Is your Smart Home Comprehensive?

So you’ve got some nifty, smart gadgets at home. Does that make your home smart? The question may be: How smart do you want your home to be? What makes it smart in the first place? While most of us have IT support at work, we may not have it at home, so be smart about how you set it up – including good cybersecurity.

What qualifies a home as a smart home?

Firstly, connectivity is the earmark of a smart home. It communicates and uses technology to control many parts of your home life, including turning lights on and off, working your HVAC, and unlocking doors. You can control these devices with your voice or smartphone. These devices connect over the internet and often talk to each other.

What are the benefits of a smart home?

If you want to save time and energy, consider a Smart home. If you don’t want to walk into a hot house on an August day, simply turn your A/C on before you leave the office. They can also make your home safer. Lastly, they are fun to use. You’ve seen those movies where somebody walks into their home and says, “Lights. TV news” and those things turn on. Just say it and watch it happen!

How do I make my house a smart home?

This is usually a step-by step process that begins with a couple of gadgets and snowballs. In order to make your smart home comprehensive, try this route:

Start with the Hub

The hub, or smart home controller, is the brain and heart of your smart home. It unifies the different devices in your home into a single system, making them talk to each other to better work together. It also provides a single app to control your entire home.

Common hubs include the Amazon Echo and the Google Nest. While Microsoft doesn't have a dedicated, standalone smart home hub device like some competitors, you can control smart home devices from your Windows PC using the "HomeHub" feature and Microsoft's Cortana voice assistant.

Look for Compatible Devices

It’s important that all devices work with your hub. When buying, look for phrases like “Works with Alexa” or “Google Home compatible.”

Take Care with Your Network Setup

The network does most of the heavy lifting, so set it up right. First, you need a strong Wi-Fi network and you might need to change your router. Some smart devices work best on their own network.

What are the most useful smart home devices?

Lights

These let you control your lights with your voice or phone. You can dim, change colors, and set schedules.

Locks

As you might guess, these let you lock and unlock your doors with your phone. You can also share digital keys with trusted guests.

HVAC

This can save time, money and even misery. Don’t swelter or shiver when you get home, initiate heating or cooling before you get in your car – and forget about turning the heat or A/C on when you leave in the morning. By the time you return that night, you will have wasted some serious money.

These are the BIG THREE, but many other smart devices, like speakers, security cameras, and various media devices sure do make life easier!

How will devices be interconnected inside the smart home?

It’s important that all the devices in your smart home work together – it doesn’t happen automatically. Here are some useful tips:

Develop ‘use routines’

Setting up routines lets you control many devices with one command. For example, you can create a routine so that when you say, “Good morning,” the lights will turn on and your coffee maker will start – you can also add TV news, music, and other devices to this routine.

Separate your devices into groups

If you put devices that either work in tandem or are in the same room into groups, you can control all of them at once.

What are the security issues with smart homes?

Just like your work network, your smart home needs good cybersecurity. The number one issue is Insecure Messaging Systems:

Smart Apps can communicate with devices via message. So, a messaging system could be enabled to send a message to your bank account containing your pin number, providing it access your account. What happens if that message is hacked? HINT: Nothing good.

Hackers can use Smart Apps to impersonate smart home devices, activating them and potentially breaching the physical security of your house.

It is important to attack the design flaws head-on to secure the smart homes of today. For example, certain safeguards should be implemented to ensure that if a change is made, such as a PIN number, password, or routine, two-factor authentication is used to guarantee that the homeowner was the one who ordered that change. This ensures that the home is safe, even if it adds a mild layer of inconvenience for the homeowner.

A strong network is strong protection

Many problems can occur due to poor Wi-Fi. Make sure your network is strong and stable.

Update your software

The older software gets, the weaker it becomes. Update your devices with new software. This keeps them safe from hackers.

How to troubleshoot smart home devices?

When in doubt, restart your devices

Just like with your computer, you can sometimes fix problems just by turning things off and then on again.

Ask for help

Don’t be shy. Get customer support on the phone when you get stuck.