Smart home automation is a lot like being a wizard! 

You have the power to control various things around your house with just a few clicks or taps. It's all thanks to the internet-connected devices that make up a smart home. 

You can use smart home automation to do things like turn on the lights, monitor activity with cameras, and lock your doors. These are just a few examples of what you can do with a smart home. With so many possibilities, it's easy to see why people are increasingly interested in this technology.

In this post, you will learn 9 Ways a Smart Home Can Improve Your Life. 

Reduce Energy Bills

As energy prices are starting to skyrocket, saving money on gas and electric bills is crucial. You can save some cash with a few smart home devices.

Installing a smart thermostat can save you up to $50 a year. Our Amazon Smart Thermostats allow us to create a heating and cooling schedule to ensure we use energy efficiently. If you have Alexa devices, you can also enable hunches, and your home will know if you're away from home and adjust the temperature appropriately. 

Another area where you can save money is through smart lighting and motion sensors. You can create a routine to turn off lights if no motion is detected.  

Increase Your Peace of Mind

Since creating our smart home, we have added devices that have given us a peace of mind. Some of these devices include Ring Water Sensor and Smart Garage Door Sensors.

Our basement has a sump pump, and one of my biggest fears is our basement will flood if our pump doesn't kick on. We placed a water sensor right next to the sump pump, which will alert me if water starts leaking out of it. Although we can't stop it from leaking, at least we will be altered and can take appropriate action.

We have probably circled back home a million times in our lives to ensure we shut our garage door. Installing a smart garage door sensor has eliminated those extra trips and given us peace of mind that we didn't leave our door open to the world.  

Make Your Home Safer

The best way to make your home safer is by adding a smart doorbell and alarm system. Our favorites are the Ring Doorbell, Ring Alarm, and Echo devices. 

Ring Doorbell will let you know who is behind the door, whether at home or on vacation. It will also help to deter burglars because they know they are on video, and you can have a conversation through the device if you have access to the app. 

The Ring Alarm System can protect your home because it is a professional home monitoring system. You can add motion sensors to your doors, windows, and common areas to alert professionals if your house gets broken into when the alarm is on. 

An echo device can also help protect your house through Alexa Guard. Although it is not a home monitoring system, your Echo will listen for specific sounds when Guard is set to away mode and notify you on your Alexa App. You can hear the sound through your app, which will help you determine what's going on in your home.

Save Time

When you start building out your smart home, you will realize there are numerous routines and applications you can use to save time. Here are a few of our favorites:

• Use lists on Alexa to add items to your grocery list

• Tell Alexa to set a timer instead of physically setting one

• Create a routine to turn off all the lights in the house by saying, "Alexa, turn off all the lights in the house."

• Tell Alexa to order something from Amazon

• Listen to the news

• Have Alexa give you the fastest route to work

• Get answers by asking Alexa

Get a Better Night's Sleep

A smart home can help you get a better night's sleep through a smart speaker and lights. 

We prefer Alexa devices, and you can utilize them to help you get ready for bed to help you sleep better. You can create a "Bedtime Routine" to help you set the mood. Your routine can help remind you it's time for bed, turn off devices that distract you (we're looking at you, Netflix), set the temperature, turn on soothing sounds, and dim the lights.  

This is the best way to ensure you will sleep better at night. 

Stay Organized  

Most smart assistants can create lists, timers, and reminders. We learned how essential these organization tools were during 2020 when we were working from home, and our kids had school.

We use lists on Alexa for grocery items, and our kids use them to create Christmas lists. Then we either print the list or pull it up at the grocery store, eliminating missing anything we need. 

In our house, we often utilize the "Alexa, remind me ____" function. You can use it to remind you of meetings, pills to take, make phone calls, and pick up your kids. 

Have a More Productive Day

One of the main reasons to have a smart home is to increase productivity. We could write an additional post on how a smart home can help you become more productive, but we will limit it to our favorites.

Here are some of our favorite ways we use a smart home for productivity:

• Create routines in the Alexa App

• Turn on lights with our alarm to get us out of bed

• Remind us of meetings

• Show our calendar on the Echo Show 15

• Create skills to encourage us to work out

• Task trackers

Entertainment

The number one way people start to build their smart home is with a smart speaker, like an Echo device. These devices come packed with entertainment opportunities. 

An Echo Show can allow you to play music, watch TV, stream YouTube, and play games, like Jeopardy, with thousands of skills available. However, you will discover endless entertainment options as you build your smart home.

You can set up your lights to sync with your television to change colors as the movie scenes change. You can set up a routine to "set the mood" to watch a movie. You can listen to music throughout your house or switch music mid-song from one Echo device to another. Or, if you get crazy, you can create an entire Christmas-themed smart home with outside lights. 

Morning Routine 

Another reason to build a smart home is to create a morning routine because it can set up your day for success.

To create a morning routine with your Alexa Device, you'll want to create a routine. A routine is an if-then function, so if this happens, it triggers your smart home to do an action.  

A good morning routine could be:

• When an alarm is dismissed between 4:30 am and 8:00 am, then

• Slowly brighten the lights

• Have Alexa give you a motivational quote

• Play Music

• Remind you to do pushups before doing anything else

If you want to improve your life and make your daily activities a little easier, then start a smart home!