Smart Apartments
Do you want to get in on the smart home trend? Maybe your friends or family have smart doorbells and thermostats and you wish you could use them too, but they involve messing with wiring and drilling through walls and doors.
Do not despair. You, too, can join the 21st century and control your indoor environment from your phone or virtual assistant. The difference between a smart home and a smart apartment is that an apartment uses devices that aren’t permanently installed — you’ll be able to quickly disconnect them when you move.
Here are five smart tech devices that can benefit from.
Smart light bulbs
There are three reasons why smart light bulbs are worth it! For starters, they are energy efficient LED bulbs, which is good for the environment.
You can control your lighting from your phone, tablet or virtual assistant. This is a great feature for apartment dwellers because it means you can place a lamp where you don’t have a wall switch. Now, you can turn the lights on and off without having to get off the couch.
And if that isn’t enough, you can even change the lighting colour! This means you can set your lights to turn on with a warm, natural glow in the morning (to mimic the sun), or to change to different fun colours like red or blue to suit the mood or ambiance of a room.
Smart plugs
Smart electrical plugs do not need to be wired in, as they plug into your apartment’s existing outlets. They allow you to shut them off remotely, and some have extras such as energy monitors and timers. Using your phone, you can shut off a smart plug while you’re at work (did you remember to turn off your curling iron?), out on the town, on vacation, or just too lazy to get out of bed.
Smart white noise machines
Do you have a baby who really needs to nap? Are you a light sleeper who can’t seem to settle in at night? A white noise, or sleep, machine can help mask external sounds and create a peaceful atmosphere. These can be controlled using a virtual assistant or an app on your phone or tablet. Enjoy some quality uninterrupted sleep!
Smart air conditioner
If your landlord allows you to install an air conditioner in your window during the summer months, you can go high-tech with a Wi-Fi-enabled unit. This lets you control the air conditioner from anywhere with your phone, so you can start and stop cooling, change the mode or set the temperature while you’re out. Turn it on about half an hour before you get home, and your apartment will be nice and cool when you walk in the door! Connecting with a virtual assistant will let you control the temperature by voice command when you’re at home.
Robot vacuum
Robot vacuums have been around for a while now, but the latest versions have many convenient and artificial-intelligence-like features you may not have heard about. You can get Wi-Fi-enabled vacuums that connect to your router or virtual assistant, allowing you to control them through an app or via voice command. Some also allow you to set up virtual boundaries (you no longer have to physically block off certain areas of your apartment!), select specific areas to clean, set a cleaning schedule and more. Some even generate statistics and maps of the areas they’ve cleaned.
There are many more cool gadgets out there that are compatible with a smart apartment setup. For example, depending on where you’re renting, you may even be able to swap out your old, “dumb” smoke detectors and door locks for smart ones — but be sure to ask your landlord first!
If you’re looking for a new place to set up a high-tech apartment, browse properties on Gottarent.com .