A lot of smart home advertising can be misleading, some give the impression you can buy a few smart boxes and control your appliances, lights, doors, and cameras; however the reality is unless the devices have wireless control or smart chips inside it is not possible. The basic RF and IR controller is limited to devices that already have normal remotes. If your device is not IR or RF controlled it might not be possible to smarten. If you are wanting to build your own smart home network this is a basic overview of what you can do with a smarthome IR controller.
What can’t I control?
Devices with “START” Buttons : devices with buttons like coffee makers, washing machines, ovens, and microwaves cannot be controlled, all you can do is install a smart power box that can switch the power on and off. Most devices with buttons would still need someone to press the start button.
What can a Basic smart home controller smarten?
Your lounge is the perfect location, its full of IR and RF controls. Almost anything with a remote can be controlled by a smart box. Most of your home entertainment can be controlled and programmed to exact channels, volume levels, and brightness. If your lights or AC are remote controlled you too can control these.
Smarthome switches make some dumb devices smart
A smart switch is another device that can smarten a few more appliances, it is plugged between the device and the power connection and acts as a remote-controlled power switch. Anything that is switched on or off with a physical flick switch can be controlled. A lamp, water heater, and fan are good examples; there is no digital switch, just a physical switch. This sounds great, but remember each device will need its own smart switch, so if you are wanting to control many items you will need multiple switches.
Advanced smart
Sometimes a device can be set up so when power is turned on it completes a task. For example just before bed fill up the water jug and flick the boil switch on. Then connect a smart power socket and program it to turn on a 6a.m. At 6.am the power will be turned on and the water will boil. You could also put bread in the toaster and have it already pressed down so when the power comes on it toasts.
You can also preset devices that do not need an on button to be pressed; some heaters for example could be set to the desired temperature and switched on.
Smarthome’s bright future
If you ever dreamed of controlling your home from your phone then keep dreaming, we can already do some great things with current smart home gear but we are still in the early days. Appliances producers are slowly starting to include smart WiFi connections in their products and we predict in 2 years there will be a solid basic range of smart appliances and you will be one step closer to ultimate home control. Navigate to our smarthome setup gear page for our latest home automation gear.
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