With our busy lives in the big city, it seems like we’re always rushing to do things and there’s never enough time to relax and enjoy the precious moments of each day. In this video, we’re going to go over ways to help you put time back in to your day by automating everyday routines around the house, protecting your home to give you peace of mind and reduce the stress of dealing with the unexpected, plus perhaps help you save some money, especially on electricity and insurance while we’re at it.
Smart Plug – Fresh Coffee & Warm Bagels: Scented Alarm
Let’s start by taking a look at daily routines and tasks that everybody likely follows each morning and night. Now, I’m not sure about you, but I’m a night owl myself and always have a hard time getting up out of bed in the morning. Imagine this, you are alone at home, lying in your bed, cuddled in the warm comfort of your blanket and there is a smell of freshly brewed coffee and toasted bagels… you open your eyes and realize that it’s not a dream. You actually smell coffee being brewed and hot bagels!
How is this possible? Wouldn’t it help you get out of bed if you know there’s a hot cup of your favourite drink and breakfast waiting for you? This can be your reality if you have a Smart Plug connected to a basic coffee machine and a simple toaster that are each around only $20-30.
Of course, you’ll need to put in the coffee grounds & water in to the coffee machine, the bagels in to the toaster and turn ON both of the them the night before, but with the Smart Plug OFF and a timer set to turn ON automatically in the morning, you’ll have the motivation and wake up to the aromatic smell of breakfast with a hot cup of coffee.
For me, it means that I’ll be able to wake up a few minutes (or more like a few hours) earlier. Just imagine having the time to relax and enjoy your morning coffee and bagels instead of stressfully rushing out the door on an empty stomach!
Smart Light Bulbs, Smart Door Lock & Smart Garage Door Opener – Automatic Closing & Locking
Speaking of rushing out the door, have you ever been so rushed to get out of the house that when you finally have time to sit down to think, you don’t actually know or remember if you’ve turned OFF the lights, locked the door or closed the garage? What might get stolen or damaged if somebody came in to the house? I’m sure that we’ve all been there at least once or twice in our lives.
Fortunately, there’s actually a way to minimize this problem and prevent theft by simply using a Smart Door Lock and a Smart Garage Door Opener. With a smart system that can link to your phone and determine your GPS position, you can set up a rule to automatically turn off the lights, close the garage door and lock the front door if you (and/or your family) all leave the house.
Don’t get me wrong, please try to remember to lock your door when you leave, because we’d recommend this as “just in case” failsafe instead of relying on this feature on a regular basis. GPS accuracy isn’t always the best and in some cases you may need to be a few km away before the system may be able to determine that you’ve actually left, but STILL, when you’re driving away to pick up the date that you’re nervous and late for, it’s still a very good thing to have some peace of mind knowing that your home should be exactly how you left it.
Smart Thermostat & Light Bulbs – Reduce Carbon Footprint & Save on Electricity
When you have left your home and nobody is there to enjoy the comfort of your heating and cooling system, it’s always best to turn it OFF or set it to eco-temperatures. This is better for the environment, will help reduce your carbon footprint and save you some money on electricity. There are thermostats that allow you to set up a weekly or daily schedule, but in most cases for me, especially on weekends or on my day off running errands, I’m not necessarily home at the same times each day of the week.
With a Smart Thermostat that is again connected to your phone’s GPS, you can easily set rules to automatically switch ON eco-mode when you’re leaving your house and back to more comfortable temperatures as you’re approaching your home. There’s no more worrying about remembering to change the settings manually as you leave or return any more.
Better yet, as you’ll be able to efficiently manage the use of the heat & AC (or heat pump), you’ll be able to minimize wasted energy and save more during peak times especially when you’re away from home. Remember the lights that turned OFF automatically, because you forgot to turn them off on your way out? Those Smart Light Bulbs will save you some money on electricity as well.
Smart Plug – Rice, Egg & Sausage: Ready to Eat
We’ve talked about things to help when you’re waking up and leaving the house, but how can you automate things for when you’re coming home? After a long day of work, have you ever entered your home and you’re both hungry and tired? Imagine entering your house to the savoury fragrance of a hot home-cooked meal that’s ready to eat right away.
As you might be able to guess, I’m Asian and I love to eat rice. So, this example I’m going to talk about will be one that’s going to make use of a Smart Plug, Rice Cooker and Egg Cooker. Before you leave the house, you can take just a few minutes to wash the rice and put it in the rice cooker with water and Chinese Dried Sausage on top. Don’t forget to press the ON switch on the cookers, but leave the Smart Plug OFF.
For those who haven’t tried it, Chinese Dried Sausage is red in colour and is usually made of chopped or ground pork, seasoned & cured before being air dried and packaged. At some grocery stores, you may also find them hanging from strings and sold individually or in bulk. They’re usually sold in the dry goods section, but some stores put it in refrigerated sections as well. For busy city dwellers like me, what I really like about this type of sausage is that they are typically vacuum packaged and is shelf stable. It even has a long shelf life after the package has been opened (months in a freezer or several weeks in the refrigerator) so it’s always ready and available for when I need it and it is quite flavourful. You may choose to cut them in to thin slices when you’re prepping the rice cooker, which is the way I prefer myself so all the juices and aromas from the fats soak right in to the rice while it cooks, or you may choose to cut them after they are cooked so you may reduce the calories you consume.
For good measure and colour, you can also put in a few pieces of broccoli or other vegetable on top & in to the pot as well when getting it ready. For variety, in an egg cooker, you can put in a little bit of water and some fresh eggs while you prep. I’d put in a few extra drops of water than I would when I’m making eggs right away, because some of the water may evaporate during the day while you’re at work. All this talk about food is already making me hungry, but let’s get back on topic to automating your daily routine.
OK, so you spent maybe about five minutes of your time to prep before you left for work and your busy day has already flown by, so you’re ready to clock out to go home. Time to run the routine you’ve set on your app and turn the Smart Plug for the rice & egg cookers ON. You’ll want to do this when you’re 30-60 minutes away from your house, so when you arrive home, it’ll smell great and hot food will be ready to enjoy immediately.
That said, if you have a routine to wash up, wind down and settle in that may take approximately that amount of time, you may choose to turn the plug ON as you enter the house instead. Voilà! No more wasting time thinking about what to eat or waiting for food to cook while your stomach may be growling. Sit down, et bon appétit!
Smart Door Lock & Smart Light Bulbs – Brighter, Safer Home
We’ve mentioned several ideas to make things more efficient so you’ll have less stress and more time to relax, but what sorts of things might connected devices be able to help with in terms of safety & security. Earlier, we told you that you can set rules with your GPS location to lock up when you leave, right?
Well, guess what, you can also set a rule to turn ON the porch lights as you’re arriving home, and turn ON the mud room lights as soon as you unlock the Smart Door Lock using your personal code so you’ll be coming back to a brighter and safer home. The best part is that for rules you create specifically for lights, you can even set it to only happen “after sunset”, so you can conserve energy during the day when you don’t need them.
Smart Automation – Improved Efficiency & Boosted Energy Levels
As you can see, there’s all sort of combinations and ways you can manage rules for smart products to help make your day go better and enhance your daily routines, but what can it do for me at night? At the very least, I usually have a Sleep Routine or a “Scene” set up that would automatically make sure that everything I don’t need such as lights and other electronic devices are all turned OFF and double check that all doors are closed or locked if I have forgotten any of them.
If you have an electric garage door that can be opened or closed using a remote, using the Smart Plug it’s connected to, I would have the routine turn OFF the power to the opener itself, so that even if someone has cloned your remote’s frequency and tries to open it, they won’t have any luck, because the garage door opener doesn’t have any power at all. Wouldn’t you be able to sleep better knowing that your home and property are secured?
Talking about sleep, are you someone that may do some light reading or catch up on social media while lying in bed before you actually go to sleep? When you’re ready to put things away, instead of getting up out of bed, walking over to the light switch to turn it OFF, possibly kicking something accidentally when you’re returning to bed in the dark, and once you finally lie down again, realizing that your heartrate spiked when you stubbed your toe.
Well, instead of all of that and finding out that you’re actually more awake and cannot sleep anymore, with a Smart System, you can control everything right from your phone or tablet that’s probably right next to your bed so you can just ease yourself in to falling asleep and may feel more refreshed in the morning. Improving your nightly turn-down routine could lead to better rest to recharge your body so you may enjoy boosted energy levels and get more done the following day.
Safety Sensors – Sleep Soundly with More Peace of Mind
When you have a SmartHome Security system, not only may you be able to do everything that we’ve talked about in this video to automate your daily routines, you may also get access to security sensors with 24/7 central alarm monitoring. The best part is that everything will be integrated in to one system and accessed using a single app!
In terms of security sensors, many people may be familiar with ones that’s useful in preventing theft and deterring burglars such as glass-break sensors and door or windows sensors to see if any of them have been opened or motion sensors used mainly in hallways or stairs, but there’s also other ones that offer more protection for your physical building and the people inside as well.
The one that is most important to protect people when everybody is sleeping is Carbon Monoxide (CO) sensors, because CO is an invisible and odourless gas that can be silent and deadly. Alarm monitoring companies will recommend that you install one in every bedroom to be safer as buildup of the gas may occur in any room and it may be heard more easily by heavy sleepers, especially if the door is closed, but to help you save money, the local government in the city and province I live in, both recommend that one be installed adjacent to each sleeping area (and on every level). So, if you have one bedroom on the first floor and maybe some on the second floor, you should install a CO sensor inside the bedroom of the first floor and if all the rooms are adjacent to one hallway on the second floor, then another CO sensor in that hallway.
Myself, I don’t wake up easily and can sleep through pretty loud sounds, so I would highly recommend that you put one in every bedroom, just in case. Especially when you bundle it in to the monthly service plan instead of paying upfront for it, it’s not expensive and definitely worth the peace of mind.
Save on Home Insurance – Other Sensors that Prevent and Minimize Damages
There are several things that you may do to help minimize potential costs for accidental damages to your home. In general, discounts may be offered by your home insurance company when potential damages to your home and property may be minimized and there may be a reduced risk for your home insurer to pay for expensive claims. Being proactive and taking preventative measure will also give you peace of mind and reduce the stress from a break-in or damage clean-up too. Let’s take a look at some of these things and how they can help you.
24/7 Professionally Monitored Security System
First, having a 24/7 Professionally Monitored Security System installed with visible decals and signage posted around the home may deter and prevent burglars. This means that you may be able to minimize property damage and theft of your personal items such as jewelry, cash, expensive electronics or other things of value. If you’re a professional thief, and you’re casing a place to steal from, would you prefer to choose one that has an alarm system that may have emergency services dispatched to catch you, or would you prefer to find one that doesn’t have any security so you can take your time to find all the valuables? Hey, if having a monitored system means that I won’t have to deal with finding things missing and a huge mess when I arrive home, then I’m in!
Smart Door Deadbolt Locks
Whether you have a monitored system or not, it’s very important to ensure you have deadbolt locks installed on both front and rear exterior doors. It is a simple way to prevent and deter someone from breaking in as it makes it much harder to enter. Smart Door Locks typically connected to an alarm system are usually deadbolt locks, so when you talk to your insurance company or broker, it’s worth mentioning to them that you have them installed, as they may offer a discount. It’ll be much harder and more time consuming for any robbers to try to break in if you have deadbolt locks installed on all of your exterior doors.
Don’t forget that we mentioned earlier that Smart Door Locks may be controlled remotely and even set to lock automatically within a set time or when everybody leaves the home, so your home will be even safer. What you might not be aware of, is that when you have family or a visitor coming to stay with you for a few days, you may actually be able to set a specific user code for that person that will only work for dates and times that you choose.
For example, I can give my in-laws a code that will work only from Friday at 4pm until the following Monday at 11am. This way, they won’t have unauthorized access when you’re not expecting them, and you won’t have extra codes on your system that people may try to guess to get access to your home.
Monitored Fire Alarm System
We’ve previously talked about some of the benefits and peace of mind you may be able to get from Smoke & Heat detectors as well as Carbon Monoxide detectors, but did you know that by having these sensors installed and monitored by a central alarm monitoring station, you may be able to help reduce, or better yet, prevent damages or death by fire. That also means that your home insurance company may be able to give a discount for that as well.
Monitored Water Leak Detection System
Aside from damage from fire, water damage is also one of the top few items that will make an insurance company pay for an expensive claim. Flooding caused by a water leak can soak in to drywalls and flow in to cracks or crevices causing even more damage or even mold growth that may be harmful to your health. By having a Centrally Monitored Water Leak Detection system in place, you may be able to prevent floods and minimize water damages. For water detection sensors, it is usually recommended that you install at least one in the lowest point of your house, usually in the basement (or first floor if you don’t have a basement). That said, if you have a bathroom or laundry room on the second floor, for example, you’ll likely want to add an extra sensor in that area, because if there’s a leak from there, you really don’t want water to flow down to the first floor and then down to the basement before the alarm goes off. To be safe, I usually get one for each area that has a sink or toilet, just in case.
When there’s water detected, you’ll be able to get an alert very quickly on the alarm panel, on your mobile app and you’ll also get a phone call from the monitoring station. If you’ve just spilled something yourself by accident, in the mobile app, you should be able to press and hold the “Cancel” button for three seconds when the alarm comes on to mark it as a false alarm. In most cases, if any leak or spill has just started, by turning off the water to the area and wiping it down, you would be able to prevent any further damages to your home. Even if it cannot be stopped by yourself, you’ll still have a chance to get some cloth or buckets to collect the water to minimize any potential damages while you wait for a plumber to arrive to help you.
For pinhole leaks, instead of hiring a plumber and paying a hefty amount of money, you may try using waterproof tape from a hardware store to patch and seal the problem area. There are some silicon sprays that work in a similar manner as well. Now, even if it works and extends the life of your pipes and plumbing, you’ll definitely want to make sure you have a flood sensor in the area in case there’s any additional deterioration of the aging pipes.
Save on Home Insurance – Visit our store to discuss and customize your plan
Now that you know more about how to automate your daily routines, protecting your home and family, as well as tips on saving on home insurance you might want to start looking for insurance companies that may be able to offer you more savings.
