How to control your ‘Smart Home’ using a ‘Smart Phone’
Smart Homes have introduced a new way of life unseen or unheard of hitherto. The convenience and ease that it offers its residents has lead to the creation of a niche market in India for such luxury homes among the affluent class. Smart phones have lent the edge as far as controlling multiple devices in Smart homes are concerned. While bulky touch screens were the norm of the day earlier, smart phones and tablets have taken over, enabling you to perform array of functions, from the comfort of your home and even remotely. Many hi-end smart phones have applications that can be programmed to perform a number of functions in Smart homes.
Utility
Smart phones perform a host of functions that start right from the gates of your home opening and closing at a touch on your smart phone to controlling the entry to the garage as well as the front door. Once inside your home, you can use the smart phone to control the lights, cool/heat the room, switch on the microwave oven, manage electronic devices like your TV, refrigerator, music system, home theater, as well as any other devices that are compatible through a smart phone control.
Based on the compatibility with your smart home, the app can view and control security cameras as well. This includes electronic surveillance, providing an interface between residents and visitors, emergency alarms in case of burglary attempts, as well as life-saving sensors like smoke detectors, medical panic alerts from the sick and elderly, so as to alert security personnel. Besides, there are apps that also include weather and other features around the smart home so that the user is aware of anything that is happening in the vicinity of his home, at a glance.
Types of Apps
Different types of applications are available on most hi-end Smart phones that enable you to perform a range of functions from surfing the net on your PC, controlling your home theater, managing the contents in your refrigerator, reading a book, playing games, cleaning your home, and a whole lot of other functions.
There are certain applications that perform multiple functions using different controls. For instance, while sitting in the drawing room, you can turn on the lights in your dining room, or while in the bed room you can turn on the lights in the kitchen. Like to watch a movie? An application enables you to draw down the shades, dim the lights, select the movie of your choice, activate the projector, and control the audio system, all at a touch on your smart phone.
Want to listen to music? There is another application to scroll through your music files, select a playlist and select the room where you want the music to be played. Furthermore, you can also select the ‘mode’ you want to play the music in. Selecting a ‘Night mode’ locks all the doors in the room you have selected and turns of all or selected lights. A ‘Party mode’ activates a pre-chosen music playlist depending on the type of party and its theme, and dims selected lights while raising the intensity of others. All these options and more are available from a user-friendly graphic interface on your Smart phone.
How can you use your Smart phone to control your Smart home?
Installation of home automation applications on a smart phone is generally customized, with most smart home developers having readily available apps that can be installed on hi-end smart phones. The latest versions of various applications are compatible on iPhone touch screen and iPad, while many are Android-compatible as well.
The application interacts with the centralized hardware which sends out RS-232 infrared and network commands to different devices which you require to control. It can be operated in rooms with wireless capability as also in wired rooms. Besides, installation of special facilities are required as in the case of dimmers and motorized shades for lighting and amplification in the case of in-wall or in-ceiling speakers.
Demand upsurge
There is a growing demand for smart homes that can be controlled through smart phones in most big cities across India, particularly Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. There is a niche market for such homes catering to the rich and affluent, many of which are customized as per the requirement of the owner, while others are built to plan. Many developers seek the service of home automation companies to offer hi-tech home solutions.
However, at present such homes are affordable to only select class of affluent clientele while there is a large client base of middle class buyers who would be interested in buying such homes. To cater to this large client base, developers should come up with projects which are affordable to this major chunk of society, without compromising too much on the quality of automated living.
