. Controllers function as the individual elements hooked up to the system. You’ll possess the ability to program each controller.
Common types of controllers include:
- Garage door openers
- Air conditioners
- Heating
- Lights
- Locking and unlocking doors and windows
These controllers act as your disembodied hands. Feel like opening the window to let in a breeze before you get home? Wield your invisible power to manage your controllers. Open your security app, go to the window you want, and open it by activating its controller.
Video Surveillance
Surveillance cameras offer the most direct type of sensor available: direct sight. Cameras offer your first line of attack in diagnosing the cause of an alert. They also simply let you peruse your property, ensuring that all’s well.
The reasons for wanting a direct line of sight on your home are endless. Several everyday possibilities might include the following.
Bad Weather
It’s raining downtown. You realize you left a skylight open. It’s been so hot lately that you don’t want to turn your home into a sauna, but a puddle on your bathroom floor isn’t good either. Take a look with your cameras to see if it’s raining where you live. Puddle prevented.
Just Making Sure
Nothing beats peace of mind. Unpleasant notions sneak up on you when you least expect it.
You’re on vacation, poolside, drink in hand — complete with miniature umbrella — when a thought crashes into your mind. “Did I turn off the stove?” It’s a cliché, but it’s a nagging one if you suffer from second-guessing yourself.
With your home automation system, not only can you take a peek at your home to ensure it’s not engulfed in flames, but you can see every appliance currently drawing power. You’ll know the garage door is closed, the door locked, the oven off. You can rest easy and get back to your vacation.
Checking in on Your Trustworthy Teenagers
Those with adolescents know they’re not always so forthright. You’re still on vacation. It’s Saturday night. You remember you told your teenager not to have any parties. They promised not to, but it’s the first weekend of summer. Your suspicions begin to arise.
In the old days, you’d call just to “check in.” They’d frantically turn down the music, tell their unruly teenage friends to be quiet and claim to you they’re getting a start on next year’s homework. With video cameras you can access at any time on your vacation, you don’t need to wait to ground them when you get home. In fact, they’ll never have a party if they know you’ll know.
Sick Family Members or Pets
Home surveillance makes keeping an eye on a sick child, parent or pet easier than ever before. Home surveillance lets you oversee the wellbeing of your family when they might need help.
Benefits of Saving Electricity
A fully integrated smart home security system optimizes your energy usage. Did you forget to turn off a light? Your new system lets you check. Upon locating the source of any energy-wasting electronic device, simply turn it off.
Your system literally puts the power in your hands. With complete control over your home’s energy uses, you never expend unnecessary energy. Moreover, your home system comes programmed to use energy sparingly.
It helps to streamline your energy needs. After all, the less power you use, the more money you save. Forget needless spending on your energy bill. With a smart home system in place, no energy gets employed without control or regard to efficiency.
Automatic for the People
Home automation offers you extensive options to customize and then automate your home. Create a schedule of events you wish enacted, and simply let them play out.
Most of our lives follow a general routine. Craft the perfect plan for your home to reflect your lifestyle. Of course, if you need to change your home’s behavior, no problem.
At a moment’s notice, simply take out your phone and use the app to alter a task or take a look at your home using real-time surveillance. This technology isn’t confined to science fiction. The smart home security system lets you reap the fruits of our automatic age. It’s called an automatic system for a reason — it runs by itself. You can’t overstate the comfort and ease of mind that comes with a trustworthy, efficient and easy-to-use automated system.
The main feature of automation concerns the functions that occur automatically. They don’t call it an automatic system for nothing. Of course, you decide which actions you want automatically performed. The system offers total customization. Simply schedule an event to trigger at a given time, and your system remembers your request and enacts the command.
Repeat Scheduling
The limit to actions you want repeated depends on your needs. The circumstances where automatic customization comes in handy is infinite. Some examples to consider include:
- Scheduling certain lights to come on or turn off. Why not program your front porch light to turn on as you return from work? It’s never nice walking up to your door in the dark. Having lights on in your house also makes it look like someone’s at home. This feature works great if you’re out of town. The lights will come on at dusk and turn off at dawn like clockwork. It’s entirely up to you.
- Climate control. Some automated systems include heat and air conditioning control. It’s a major perk to not need to fiddle with the thermostat constantly.
- Fully customized routines. Your wish is your home’s command. Any tweak you want, you can implement. Say the sun shines too intensely through one window for an hour each day. Simply program that window’s blind to close for that time. You can craft the ongoing mechanical orchestra of your home’s components. Let your imagination run wild.
- Programmable locking features. Do your kids come home from school at the same time each day? Program the doors to disarm and unlock for them. The same principle applies to any situation. Say you employ a housekeeper, gardener, dog walker or small child caregiver. Program the house to let them in at a given time and lock again upon their departure.
Remote Monitoring
The most logical aspect of automated home security involves remote monitoring. After all, you’re more likely to require use of automated services when you’re not at home. The mobile aspect is the most revolutionary and important area of automated homes. From the surveillance cameras to spot trouble to the total control you wield in the palm of your hand, the mobile app fully utilizes this technology.
It’s like having a master remote control. There’s no way you’ll get tired of the power and freedom afforded by the remote monitoring aspect.
You could even be at home and use it. You’ll almost never need to get up again. You can preheat the oven, open the windows and turn on the sprinklers all while sitting on the couch. Just don’t let the power go to your head.
The History Of Home Automation
In many ways, the dream of smart homes reflect our collective dreams of sleek, technological convenience. Take the appeal of the “The Jetsons.” This cartoon science fiction show displayed the fantasies of 1960s suburban America. Smoothly running automated machines made life easy for all. Labor-saving devices had reached their zenith in the future.
The idea of home automation became increasingly common in mid-twentieth-century science fiction. Even Ray Bradbury wrote a story called “There Will Come Soft Rains,” in which automated homes continue to run regardless of their inhabitants’ presence.
Science fiction prophets considered the automated house a safe prediction, and it was. It comes as no surprise that now, with the advent of technology and the internet, our dream of completely automated homes has come true.
The history of home automation doesn’t exist in a bubble. It emerged in the technological movement that brought us all types of productive machinery. Washing machines set to a cycle, dish washers, toasters and vacuum cleaners showed our dream of an automated home. Timers that clicked the lights on at certain times came later, and who can forget that famous jingle “Clap on, clap off, the clapper!”
The Clapper belongs to the realm of gerontechnology. You’ve seen the commercials for automatic stair lifts and alarm bracelets. All these products revamp the home environment for seniors. Such domestic convenience points to the endgame of total home automation.
The Dawn of the Smart Home
Finally, in 1998, the first smart home appeared. The Integer millennium house did what everything was leading to. It combined heating, security, lighting, locking and surveillance. This showcase house also included environmental aspects like a green roof, grey water recycling and under-floor heating and cooling. It offered a truly futuristic home.
Since the Integer millennium house, technology has improved even more. Needless to say, you probably can’t imagine using your cell phone from 1998, if you even had one. The internet and cell phone ability have made smart homes a practical reality.
We’ve certainly transcended the dreams of 1960s science fiction. It’s perfectly attainable to own a smart home now. If you don’t already, it’s easy to transform your current home into a fully automated smart home security system. Not only will you benefit from the safety and convenience, but it will dramatically increase the retail value of your house. There’s no better selling feature than emerging a prospective buyer in the world of the future.
A series of incredible achievements have led us to the smart home. Looking back it seems inevitable, but looking forward it also appears certain that smart home technology will improve. With every newer feature, you can stand to benefit from the fruits of our advancements.
Choose Lloyd Security for Your Home Automation Security Needs
At Lloyd, we see a bright future for automated home security technology. We pride ourselves as industry leaders of smart homes in Minneapolis and beyond. Contact us to learn more. We can help you decide on the most practical and secure smart home option for your needs.