Smart Home Technology

What is a smart home?

A smart home is a residence that uses internet-connected devices to enable the remote monitoring and management of appliances and systems, such as lighting and heating.

Smart home technology -- also often referred to as home automation or domotics from the Latin word domus, meaning home -- provides homeowners security, comfort, convenience and energy efficiency by letting them control smart devices, often using a smart home app on their smartphone or another networked device.

A part of the internet of things (IoT), smart home systems and devices often operate together, sharing consumer usage data among themselves and automating actions based on the homeowners' preferences.

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How does smart home technology work?

A smart home isn't a collection of disparate smart devices and appliances, but rather ones that work together to create a remotely controllable network.

All devices -- such as lights, thermostats, security systems and appliances -- are controlled by a master home automation controller, often called a smart home hub. This hub is a hardware device that acts as the central point of the smart home system and can sense, process data and communicate wirelessly. It combines all the disparate apps into a single smart home app that homeowners can control remotely. Examples of smart home hubs include Amazon Echo, Google Home and Wink Hub. While many smart home products use Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to connect to the smart home network, others depend on wireless protocols such as Zigbee or Z-Wave.

Smart home devices can be either programmed to follow specific schedules or commands or they can be set to respond to voice commands through home assistants such as Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. For example, a smart thermostat can learn the homeowner's habits and automatically adjust the temperature based on their specific schedule.

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Examples of smart home technologies

Nearly every aspect of life where technology has entered the domestic space -- including lightbulbs, dishwashers and other appliances -- has seen the introduction of a smart home alternative:

• Smart TVs. These TVs connect to the internet to access content through applications, such as on-demand video and music. Some smart TVs also include voice or gesture recognition.
• Smart lighting systems. In addition to being able to be controlled remotely and customized, smart lighting systems can detect when occupants are in the room and adjust lighting as needed. Smart lightbulbs can also regulate themselves based on daylight availability.
• Smart thermostats. Smart thermostats, such as Google Nest, come with integrated Wi-Fi, letting users schedule, monitor and remotely control home temperatures. These devices also learn homeowners' behaviors and automatically modify settings to provide them with maximum comfort and efficiency. Smart thermostats can also report energy use and remind users to change filters.
• Smart door locks and garage door openers. Homeowners can use smart locks and garage-door openers to grant or deny access to visitors. Smart locks can also detect when residents are near and unlock the doors for them.
• Smart security cameras and systems. With smart security cameras and doorbells, such as Ring, residents can monitor their homes when they're away. Smart motion sensors can identify the difference between residents, visitors, pets and burglars and can send notifications to authorities if suspicious behavior is detected.
• Smart pet and lawn care. Pet care can be automated with connected feeders. Houseplants and lawns can be watered using connected timers.
• Smart kitchen appliances. Brands such as LG, GE and Samsung offer smart kitchen appliances of all sorts. These appliances include smart coffee makers that can brew a fresh cup automatically at a programmed time; smart refrigerators that keep track of expiration dates, make shopping lists or even create recipes based on ingredients currently on hand; slow cookers and toasters; and, in the laundry room, washing machines and dryers.
• Smart household monitors. Household system monitors can, for example, sense a power surge and turn off appliances, sense water failures or freezing pipes and turn off the water so the home doesn't flood.
• Smart plugs. These connect to wall sockets to transform simple home devices, such as lamps and ceiling fans, so they can be controlled remotely via mobile apps and voice assistants such as Alexa.